1899–1920 Isaac Leopold Rice bought the
Holland Torpedo Boat Company from
John Philip Holland in 1899. Holland continued to work at the company as chief engineer and the company was renamed
Electric Boat Company. Electric Boat was responsible for designing and building the , purchased by the
United States Navy in 1900 for $150,000 (roughly $5.75M in 2025). Electric Boat also sold modified
Holland-class and
Plunger-class submarines to the
British Royal Navy through the English armaments company
Vickers as well as to
Japan and
Russia. In 1906, Electric Boat won contracts to design
C-class submarines but subcontracted the construction to the
Fore River Shipyard in
Quincy, Massachusetts. When Holland died in 1914,
Lawrence Spear (who replaced him as chief engineer) redesigned the Holland submarine. The redesign replaced the submarine's observation dome with a
conning tower, a periscope, and first-of-its-kind torpedo tubes. In 1911, Electric Boat acquired the
New London Ship and Engine Company in Groton, Connecticut, to build parts for submarines, diesel engines, and commercial ships. Isaac Rice died in 1915 and was replaced by his associate Henry Carse. Carse expanded the company with the purchase of several companies, including Electro Dynamics, Elco Motor Yacht, and New London Ship & Engine of Groton, Connecticut. Following the acquisitions, the company was renamed Submarine Boat Corporation. During
World War I, the company received orders from the U.S. Navy to build 85 submarines, 722 submarine chasers, and 118 surface ships.
1921–1940 In 1924, the
Peruvian government ordered two submarines built at the New London Ship & Engine shipyard in Groton, Connecticut. In 1925, Carse reorganized the company, emphasized production of surface ships, and brought back the Electric Boat Company. In 1933, Electric Boat expanded its presence in Groton, Connecticut, by acquiring a second shipyard to build submarines. The was the first submarine built at the Groton Shipyard. In the early 1930s, the U.S. government placed orders for submarines and PT (patrol/torpedo) boats from Electric Boat facilities at Groton and the Elco plant in New Jersey, respectively. Lawrence Spear retired in 1937, replaced by
John Jay Hopkins. Hopkins led the company's strong re-emergence as a shipbuilder in
World War II.
1941–1960 During World War II, Electric Boat and its Elco Yacht and Electro Dynamic subsidiaries mobilized full-capacity production. The sudden production expansion led to a labor shortage, and women filled the open jobs as welders and riveters. During World War II, Electric Boat produced 74 submarines and 398 PT boats. When the war ended in 1945, the Navy reduced its orders for new vessels, and the company reduced its workforce from 13,000 to 4,000. for $10 million in 1946. The factory alone was worth more than $22 million, according to the Canadian government's calculations, excluding the value of the remaining contracts for planes or spare parts. However, Canadair's production line and inventory systems were in disorder when Electric Boat purchased the company. Hopkins hired Canadian-born mass-production specialist H. Oliver West to take over the president's role and return Canadair to profitability. Shortly after the takeover, Canadair began delivering its new
Canadair North Star (a version of the
Douglas DC-4) and was able to deliver aircraft to
Trans-Canada Airlines,
Canadian Pacific Airlines, and
British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) well in advance of their contracted delivery times. Canadair also produced 200
CF-104 Starfighter supersonic fighter aircraft, a license-built version of the
Lockheed F-104. In 1951, the company was awarded the contract to build the world's first nuclear-powered submarine, the
USS Nautilus (SSN571). The submarine was launched in 1954. Aircraft production became increasingly important at Canadair, and Hopkins argued that the name "Electric Boat" was no longer appropriate. In 1952, Hopkins established the General Dynamics Corporation as a parent company holding Electric Boat and Canadair. In 1953, General Dynamics (GD) purchased
Convair from the
Atlas Group. The sale was approved by government oversight with the provision that GD would continue to operate out of Air Force Plant 4 in Fort Worth, Texas. This factory had been set up in order to spread out strategic aircraft production, and it was rented to Convair during the war to produce B-24 Liberator bombers. Convair worked as an independent division inside General Dynamics and, over the next decade, developed the F-106 Delta Dart interceptor, the B-58 Hustler bomber, and the Convair 880 and 990 airliners. Convair also developed the Atlas missile, the U.S.'s first operational intercontinental ballistic missile. Convair led the development of the American nuclear aircraft program, which the Pentagon enthusiastically supported. CEO Hopkins was a strong advocate of nuclear power and its numerous applications, but the nuclear airplane, or 'N-bomber,' was later found to be impractical, and the project was abandoned. In the late 1950s, General Dynamics hired
