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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Evil Flower" data-source="post: 178724" data-attributes="member: 277"><blockquote data-quote="TomS">Centurion was of course after Seawolf.  Before Seawolf, there were several other proposed successors to the LA class.First was the F/A (variously Fast Attack, Fleet Attack, and "Fat Albert).  This was a small sub, roughly 5000 tons with a low length to beam ratio and performance more like a Sturgeon.  This was a Zumwalt program intended to lower unit cost.  Rickover savaged it and it never got far.Rickover's preferred alternative was the Advanced High-Performance Nuclear Attack Submarine (AHPNAS), which was a giant, roughly twice the size of an LA, with a bank of vertical cruise missile launch tubes amidships, like an SSBN.</blockquote>Rickover of course also gutted the CONFORM program that produced a design that would have offered far greater performance at lower cost compared to the LA. As built the LA was inferior to the Sturgeon class that preceded it in almost all respects except for speed.</blockquote>