Four of the USA's Ohio Class SSBN nuclear missile subs to become long range conventional strike and special operations SSGN "Tactical Trident" submarines. To that end, four ultra-stealthy Ohio-class SSBNs are having their ballistic missiles removed and replaced with up to 154 Tomahawk cruise missiles - as well as accomodation for 66-102 Navy SEALs special forces, Advanced SEAL delivery system (ASDS) "mini-subs," and a mission control center. In future, they may also carry UUV robotic vehicles. These modifications provide the USA with an impressive and impressively flexible set of conventional firepower, in a survivable and virtually undetectable platform that can remain on station for very long periods.
General Dynamics Electric Boat Corp. in Groton, CT is the prime contractor, and they recently received a new $162.4 million contract modification for conversion work on the fourth and final Ohio Class sub, USS Georgia [SSBN 729]. Defense Industry Daily explains exactly what these subs will be capable of, and adds information about the origins of these conversions (who says Democrats can't have some good military ideas?), the key contractors, all of the announced contracts under this $1.5 billion refurbishment and conversion program to date. The USS Ohio [SSBN 726] is near completion, and the last SSGN should re-join the US Navy around 2008.
Makes me wonder about how much volume one of the DD's railguns would occupy. The boomers are... large. And they have a nuclear reactor - the smallest nuclear reactors should provide more than ample energy for the proposed railgun.
Try reading Charlie Wilson's War and you will learn that Democrats have plently of good ideas. it is just that everyone uses Democrats and Republicans to identify ideas the same way people refer to copies as XEROX's.
Would it be economic to build subs for these missions from scratch. They don't strike me as being necessarily submarine missions. It may be cheaper to adapt existing hardware to these tasks rater than build new, but if we didn't have surplus boomers, I think we would use surface ships.
Subs to do this from scratch, at this level, would be $2 billion each. Maybe $3 billion, given typical American defense procurement.
The NSSN Virginia Class can do some of this (12 Tomahawks in vertical launchers, can carry 16 SEALs comfortably and an ASDS), and are also fine attack subs. They're $1.7 billion each.
So $0.4 billion, for this extreme level of capability in a specialized but important pair of fields (land attack and Special Ops), seems like a pretty awesome deal.
RE: SEAL or Marine Force Recon insertion, there are a whole bunch of fairly obvious reasons why submarines are far superior for these purposes. One could use normal surface ships (esp. Littoral Combat Ships) for this, and the USA will do so at times, but if your mission needs to be secret or might be contested on the way out, you really want a sub.
Winds of Change.NET readers looking for more info on "Charlie Wilson's War" can find it in this Blogcritics.org review.
It's about a real-life drunken, womanizing Texas Congressman who more or less created the war in Afghanistan against the Soviets. Which, thanks to the machinations of Pakistan's ISI and the CIA's lack of counterintelligence and dependence on foreign services, would give us both the beginning of the end for the Soviet Union (two thumbs up) and of course, Bin Laden (one thumb down).
Joe, how does the label "ultra-stealthy" square with the irreducible (or so I thought) noise associated with a running nuclear reactor (coolant pumps, etc.)? Lore of Canadian and other diesel-electrics might have been exaggerated, I dunno. "I am only an egg."
Nort
Many modern submarines are essentially a sub within a sub. It's more than the double-hull of a supertanker - it's a ship set on dampening mounts that "floats" within another ship. Do that correctly and your boomers (and SSNs, and diesel-electric subs too) can be very, very quiet because the vibrations are not transmitted. Other measures are also employed, many of which aren't really talked about.