海军计划将资金和人力转向建造更新型的弗吉尼亚级和哥伦比亚级潜艇
2026年4月10日 美国东部时间上午10:47 / 福克斯新闻
作者：摩根·菲利普斯 福克斯新闻
美国海军将取消“博伊西”号潜艇的长期延误大修计划，该潜艇的大修成本已飙升至近30亿美元。海军部长约翰·费兰表示，这艘潜艇已不再具备维修的经济和战略意义。
在接受福克斯新闻数字频道的独家采访时，费兰称这艘洛杉矶级攻击潜艇已经消耗了约8亿美元，若要完成大修还需额外19亿美元——尽管其剩余服役寿命仅约20%。取而代之的是，海军计划将资金和熟练技术人员转向建造和交付更新型的弗吉尼亚级和哥伦比亚级潜艇，这是加速舰艇生产、整顿存在问题的采购计划的更广泛举措的一部分。
“到了某个节点，你只能止损并继续前进，”费兰说道。
海军最初于2024年拜登政府时期授予了一份价值约12亿美元的合同，用于该潜艇的大修。该潜艇原本计划在近十年前就进行维修，但最新估算显示，完成大修的总成本已远超最初预期。
“‘博伊西’号自2015年以来就一直停靠在码头，已经花费了近8亿美元，而工程仅完成22%——这笔账实在算不过来，”他补充道。
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这一决定作出之际，美国海军正面临越来越大的压力，需要在与中国的竞争日益加剧的背景下扩充并维持其舰队规模——中国的舰艇数量已成为全球最大海军。美国官员日益强调，必须加快造船和潜艇生产速度，以应对不断上升的全球需求。
2003年4月23日，弗吉尼亚州诺福克海军站，“纽波特纽斯”号潜艇（右）停靠在同级洛杉矶级潜艇“博伊西”号（左）旁边。（迈克·赫夫纳/盖蒂图片社）
“博伊西”号的问题早在合同取消前就已长期存在。
该潜艇上一次部署是在2015年，原计划次年开始例行大修，但海军造船厂的延误使其等待了数年才获得可用的干船坞。
随着维修计划一再推迟，情况不断恶化。该潜艇于2016年失去全面作战认证，2017年丧失下潜能力，实际上已无法执行作战任务。
尽管是一线攻击潜艇，“博伊西”号多年来一直停靠在港口。海军舰队的维修积压问题日益严重，根源在于干船坞空间有限、劳动力短缺以及维修优先级冲突。
此次大修原计划于2016年启动，但反复推迟了近十年，直到2024年海军才最终授予合同——此时该潜艇已经多年无法执行任务。
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即便大修工作已经启动，工期仍进一步拉长，原计划2029年才能完成——这意味着该潜艇重返现役前将有约15年处于闲置状态。
随着时间推移，“博伊西”号成为了美国海军更广泛的维修和造船厂困境的最典型案例，经常被国会议员和国防分析师用作拖延、成本上升和战备水平下降的研究案例。
费兰表示，作出这一决定的一个关键因素是，将目前用于“博伊西”号大修的稀缺造船厂劳动力和工程人才解放出来，他称这些资源可以更好地用于加速新型潜艇的建造。
海军部长约翰·费兰称，该项目的失败是十多年来多种因素共同作用的结果，包括工程挑战、优先级转变以及海军工业基础承受的压力。（梅格·麦克劳克林/《圣迭戈联合论坛报》）
“我们造船厂面临的一大制约因素，尤其是在潜艇建造方面，是劳动力和工程人才，”费兰说道。“我们有大量人才投入到了这个项目中，我们可以将他们解放出来，转而投入弗吉尼亚级或哥伦比亚级潜艇的建造，努力缩短这些项目的工期。”
他认为，从投资回报率的角度来看，此次大修已不再合理，并将修复这艘老旧潜艇的成本与建造一艘新潜艇进行了对比。
“‘博伊西’号的大修成本相当于一艘全新弗吉尼亚级潜艇的65%，但它仅能提供20%的剩余服役寿命，”费兰说道，他补充道，这相当于仅能支持约三次部署任务。
“博伊西”号于1992年服役，是冷战时期的攻击潜艇，主要设计用于远洋作战。而新型弗吉尼亚级潜艇噪音更低、用途更广泛，更适合现代任务，包括情报收集、特种作战以及在有争议的沿海环境中行动。
“我们是不是该干脆放弃这个项目了？”北达科他州共和党参议员迈克·朗兹在2025年6月的确认听证会上问道。
美国海军作战部长达里尔·考德尔上将称这一情况“令人无法接受”，是“潜艇部队心中的一根刺”。
周五宣布这一决定后，并未立即出现公开批评声音。
费兰将该项目的失败归咎于十多年来的多种因素，包括工程挑战、优先级转变以及海军工业基础承受的压力。
“我不能将其归咎于单一原因，”他说。“我认为是多种因素共同作用……工程的复杂性、新冠疫情的影响，以及工业基础承受的压力。”
海军部长约翰·费兰表示，海军将重新调配资源，优先建造新型弗吉尼亚级潜艇。（科林·默蒂/路透社）
费兰表示，此次取消合同是海军领导层重新评估表现不佳项目、改变军种采购方式的更广泛努力的一部分。
“我们正在审查每一个项目，”他说，并补充称海军正在推动“彻底的透明度”，并摆脱他所说的那种接受拖延和成本上升的文化。
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费兰表示，这一决定反映了更广泛的政策方向，即优先提高速度和效率，以便向舰队交付作战能力。
“我们需要更有纪律性，更快地推进，”他说。“总统希望我们昨天就能完成任务。”
Navy scraps Biden-era submarine contract as overhaul costs surge toward $3B
The Navy plans to redirect funding and labor toward building newer Virginia- and Columbia-class submarines
April 10, 2026 10:47am EDT / Fox News
By Morgan Phillips Fox News
The Navy is canceling a long-delayed overhaul of the USS Boise after costs ballooned to nearly $3 billion, with Secretary of the Navy John Phelan saying the submarine no longer made financial or strategic sense to repair.
