Virginia-class sub program likely to survive

The Virginia-class submarine program is likely to stay on track despite the failure of the congressional "supercommittee" to deal with the nation's budget deficit, experts say. But the building of a new class of submarines could be derailed.

This week's breakdown of the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction will trigger automatic, across-the-board spending cuts of $1.2 trillion - with half coming from the Defense Department - in January 2013 unless lawmakers reach some sort of agreement before then.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has said such cuts would render most of the Pentagon's ship and construction projects "unexecutable."

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