USS George Washington (SSBN-598). OFFICIAL U.S. NAVY PHOTO
Along with the Skipjacks, another prototype boat was discreetly constructed to explore the possibility of a quiet SSN designed specifically to hunt other submarines. Named the USS Tullibee (SSN-597), she was the first SSN to have a large spherical sonar array in the bow, torpedo tubes amidships, and a quiet turboelectric drive system. And though she would have a history of engineering problems throughout her career (she was derisively known in Groton as Building 597), she introduced features that would be on every other class of SSN the United States has built.
A Polaris A-1 missile is launched from the nuclear-powered fleet ballistic submarine USS George Washington (SSBN-598).
OFFICIAL U.S. NAVY PHOTO
USS Permit (SSN-594). JACK RYAN ENTERPRISES, LTD.
USS Ethan Allen (SSN-608). JACK RYAN ENTERPRISES, LTD.
Polaris Goes to Sea
Ever since the development of the first atomic weapons, the U.S. Navy had sought to develop a weapon system that would allow it to have a role in America’s nuclear deterrence mission. Initially the Navy used carrier aircraft that could deliver the early nuclear weapons on one-way missions to their targets. What the Navy really wanted was to merge the new technologies of ballistic missiles, smaller thermonuclear weapons, inertial guidance systems, and nuclear submarines into a single weapon system. The program was called Polaris, and it became the top U.S. naval weapons development program of the 1950s. Pushed aggressively by Admiral Arleigh Burke, the U.S. Chief of Naval Operations, and managed by an authentic programmatic genius in Rear Admiral “Red” Rayborne, the program moved forward at an amazing pace. By the late 1950s a small, reliable missile known as the Polaris A1 was ready to have a platform built for it. The problem was that submarine construction takes time, and the United States wanted to deploy the Polaris by 1960.
To accomplish this, Admiral Rickover had Electric Boat split one of the Skipjacks under construction (she was the original USS Scorpion) just aft of the sail and insert a plug containing sixteen Polaris launch tubes as well as all the missile launch controls and maintenance equipment. Christened the USS George Washington (SSBN-598), she would be the first of a five-boat class of fleet ballistic missile (FBM) submarines that would become the most powerful deterrence force in history. When the George Washington successfully test-fired two of the Polaris A1 missiles on July 20, 1960, off Cape Canaveral, Florida, the system became operational. Later that year she left on the first of what has become over three thousand FBM deterrence patrols, each lasting roughly sixty to seventy days. After each patrol, the onboard crew switches with a second crew, alternately known as “blue” and “gold,” so that the high operational tempoes (time on patrol) can be maintained. So successful has the fleet ballistic missile program been that it is reported no U.S. FBM boat has ever been tracked for any duration. Thus the silent service entered a new era and added to their already formidable reputation. Within a year, a second batch of five missile boats, led by the USS Ethan Allen (SSBN-608), was on order.
Underwater firing of a Polaris A-3 missile. OFFICIAL U.S. NAVY PHOTO
USS Lafayette (SSN-616). JACK RYAN ENTERPRISES, LTD.
The Quiet Revolution
Following the Skipjack and George Washington-class boats, the United States embarked upon a new direction in nuclear submarine development. It was decided, after an analysis of early Soviet nuclear boat characteristics, that high speed (over 30 knots) was not necessarily desirable. Submarines traveling at high speed make a great deal of noise, which can be heard by other submarines and surface vessels. Thus diving depth and quietness rather than speed would become the qualities that characterized the American submarine designs of the 1960s.
The first of the new deep-diving/quiet boats was to be the USS Thresher (SSN-593). Unfortunately, during rectification trials off Nantucket in 1963, the Thresher was lost with her entire crew as well as several civilian and U.S. Navy “riders.” In the investigation that followed, it was determined that a brazed piping joint in the engineering spaces may have weakened during the shock trials and burst, causing massive flooding that prevented the boat from surfacing. The Subsafe program was later instituted by the U.S. Navy, which developed the deep-submergence rescue vehicle (DSRV) to rescue the crew of a sunken submarine. The class was continued, named after the next boat in line, USS Permit (SSN-594).
