Submarine: A Guided Tour Inside a Nuclear Warship

While not completely making up for the mid-range surface ship attack capability afforded by the Harpoon, the Navy has been hard at work improving their supply of Mk 48 ADCAP torpedoes. These newest modifications to the already advanced torpedo are known as the ADCAP Mods 5 and 6. The Mod 5 changes include a guidance and control modification that improves the acoustic receiver, adds memory to the internal computer, and allows the torpedo to handle increased software demands. The second modification, known as Mod 6, includes the TPU or Torpedo Propulsion Unit upgrade and will provide the ADCAP with greater speed, range, and depth. These improvements to the Mk 48s will enable the weapon to better conduct operations in the coastal zones where the Seawolf-class boats will be lurking and working.

^{A sailor aboard the Seawolf operates the fire control tracking system, which uses the latest in rugged touch screen controls. OFFICIAL U.S. NAVY PHOTO}

As mentioned earlier, one of the major missions of SSNs in the 1990s has been that of launching BGM-109 Tomahawk cruise missiles against enemy targets. The preferred version, known as Block III, has a GPS-based guidance system as well as a new warhead and satellite telemetry system. The problem is that many of the Tomahawks modified to the Block III standard were fired during the 1990s in places like the Balkans and Southwest Asia, and earlier variants lack the easy mission-planning capabilities of the newer missiles. Several plans were put forth to modify more of the early model missiles to a so-called Block IV configuration, but would have cost too much (over $700,000 per missile).

To provide both surface ships and submarines with enough of the precious Tomahawks into the twenty-first century, a brand-new version, known as Tactical Tomahawk (TACTOM), is being developed by Raytheon. TACTOM will incorporate a number of new features, including a new injection molded plastic airframe, satellite data link, and turbojet engine, to reduce costs. At around $500,000 a copy, the new missiles will be a bargain compared with reworking older air-frames. However, the Block IIIs will be the primary variant until the middle of the decade, when TACTOMs should begin to arrive in serious quantities out in the fleet.

If you duck down inside the hatch aft of the sail, at first you will feel just like you have stepped into any other advanced submarine. However, moving forward into the control room, you rapidly can see the differences between Seawolf and the Los Angeles-class boats. Where older boats still have a lot of conventional dials, gauges, and other readouts, most of the critical control positions on Seawolf have been equipped with red plasma computer displays with touch screens. These allow a much wider range of controls and graphics to be fed to operators in the control room and other parts of the boat, and stand up quite well to errant elbows and spilled coffee!

Otherwise, the basic layout of Seawolf is very similar to that of Miami, with perhaps a bit more elbow room than the older boat. Nevertheless, Seawolf still does not have all the creature comforts you might expect on a submarine with over 25 percent more internal volume than a 688I. The problem is that while there is more room inside of Seawolf, there also is more 'stuff' inside her hull. The S6W reactor, while the same basic unit as the one on the 688Is, now feeds two steam turbines putting out an additional 10,000 horsepower. This provides a total of 40,000 shaft horsepower, giving Seawolf a top speed of around 35 knots, if you believe reports from the initial sea trials.

^{The dining area on the Seawolf during chow call. OFFICIAL U.S. NAVY PHOTO}

These engines in turn have more quieting mounts and equipment than those on the Los Angeles-class boats, all of which take up lots of space. Virtually every other piece of machinery on Seawolf has similar quieting gear, which eats up a lot of volume. The result is that a number of the junior enlisted personnel still have to 'hot bunk,' due to a shortage of berthing space. This is a shortcoming, which will probably have a downside in the long run, in terms of habitability and personnel retention. However, it is the price that must be paid to make Seawolf the quietest, most deadly submarine in the world.

The rest of Seawolf is much like that of Miami, though put together very differently. Electric Boat, the prime Seawolf contractor, designed her to be built with a modular construction technique, much like that of Newport News in Virginia and Litton-Ingalls in Mississippi.[16] This means that more of the boat can be 'stuffed' and finished before the hull is welded and floated into the water. It would have been interesting to see what this would have done to production costs if even a second flight of three SSN-21s had been ordered by Congress, instead of proceeding to the Virginia (SSN-774) class boats directly. As it is, the sailors assigned to the Seawolf and Connecticut consider themselves very lucky sailors indeed. Both are in the water and assigned to the Atlantic fleet, starting to make patrols and being tested in exercises.

^{A comparison of the USS Seawolf (SSN-21) (top) and the USS Jimmy Carter (SSN-23) (bottom). The roughly 100 foot/30.5 meter greater length of the Jimmy Carter will accommodate a 'plug' to conduct 'Special Projects' and 'Research' missions. RUBICON, INC., BY LAURA DENINNO}

The Jimmy Carter-the third and final Seawolf-will, however, be something very different: a true 'Special Projects' boat from the keel up. The basic Seawolf hull is having an approximately 100-foot/30.5-meter 'plug' added aft of her sail, with all kinds of room for berthing of extra personnel, stowage of special equipment and sensors, as well as a large lock-out chamber. This will be big enough to allow the launching of the new generation of Unmanned Underwater Vehicles (UUVs) being developed for use by the fleet. The plan is to have her in the water by 2004, when she will join Parche (herself scheduled for retirement in 2006) at the Trident-missile submarine base in Bangor, Washington. Jimmy Carter will be the ultimate expression of American submarine intelligence gathering, though just what that will mean in the twenty-first century is still unknown. However, given what the Navy's small force of special projects boats did during the Cold War, the Jimmy Carter will be doing things that will someday be a subject for novelists.

The Virginia (SSN-774) Class Boats: The New Generation

In the mid-1990s, when only the three Seawolf-class boats were authorized for construction, the Navy realized it clearly had a problem on its hands. How was the submarine service to meet its quantitative requirements for keeping approximately fifty submarines in the fleet? At the end of the Cold War, the U.S. Navy had a goal of 100 SSNs (excluding the strategic missile boat force) as part of a 600-ship Navy. While neither of these goals was ever reached, by the late 1980s the submarine force was very, very close to achieving its force structure goals. In 1987, for example, the U.S. Navy attack submarine force consisted of ninety-nine nuclear attack boats.

All this changed in 1993 when DoD released the results of the Bottom-up Review (BUR), which, attempting to alter the military to a post-Cold War force, cut a little too close to the bone for the comfort of those in the submarine community. Calling for new submarine-force levels as low as forty-five submarines, the BUR drastically changed the goal of the Navy's submarine force away from acquisition and force enhancement toward drastic cuts and getting rid of old boats. The resulting dearth of submarine construction in the mid-1990s meant that only a handful of new boats were finished. However, 2004 promises to be the best year in a long while for the U.S. submarine force. That will be the year the first Virginia-class SSNs enter the Navy and the year the