3 new sub names honor states, previous ships

[unhappycamper]

3 new sub names honor states, previous ships
By Philip Ewing - Staff writer
Posted : Wednesday Jan 30, 2008 14:22:53 EST

After months of rumors and high-level appeals from lawmakers to lend their states’ names to the Navy’s un-built submarines, the wait ended Wednesday: The next three Virginia-class attack boats scheduled to join the fleet will be known as the Missouri, the California and the Mississippi.

Missouri Rep. Ike Skelton, the Democratic chair of the House Armed Services Committee, wasted no time praising Navy Secretary Donald Winter for granting the “Missouri” name the first of the scheduled ships, heretofore known by its designation SNN 780.

“I am absolutely pleased that another ‘Mighty Mo’ will be joining the Navy’s fleet, this time in the silent service,” Skelton in an announcement.

Earlier, unofficial rumors had SSN 780 being the California.

Each new submarine inherits a name used in the fleet before. The new Missouri will be the fourth ship to bear that name; the new California, the seventh; and the new Mississippi, the fifth.


Rest of article at: http://www.navytimes.com/news/2008/01/navy_sub_names_080130w/



uhc comment: Meet the $2,300,000,000 Virgina class submarine:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_class_submarine



~snip~

Construction and Controversy

The Virginias were intended, in part, as a slightly cheaper ($1.8 vs $2 billion) alternative to the Seawolf class, whose production run was stopped after just three vessels. To reduce costs, the Virginias use many "off-the-shelf" components, especially in their computers and data networks. In practice they actually cost about $2.3 billion (in fiscal year 2005 dollars) each, due in part to the lack of an economy of scale.

In hearings before both House of Representatives and Senate committees, the Congressional Research Service and expert witnesses testified that the current procurement plans of the Virginia class–one per year at present, accelerating to two per year beginning in 2012–resulted in high unit costs and (according to some of the witnesses and some of the committee chairmen( 2 ) an insufficient number of attack submarines. In a March 10, 2005 statement( 3 ) to the House Armed Services Committee, Ronald O'Rourke of the CRS testified that, assuming the production rate remains as planned, "production economies of scale for submarines would continue to remain limited or poor."

The Virginia class is built through an industrial arrangement designed to keep both GD Electric Boat and Northrop Grumman Newport News (the only U.S. shipyards capable of building nuclear vessels) in the submarine-building business ( citation needed ). Under the present arrangement, the Newport News facility builds the stern, habitability & machinery spaces, torpedo room, sail and bow, while Electric Boat builds the engine room and control room. The facilities alternate work on the reactor plant as well as the final assembly, test, outfit and delivery.

O'Rourke wrote ( 4 ) in 2004 that, "Compared to a one-yard strategy, approaches involving two yards may be more expensive but offer potential offsetting benefits." Among the claims of "offsetting benefits" that O'Rourke attributes to supporters of a two-facility construction arrangement is that it "would permit the United States to continue building submarines at one yard even if the other yard is rendered incapable of building submarines permanently or for a sustained period of time by a catastrophic event of some kind", including an attack.