Meet The New Plan...

... same as the old plan. According to The New London Day (annoying free registration required after today -- Update 0551 13 Jan: Summary of article here), the draft Navy "Five Year Plan" for shipbuilding continues to call for building one submarine a year.

"The Navy has remained firm on backing its one-boat production rate through the end of fiscal year 2011, although earlier plans had called for a two-boat production rate starting in fiscal year 2009. The federal fiscal year runs from Oct. 1 to Sept. 30.
"This past December, congressional insiders said they expected the Navy to maintain a future fleet of 313 ships, which would include 48 submarines. The current 288-ship fleet is about half the size it was three decades ago...
"...Ronald O'Rourke, a specialist in national defense for the Congressional Research Service, has projected that the current one-boat-per-year rate would support a force of 30 submarines into the early 2020s. O'Rourke's analysis shows that if older nuclear-attack subs are retired at a faster rate, the submarine force could be reduced to 30 boats much sooner.
"O'Rourke's extensive analysis of submarine force levels and procurement rates, which was released this past week, shows that in order to support a fleet of 55 submarines, a total of 42 subs would have to be purchased between fiscal years 2007 and 2022, which works out to an average of 2.6 boats per year."

On a submarine journalist-rating note, it's clear that The Day is still trying to recover from former military affairs writer Bob Hamilton's move to EB. While business writer Anthony Cronin has been doing OK filling in for Hamilton, we wouldn't have seen the bloopers like "(t)he 560-foot-long boats is larger than the Los Angeles-class submarines..." -- as we do in this article -- when Hamilton was there. (They are actually 377 feet long.)

Going deep...