A Poseidon missile is launched from the nuclear-powered fleet ballistic missile submarine USS James Madison (SSBN-627). OFFICIAL U.S. NAVY PHOTO
The Force Expands
As the 1960s drew on, the U.S. Navy began a vast expansion of its nuclear submarine program. The plan was to build an additional thirty-one SSBNs as well as a new class of attack submarines. The ballistic missile boats would be armed with a new generation of ballistic missile, the Polaris A3, with a 2,500-mile range. In addition the SSNs were to be armed with the SUBROC, a submarine-launched rocket with a fifty-mile range and a nuclear depth charge capable of destroying enemy submarines. All this was part of the military buildup originally proposed by President John F. Kennedy and carried out by the administration of President Lyndon B. Johnson. First on the list were the new FBM boats, or “boomers,” as they were being called.
The nuclear-powered fleet ballistic missile submarine USS Lafayette (SSBN-616). OFFICIAL U.S. NAVY PHOTO BY D. PAYSE
Starting with the basic plan of the USS George Washington, the designers sought to install all the quieting technology that had been incorporated into the Permit-class boats. In addition they made the missile section large enough to accommodate not only the new Polaris A3 missile but a new missile that would have superior range and multiple warheads, the Poseidon C3. Named for the lead boat in the class, USS Lafayette (SSBN-616), these boats were most impressive for their numbers built—thirty-one in all—and their stealth. And with the ability to upgrade their missile battery to the Poseidon C3 when it came on line in the 1970s and the Trident C4 in the 1980s, these boats were going to have a long service life. (As this book goes to press, about a third of the Lafayette-class boats are still in service.)
After the Lafayette program was underway, the Navy turned its attentions to the problem of an improved attack boat. Again, analysis of the submarines being produced by the USSR showed that deep-diving quiet boats were best. The lead boat of the new class was USS Sturgeon (SSN-637). Much like the Lafayette-class nuclear ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs), this class was characterized by a relatively large production run—thirty-seven units—and reduced noise signature. This improvement did not come without cost though, as the top speed of the Sturgeon-class boats was down to around 25 knots.3 Nevertheless they proved to be superb boats with excellent capabilities and were, along with the Permit-class and Skipjack-class boats, the backbone of the U.S. attack submarine force.
Aerial view of the Electric Boat Division of General Dynamics with the nuclear-powered fleet ballistic missile submarine USS Michigan (SSBN-727) under construction on the pier. OFFICIAL U.S. NAVY PHOTO BY WILLIAM WICKHAM
In the midst of all this growth and success in the submarine force came a tragedy. In 1968 one of the Skipjack-class boats, the USS Scorpion(SSN-589), went missing while returning from a regular patrol in the Mediterranean. For the first time in modern U.S. submarine operations the words “overdue and presumed lost” were used to inform the world of a possible SSN loss during normal patrol operations.
USS Sturgeon (SSN-608). JACK RYAN ENTERPRISES, LTD.
USS Los Angeles (SSN-688). JACK RYAN ENTERPRISES, LTD.
While the exact method of location is still not openly known, it appears that the U.S. seabed-based sound listening (SOSUS) network heard an explosion from Scorpion. Later that year a survey expedition, utilizing the bathyscaphe Trieste, located the wreck near the Azores, relatively intact on the seabed. It was concluded her loss may have been due to an internal explosion, though the exact cause has never officially been announced.4
On a more positive note, the Navy built
several new prototype submarines to explore new propulsion technologies. The USS Glenard P. Lipscomb (SSN-685) was designed to look again into the feasibility of using a turbine-electric drive, while the Narwhal (SSN-671) carried a prototype reactor using natural circulation rather than pumps, which can be very noisy, to move coolant through the reactor system. While they did provide useful data for future submarine designs, neither boat was considered to be particularly successful. With this lack of a propulsion breakthrough, the stage was set for the fight over the design of the next generation of nuclear submarines.
