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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.”
******************************** 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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My heroes wear dog tags, not shoulder pads
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