Ohio Replacement SSBN to be Named Columbia Class

The Navy’s new planned class of ballistic missile submarines will be named in honor of the District of Columbia, two Navy officials confirmed to USNI News on Thursday.

According to a notification memo to Congress obtained by USNI News, the first ship in the next planned class of Navy nuclear ballistic missile submarines (SSBN(X))– also known as the Ohio replacement program — will be named USS Columbia.

Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus’ office is not releasing further information until the naming announcement, one Navy official told USNI News.

While the name Columbia for a U.S. ships and aircraft is not new – at least eight U.S. ships, a Space Shuttle and the Apollo 11 command module have all shared the name – it will be the first time the name has been used to commemorate the U.S. capital, the sources told USNI News.

The fleet’s current USS Columbia (SSN-771) – a Los Angeles attack submarine – is named in honor of Columbia, S.C., Columbia, Ill and Columbia, Mo. The submarine is expected to decommission before the first SSBN(X) enters service.

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US Navy Nuclear Submarine Plans

Electric Boat has been selected to build the Ohio Replacement nuclear ballistic missile submarines while  Both Electric Boat and Newport News will continue to build the Virginia class nuclear attack submarine.  Maybe.

All American subs will be upgraded to become acoustically stealthier.

US Nuclear Forces are Risking Obsolesce

I had originally planned to rewrite this piece.  However, time constraints have worked against me and so here it is.

There's plenty of hand wringing over the US upgrading and replacing its nuclear weapons. The talk is the US will start a new arms race. This is under the assumption the US will be causing others to upgrade and replace their current weapons. This is untrue, but not for the reason the critics think. If the situation was static, the US the country doing the upgrades first, then they would be right. Rather the Chinese and the Russians have /already/ started their replacement of nuclear weapons, delivery systems and carriers for the same.

Russia just laid down its *7TH* new nuclear missile submarine. The Chinese just tested a rail mounted (as in railroad) nuclear missile in a railroad car intended to look like any other. China and Russia are working on new nuclear bombers. Russia has developed an unmanned sub/nuclear torpedo with a dirty bomb. The Russians and Chines have developed new cruise and ballistic nuclear missiles. etc. etc. The list goes on.

Its hard to see the supposition the US is causing the nuclear arms race when we have barely even started the replacement of old systems: the B-21 program has just been selected. The Ohio Replacement Sub is just barely starting tech demos. The Long Range Stand Off weapon and Minuteman replacements are just attempting to get into the budget; nevermind, even done anything other than papers on the subject. This is reactionary, not causative: they started /after/ the other two rival nuclear powers have long since started upgrading and developing their new nuclear capabilities.

It could be argued the missile defense installations, ABMs in Alaska and Aegis Ashore in Europe, could be driving the Russians and Chinese to do their upgrades. At first blush, this seems somewhat reasonable. However, the overwhelming capability of the Russian arsenal, even if 75% failed on launch, would still easily overwhelm the missile defenses in place. The only real defense would be against launches well short of a total war: if a nation wanted to fire off a handful of nuclear missiles, then the defense would work. If it fired off over 100, then we're screwed and there's no way, economically, to stop an all out attack by even old nuclear weapons: 250 nuclear weapons going off over targets all over the US would sink the country, no two ways about it. People would survive, even the country might survive, but we're done as far as being able to wage a war or be a threat to well, anyone other than Papua New Guinea. So, claiming US ABM efforts are driving the nuclear weapons race seem to fall flat as that it only eliminates a 'limited nuclear war,' something most think was a fantasy anyways.

The whole premise of nuclear weapons is as a deterrence and if that deterrence is not credible, then the whole point goes away. The point, from the nuclear powers POV, is to prevent any major attacks on the homeland because the consequences are so great. In some sense, ironically, nuclear weapons may be the biggest peacemaker the last century: the cycle of devastating wars in Europe between rival powers was ended and, indeed, prevented just as it was about to go global from doing so.

