Shirley orders “5 degree left rudder" to bring us to a new heading of 117. After a quick rundown of the instruments, helmsman Billy J. The ride quickly turns into an adventure when we reach open water and McCall asks me, "Do you want to drive?" I'm recalling old submarine movies as I settle into the lightly padded driver's seat and wrap my hands around the wheel's black vinyl grip. Popular Mechanics was invited to go for a spin in Seawolf during pre-operational testing off Florida's coast. Bob Aronson, the boat's executive officer. "At 25 knots, our boat is quieter than the last Los Angeles-class submarines sitting at the pier," says Lt. Besides being fast, Seawolf-class submarines, of which Seawolf SSN-21 is the first of three, are the stealthiest vessels in the Navy's fleet. Some say the boat is so fast McCall could earn speeding tickets at sea. On the record, Seawolf's top speed exceeds 25 knots. The Navy has indulged McCall's need for speed by giving him command of its fastest attack submarine ever, the USS Seawolf. "I like to drive fast," he says, "I like to drive very fast." pivoted away from these heavily armed behemoths of the deep, but the Navy's upcoming submarine, currently named the SSN(X), could be as armed to the teeth as its Seawolf forebear, a signal that times are changing on the high seas.Ĭapt. Navy's newest (and deadliest) attack submarine, the USS Seawolf. Congressional Budget Office, a single Large Payload Submarine could set back American taxpayers as much as $7 billion.In the January 1998 issue, Popular Mechanics boarded the U.S. Geveden didn’t mention the potential cost of a big-hull attack boat, but it probably would be substantial. An SSN(X) with a boomer-size hull also would a be hybrid of sorts-although it would add width instead of length in order to expand its missile capacity. The 10 Block Vs are hybrid attack- and cruise-missile submarines. To help bridge the gap between the planned retirement of the SSGNs in the late 2020s and the construction of their successors a decade later, the Navy is adding a hull extension to at least 10 new Block V Virginias in order to squeeze in 28 additional Tomahawk cruise-missile tubes, for a total of 40 of the long-range land-attack missiles. The fleet lately has been moving in this direction. If the Navy does build a wide-hull attack boat, it might aim to duplicate the careful balancing it pulled off with the Seawolfs. The Seawolfs-which are fast and pack a whopping eight torpedo tubes, versus just four tubes on the Virginias-strike a balance between these extremes. In general, a narrower hull is faster but less capacious while a wider hull is slower but allows for a greater weapons capacity. Leaving aside the obvious cost and industrial benefits, standardizing on a single basic hull could come with tactical advantages and disadvantages. The 14 Ohios and four SSGNs are 42 feet wide. The three Seawolf attack boats have 40-foot hulls. The 38 Virginias in service or on order have a 34-foot-diameter hull. The 32 old Los Angeles-class attack boats currently in the fleet have 33-foot-diameter hulls. That’s a major departure from the Navy’s traditional approach to submarine design.
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