WASHINGTON (AP) – Facing billions of dollars in budget cuts for submarine building in the next decade, the Navy is expected to spend as much as $600 million over the next six years developing smaller, cheaper underwater vessels.

And Electric Boat, which will feel the bite of those funding cutbacks beginning in 2007, is hoping to get a piece of the action.

According to preliminary budget documents and Congressional sources, the Navy will get $50 million in the budget set for release Monday to design undersea systems. The goal is to come up with an alternative to the large, expensive Virginia class submarines currently being built by EB and Newport News in Virginia.

And one possibility is a fledgling program known in the Pentagon as Tango Bravo.

Already, EB is working with the Navy and Defense Department researchers on Tango Bravo studies – the first step toward the creation of a submarine that would be half the size and half the cost of the ships being made today.

But for EB and Newport News, designing a compact submarine would provide vital funding to replace the money being stripped out of the budget for Virginia class models.

“This could be critical to the submarine community’s future ability to achieve a procurement rate of two submarines a year – which is what they’ve been hoping for,” said Ronald O’Rourke, a defense analyst for the Congressional Research Service.

EB spokesman Neil Ruenzel said the company “has been working closely with the Navy and is involved in Tango Bravo studies.”

Rep. Rob Simmons, R-Conn., said EB “has the know-how and the experience to provide the Navy with its newest special operation’s minisub. As the only Connecticut member of the House Armed Services Committee, I intend to work with my colleagues to help bring this project’s funding to Connecticut’s shipbuilding community.”

A year ago the Navy signed a five-year, $8.4 billion contract with EB and Newport News for five Virginia class nuclear submarines. But plans for the Navy to begin buying two submarines a year beginning in 2009, have been scrapped by the Pentagon until 2011 at the earliest.

Losing that extra work, members of Congress have told Navy officials, will hurt the submarine industrial base, as well as jobs in Connecticut and Rhode Island, where EB has facilities.

But the Pentagon is looking for ways to save money on aircraft and weapons in order to meet budget targets while still providing enough funding for the war in Iraq.

Building a smaller, cheaper submarine, said O’Rourke, would be one way to meet the Navy’s need for a fleet of as many as 40 submarines at a more affordable cost.

Right now Tango Bravo is in its infancy. This spring the Defense Advances Research Projects Agency is slated to award a four-year, $97 million contract for various new cutting edge technologies that could be used in a smaller vessel.

They include better but cheaper sonar equipment; new ways to stow and launch weapons outside the hull without losing speed, and a program to reduce the size of the submarine’s battle station so that only eight personnel are needed to operate it rather than about 16.

The Navy is still wrestling with the size of its submarine fleet.

A congressional study released earlier this year said the Navy could consider slashing the fleet from about 55 vessels to 37 by retiring older submarines and ordering fewer of the new Virginia class models.

AP-ES-02-04-05 1210EST