General Dynamics Gets 4-Sub Pact

General Dynamics Corp., rebounding from a Pentagon suspension, on Friday won a $1-billion contract to build all four nuclear-powered attack submarines authorized for the current fiscal year.

The decision marked the first time since 1983 that one of the nation’s two builders of the submarines had been completely shut out of an award. It also reversed General Dynamics’ poor performance last year, when it won only one of the four available contracts.

The Navy said it had awarded General Dynamics’ Electric Boat Division in Groton, Conn., a $1.03-billion fixed-price contract for the construction of four so-called 688-class attack submarines.

“While this procurement included consideration of the industrial base and would have permitted the award of one, or more, of the four ships to Newport News Shipbuilding & Drydock Co., this would have cost at least an additional $102 million which the Navy was unable to pay,” the service said in a statement.