In an exclusive interview with Fox News Digital, Phelan said the Los Angeles-class attack submarine had already consumed roughly $800 million and would require another $1.9 billion to complete — despite offering only about 20% of its remaining service life. Instead, the Navy plans to redirect funding and skilled labor toward building and delivering newer Virginia- and Columbia-class submarines, part of a broader push to accelerate ship production and overhaul troubled acquisition programs.
“At some point, you just cut your losses and move on,” Phelan said.
The Navy originally awarded a roughly $1.2 billion contract in 2024 under the Biden administration to overhaul the submarine, nearly a decade after it was first slated for repairs, but updated estimates later showed the total cost to complete the work had surged far beyond initial projections.
“The Boise has been pier-side since 2015, cost nearly $800 million already, and it’s only 22% complete — the math really does not work,” he added.
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The decision comes as the Navy faces mounting pressure to expand and maintain its fleet amid growing competition with China, which has built the world’s largest navy by number of ships. U.S. officials have increasingly emphasized the need to speed up shipbuilding and submarine production to keep pace with rising global demands.
USS Newport News (right) secures itself next to its sister Los Angeles-class submarine USS Boise (left) after returning to Norfolk Naval Station in Norfolk, Virginia, April 23, 2003.(Mike Heffner/Getty Images)
Boise’s problems long predate the canceled contract.
The submarine last deployed in 2015 and was slated to begin a routine overhaul the following year, but delays at Navy shipyards left it waiting years for an available dry dock.
As maintenance was pushed back, the situation worsened. The submarine lost its full operational certification in 2016 and its ability to dive in 2017, effectively sidelining it from combat operations.
Despite being a frontline attack submarine, Boise remained tied up at port for years as the Navy struggled with a growing backlog of repairs across its fleet, driven by limited dry dock space, workforce shortages and competing maintenance priorities.
The overhaul originally was planned to begin in 2016 but was repeatedly delayed for nearly a decade before the Navy finally awarded a contract in 2024 — by which point the submarine had already spent years out of service.
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Even after work began, the timeline stretched further, with repairs not expected to be completed until 2029 — meaning the submarine would have spent roughly 15 years inactive by the time it returned to sea.
Over time, Boise became one of the clearest examples of the Navy’s broader maintenance and shipyard challenges, frequently cited by lawmakers and defense analysts as a case study in delays, rising costs and declining readiness.
Phelan said a key factor in the decision was freeing up scarce shipyard labor and engineering talent currently tied up in the Boise overhaul, which he said could be better used to accelerate construction of newer submarines.
Navy Secretary John Phelan described the program’s failure as the result of multiple factors for more than a decade, including engineering challenges, shifting priorities and strain on the Navy’s industrial base.(Meg McLaughlin/The San Diego Union-Tribune)
“One of our big constraints in our shipyards, particularly in submarine building, is labor and engineering talent,” Phelan said. “We have a lot of that dedicated to this, which we could free up and put onto the Virginia-class submarine or Columbia and try to shift the schedule left on those.”
He argued the overhaul no longer made sense from a return-on-investment perspective, comparing the cost of repairing the aging submarine to building a new one.
“The Boise represents 65% of the cost of a new Virginia-class submarine, yet it only delivers 20% of the remaining service life,” Phelan said, adding that equates to roughly three deployments.
The Boise, commissioned in 1992, is a Cold War-era attack submarine designed primarily for open-ocean combat, while newer Virginia-class submarines are quieter, more versatile and better suited for modern missions, including intelligence gathering, special operations and operating in contested coastal environments.
“Is it time we just simply pull the plug on that one?” Sen. Mike Rounds, R-N.D., asked during a confirmation hearing in June 2025.
Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Daryl Caudle called the situation “an unacceptable story” and “like a dagger in the heart” for the submarine force.
No public criticism immediately surfaced after the decision was announced Friday.
Phelan described the program’s failure as the result of multiple factors over more than a decade, including engineering challenges, shifting priorities and strain on the Navy’s industrial base.
“I can’t point to one thing that killed it,” he said. “I think it was a combination … the complexity of the engineering, COVID impacts, and pressure on the industrial base.”
Navy Secretary John Phelan said the Navy will reprioritize resources to the newer Virginia-class submarines.(Colin Murty via Reuters)
The cancellation is part of a broader effort by Navy leadership to reevaluate underperforming programs and change how the service approaches acquisitions, Phelan said.
“We’re reviewing every program,” he said, adding the Navy is pushing for “radical transparency” and a shift away from what he described as a culture of accepting delays and rising costs.
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Phelan said the decision reflects a broader push to prioritize speed and efficiency in delivering war-fighting capability to the fleet.
“We need to be more disciplined and move out faster,” he said. “The president wants things yesterday.”
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