This begs the question why "experts" are arguing for NOT replacing the old nuclear capabilities. Its not really because we would cause an arms race. That race is already happening, whether or not we are participating. Nuclear weapons have prevented major wars despite, or potentially even because, of their devastating effect if used. There are only two reasons that come to mind. Either someone is morally opposed to the potential devastation caused by those weapons, understandable, if a bit misguided or the advocate lacks an understanding of how the world has changed in the last 25 years. The former will argue for the the dismantling of the nuclear arsenal no matter what. The latter hold to the position the US is in an unassailable position as the overwhelming superpower, a so-called hyperpower. That last is semi correct, but...and there's always a 'but.'

The 'but' is three fold. The world changes and the US is now faced with nations rising, even converging on the US; the US has a rapidly aging arsenal; and technology has marched on.

China is rapidly closing in on becoming the number one economy in the world. Russia is no longer utterly economically devastated by the break up of the Soviet Union and while crippled somewhat by sanctions and oil prices, has elected to invest heavily in its own arsenal with a far better economy than it had during the dark days, from their POV, of the 1990s.

Secondly, entropy wins all wars. Even with maintaining the current US arsenal, many parts of it are, well, virtually ancient. The B-52s, for example, went into production in *1955* and the the newest of them was built in 1962. Yes, our backbone bomber is minimally 53 years old. Even with spare parts, these aircraft will wear out. The Minuteman III despite its upgrades dates to the 1970s. The Ohio class submarines were introduced in 1981 (older than some congress members). All of these will wear out. Their spare parts may not, in some cases, even exist or even be able to be manufactured at all: the Minuteman missiles use a physically gimballed inertial navigation system for example and lets not talk about the guidance systems... Something the rest of the world moved on from 20 years ago. Or more. Again, entropy really does win all wars.

Related to the fact the equipment is so old, technology has marched on. As many technologies easily surpass what was incorporated in the original weapons and allow for others to develop their own, novel capabilities: technology is not strictly American, especially in the world where we have peer and near peer economies can afford to develop their own. It is not inconceivable Russia or China, especially China, may come up with a method to detect our Ohio class submarines while at sea, removing their deterrence. This enters into the unknown unknowns of human creativity and the longer a problem exists - the US nuclear arsenal and its capabilities and limitations - then the more likely a solution will be found fostered by new technological capabilities.

In the end, it makes little sense to NOT replace what the US has for a nuclear arsenal. The 'destabilization' caused by an arms race has already happened: the Chinese and Russians are rapidly developing and deploying their own new weapons. The Russians and Chinese have become very assertive, pushing back against the international order: Russia occupied and changed the borders of another country in Europe. The Chines are laying claim to virtually the entirety of the South China Sea. These are not the acts of friendly nations. The so-called 'Strategic Holiday' has ended: Fukuyama was emphatically wrong. To neglect a tool, weapons capabilities that have kept the US homeland secure for 70 years is worse than short sighted.

US Navy to Release RFP for Ohio Replacement Program

The Navy will soon release the request for proposals (RFP) for the design of the Ohio Replacement Program ballistic missile submarine, after the Defense Department approved the RFP release.

After finalizing a capability development document, specifications and a process to limit requirements changes in late October, the Navy went to the Defense Acquisition Board on Dec. 21 for authorization to proceed with the RFP.

“On Dec 21, the Navy sought Defense Acquisition Executive authorization to proceed with release of the Integrated Product and Process Development Request for Proposal for the Ohio Replacement program,” DoD spokeswoman Maureen Schumann told USNI News on Tuesday.
“At the DAB, [Pentagon acquisition chief Frank] Kendall reviewed the status of technology development, program schedule, the execution of the current contract and the Ohio Replacement acquisition strategy, and approved the release of the Development RFP.”

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Ohio Nuclear Ballistic Missile Submarine Replacement Program Nearing Final Step Before RFP

The Navy will set the technical baseline for the Ohio Replacement Program ballistic missile submarine next week and lay out a process to keep design changes and cost increases in the Navy’s next nuclear ballistic missile submarine to a minimum.

George Drakeley, the executive director of the Program Executive Office for Submarines, said Thursday at the 2015 Naval Submarine League annual symposium that the program is moving forward in preparation for a design contract to be awarded about a year from now.

Next week the program office will meet with Navy leadership to set the technical baseline for the ship, in an an acquisition approval step called Gate 4.

“We kind of thought that we were past the issues of needing a Gate 4, but [Navy acquisition chief Sean] Stackley wants to have one because he wants to set the tech baseline,” Drakeley said.

“He’s very adamant about controlling cost. He’s a big supporter of the submarine community, he understands the good we do, but he also wants to continue controlling cost, reducing cost, and that’s an emphasis of his. So we’ll be setting the tech baseline with Gate 4, which means the [capability development document] and the specs and developing a process for change – because he feels change in the process is a big cost-driver and he’s going to minimize that to the greatest extent possible.”

Once the baseline is set, the program will meet with the Defense Acquisition Board to get approval to release a request for proposals (RFP) soon, with a contract expected to be awarded next fall.

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Can the US Afford to Replace its Cold War Nuclear Arsenal?

The greatest threat to the US long-range strike bomber (LRS-B) programme could be a submarine, with new a report showing that modernization of the sea-based leg of America’s nuclear triad dwarfs planned spending on airborne assets.

At a congressional hearing June 25, the US deputy secretary of defense Robert Work said the Pentagon is going to need an average of $18 billion per year between 2021 and 2035 on top of what it already spends on the nuclear force just to afford its planned submarine, bomber, intercontinental ballistic missile and cruise missile replacement efforts.

Work says without more money for nuclear modernization, the DOD will be forced to make “very, very hard choices” that impact conventional weaponry.

“The choice right now is modernizing or loosing deterrent capability in the 2020s and 2030s. That’s the stark choice we’re faced with,” Work says, noting that the current nuclear force that has been in place since the Cold War is “ageing out”.

He agreed with a recent analysis published June 23 by the Center Force Strategic and Budgetary Assessment that shows a almost doubling of spending on the sea-based leg of the nuclear force in the mid-2020s, just as LRS-B production and spending peaks.

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American Nuclear Weapons Update: Nukes for F-35C and Commonality Sought for US Navy SLBM and USAF ICBM Replacements

A US think tank has proposed installing nuclear weapons on the Lockheed Martin F-35C Joint Strike Fighter for deployment aboard aircraft carriers as a hedge against Russia and China.

Clark Murdock of the Center for Strategic and International Studies floated the idea of a return to carrier-based nuclear weapons in a new report published on 22 June.

The US government has committed to outfitting only the land-based F-35A with nuclear weapons as a “dual-capable aircraft,” namely the Boeing B61-12 thermonuclear guided bomb.

According to Murdock though, the F-35C should also receive nuclear weapons in the future as a “visible manifestation” of the United States’ commitment to protecting its allies.

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As the Air Force train pulls out of the station, the Navy’s running alongside asking to be pulled aboard. Both services will need to replace aging nuclear missiles sometime ca. 2030. They could save money by coordinating their modernization programs — but the Air Force is on a tighter schedule and the window of opportunity is starting to close.

“Commonality [is] a topic that I’ve been pretty aggressively shopping around town to anyone who will listen to me,” said Vice Adm. Terry Benedict, the Navy’s director of Strategic Systems Programs. But while the Navy’s not officially launched an effort to replace its Trident submarined-launched ballistic missile, the Air Force’s Minuteman ICBM replacement, the Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent, already issued a Request For Information back in January. “Because of the urgency of the GBSD effort,” Benedict said, “we need to begin this assessment now.”

“There’s absolute consensus at the leadership level to begin that work,” Benedict said at Peter Huessy breakfast hosted by the Air Force Association’s Mitchell Institute. “I think the direction to formally proceed on that work is imminent.”

