Brian Bradley
NS&D Monitor
1/23/2015
If the estimated $100 billion Ohio-Class nuclear submarine replacement program does not receive the funding it requires, the ship’s stealth capability could be among the first elements to get chopped from the program, according to Bryan Clark, Senior Fellow on the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessment’s Strategic Studies team. After presenting his study “The Emerging Era in Undersea Warfare” during a press briefing Jan. 22, Clark, a former submariner, told NS&D Monitor that incorporating new stealth capabilities in follow-on SSBNs would be crucial to ensuring future survivability of the subs. As each successive decibel of noise reduction becomes more expensive and as anti-submarine warfare (ASW) technologies increasingly rely on phenomena outside of submarine-produced sounds to detect ships, new submarines will need to adapt, the study states.
While the number of missile tubes constitutes a fixed cost—16 are planned for the Ohio-Class replacement—the level of stealth does not, and vital counter-ASW capabilities could be vulnerable if there is pressure on the Ohio-Class Replacement’s budget as a result, he said. Ohio-Class submarines rely on their quietness to survive, but next-generation SSBNs will likely have to include newer counter-ASW capabilities like acoustic jammers, acoustic decoys and unmanned underwater vehicles to ensure future survivability, Clark said. “So how much effort do I put into protecting the submarine from non-acoustic or from active acoustic signals?” he said. “That might be places where the Navy determines they may not have the money to pursue those, so having sufficient funding is going to be really important so it not only provides the basic capability that’s needed, but also provides it in a way that’s survivable for 50 years.”
During a November interview with NS&D Monitor, Ohio-Class Replacement Program Executive Officer Jack Evans said building new stealth presents a challenge “right up front.” “This has to be good enough for more than 40 years,” he said. “So while everybody else’s technology keeps marching on, we have to hit that capability early and not have to spend gobs of money and time continuing to improve on the platform.”
Program on Track
Naval Sea Systems Command’s Program Executive Office (PEO), Submarines, told NS&D Monitor in an email this week that the Ohio-Class Replacement Program is on schedule to release a request for proposal for Shipbuilding and Conversion, Navy-funded design and follow-on RDT&E-funded efforts in early Fiscal Year 2016. NAVSEA awarded the Ohio Replacement’s Missile Tube Manufacturing contract to Electric Boat in November 2014. “These 17 missile tubes include four for the prototype quad pack and one for the Strategic Weapons Test Facility in Cape Canaveral, Fla., and 12 for the first of the class for our partners in the UK,” the PEO said. “Over the past four years we have competitively reconstituted the missile tube industrial base which had been dormant since the 1990s.”
