Subs would serve attack, guided-missile functions

In only eight years, the Navy will need to begin building a new class of ballistic-missile submarines. Not long after that, in the mid-2020s, a new attack submarine class is scheduled to be developed.

And by the back half of the 2020s, the fleet’s four guided-missile submarines will be worn out and need replacement — and with them will go nearly two-thirds of the sub fleet’s cruise-missile tubes.

With money tight and resources increasingly stretched thin, the submarine force continues to consider a merger of the attack and guided-missile concepts, an option that would retain the impressive missile-carrying and special operations abilities of the four SSGNs, only spread out over as many as 20 new attack subs.

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