Erik Nitsche as a graphic designer to develop corporate reports and advertising material designs, including the "
Atoms for Peace" series of posters for the 1955 International Conference on Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy in Geneva, Switzerland. These designs have become iconic examples of the mid-century modernist graphic design style. In 1957, Hopkins fell seriously ill and was replaced by
Frank Pace later that year. John Naish succeeded
Joseph McNarney as president of Convair. In the same year, General Dynamics purchased Liquid Carbonic Corporation in September 1957 and controlled it as a wholly owned subsidiary. In 1959, the U.S. Navy commissioned Electric Boat to design and build the first fleet ballistic-missile submarine,
USS George Washington (SSBN598). The George Washington-class ballistic missile submarines were derived from the
Skipjack-class submarine design, with a 130-foot missile compartment inserted between the control and reactor sections. The USS George Washington (SSBN-598) was initially laid down as the Skipjack-class
USS Scorpion (SSN-589), but was repurposed during construction to accommodate the Polaris missile system. Materials from other planned attack submarines, including USS Sculpin (SSN-590), were also reallocated to the program. The same year, Chicago industrialist
Henry Crown became the company's largest shareholder and merged his Material Service Corporation with General Dynamics in 1959. General Dynamics subsequently reorganized into Eastern Group in New York City and Western Group in San Diego, California, with the latter taking over all of the aerospace activities and dropping the Convair brand name from its aircraft in the process. The board decided to build all future planes in
Fort Worth, Texas, ending plane production at Convair's original plant in San Diego, California, but continuing with space and missile development there.
1961–1980 In 1961, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara initiated the Tactical Fighter Experimental (TFX) program to develop a single aircraft design for the Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps. General Dynamics and Boeing were selected to submit updated designs. McNamara selected General Dynamics' proposal due to the greater commonality between its versions. The Boeing aircraft shared less than half of the major structural components. The
F-111's design pioneered variable-sweep wings, after-burning turbofan engines, and automated terrain-following radar for low-level, high-speed flight. General Dynamics continued to develop its version of the F-111 at the former Convair facility in Fort Worth, Texas. The company built 563 F-111s. In 1962,
Roger Lewis was appointed Chairman and CEO of General Dynamics. In 1963, General Dynamics purchased the Quincy Shipbuilding Works from
Bethlehem Steel. In 1965, General Dynamics reorganized into 12 operating divisions based on product lines. In 1967, Electric Boat launched the
USS Sturgeon (SSN637), the lead ship in the
Sturgeon class of attack submarines. In 1970, the board replaced Roger Lewis with former McDonnell Douglas president
David S. Lewis as Chief Executive Officer. David S. Lewis relocated the company headquarters to St. Louis, Missouri, in 1971. Later that year, Electric Boat and Newport News Shipbuilding were awarded contracts to co-manufacture the Los Angeles-class submarines. In 1972, Electric Boat received contracts for the design and development of the
Ohio-class ballistic missile submarine. Electric Boat also developed a new modular process to build the 560-foot submarines; the process remains the industry standard. Construction of the flagship
Los Angeles-class attack submarine began the same year. In 1973, General Dynamics established the Quonset Point Facility in
North Kingstown, Rhode Island, to provide off-site manufacturing support for the Groton facility. Production began the following year. The U.S. Air Force initiated the Lightweight Fighter (LWF) program to develop a new fighter aircraft that met the requirements of Major John Boyd's "energy-maneuverability" theory. General Dynamics organized its own version of Lockheed's
Skunk Works, the Advanced Concepts Laboratory, and responded with a new aircraft design incorporating advanced technologies. General Dynamics submitted a design in 1972 for a new lightweight fighter, the
YF-16. The YF-16 first flew in January 1974 and proved slightly better performance than the Northrop Grumman
YF-17 in head-to-head testing. General Dynamics YF-16 was selected as the first Lightweight Fighter for the U.S. Air Force. It entered production as the
F-16 Fighting Falcon in January 1975 with an initial order of 650 and 1,388. The F-16 also won contracts worldwide, beating the F-17 in foreign competition. General Dynamics built an aircraft production factory in Fort Worth, Texas to fulfill the contracts, and F-16 orders eventually totaled more than 4,600, making it the company's largest aircraft program. In 1975, General Dynamics Electric Boat broke ground on a land-level submarine construction facility in Groton, Connecticut.
