So expensive that even America is having to compromise
www.telegraph.co.uk
That's not entirely understanding
why the US converted the first four Ohio-class boats into SSGNs.
By treaty, the USN had to reduce the number of deployed missile subs. Fair enough. But inspections on the Ohio, Michigan, Florida, and Georgia all showed that they had at least 20 years of hull life left. This left Big Navy wondering what to do with ships that were still in
really good condition, just needing a reactor refueling.
And this is as the whole Global War on Terror is getting bigger than just the US stomping the crap out of Afghanistan. A huge % of the world's population lives within 100nmi of the coastline, something like 70%. Most of the State Sponsors of Terrorism are accessible from the ocean.
So the idea of being able to bring a whole SEAL
platoon, all their extra gear, and be able to support them with Tomahawk etc strikes was
very tempting, to say the least.
It did require the Russians to agree to accept the length of a missile tube as the difference between "strategic" and "tactical" though.
The Russians did agree, once the other part of the SSGN conversion was ripping out all of the dedicated Ballistic Missile command and control stuff. Nav Center and Missile Control Center were completely ripped out of the boats and replaced with ring laser gyro navigators and mission planning and prep spaces, so it'd take a major refit to reinstall the ESGNs and missile command and control gear into the SSGNs.
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Now, I expect that the USN is working on a Diver Lockout "quad-pack" for the replacement SSGN, and the Royal Navy could easily buy one for their SSGN. The RN is already buying the strategic quad-packs for the Dreadnought-class SSBNs.
I'm not sure that the USN will make Columbia-class SSGNs. Those are really big boats to take into shallow water, it'd be better to have one with 8-12 tubes instead of 16 tubes like the SSBNs. Whether to use 8 or 12 tubes depends on how often you expect to use dry deck shelters versus something like the ASDS. Dry deck shelters cover at least one missile tube over and above the lock-out tubes, so if you're going to carry DDS most of the time I'd want 12 tubes (well, 10 tubes for Tomahawks), since 4-6 will be covered by the DDS. That leaves 6-8 tubes full of Tomahawks etc.
Unless of course the USN sticks a missile compartment into the SSN(X) to make the SSGNs. In that case, I'd expect 8 tubes amidships and 2-4 forward,
plus a ~50 weapon torpedo room.
After 13 years we'll probably want to deport ourselves to Rwanda.
