Budgetary pressures combined with the departure of the last of the Cold War fleet and then the very expensive SSBN(X) proposal would have left us with very little to keep Fleet numbers in acceptable ranges.
Though still a tough bill to pay - this is better.
The Ohio Replacement is scaled back from the initial Analysis of Alternatives (AoA) for the program, then dubbed SSBN(X), conducted by NAVSEA in 2009. The initial AoA called for a boat that would have cost $6 to 7 billion but with the reduction in capability the Ohio Replacement drove costs down to $5.6 billion a copy. The eventual goal of the reductions is to produce the boats at $4.9 billion a copy.I also like the fact they are going to keep the class properly focused.
“The Ohio Replacement is not, is not, a multi-mission platform,” Capt. William Brougham, US Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) Ohio-class Replacement Program Manager, said at the 2012 Naval Submarine League Symposium in Falls Church, Va. on Oct. 18. “We don’t turn into a multi-mission platform that’s going to go off and do things that you see on television,” he said.Good. Good.
A SSBN exists for one reason and one reason only - to be there is the need exists for this nation to find its inner-Roman.
No room for error. No need for distraction.