Land Systems and Marine Systems focus In 1976, General Dynamics sold the struggling Canadair back to the Canadian government for $38 million. By 1984, General Dynamics had four divisions: Convair in San Diego, General Dynamics-Fort Worth, General Dynamics-Pomona, and General Dynamics-Electronics. In 1985 a further reorganization created the Space Systems Division from the Convair Space division. In 1985, GD also acquired
Cessna. In 1986 the Pomona division (which mainly produced the Standard Missile and the
Phalanx CIWS for the Navy) was split up, creating the Valley Systems Division. Valley Systems produced the
Stinger surface-to-air missile and the
Rolling Airframe Missile (RAM). Both units were recombined into one entity in 1992. In 1986, the
General Dynamics Quincy Shipbuilding Division was closed. Henry Crown, still GD's largest shareholder, died on 15 August 1990. Following this, the company started to rapidly divest its under-performing divisions under CEO
William Anders. Cessna was re-sold to
Textron in January 1992, the San Diego and Pomona missile production units to
General Motors-
Hughes Aerospace in May 1992, the Fort Worth aircraft production to
Lockheed in March 1993 (a nearby electronics production facility was separately sold to Israeli-based
Elbit Systems, marking that company's entry into the US market), and its Space Systems Division to
Martin Marietta in 1994. The remaining Convair Aircraft Structure unit was sold to McDonnell Douglas in 1994. The remains of the Convair Division were simply closed in 1996. GD's exit from the aviation world was short-lived, and in 1999 the company acquired
Gulfstream Aerospace. The Pomona operation was closed shortly after its sale to Hughes Aircraft. In 1995, General Dynamics purchased the privately held
Bath Iron Works shipyard in
Bath, Maine, for $300 million, diversifying its shipbuilding portfolio to include U.S. Navy surface ships such as
guided-missile destroyers. In 1998, the company acquired NASSCO, formerly
National Steel and Shipbuilding Company, for $415 million. The San Diego shipyard produces U.S. Navy auxiliary and support ships as well as commercial ships that are eligible to be U.S.-flagged under the
Jones Act. Having divested itself of its aviation holdings, GD concentrated on land and sea products. GD purchased
Chrysler's defense divisions in 1982, renaming them General Dynamics Land Systems. In 2003, it purchased the defense divisions of
General Motors as well. It is now a major supplier of armored vehicles of all types, including the
M1 Abrams,
LAV 25,
Stryker, and a wide variety of vehicles based on these chassis.
Force Protection, Inc. was acquired by General Dynamics Land Systems in November 2011 for $350 million.
General Dynamics UK In 1997, General Dynamics acquired Computing Devices Ltd based in
Hastings,
England, which had developed avionics and mission systems for the
Panavia Tornado,
British Aerospace Harrier II and
Hawker Siddeley Nimrod. In 2001, Computing Devices Canada (CDC) was awarded a contract from the UK
Ministry of Defence to supply tactical communication systems for their
Bowman program. The work for this was carried out at its new UK headquarters in
Oakdale,
Wales, and the company was renamed General Dynamics UK Limited. , it comprises two business units:
General Dynamics Land Systems – UK and
General Dynamics Mission Systems – UK and operates in eight sites across the United Kingdom. It is currently responsible for delivering the
General Dynamics Ajax family of armored vehicles, the
Foxhound light protected patrol vehicle and the
Morpheus communications system to the UK Ministry of Defence.
