The Navy just pulled the plug on a submarine it’s been trying to fix for nearly a decade.
USS Boise (SSN-764) has been sidelined since 2015. Nine years. Sitting. Waiting. Rust doesn’t wait.
In 2024, they finally dragged it into the yard at Huntington Ingalls Industries and started what was supposed to be a $1.2 billion overhaul.
Now they’re walking away.
Why? Because the math got ugly.
Navy Secretary John Phelan says they’ve already burned through $800 million—and it would take another $1.9 billion to finish the job.
That’s not repair. That’s rebuilding a ghost.
So the Navy made the call: cut losses, shut it down, move on.
The brass wrapped it in clean language. “Data-driven analysis.” “Strategic reallocation.” You’ve heard it before.
What it means is simple: they don’t think it’s worth saving.
Chief of Naval Operations Daryl Caudle says the workforce will shift to higher priorities—new boats and keeping the current fleet afloat.
Translation: stop pouring money into the past and start building the future.
That future is the Virginia-class submarine and the Columbia-class submarine—the Navy’s next generation. Expensive, complicated, and already behind schedule.
Congress says the first Columbia boat is supposed to land in 2028. We’ll see.
Meanwhile, the Navy just commissioned another Virginia boat—USS Massachusetts (SSN-798)—number twelve in the line. New steel coming in as old steel gets written off.
And the money? It keeps climbing.
A submarine that sat too long, cost too much, and finally ran out of time.