"Super Sub: Why The Navy's Next 'Boomer' Is The Most..." Topic

… Important Program In The Pentagon Budget.

"As Congress raced to complete work last week on spending measures that would fund the military in 2015, barely a word was said about the most important technology program in the whole defense budget. In fact, there are probably plenty of legislators who have never even heard of it. It's called the Ohio Replacement Program, and there is a real possibility that at some point later in the century, it will make the difference between whether our Republic lives or dies.

I wish I was exaggerating, but I'm not. The Ohio Replacement Program was conceived to modernize the sea-based part of the nation's nuclear force — the only part of that force that is certain to survive if Russia, China or some other major nuclear power launches a surprise attack in, say, 2050. The reason why is that the Navy's ballistic-missile subs patrol silently beneath the surface of the world's oceans, where enemies cannot find them; the Air Force's bombers and silo-based missiles, on the other hand, are in known locations that can be easily targeted.

(Disclosure: Several companies likely to build the Ohio Replacement or provide on-board equipment contribute to my think tank; some are consulting clients.)

Collectively, these three types of long-range nuclear systems are called the nuclear "triad," and the sole purpose for their existence is to convince potential adversaries that any attempt to launch a nuclear attack against America would be suicidal. But what makes that threat credible is not the number of nuclear weapons America has before an attack occurs; it's how many survive the attack so they can be used to retaliate against an aggressor. That's what convinces him not to attack in the first place. Strategists used to call this "the delicate balance of terror," and it is probably the main reason why Russia and America never fought during the Cold War…"
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Amicalement
Armand

"if Russia, China or some other major nuclear power launches a surprise attack"

Who, France or Israel? We better stop spending money on repairing our bridges and running our schools to build a pork-barrel defense project.

United States
Soviet Union / Russian Federation
United Kingdom
France
China

Other states declaring possession of nuclear weapons

India
Pakistan
North Korea
Israel
South Africa May still have some
Former Soviet countries May still have some

I didn't think Israel had officially declared?

I served on a couple Ohio-class boats. They're big, they're expensive, and they're ALWAYS deployed. 6 months out of 8, they are AT SEA. And despite that obscenely high operational tempo, they're lasting 40 years. Problem is, they first started entry into service in the mid 1980s. So the first ship of the replacements needs to be in service in the mid 2020s.

And designing subs is a time-consuming, expensive process.

No, we can't just build another set of Ohio-class. The Arms Control treaties have reduced the number of missiles allowed, so there's no reason to have 24 tubes anymore. Not to mention that the berthing needs to be completely redesigned for these boats. They need to have male and female berthing and heads (that's "bathroom facilities" in civilian). Because you can't really have female enlisted onboard a Trident, there are only 2 heads for enlisted berthing. Each one has 2 showers and I think 4 toilets, 4 or 5 sinks. There are 150ish enlisted crew onboard (not counting the Chiefs), so each head needs to handle ~75 crew per day. As you can imagine, this doesn't work so well when you try to stuff all 150 enlisted into one head so that the females can have their private head (as required by Navy regs). It turns into a major safety hazard.

So anyway, the Ohio Replacement Sub is going to be about the same overall size as an Ohio, but with ~16 tubes instead of 24. My assumption is that the "freed" space will be more berthing, and hopefully some more exercise equipment than what we held onboard. There weren't enough treadmills, etc, for the entire crew to be able to work out, which does not do good things for people like me that absolutely MUST keep moving to stay skinny.

I suppose it should also be mentioned that the nuclear deterrent is not limited to other nuclear powers.

The Soviets, I mean Russians are the only power with enough nukes to destroy everything we have. The Chinese are limited in reach and number of nukes. That said I have nothing against replacing subs, I know that they need to be replaced, but lets use some common sense and not try and refight the cold war.

Sorry Doug, the Russians have already tipped their hand on that one, so, we need to play ball too.

The Russkies have cheated on, and broken nuke arms treaties with us, so as far as I'm concerned (and they apparently too), there are no restrictions to proceeding forward as desired.

I like 24 tubes, with MIRVed missiles, for the intimidation factor just one sub provides.

I suspect that will be critical, as anti-sub detection and weaponry tech improves over time, especially since we'll probably need them to last a half-century, or so, going forward.