So I was watching the History Channel yesterday and they had a segment on 'lost' American submarines

[unhappycamper]

The story was about the USS Scorpion.



USS Scorpion (SSN-589) 22 August 1960, off New London, Connecticut. A "GUPPY" type submarine is faintly visible in the distance, just beyond the forward tip of Scorpion's "sail".

Name: USS Scorpion
Ordered: 31 January 1957
Builder: General Dynamics Electric Boat
Laid down: 20 August 1958<1>
Launched: 29 December 1959<1>
Commissioned: 29 July 1960<1>
Struck: 30 June 1968<1>
Fate: Sank on 22 May 1968; cause of sinking unknown. All 99 on board killed.
Status: Located on the seabed of the Atlantic Ocean in 3,000 m (9,800 ft) of water, 740 km (400 nmi) southwest of the Azores
Badge: Insignia of USS Scorpion
General characteristics
Class and type: Skipjack-class submarine
Displacement: 2,880 long tons (2,930 t) light
3,075 long tons (3,124 t) full
195 long tons (198 t) deadweight
Length: 76.8 m (252 ft 0 in)
Beam: 9.7 m (31 ft 10 in)
Draft: 9.1 m (29 ft 10 in)
Propulsion: S5W reactor
Complement: 8 officers, 75 men
Armament: 6 × 21 in (533 mm) torpedo tubes
2 × Mark 45 torpedoes

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Scorpion_%28SSN-589%29

USS Scorpion (SSN-589)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

USS Scorpion (SSN-589) was a Skipjack-class nuclear submarine of the United States Navy, and the sixth ship of the U.S. Navy to carry that name. Scorpion was declared lost on 5 June 1968,<2> one of the few U.S. Navy submarines to be lost at sea while not at war and is one of only two nuclear submarines the U.S. Navy has ever lost, the other being USS Thresher (SSN-593), which sank on 10 April 1963 off the coast of New England.<3>

The 'interesting' thing the History Channel pointed out was the General Dynamics built USS Scorpion cost $40 million dollars in 1958.


Fast forward to the 21^st century.

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



USS Virginia
Class overview
Name: Virginia
Builders: General Dynamics Electric Boat
Northrop Grumman Newport News
Operators: United States Navy
Preceded by: Seawolf class attack submarine
Cost: $2.8 billion<1>
Built: 2000 – present
In commission: 2004 – present
Building: 3
Planned: 30
Completed: 6
Active: 6
General characteristics
Class and type: Attack submarine
Displacement: 7,900 metric tons (7,800 long tons)
Length: 377 feet (115 m)
Beam: 34 feet (10 m)
Propulsion: S9G reactor
Speed: >25 knots (46 km/h)+
Range: unlimited except by food supplies
Test depth: > 800 ft (244 m)
Complement: 134
Armament:

12 × VLS (BGM-109 Tomahawk cruise missile) & 4 × 533mm torpedo tubes (Mk-48 torpedo)

Notes: Ships in class include: Virginia, Texas, Hawaii, North Carolina, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Missouri, California, Mississippi, Minnesota, North Dakota, John Warner


The question I must ask: Why does it now cost 70 times more to build a submarine? Keep in mind we buy two of these each and every year to the tune of $2.8 billion dollars a pop.


Sometimes it's amazing the things you can find on the idiot box.

[old mark]

1. I also note we plan to build and buy 30 of these boats...Why?...nt

[hack89]

3. Replace older boats

ships (including subs) have a usable life span of about 40 years. The Los Angeles class subs date from the 1970's. After we build 30 Virginia class subs our sub force will be the smallest it has been in decades.

[old mark]

5. Bullshit. We need 30 attack subs like we need another republican president.

Who do we think we are going to attack, when have they been used - why do we need more Trident platforms in the future...for Iran?

Bullshit!

We also have too many carriers and ships in general and many more on the way.

We are NOT going to re-fight WWII.
We seem to be more worried about making more admirals and generals career paths easier than worried about any actual threat we may face...

We have a larger navy than everyone else in the world combined...there is no justification for it at all.

mark

[hack89]

16. Ok. nt

[Enthusiast]

22. Right on, old mark.

The voice of reason.

Many don't understand that in WWII we actually had opposition navies to do battle with. Those WWII battles can never take place again.

Hell, now we can just place a surface ship anywhere on earth and launch any ordinance we wish with impunity. We don't have to sneak! With the possible exception of China.

[hack89]

2. Much bigger, much quieter, more complex

all those things come to mind. As one example, comparing a sonar system from the 50's to a modern one is like comparing an abacus to a PC.

[Stinky The Clown]

7. Using that logic . . . . .

. . . . today's PCs would cost $100,000.00 each.

Yes, modern technology eclipses older technology, but that's not the way to look at it. Technological advances reduce cost over time, even if they raise it in the moment.

[Gaedel]

8. Cars used to be less than $1,000 n/t

[Wednesdays]

13. And now they're all over $70,000!

:wow:

[mopinko]

9. that moment always seems to be when the defense dept.

buys one. or 1,000,000

[hack89]

15. No

I was talking about capabilities. We could replicate a 1950's nuclear submarine for a lot less money than $2 billion - it would just be useless for modern warfare.

