[walrus01]

If you stop building anything for long enough you lose the capability to do it. There's reasons why the DoD wants to maintain at least two contractors, so I agree with your point here.

As an example when the UK built the first Astute class submarine about ten years ago they ran into a huge number of delays and technical issues because everyone who had been involved in their previous nuclear submarine construction program in the early to mid 1980s had retired or moved on to new things.