The U.S. Navy has started the process to find a 21st-century successor to the Trident strategic missile submarine, senior Defense Department officials said yesterday."We're just at the opening phases right now, going through the proper systems engineering that will advance that particular design approach," Secretary of the Navy Donald C. Winter told reporters at a news conference.
Tridents are nuclear-powered, Ohio-class submarines. At 560 feet long and 42 feet wide, Tridents are the largest submarines in the U.S. Navy's inventory. The first Trident ballistic-missile submarine, the USS Ohio, was commissioned in 1981.
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My guess is that the next US Submarine design will be smaller, have less crew because it is more automated.
ReplyDeleteIt will carry just 16 to 20 missiles instead of the current 24.
However each missile might carry more warheads - perhaps 10 to 12 instead of the current 8.
Anyone have other ideas?
Pete
The Navy has accelerated the buy for the OHIO Class replacement. The lead ship will now start in Fiscal Year 2019 (per the Navy’s Annual Long-Range Plan for Construction of Naval Vessels). The requirement for the OHIO Class replacement will be driven by the missile requirement. STRATCOM and Navy have begun efforts to define the targeting and warhead requirements. Once this is determined, the Navy will explore platform options for the OHIO Class replacement.
ReplyDeleteSource: http://armedservices.house.gov/pdfs/SPEF030807/Stiller.Hilarides_Testimony030807.pdf
The driving factor in sub size is the length of the missiles, not the number. The Trident I (or C4) had a length of 10 meters and was fitted to the Benjamin Franklin class, which displaced about 7500-8000 tons. The Trident II (or D5) had a length of 13 meters and was carried by the Ohio class, which displaced 17000-18000 tons. Remember your high school geometry: the volume of a cylinder increases exponentially with its radius. A small increase in missile length makes for a large increase in the submarine's displacement.
ReplyDeleteThe C4 was designed to carry eight warheads and the D5 twelve (but SORT reduces the D5 warload to four or five). The C4 has a range of 4600 NM while the D5 has a range of 7000. Hence the difference in size, and therefore length, and therefore the size of the submarine.
If the Pentagon had ever conducted a proper review of its nuclear policy after the Cold War it might be in a better position to ask itself if it really needed to be able to hit Moscow from the Chesapeake Bay. A 4600 NM range missile with three warheads should be an entirely adequate deterrent for the 21st Century. This would enable the missile to be reduced to the size of the C4 and the submarine to be reduced to the size of the Virgina (8000 tons). A modified Virgina hull would be much cheaper to develop and operate over its lifespan. They might even complete the project on schedule.
Will they do this? It would be very unusual for the military mind to conclude that a smaller missile is better than a large one. Moreover, the Navy still hopes to grab some "Prompt Global Strike" money by proposing a conventional warhead for the Trident. This would seem to work against the notion of a shorter-range missile with less payload. So, the Pentagon and the Navy being what they are, I'm assuming the new submarine will be very similar to the Ohio, only much more expensive.
Anonymous
ReplyDeleteThanks for your advice on the missile size aspects of sub construction.
I find hard to believe, though, that the US (and prsumably UK) will semi dismantle all of their D5s to honour a defective treaty - known to few as SORT. The US would lose its SLBM warhead advantage over Russia.
SORT http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SORT is defective because "The arsenal reductions are required to be completed by December 31, 2012, which is also the day on which the treaty loses all force, unless extended by both parties. This is why some experts joke that SORT is only 'sort' of a treaty.'
Furthermore it was Bush who signed it - Obama may well have other ideas.
Pete