Run Silent, Run Cheap

<a href="http://www.navy.mil/view_single.asp?id=91197">S Navy photo of USS Virginia</a>

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


“Most things in here don’t react too well to bullets,” Sean Connery’s crusty Russian sub captain tells Alec Baldwin in The Hunt for Red October, moments before the latter stalks off to shoot a spy between dozens of the boat’s atomic missiles.

These days, it turns out some things on the Navy’s newest nuclear subs don’t react well to, um, seawater. Or something. Actually, the service isn’t sure what’s causing the $2 billion behemoths’ protective skin to peel off in the water. But it probably has to do with cost-trimming and corner-cutting by the Navy’s two go-to contractors, Northrup Grumman and General Dynamics, who tag-team assembled the Virginia class of attack subs at breakneck speed and (relatively) bottom-dollar rates.

Even though the Cold War is over, the silent service wants to expand its sub fleet, and it’s sold Congress on the Virginia program as the cheapest alternative. Yet as subs get delivered from the factory with their special soundproof tiling already falling off in sheets, the program looks anything but inexpensive. “The demand to build this submarine in a fast, cost-effective way led them to skip some steps that should have been in the process,” one analyst told me. “They’ve got this beautiful, fantastic vessel, and they just covered it in a Wal-Mart tarp.”

Read my complete story about the Navy’s big boondoggle—and its tough time telling the truth—here: “What’s Long, Hard, and Wrapped in a Wal-Mart Tarp?

Fact:

Mother Jones was founded as a nonprofit in 1976 because we knew corporations and billionaires wouldn't fund the type of hard-hitting journalism we set out to do.

Today, reader support makes up about two-thirds of our budget, allows us to dig deep on stories that matter, and lets us keep our reporting free for everyone. If you value what you get from Mother Jones, please join us with a tax-deductible donation today so we can keep on doing the type of journalism 2024 demands.

payment methods

Fact:

Today, reader support makes up about two-thirds of our budget, allows us to dig deep on stories that matter, and lets us keep our reporting free for everyone. If you value what you get from Mother Jones, please join us with a tax-deductible donation today so we can keep on doing the type of journalism 2024 demands.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate