MOBILE, Ala. (WPMI) — Austal USA broke ground on its module manufacturing facility 3 on Wednesday.
The ship building company will use the new facility to support the U.S. Navy submarine industrial base. This new facility will help the Navy in reaching its goal of delivering one Columbia-class and two Virginia-class submarines annually.
“We’re getting ready to raise the entire bar of what’s going on in our community with building submarines,” said Mobile Mayor Sandy Stimpson.
This comes after a groundbreaking in July on a new final assembly building which will allow for Austal to build steel modules for Navy and Coast Guard ships. The buildings are expected to bring two thousand new jobs to the area when fully operational.
“We have a workforce here that does not mind working. They do not mind putting in the extra effort. They understand that they are building a vessel, or they are building a submarine, or a portion of a submarine that is going to defend this country at some point, place in time. So, we have a great track record in Washington, D.C.,” said Rep. Jerry Carl.
The module manufacturing facility or MMF 3 will provide 369,600 square feet of indoor manufacturing space to build the submarine modules.
“Submarines are incredibly important to our way of life. We’re investing here, working with the state, local and federal government, communities in the region, working with academia, working with community organizations, because it really takes a whole of government kind of approach to do something like this, to rebuild American manufacturing with Mobile and the gulf coast r. n at the forefront,” said Matthew Sermon, Executive Director of Program Executive Office of Strategic Submarines.
U.S. Navy officials say the ramp in submarine shipbuilding is a strategic national imperative as countries like China continue to grow with their industry, workforce, military, and technological capabilities.
“China, on the other hand, is a rising power. Demographically, they have the industry, the workforce, the military, and the technology development to continue to grow. I mean, you cannot out-build China. You cannot out-man China. That is what makes them a pacing threat for us. So, when I talk about a pacing threat, that means that it’s the high-end fight that we think we’re going to have to fight, that our ability to be ready for that fight will deter that fight, because our adversary knows that they can’t beat us at any given day,” said Vice Admiral Scott Pappano, Principal Military Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Navy (Research, Development and Acquisition).
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