U.S. Navy to grapple with dip in deployed subs for more than a decade

The U.S. Navy will field fewer than its objective 12 nuclear-armed submarines for more than a decade, due to a recently announced two-year delay in building its first Ohio-class replacement vessel.

The service plans to operate for 14 years -- mostly in the 2030s -- without a full complement of Navy ballistic missile submarines.

That is a longer time span than was widely known until this week, when congressional testimony and a service shipbuilding report offered new specifics.

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