It used to be able to start a nuclear war, prowling the seas with ballistic missiles that span continents and deliver mushroom clouds.
But the Soviet Union is gone - and so is the need for 18 Cold War-era ballistic missile submarines, each one longer than Virginia Beach Town Center is tall.
So the Florida, built in the early 1980s , has a new mission after three years at Norfolk Naval Shipyard.
Instead of launching nuclear warheads that could travel more than 4,000 miles, the refitted sub can now deliver as many as 66 special forces troops close to a target. Twenty-two of its 24 missile tubes - each 8 feet wide and 40 feet long - now can house 154 Tomahawk cruise missiles. The remaining two tubes store special operations forces' equipment.
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