Huntington Ingalls Industries (HII): The Navy's Shipbuilder Deep Dive (2026)
HII is America's largest military shipbuilder - Newport News builds nuclear carriers and shares Virginia/Columbia-class submarines with Electric Boat; Ingalls builds destroyers and amphibs. Fed-Spend tracks ~$124B in Huntington Ingalls Inc. obligations. Then came the July 2026 $76.6B Block VI Virginia + Build II Columbia awards. Every yard, every program, every supplier opening.
America's only nuclear carrier yard - and half of the submarine industrial base
Huntington Ingalls Industries is not a diversified aerospace conglomerate that happens to weld steel. It is the industrial backbone of U.S. naval power projection: Newport News Shipbuilding in Virginia is the only yard that builds nuclear-powered aircraft carriers, and together with General Dynamics Electric Boat it is one of only two yards that builds nuclear-powered submarines. The Gulf Coast Ingalls Shipbuilding division in Pascagoula, Mississippi builds the destroyers and amphibious ships that fill out the surface fleet.
That monopoly/duopoly structure is why HII shows up near the top of every federal contractor ranking and why a single July 2026 announcement - roughly $76.6 billion in Virginia- and Columbia-class work shared with Electric Boat - ripples through thousands of suppliers.
Fed-Spend's live company card for Huntington Ingalls Inc. (UEI WMXDDH6HJNA5) currently tracks about $124.3 billion across 90 awards, with the Department of Defense accounting for roughly $120.0 billion. This post maps the yards, the programs, the July 2026 submarine megadeal, the Mission Technologies side door, and where small and mid-tier firms still get in.
View HII's live federal profile · Search HII awards
Data note: Historical award amounts below are USASpending.gov samples pulled August 2026 (award-level, not annual revenue). The July 2026 submarine package figures come from Navy and HII announcements and may not yet fully appear as broken-out USASpending rows. Company-card totals are live Fed-Spend aggregates and can move as new actions post.
Company profile
| Detail | Information |
|---|---|
| Legal / brand | Huntington Ingalls Industries, Inc. (HII) |
| NYSE | HII |
| Headquarters | Newport News, Virginia |
| Spun out of | Northrop Grumman Shipbuilding (2011) |
| Primary UEI (shipbuilding entity sampled) | WMXDDH6HJNA5 (Huntington Ingalls Inc.) |
| Fed-Spend tracked obligations | ~$124.3B / 90 awards (shipbuilding entity) |
| DoD share | ~97% of that tracked value |
| Nuclear carrier yard | Newport News Shipbuilding (sole U.S. CVN builder) |
| Nuclear submarine partner | Newport News + Electric Boat (duopoly) |
| Surface combatant yard | Ingalls Shipbuilding, Pascagoula, MS |
| Services / tech division | HII Mission Technologies (~$12.2B tracked) |
HII's public story is three businesses that share a customer: Ingalls (surface), Newport News (nuclear carriers + submarine modules/delivery), and Mission Technologies (C5ISR, training, fleet sustainment, unmanned). For BD strategy, treat them as related markets with different NAICS, different set-aside density, and different protest patterns.
The July 2026 submarine megadeal: $76.6B
On July 29, 2026, the Navy awarded what lawmakers called one of the largest modern shipbuilding packages:
| Piece | Amount | What it buys |
|---|---|---|
| Block VI Virginia-class (9 boats + material for a 10th) | $42.1B | Attack submarines, FY2025-FY2029 construction window |
| Build II Columbia-class (5 boats) | $29.5B | Ballistic-missile submarines (nuclear triad sea leg) |
| Prior shipyard infrastructure / productivity | ~$5B | Yard enhancements at NNS and Electric Boat |
| Combined | ~$76.6B | Shared between HII-NNS and GDEB |
Per HII's announcement: Newport News will be the delivery yard for six of the nine Block VI Virginias and will build six module sections per Columbia-class boat. The two yards have already delivered 26 Virginia-class submarines. The Navy now has seven Columbias under contract; 26 Virginias are operational with 23 more planned.
This is not optional industrial policy. Columbia replaces Ohio-class SSBNs. There is no third nuclear submarine yard. If you sell specialty steel, valves, cable, coatings, welding automation, workforce training, or digital shipyard tools, this award is a decade-plus demand signal, not a one-year spike.
GAO reporting in 2025-2026 still flagged Virginia-class throughput below the Navy's two-per-year target and multi-year delivery slips on Block V - labor and material remain the binding constraints. That is where supplier and tech opportunities concentrate even when the prime award looks closed.
