The United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia asked the RAND Corporation to develop a set of lessons learned from previous submarine programs that could help inform future program managers. This volume presents an overview of five submarine programs in the three countries - the UK's Astute program; the U.S. Navy's Ohio, Seawolf, and Virginia programs; and Australia's Collins program - and identifies lessons that apply to all of them.

Advises how the United Kingdom should best use modern outsourcing and outfitting practices for shipbuilding in the years to come. The United Kingdom's Ministry of Defence (MOD) is preparing for the construction of the Royal Navy's two new Future Aircraft Carriers (CVFs), slated to enter service in 2012 and 2015, respectively. The CVFs will be the largest warships built in the United Kingdom in decades. At the request of the MOD, the RAND Corporation looked at the risks of current contractor plans and estimated the cost implications of using alternative manufacturing options in the coming years.

This volume presents a set of lessons learned from the United Kingdom's Astute submarine program that could help inform future program managers. Designing and building a submarine requires careful management and oversight and a delegation of roles and responsibilities that recognizes which party - the shipbuilder or the government - is best positioned to manage risks.

This volume presents a set of lessons learned from Australia's Collins submarine program that could help inform future program managers. Collins was the first submarine built in Australia. RAND investigated how operational requirements were set for the Collins class; explored the acquisition, contracting, design, and build processes that the program employed; and assessed the activities surrounding integrated logistics support for the class.

Assesses whether shipyards, other naval firms, and suppliers in the United Kingdom have sufficient capacity to meet the demands of the Ministry of Defence's construction of new ships and submarines over the next 15 years. The United Kingdom has many contracted and prospective shipbuilding programmes on the horizon over the next two decades. The UK Ministry of Defence wants to know whether its country's diminishing industrial base will be able to meet the requirements of this shipbuilding plan. Using extensive surveys and a breadth of data, RAND researchers look at the capacity of the UK shipbuilding industrial base and how alternative acquisition requirements, programmes, and schedules might affect this capability.

Building on prior RAND research, this monograph explores the need for and retention of technical skills in the UK1s maritime industry, particularly among designers and engineers involved with surface ship and submarine acquisition and support. The results reveal that the UK1s future naval programme likely will have to be modified or augmented to sustain these technical skills in the long term.