In the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Pentagon’s top buyer, Undersecretary Frank Kendall himself, is conducting a Strategic Posture Review that addresses the commonality question. Benedict has also spoken to the Air Force’s top buyer, Assistant Sec. Bill LaPlante, and to the service’s program executive officer for weapons, Maj. Gen. Scott Jansson. Strategic Command chief Adm. Cecil Haney even got Benedict to address a meeting of “basically every flag officer in the United States Air Force associated with ICBMs.”

“It’s hard to argue with [commonality]: I mean, who doesn’t want to save money?” Benedict said. “But, rightfully, they have a requirement that they have to meet to replace the Minuteman III, and so there are concerns that this does not distract them or derail them from meeting that requirement, and I respect that.”

The Air Force and the Navy also need their missiles to do different things. At the most basic level, launching from a silo underground is very different from launching from a submarine underwater. A component that works for both may not be optimal for either.

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Is US Navy Submarine Production Headed for a Bottleneck?

It’s a problem the US Navy wants to have, but it’s still a problem. If the service gets enough money both to build its top priority, the Ohio Replacement Program nuclear missile submarine, and to keep producing its vaunted Virginia-class attack subs, then so much new work will be hitting the shipyards so rapidly that they’ll be hard-pressed to ramp up production fast enough.

There are just two shipyards in the country that can build nuclear-powered submarines, Virginia’s Newport News and New England’s Electric Boat, which along with their network of specialized suppliers have recently ramped up to building two Virginias a year. But the Navy wants to start buying a bigger, more powerful, and correspondingly harder-to-build version of the Virginia no later than 2019. Then in 2021, the Navy will officially start its first Ohio replacement. That’s not just another sub: “An Ohio is about twice a Virginia in terms of the workload,” Assistant Secretary of the Navy Sean Stackley told reporters yesterday.

“It’s a fairly steep growth [in production] compared to what it’s been in the past 10 to 20 years, absolutely, ” Stackley said when I pressed him on the point.

Is it a potential bottleneck in production?

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Yes, Virginia: We Really DO Need to Modernize the Entirety of the Nuclear Triad

Nuclear modernization will receive at least $1.2 billion more this year than last year’s $23.5 billion if the president’s Defense Department budget request is approved. Modernization funding for nuclear weapons and their delivery systems comprise 4 percent of the defense budget and 0.6 percent of the Federal budget. These include : the Ohio-class submarine replacement program (ORP); a new long range bomber (LRSB); and a follow-on air launched cruise missiles (ALCM), as well as the ground-based strategic deterrent (currently the Minuteman missile system.)

Critics says that’s too much. They want to eliminate four of the ORPs while retiring four of the current submarines early and delaying by four years the procurement of the first new sub; delay buying the LRSB; cancel the ALCM and modernization of the ground-based cut upwards to allegedly save $75 billion over the next decade.

Are these reductions workable? Would they contribute to improving and enhancing our strategic deterrent, especially in terms of questions of stability and the future adequacy of our deterrent?

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Congressional Budget Office Concerned About Ohio Replacement Ballistic Submarine Program Costs

The Navy rebuffed today a Congressional Budget Office estimate that the service is too optimistic about the cost of its new nuclear missile submarine. Still, whatever the final cost, it’s certain to be high — so high the Navy officially admits its own figures show the sub is unaffordable under current budget plans.

In that context, the CBO report that the subs will cost 17 more than the Navy expects is “an urgent reminder” that Congress must figure out how to fund the Ohio Replacement Program, said Rep. Joe Courtney. As co-chair of the Congressional Shipbuilding Caucus, a senior member of House seapower subcommittee, and representative from Connecticut, the home state of sub-builder Electric Boat, Courtney is a leading voice on undersea warfare. Arguing that replacing the aging Ohio-class ballistic missile submarine is essential to the nation’s nuclear deterrent, Courtney and House seapower subcommittee chairman Rep. Randy Forbes have pushed to fund the new sub outside the Navy budget.

