Submarine: A Guided Tour Inside a Nuclear Warship

Jimmy Carter is commissioned. However, it has taken a very rough dozen years even to see the promise of 2004 for the submarine community.

The curtailing of Seawolf production to just three units meant that the Navy would inevitably have to develop a smaller, more cost-effective design that would better fit the roles and missions set out in From the Sea. Fortunately, a series of design studies was already underway at the time, the most promising known as Centurion. From the beginning, Centurion, whose name was changed several times before she was officially named the Virginia (SSN-774) class, was an easier sell than was the Seawolf. The concept behind the Virginia was to build a submarine as good as the Seawolf in the blue-water environment, yet able to conduct operations in the littoral regions of the world. Additionally, Virginia needed to counter the biggest drawbacks of Seawolf-its costliness to produce and the fact that it was built by a single yard. The monopoly on construction of the Seawolf class by Electric Boat rankled the folks at Newport News Shipbuilding, and also their powerful congressional delegation.

^{The interior and exterior layouts of the USS Virginia (SSN-774) RUBICON, INC. BY LAURA DENINNO}

Costs drove Virginia's design to a far greater degree than any submarine designed for the U.S. Navy. While it possessed roughly the same capabilities and quieting as Seawolf in a more affordable and multimission configuration, initial plans called for the class to be built at an optimistic rate of two or three per year. Original cost projections aimed for a boat displacing roughly 6,000 tons, costing around one-half that of Seawolf.

The hope was-and still is-that this design will do for submarines what the relatively moderately priced, multirole F/A-18 Hornets did for naval aviation. Current plans call for the Virginia class to consist of thirty units, which will be constructed at varying rates for staggered delivery. The first of the class, Virginia (SSN-774), will enter service around 2004; the second, named USS Texas (SSN-775), will follow a year later. After a one-year break, the current schedule calls for USS Hawaii (SSN-776) to join the fleet in 2007, followed by USS North Carolina (SSN-777) in 2008. While plans inevitably fall by the wayside and are continuously altered, this seems to be a great start.

At first, the idea was that the Navy would buy the Virginias to complement rather than succeed the Seawolfs. The resulting budget cuts and cost overruns on the SSN-21 program turned out to be so severe, however, that the Navy saw no choice but to move ahead with Virginia after Seawolf production ended. The DoD directed in 1992 that the Navy should hold the costs of the new submarine design to a maximum of $1 billion per boat. The DoD also charged the Navy with examining alternatives to this entirely new class of warship. These started off with a baseline (for comparison purposes) of continued SSN-21 production at a rate of one per year. The alternatives included:* A lower cost variant of the Seawolf.* Further improved versions of the Los Angeles (688I) class.* The possible procurement of non-nuclear (i.e., conventional) submarines into the fleet.

Hyman Rickover must have been turning over in his grave at such thoughts, but then he never lived to see the post-Cold War world of the 1990s! In the end, the Navy stayed committed to the Centurion design, though not without a lot of pressure from critics and Congress.

In 1993, the name Centurion was officially changed to 'New Attack Submarine' and given the abbreviation NAS, which was later changed to NSSN (for New SSN). The following year, the Navy began to provide the first real cost estimates on the class. These indicated that the lead submarine, which would be authorized in the FY98 budget, would cost $3.4 billion, including nonrecurring research and design costs. This was as much as Seawolf herself, and some people wondered if the Navy should have built more of the SSN-21s instead. However, the Navy study indicated that additional NSSN-class boats, starting with number five, would cost around $1.54 billion in FY98 dollars. While this was still slightly higher than the projected goal, it was far below the $2.8 billion for a production Seawolf, had such a thing ever been built. With the planned production costs now under control, it appeared as if NSSN might actually become a reality.

As with any multibillion-dollar decision, the construction issues of the Virginia class were now beginning to point away from the operational side and toward the financial and political ones. Shipbuilding, especially submarine manufacturing (and particularly that of nuclear submarines), is a field that is especially difficult for a nation to master. Several generations of American shipbuilders have been toiling on nuclear submarines since work began on the program under the leadership of Admiral Hyman Rickover. If production were to suddenly end or shrink to less than one boat per year, one of the two American submarine manufacturers, Electric Boat or Newport News Shipbuilding, would inevitably be forced to leave the business. With their powerful political supporters, both contractors began a spirited competition for the right to produce the NSSN boats.

Long ago, Congress had determined that it was in our nation's interest to maintain a minimum of two shipyards capable of building nuclear submarines. This industrial-base-preservation argument was an important key to keeping Seawolf alive for three boats and became equally important to the idea of a 'teaming' arrangement between the two American submarine manufacturers. As a result of the 1993 BUR, DoD concluded that it would be ill-advised to consolidate all submarine construction at just one shipyard. This was probably a good decision for the Navy because it preserved at least a semblance of competition between Electric Boat and NNS. Additionally, because nuclear submarine design and production is so complicated, it is extremely manpower-intensive. Therefore, any loss of production or a strike at a yard meant inevitable layoffs of highly skilled workers at subcontractors. A shipyard might even be forced to close its doors forever if production levels continued to drop. This has happened dozens of times to some of the biggest shipyards in the nation. One only need remember the demise of great names like Todd and Kaiser on the West Coast to realize that American shipbuilding hangs by a slender thread these days.

How then, was the Navy to keep both submarine yards alive with so few submarines to build? Not surprisingly, the Navy didn't have to look too far for help. It came directly from the two shipbuilders themselves- Electric Boat and Newport News. These two companies knew that it was in the nation's interests-and their own-to solve this dilemma. Which is exactly what they did in December of 1996 when Electric Boat and Newport News Shipbuilding offered the Navy a deal. How would the government like it if the two companies 'teamed up' and produced the Virginia class together?

It was a remarkable offer and one that the Navy could not refuse. Both shipbuilders would take advantage of the Digital Design Database Electric Boat had used in constructing the Seawolf class, to help keep down costs and keep quality up. Additionally, each yard would build specific parts or sections of the boats, while each company would build and 'stuff' their own reactor plant modules. The bow, stern, and sail sections of all the new subs would be built by NNS, along with the habitability and machinery spaces and the torpedo room. Electric Boat, as the prime contractor, would, in turn, construct nearly all remaining portions, including the engine room and control spaces. Finally, Electric Boat would assemble the first and third boats while NNS would handle the second and fourth.

The current plan calls for teaming on only the first four boats. The Navy, Congress, and the two remaining submarine builders will eventually have to examine where they go from there. Such construction decisions are momentous indeed. Especially when you look at how large a role the Virginias will play in the American submarine force of the twenty-first century.

USS Virginia (SSN-774): A Virtual Tour

Now that you have seen the future production plans for this new class of SSN, let's take a look at what new things they will be capable of accomplishing. We have to do this in a virtual fashion, as the Virginias are still mostly 'paper' submarines. The official 'keel laying' of Virginia (SSN-774) only occurred on September 2, 1999, and she will not be delivered to the fleet until 2004. Officially, though, the Pentagon has provided us with a great starting point in its new public campaign of openness about submarine operations and weapons. Gone forever are the days when the 'Silent Service' was truly mute to the world outside of their pressure hulls.

As one might have guessed for a multimission boat, the Navy has bestowed upon the Virginias nearly every possible submarine mission under the sun, which speaks volumes about their versatility. These missions, according