Ohio-class Derivatives

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James1978

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I came across this tidbit over at the Ohio-class entry on GlobalSecurity.org:
In 1974 the initial Ohio program was projecte to consist of 10 submarines deployed at Bangor Washington carrying the Trident-1 C-4 missile. By 1981 the program had been modified to include 15 boats, and at least 20 boats were planned by 1985. In 1989 the Navy anticipated a total fleet of at least 21 boats, while plans the following year envisioning a total of 24 boats, 21 of which would carry strategic missiles with the remaining three supporting other missions, such as special forces. However, in 1991 Congress directed the termination of the program with the 18th boat, citing anticipated force limits under the START-1 arms control agreement and the results of the Bush Administration's Major Warship Review, which endorsed capping the program at 18 boats.
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That is the only place I've found mention of hulls 22, 23, and 24 being planned as anything other than SSBNs.

Does anyone have more information on this, or can point me to any sources with more details? I haven't had any luck searching on my own.
 
Remember reading something similar from a Norman Polamer book probably Ships and aircraft of the US fleet but don't have it anymore but it was basically just a few extra Ohio's for use as SOF delivery and I'd imagine Tomahawk slinging but on the last bit am just guessing
 
James1978 said:
I came across this tidbit over at the Ohio-class entry on GlobalSecurity.org:

That is the only place I've found mention of hulls 22, 23, and 24 being planned as anything other than SSBNs.

Does anyone have more information on this, or can point me to any sources with more details? I haven't had any luck searching on my own.
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The place to look would be in congressional budget documents and congressional hearings. It used to be common for congressional reports to include information about this. So you might try looking at congressional document databases.
 
blackstar said:
The place to look would be in congressional budget documents and congressional hearings. It used to be common for congressional reports to include information about this. So you might try looking at congressional document databases.
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Yeah, and that's assuming it even got that far.

There are a lot of ideas that are kicked around but end up dying on the vine before they even get close to becoming an official program of record--yet later you'll see an article that says "xxx plans to develop yyy" when there really never was any "plan." Just some spitballed ideas.

(I've had people insist that something absolutely exists just because they saw a line item about it in some old congressional report, even if I tell them "yeah I've been working on this stuff for a couple of decades and that never materialized.")
 
Hrm. 1989 was before my time on the boats. Might even be before most of my friends on the boats.

I know some of the older boomers were converted into "slow approach" submarines for SOF support. (7300 tons of ship with an S5W pushing is not "fast") Plus the old Regulus boats in the 1960s. And obviously the first 4 Ohios were converted to SSGNs in the 2000s.

But 19,000 tons of submarine has its own issues as an SOF platform. The single biggest one is that you can physically see them when 160ft down.
 
tychosis said:
Yeah, and that's assuming it even got that far.

There are a lot of ideas that are kicked around but end up dying on the vine before they even get close to becoming an official program of record--yet later you'll see an article that says "xxx plans to develop yyy" when there really never was any "plan." Just some spitballed ideas.

(I've had people insist that something absolutely exists just because they saw a line item about it in some old congressional report, even if I tell them "yeah I've been working on this stuff for a couple of decades and that never materialized.")
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Absolutely. Just because it is listed somewhere doesn't mean that it was real. It's only really real when it has a budget.

Other places to look could be contemporary NY Times articles as well as issues of relevant trade publications, like USNI's Proceedings, although they generally did not cover budgets and planning news.
 
James1978 said:
I came across this tidbit over at the Ohio-class entry on GlobalSecurity.org:

That is the only place I've found mention of hulls 22, 23, and 24 being planned as anything other than SSBNs.
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I don't think this necessarily says hulls 22-24 would be the other missions boats, just that 3 of 24 would be. You could field 22-24 as missile boats while retasking three of the older boats. And it doesn't necessarily mean only SOF support, it could be seabed operations like the Parche and the Jimmy Carter.
 
DWG said:
I don't think this necessarily says hulls 22-24 would be the other missions boats, just that 3 of 24 would be. You could field 22-24 as missile boats while retasking three of the older boats. And it doesn't necessarily mean only SOF support, it could be seabed operations like the Parche and the Jimmy Carter.
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Given the timelines and needing to retire the 41 for Freedom, it'd very likely be the last 3 hulls built, but could have been 3 of the last 6 if the build rate was high enough.
 
What seems likely to me is that there was a brief interval between a decrease in sea based deterrent requirements as the cold war wound down and when defense budgets were rationalized when the program of record remained at 24 hulls, but stratcom requirements could be filled with fewer boats, hence leaving a theoretical surplus. The FY90/91 budget submission shows procurement of 1/yr, and funding for hull 20 in FY93 (with AP funding 2 yrs prior). This would put funding for hull 22-24 AP in FY93-95, and full procurement in FY95-97. The current PPBE process has a FYDP that includes budgets for 4 yrs beyond the current, with force structure for an additional 3. Assuming the same model applied in 1990, the FY90/91 submission (submitted Jan 89) would include budget numbers for FY90-94, and force structure out to FY97. Thus the budget documents at that time would include all 24 Ohio class boats, and if commiserate stratcom requirements had decreased this would leave a theoretical excess of boats that were planned to be built, but weren't needed for SSBN numbers.

My suspicion would be that there was probably never any real expectation that Congress would actually fund them, and thus there was never any real work or official plan, just a vague mention buried in various documents which is why it's unknown.
 
sdmuleman said:
My suspicion would be that there was probably never any real expectation that Congress would actually fund them, and thus there was never any real work or official plan, just a vague mention buried in various documents which is why it's unknown.
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There must have been some work done, the proposed SSGN conversions for Ohio-Michigan-Florida-Georgia were out in public by 2000 and basically did not change from that point. (I need to see if I can sneak a tour of one of the SSGNs at some point)
 

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