“CBO’s report is an urgent reminder for Congress to address the funding challenges for both the Ohio Replacement and the overall shipbuilding program,” Courtney told Breaking Defense in a statement this afternoon. “I was proud to work on a bipartisan basis to establish the National Sea Based Deterrence Fund in this year’s NDAA, which will place this top-priority program outside the regular shipbuilding account. That is just a first step, however, and we will need to continue the discussion about how to prioritize shipbuilding within the defense budget when Congress returns next year.”

Overall, Courtney projected optimism about the program. “Navy leaders have been clear about the challenges they face on Ohio Replacement and its impact on other shipbuilding priorities, [and] the Navy has an aggressive plan to reduce costs,” Courtney told us. “Although the CBO and Navy projections differ on how much can be achieved in reducing costs…I am confident that the Navy and the submarine industrial base are equal to the challenge.”

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New Pentagon Budget Adds Aircraft, Ships

Military aviation officials and defense contractors will have a merry Christmas if the $1.1 trillion fiscal year 2015 budget is approved as agreed upon on 10 December passes both houses of the US Congress.

The Department of Defense netted $93.8 billion in procurement funding, of which $31.9 billion is slated for aircraft purchases by the air force, army and navy.

Congress authorised the purchase of a total 38 Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning IIs, nine more than were bought in fiscal year 2014 and four more than the Obama administration requested. The order funds two additional F-35As for the air force at $224 million and two F-35Cs for the navy at $255 million.

The navy also will receive authorisation to purchase 15 Boeing EA-18G Growler electronic attack aircraft for $1.46 billion. Those aircraft were not included in the navy’s 2015 budget request, but the service included atop its list of unfunded priorities. Twelve EA-18Gs were added into a bill passed by the House that died without a vote on the Senate floor.

Though it rewards the navy, the bill denies the air force authority to retire its Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolts by funding the fleet’s maintenance at $337.1 million. The plan, pitched as a cost-saving measure by a cash-strapped air force, met with strenuous opposition on Capitol Hill, where lawmakers have been promising to preserve the A-10.

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Additionally, The Ohio SSBN Replacement was also fully funded and a new LPD-17 San Antonio Class Amphib was also paid for.  UCLASS naval UCAV  was fully funded (with some restrictions) and the Long Range Strike Bomber was also fully funded.

US Navy Concerned About Status of Solid Rocket Industrial Base

“Failure to launch” isn’t a metaphorical concern when you work on nuclear weapons. That’s why the director of the Navy’s euphemistically named Strategic Systems Program (SSP) is a worried man. What has Vice Adm. Terry Benedict worried is something neither he, nor the Navy nor the entire Defense Department directly control. It’s the viability of what Benedict called “an already fragile industry” that produces the solid-fuel rocket boosters for the Navy’s Trident submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM). The worst part is that the solid fuel rocket engine business is an industry that will live or die not on the military’s own decisions, but on NASA’s.

“NASA is the large procurer in this whole equation, so what NASA does affects everyone,” from the Navy to the custodian of the nation’s spy satellites, the National Reconnaissance Organization, Benedict told me after the Peter Huessy Congressional Breakfast here. The retirement of the Space Shuttle already hit US rocket-motor manufacturers hard and raised prices for the industry’s remaining customers, including the Trident program. Yes, in theory you could import rocket boosters from abroad, but in practice the big seller is Russia, which is a problematic partner on rocket programs (and other things) right now. “I don’t think we’d ever procure Trident motors outside the United States,” Benedict said bluntly when I raised the prospect.

Next, in 2016, NASA will decide whether its new boosters will use liquid fuel, solid propellant, or a mix. If they go all or mostly liquid, that’s a potential death blow for domestic solid fuel manufacturing, and the Trident’s a solid-fuel missile. Even if the Navy could afford to design a replacement, it would still have to use solid propellant, because liquid rocket fuel is simply unsafe in the tight confines of a submarine.

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US Navy Budget Continues Support for Nuclear Submarines

The US Navy (USN) will continue to fund the acquisition of two Virginia-class fast attack submarines per year from fiscal year 2015 (FY 2015) through FY 2019 while it ramps up design work on the Ohio-class ballistic-missile submarine replacement programme.

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