![]() The Navy's newest attack submarine, the future Oregon, is christened in a ceremony at Electric Boat in Groton, Conn., on Saturday. The outgoing Trump administration then proposed a goal of 72 to 78 attack subs, and the Biden administration has since settled on a range of 66 to 72 - still far out of reach for the Navy unless something changes. ![]() This decision was approved in FY21 and helps avoid the trough, Perry said.īut, he noted, in 2016 the Navy upped its requirement to 66 SSNs. Now, he said, the Navy is assessing hull by hull and regularly approving boats in this class for another three years, for a total of 36.įor five boats whose hulls are in good shape but whose nuclear reactors are low on fuel, the Navy will perform engineered refueling overhauls at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Maine and replace the reactor cores with the ones sitting unused in storage. Michael Breslin, an executive director at the Program Executive Office for Attack Submarines, said at the Sub League conference the Los Angeles subs were planned to last for 30 years, but the Navy previously extended the class to 33 years after an engineering effort confirmed the hulls could handle it. ![]() Navy leaders say avoiding this trough - which was previously expected to start when the Navy hit 48 boats in fiscal 2022 and finally end when the submarine force grew to 49 in FY42 - is a testament both to the high-quality design and construction of the Los Angeles-class submarines and sheer luck in finding five unused nuclear reactor cores that could refuel some LA attack subs. ![]()
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