Trials of a Supersub

The Trident submarine program is the most important defense project that the U.S. actually has under construction. At an estimated cost of $1.2 billion apiece, the 560-ft.-long Tridents, each armed with 24 missiles, are to begin replacing the 34 aging Polaris and Poseidon subs that now carry the nation's sea-based nuclear warheads. Started in 1971, the Trident program has been racked by stunning cost overruns, delays and an angry feud involving the Navy and the sub's builder, the Electric Boat Division of the General Dynamics Corp. By now the first Trident, the U.S.S. Ohio, should have logged two years with the Navy's Pacific Fleet. Instead, the state-of-the-art leviathan sits, 40% over the original budget and still not quite finished, in its builder's dock.

The latest reports on the Ohio are the first hopeful Trident news in years. In June, Captain Alton Thompson took the big black sub out to sea for the first time. The Navy described the three days of trials as "super swell." Electric Boat has promised to deliver the Ohio to the Navy by Halloween. A brand-new $706.5 million Trident base is waiting in Bangor, Wash., and the Lockheed-built Trident missiles--each tipped with up to ten warheads--have been ready for two years.

Yet after repeated postponements by its builder, some Navy hands are skeptical about getting the Ohio before 1982. Says Republican Congressman David Emery of Maine, an engineer and member of the Armed Services Committee: "The Navy suspects that Electric Boat's information is not quite accurate. Neither side trusts the other." Admiral Hyman Rickover, 81, irascible founder of the nuclear Navy, is especially mistrustful. "They don't care if they manufacture horse turds or ships," Rickover snarled at a May hearing of a House subcommittee on defense. "I wouldn't give those so-and-sos any more contracts until the problems are resolved."

The Ohio's construction is a seven-year ordeal of mismanagement. Certain components were made from understrength steel, and the replacement cost was nearly $1 million. The sub contains 117,000 especially important welds; 2,772 were botched. Rewelding cost $2.6 million. Perhaps the most grievous flaw was in the sub's engine. Turbine blades were a few critical microns too large; they scraped their housing and cracked. It required $3 million to put the blades right. Electric Boat insists that it was not at fault, since the turbine was built by General Electric directly for the Government. Indeed, the project is ripe for buck passing; a score of major contractors are involved, and the Navy once had ten officers nominally managing Trident, none with overall authority.

Electric Boat argues that many delays were caused by the Navy, which ordered hundreds of modifications while the Ohio was being built. But critics charge that Electric Boat, greedy for work, took on more sub building than it could handle, and won the Trident contracts with bids it knew to be impossibly low. Says Congressman Emery of the company: "I think they're overtasked there. A lot of questions arise when one of the best yards in the world has so many problems." Yet that same shipyard is responsible for turning out seven more of the submarines that are supposed to play a critical role in the nation's defense.

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