21st century departs
Bristol Airport, England, in 2014. In 2004, General Dynamics bid for the UK company
Alvis plc, the leading British manufacturer of armored vehicles. In March the board of Alvis Vickers voted in favor of the £309m takeover. However at the last minute
BAE Systems offered £355m for the company. This deal was finalized in June 2004. On August 19, 2008, GD agreed to pay $4 million to settle a lawsuit brought by the US Government claiming that a GD unit fraudulently billed the government for defectively manufactured parts used in US military aircraft and submarines. The US alleged that GD defectively manufactured or failed to test parts used in US military aircraft from September 2001 to August 2003, such as for the
C-141 Starlifter transport plane. The GD unit involved, based in
Glen Cove, New York, closed in 2004. In 2014, the government of Canada announced it had selected the General Dynamics Land Systems subsidiary in
London, Ontario, to produce
Light Armoured Vehicles for
Saudi Arabia as part of a $10 billion deal with the
Canadian Commercial Corporation. The sale has been criticized by political opponents because of the
Saudi Arabian-led intervention in Yemen. In December 2018, after Prime Minister
Justin Trudeau suggested Canada might scrap the deal, the company warned that doing so could lead to "billions of dollars in liability" and risk the loss of thousands of jobs. Trudeau has since said that while he is critical of Saudi conduct, he cannot simply scrap the deal because "Canada as a country of the rule of law needs to respect its contracts." On 30 January 2019, CEO
Phebe Novakovic warned investors that the matter had "significantly impacted" the company's cash flow because Saudi Arabia was nearly $2 billion in arrears on its payments. In 2018, General Dynamics acquired information technology services giant
CSRA for $9.7 billion, and merged it with GDIT. General Dynamics has been accused by groups such as
Code Pink and
Green America of "making money from human suffering by profiting off the migrant children held at U.S. detention camps" due to its IT services contracts with the
Department of Health and Human Services'
Office of Refugee Resettlement, the government agency that operates shelters for unaccompanied children to include those separated from their families as part of the
Trump administration family separation policy. The company says it has no role in constructing or operating detention centers, and that its contracts to provide training and technical services began in 2000 and have spanned across four presidential administrations. It was announced in September 2018 that the U.S. Navy awarded contracts for 10 new Arleigh Burke-class destroyers from General Dynamics Bath Iron Works and Huntington Ingalls Industries. Former
U.S. Secretary of Defense General
Jim Mattis re-joined the company's
board of directors in August 2019. He had previously served on the board, but resigned and divested before becoming Secretary of Defense. In September 2020, General Dynamics announced a strategic counter-drone partnership, providing General Dynamics' global network with access to
Dedrone's complete drone detection and defeat technology. In December 2020, the board of directors for General Dynamics announced a regular quarterly dividend of $1.10, payable on February 5, 2021. On December 26, 2020, General Dynamics confirmed that their business division General Dynamics Land Systems was awarded a $4.6 billion contract by the U.S. Army for M1A2 SEPv3 Abrams main battle tanks. In November 2021, Norway's
KLP fund divested from General Dynamics, citing the production of
depleted uranium munitions by General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical Systems Inc. and
General Dynamics Mission Systems' full life cycle support for strategic nuclear ballistic guidance and weapon control systems. According to a report by
Reuters, General Dynamics was the primary contractor for a United States military-run
propaganda campaign to spread disinformation about the
Sinovac Chinese
COVID-19 vaccine, including using fake social media accounts to spread the disinformation that the Sinovac vaccine contained pork-derived ingredients and was therefore
haram under
Islamic law. The campaign primarily targeted people in the
Philippines and used a social media
hashtag for "China is the virus" in
Tagalog. General Dynamics is the only company in the U.S. that makes the metal bodies of the
MK-80 bomb series, the primary weapon type used in Israel's military campaign in
Gaza. The
MK-84, a munition within the MK-80 series, uses tritonal, a mixture of TNT and aluminium powder, to generate intense heat that has vaporised 2,842 civilians in Gaza, leaving little to no remains. ==Operations==