Nuclear-propelled strategic missile submarine USS Ohio (SSBN-726), during sea trials. OFFICIAL U.S. NAVY PHOTO BY WILLIAM GARLINGHOUSE
The New Generation of Boats
In the late 1960s, the U.S. intelligence community began to receive disturbing indications that the nuclear submarines of the Soviet Union had much higher performance capabilities than previously thought. A debate broke out between Admiral Rickover at the Naval Reactors Branch and the Naval Sea Systems Command (Navsea) over the direction of the next generation of attack submarines. Rickover felt that what was needed was a quiet, high-speed (over 35 knots) attack submarine able to support the carrier battle groups deployed by the U.S. Navy. Navsea was supportive of a design called Conform, utilizing a natural circulation reactor, which would recover the speed loss of the Permits and Sturgeons (down from 30 knots to 25 knots) and improve the radiated noise levels.5 Eventually Rickover won out, and a twelveship class, its lead boat to be named USS Los Angeles (SSN-688), was planned, with Electric Boat as the prime contractor. V
LEFT: First launch of a Trident C-4 missile from USS John C. Calhoun (SSBN-630). OFFICIAL U.S. NAVY PHOTO
BELOW: USS Ohio (SSBN-724). JACK RYAN ENTERPRISES, LTD.
The Los Angeles-class boats delivered their promise of high speed as well as being the quietest attack submarines ever created up to that time. The price they paid for that speed was that their hulls were thinned; they could dive only to about three-fourths the depth of the Sturgeon and Permit classes (approximately 950 feet/300 meters).6 In addition habitability suffered, with a greater percentage of the crew having to rotate bunks (called “hot bunking”). Finally, the Navy and Electric Boat had significant financial and program management problems, along with a desire to expand the class more quickly, leading to a second-source contract for construction to Newport News-Tenneco. In spite of this, the first Los Angeles-class boats came on line in the late 1970s and immediately set new standards for quiet operations and speed. Some sixty-two Los Angeles-class boats would eventually be contracted, making it easily the largest class of nuclear submarines ever built.
In addition a whole new series of submarine weapons came on line in the late 1970s and 1980s, including the new Mod 4 and ADCAP versions of the Mark (Mk) 48 torpedo; the UGM-84 Harpoon antiship missile; and three separate versions of the R/B/UGM-109 Tomahawk missile for nuclear land attack, antiship use, and conventional land attack. All of these new weapons, combined with the addition of a vertical launch system and stowage for twelve Tomahawk missiles on the Los Angeles-class boats, suddenly made U.S. SSNs capable of a whole range of missions that Admiral Rickover had not dreamed of when he first pushed through the proposal for Nautilus in the 1950s.
The new class of boomer was somewhat clearer to design: the primary criterion was stealth. When the first boat of the new class, the USS Ohio (SSBN-724), appeared, she was reported to radiate less noise than the surrounding ocean and surface traffic, making the Ohios the quietest submarines ever to take to sea. Another major improvement was the number of missiles carried. All previous SSBNs produced by the United States had sixteen missile tubes. The Ohio class has twenty-four missile tubes, with a diameter large enough to accommodate not only the Trident C4 missile (the replacement for the Poseidon C3), but also the Trident D5 missile. The Trident D5 had significant improvementsin both range and accuracy, making it the most powerful component in the U.S. nuclear arsenal. Under the terms of the START-II treaty signed in 1991, the bulk of the U.S. strategic nuclear strike power will be carried on the Ohios.
The Next Generation
With the coming of a new series of arms limitation treaties (the START series), the United States does not have any plans to build a new class of SSBNs. In fact, the Ohios were built with enough growth potential in their design that service lives of thirty-five to forty years are entirely possible, and if replacements are required, they won’t be needed until around the year 2015.
