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Sea Wolf Class
Super quiet nuclear-powered attack submarines
Image: SSN-21 "USS Sea Wolf"
CAD rendering used with permission of
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The 29 boats originally planned for the Seawolf Class were a product of the Cold War conceived to maintain the USA’s acoustic advantage over Soviet submarines by eventually replacing the Los Angeles Class nuclear-powered attack submarines. Seawolf Class are the fastest, quietest, most heavily armed submarines in the world and are capable of establishing and maintaining battle space dominance. The first boat (SSN-21 USS Seawolf) was launched in 1995; and was followed by SSN-22 USS Connecticut two years later. At that point it was decided to modify the next boat (SSN-23 USS Jimmy Carter) to improve underwater maneuverability and payload capacity. While the Jimmy Carter was launched in 2004 and commissioned the next year, the end of the Cold War had changed the emphasis of submarine missions from "open ocean warfare" to one of "littoral operations", meaning operations that engage a coastline. As a result, it was judged prohibitive to change the Seawolf program again, and the other 26 planned boats were cancelled in favor of the smaller and cheaper Virginia Class New Attack submarines. The Seawolf Class was designed and built to be ultra quiet for the single purpose of detecting and tracking Soviet missile submarines and is 70 times quieter over its full range of speeds than the earlier Los Angeles Class and 10 times quieter than the 688i (Improved) Los Angeles Class. It is said that a Seawolf operating at its tactical speed of 25 knots is quieter than a Los Angeles Class submarine at pier side. The Seawolf is the first American attack submarine to use a hull made entirely of high-pressure HY-100 steel (previous submarines used HY80 steel). HY-100 steel was first used in submarines in the early 1960s in the Navy's deep-diving "Sea Cliff" and "Turtle" which were capable of reaching depths of 10,000 feet. It is believed that Seawolf Class submarines may have an operating dive depth of 2000 feet (source: Jane's Fighting Ships). The Jimmy Carter has a 100-foot hull extension to enhance payload capability & hold a multi-mission platform (MMP). The MMP will enable Jimmy Carter to accommodate the advanced equipment required to develop and test a new generation of weapons, sensors and undersea vehicles for naval special warfare, tactical surveillance and mine-warfare operations as new technology brings those things to fruition. SSN-23 will also incorporate special forces capabilities including a dry deck shelter (DDS) and a specially designed combat swimmer silo. The DDS is an air-transportable device that piggy-backs on the submarine and can be used to store and launch a swimmer delivery vehicle and combat swimmers. The silo is an internal lock-out chamber that will deploy up to eight combat swimmers at one time.
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