Critics worry over attack sub force plan

The Navy’s plan to reduce its submarine fleet by 20 percent will render it unable to meet critical requirements, lawmakers and strategists say.

What’s still a mystery to many is whether the cuts are driven by decreasing missions or decreasing funding — or is this a gamble by the Navy that has a potential payout in the billions?

In the 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review, the Navy argued that a 48-attack-sub minimum is a moderate-risk force necessary to provide the roughly 10 subs that combatant commanders need on any given day.

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