Attack boats are another thing entirely. A follow-on to the Los Angeles class has been planned for some time, and the lead boat of the new class, USS Seawolf (SSN-21), is due to come on line in the late 1990s. The Seawolf design makes good virtually all the shortcomings of the Los Angeles-class boats, particularly in the areas of depth (back to approximately 1,300 feet/400 meters), habitability (improved crew comfort), and weapons load (a combination of fifty weapons).7 Such things come at a severe cost though, both in money and size. Seawolf is huge, over 9,100 tons displacement, making it the largest attack submarine in the world other than the Russian Oscar-class guided missile boats. And with a cost at this writing of over $2 billion per copy, the Seawolf production run is currently limited to only two units.
As production of the Los Angeles and Ohio classes winds down, and with the Seawolf program being terminated early, the future of the U.S. nuclear submarine force is in doubt for the first time in forty-five years. What has been the premier weapons system of the Cold War now seems to be a system in search of a mission and an audience. We will explore the future later on, but first let’s look at the present, and what the taxpayers have bought for themselves and their silent warriors.
Building the Boats
It sounds so simple: building the boat. Yet this is a process that starts years before the submarine enters the fleet. Remember, in 1969 the U.S. Navy was considering the design of the Los Angeles-class submarines, which began to enter the fleet some seven years later. Even today, if you could order one (the line is being shut down to produce the Seawolf-class boats), it takes six years from contract signing by the Naval Sea Systems Command (Navsea) in Arlington, Virginia, until the completed boat is commissioned into the force. This process starts in the steel mills of the eastern United States and the computers of the Electric Boat Division of General Dynamics. It also starts in the cities and towns of America, where the raw materials for the crews are born, raised, and educated. Let us take a quick look at how it is all done.
The Sharp Edge—The Crew
It’s hard to separate the steel and electronics of the boat from the flesh and blood of the men who will serve as her crew. In a manner of speaking, the crew is a part of that machine headed to sea. I suppose if robots could do the job of men, they would have taken over the submarine force by now. But the day when a robot can survive the shock of an explosion, the rush of flooding water, and have the cunning of a man is still years away. And until that day comes, men will go into the sea in the steel cylinders called submarines.
Where the crew come from is, quite simply, everywhere. From every town and village, from the largest inner city, the suburbs, and the rural countryside. What motivates each of them is probably a little different. For Admiral Chester Nimitz, the World War II Commander in Chief of the Pacific and himself an early submariner, it was the desire to see a body of water larger than the mud puddles of west Texas. For some who want submarines, it is the desire to work on one of the most powerful and sophisticated pieces of machinery ever built. Others see the Navy and the submarine service as a way out of the poverty and despair of whatever situation they may have been born into. Whatever the reasons, they have all come to the Navy to find something to build their lives around.
Let’s say that a young man who has graduated from high school wishes to join the Navy and “see the world” from the voyages of a submarine. That young man (sorry, ladies—men only on subs at the time this book is being written) would probably apply at his local recruiting offi
ce. From here he is transported to the local personnel recruiting depot for basic training. Some weeks later, he moves on to his specialty—electronics, sonar, machinery, etc.—or “A” school, which gives him the skills necessary for his job when he joins the boat. If he has decided to select nuclear power as his specialty, he goes to six months of nuclear power school (NPS) in Orlando, Florida, followed by six months of training on one of the nuclear reactor prototypes. Assuming that he has selected submarines as his service, the young recruit is next headed to the home of the submarine, the U.S. Navy Submarine Base in Groton, Connecticut, to attend Submarine School. Sub school teaches the recruit the basics of what he needs to know about life aboard submarines. From here he moves onto the crew of a boat for his first tour, which will probably last a couple of years.
One of the advantages the submarine service has in attracting the cream of the Navy’s new recruits is money. Ordinarily a new sailor who selects nuclear power as his specialty would be given the rank of seaman apprentice, but the submarine service immediately makes a new recruit a petty officer. This is important because of the pay differential. While it might not look like much of a difference, it can be enough to let a young man get married so that he can start and support a family. The submarine service asks much of the young men who drive their boats, and the need for every sailor to have a home and someone in it is a cornerstone of their tradition.