Historical award stack: carriers, destroyers, amphibs
Before the 2026 submarine headlines, HII's USASpending record was already a catalog of Navy capital ships. Top Huntington Ingalls award samples:
Aircraft carriers (CVN) and RCOH
| Award ID | Amount | Program signal |
|---|---|---|
| N0002416C2116 | $12.8B | CVN 80 engineering and steel |
| N0002408C2110 | $6.6B | CVN 78 construction |
| N0002415C2114 | $4.5B | CVN 79 detail design and construction |
| N0002409C2116 | $4.5B | CVN 79 construction prep |
| N0002421C2106 | $3.7B | FY21 Refueling Complex Overhaul (RCOH) |
| N0002417C2105 | $3.0B | FY17 RCOH |
| N0002409C2107 | $2.6B | CVN 71 RCOH |
Carriers are multi-decade industrial campaigns. RCOH - mid-life nuclear refueling overhauls - is a recurring Newport News franchise that keeps the yard loaded between new-construction peaks.
Destroyers (DDG-51)
| Award ID | Amount | Window |
|---|---|---|
| N0002423C2307 | $8.3B | DDG-51 construction FY23-27 |
| N0002418C2307 | $6.9B | DDG-51 construction FY18-22 |
| N0002413C2307 | $3.3B | DDG-51 construction FY13-17 |
Ingalls is a primary DDG builder. Multi-year destroyer buys are the surface-fleet equivalent of the submarine megadeal: predictable steel, combat-system integration, and a deep supplier tier.
Amphibious ships (LPD / LHA)
| Award ID | Amount | Program |
|---|---|---|
| N0002406C2222 | $10.0B | LPD-17 class detail design/construction (LPD 22 lineage) |
| N0002418C2406 | $4.7B | LPD 30 long-lead material |
| N0002416C2427 | $3.4B | LHA 8 detail design/construction |
| N0002420C2437 | $3.2B | LHA 9 advance procurement |
| N0002424C2473 | $2.2B | LPD 33/34/35 detail design and construction |
| N0002416C2431 | $3.0B | LPD 28 long-lead material |
Coast Guard crossover
| Award ID | Amount | Program |
|---|---|---|
| HSCG2313CADB014 | $1.7B | National Security Cutter (NSC) 6 production/delivery |
Homeland Security is a minority slice of the company card (~$4.3B in the live aggregate) but it matters for firms that already hold Coast Guard quality systems.
Mission Technologies: the $12B non-shipyard HII
Search "HII" in USASpending and you often land on HII Mission Technologies Corp (UEI G5H7HWC4L2R5) - Fed-Spend tracks about $12.2B across 100 awards, split between DoD (~$6.2B) and GSA (~$5.6B). Sample task orders sit in the $200M-$930M range for training environments, logistics ISR, technology integration, and related C5ISR work.
This is the division that looks like a services prime, not a shipyard. It is also where small businesses more often team, subcontract, or compete on task orders - especially under GSA vehicles - while Newport News and Ingalls stay locked as capital-ship primes.
Search HII Mission Technologies
Competitive structure: who can actually challenge HII?
| Market | Competitive reality | Implication |
|---|---|---|
| Nuclear aircraft carriers | Sole source industrial base (Newport News) | No recompete for "another CVN builder." Compete as supplier or on RCOH support scopes. |
| Nuclear submarines | Duopoly with Electric Boat | Awards are shared industrial planning, not open shootouts. Module and supplier competitions matter more than prime swaps. |
| DDG-51 / large surface combatants | Oligopoly (Ingalls + Bath Iron Works / GD) | Multi-years lock volume; openings appear in combat systems, HM&E, and follow-yard work. |
| Amphibs (LPD/LHA) | Concentrated at Ingalls for many hulls | Watch long-lead and detail-design awards as early indicators. |
| Mission Technologies | Contested services market | Real pWin variance; protest and set-aside density higher than ship construction. |
If your capture plan assumes "we will unseat HII as the CVN prime," stop. If your plan assumes "we will sell into HII's $76.6B submarine load and $8B+ destroyer multiyears," you are in the real market.
Where the money leaks to suppliers (the BD map)
Shipbuilding primes look closed. The spend underneath them is not.
Use Recompete Radar for expiring support contracts around the yards, and pWin on Mission Technologies-style pursuits where competition density is real. For capital-ship primes, score supplier fit, not fantasy prime overturns.
How to research HII in 15 minutes on Fed-Spend
Bottom line
HII is what a strategic monopoly looks like in federal contracting data: ~$124B tracked on the shipbuilding entity, a July 2026 ~$76.6B submarine industrial commitment shared with Electric Boat, sole-source carriers, and a Gulf Coast destroyer/amphib machine. The free insight is the structure. The paid insight is deciding which of the five supplier lanes above matches your capability statement before the next long-lead buy locks the bill of materials.
Look up HII's live award book - fed-spend.com/company/huntington-ingalls-industries. Free. Then search Navy shipbuilding opportunities in your NAICS or upgrade to Professional for pWin scoring on Mission Technologies and support pursuits.
Primary sources: Fed-Spend company card for Huntington Ingalls Inc. (UEI WMXDDH6HJNA5) and HII Mission Technologies Corp. (UEI G5H7HWC4L2R5), August 2026; USASpending.gov spending_by_award samples; Navy / HII / Breaking Defense / Naval News coverage of the July 29, 2026 Virginia Block VI and Columbia Build II awards.
Related Guides
More from the Federal Spending Trends FY2026 series