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Rontini599 View Drop Down
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    Posted: 20 Nov 2020 at 12:45pm

Earlier this month, BWX Technologies [BWXT] CEO and President Rex Geveden said during a quarterly earnings call that they expect SSN(X) to be significantly larger than the current Virginia-class vessels, likely closer to the Columbia-class size. BWXT builds the nuclear reactors for the Navy’s submarines and aircraft carriers (Defense Daily, Nov. 4).

Geveden also said they expect SSN(X) to join the fleet in the late 2030s.

Caudle said they will get alternatives and make decisions “on how to make this new SSN match what we need to stay ahead of our peers.”

He identified three main characteristics they are focusing on for the SSN(X): speed, stealth, and payload capacity.

Caudle said increased submarine speed is needed to improve every joint warfare function.

“Speed is just so important. It plays up so well in all our wargaming and so it helps compensate for bad decisions. It also helps us get to the fight faster and it helps us in all-domain maneuver warfare.”
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The last Los Angeles-class nuclear-powered attack submarine (SSN) built, USS Cheyenne, will be the first of the class selected to go through a service life-extension program, a senior Navy admiral said.

The Navy is planning to refuel six Los Angeles-class SSNs, said Adm. Frank Caldwell, director of the Navy’s Nuclear Power Program, speaking Nov. 16 in a webinar for the annual symposium of the naval Submarine League.

The Navy is undertaking the effort to shore up the numbers of attack submarines in the fleet as other boats in the Loc Angeles class are decommissioned in order to partially fill in the “trough” in the mid-2020s when the inventory of SSNs declines to 41 boats.

“We will extend these boats for another operating cycle,” Caldwell said. “To get after this, over the last two years, we’ve been making the required investments in cranes, equipment and facilities to support these re-fueling at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard [Kittery, Maine]. This is a big effort, and there is a lot of work going on.”

Rear Adm. Ed Anderson, commander, Undersea Warfare, also speaking in the webinar, said the Navy is hoping to squeeze more than a 10-year nominal operational cycle out of each of the six submarines in the life-extension program.

“We’re gathering the data to give the fleet as much time as possible,” he said. Refueling of the Cheyenne will begin in February 2022, Caldwell said.

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