Technology reduces the cost of doing the same thing. That's not what we are talking about here. The capabilities of a modern submarine are orders of magnitude greater than 60 year old submarines like the Scorpion. You are comparing modern cars to Model T's and asking why they are so expensive. The answer is obvious to most people.

[krispos42]

19. The systems on a submarine are not mass-produced, though.

There's not an assembly line cranking out military-grade sonar systems at the rate of 200 per hour. They are probably almost hand-made. And submarines run very heavy on sensor systems and the powerful computers to process the signals that they receive.

If the goal of a modern sonar system was to exactly replicate the one found on a submarine from 50 years ago, then yeah, it would be a lot cheaper than the system back then. But the modern sub sonar system is vastly more powerful and complex.

Although I agree they cost too much. Somebody somewhere is making a mint and hiding it offshore.

[Enthusiast]

23. Still little justification.

Imagine that amount dedicated to renewable energy projects and mass transit.

[hack89]

26. Explanation is not justification. nt

[pipoman]

4. Wow

something historical on the History Channel? Was this on before or after Ice Road Truckers and Pawn Stars? -snick-

[dipsydoodle]

6. I've seen a tv documentary devoted to that some years back

They'd looked in the wrong place - it had turned back towards Europe. It was finally figured beyond doubt out using low frequency sonar records.

Very sad.

[JPZenger]

10. The Chinese are building up their submarine fleet

[Saboburns]

12. Good for China, bad for the Chinese worker.

Know what I mean??

Extrapolate....

[Octafish]

11. It ain't just inflation.

The connected have needs, too.

[Lurks Often]

14. Some reasons and related thoughts

1. Inflation is part of it, that $40 million is $301 million now (http://www.usinflationcalculator.com)
2. From 1949-1972 the Navy had at least 9 separate attack sub classes (SSN), not counting the numerous single ship classes and 5 ballistic missile sub classes (SSBN), in other words the Navy got new & improved SSN & SSBN's every 5 years on average. From 1972 to present, the Navy has only introduced 3 SSN classes (including the Virginia class) and 1 SSBN class. This means that the Navy has to foresee every potential need for at least the next 25 years. (Wikipedia)
3. Staying on the cutting edge of submarine technology is becoming more and more expensive.
4. Material & labor costs have gone up
5. Just because we can't foresee a threat now, doesn't mean there won't be one 10, 15 or 25 years from now.
6. We went into WWI, WWII and Korea grossly unprepared because the military had been underfunded and a lot of Americans probably died because of that.

[JPZenger]

17. We fought much of WWII with weapons and ships from 1938

Fortunately the Roosevelt administration started a build-up in 1938. The aircraft, tanks, jeeps and ships that were started in 1938 and 1939 were the ones that were critical in fighting WWII for the first 2 years until newer weapons systems were designed and manufactured. The lead time today is much much longer to develop sophisticated systems.

Personally, I think we should have all of the weapons systems designed and tested, and have the manufacturing capacity in place, but not produce them in large volumes unless a threat starts to arises. For example, there is no clear current need for a 5th generation fighter aircraft for air-to-air combat, but there may be in the future

We need to maintain the capacity of the contractors. For example, if Newport News ever does not have an aircraft carrier under construction, they will lose some of their skilled workers.

[Lurks Often]

18. Unfortunately the production lead time now is so

long that waiting until the shooting starts to go into volume production will be too late.

The Navy was about the only service close to being prepared when WWII, the Army and the Army Air Corp were far less prepared.

[krispos42]

20. "Fleet in being"

When the shit hits the fan, what is currently in service must remain so until the production capacity of this country can be adjusted and expanded to meet the needs of a war. When war breaks out the first several months are critical.

The reason we have a big Navy is so that when (if) The Big One happens we can fight effectively and well for up to a year with what was in existance the day the war started.

It took 13 months from the attack on Pearl Harbor for the first new aircraft carrier to be delivered to the Navy. The ones we had in existance at Pearl Harbor (I think a total of 5) had to continue the fight with no hope of any more reinforcement for a least a year. Every engagement had the potential to be a crushing defeat for US. If the Navy had lost 3 aircraft carriers at Midway instead of the Japanese we might well have had a Japanese invasion of Hawaii soon after. And we wouldn't have had the ships and planes and Marines and sailors ready to fight to take back Hawaii until at least late 1943.

[old mark]

21. So we need a huge navy in case we re-fight WWII...Again, I say bullshit.

We have several times more Trident/MIRV equipped subs that we need to turn all major Chinese cities into smoking glass in a few minutes. I don't see any long full scale world war ahead for anyone.

I don't see anyone coming close to having the naval or air transportation capability of invading the US.

As a former member of a US parachute infantry unit, I am well aware that many US military organizations live on through tradition despite having long outlived their usefulness, andi see a lot of this in the Navy and Airforce today...we are doing it because we CAN DO IT, not because it ever will be necessary.

FWIW, before the Pearl Harbor, the battleship was thought of as THE supreme naval weapon...the carrier replaced it in fact, and no new battleships were constructed after the war was over.

mark

[krispos42]

25. I like my nukes on Tridents

Much more secure than land-based bombers or ICBM silos.

However, being globally interconnected as we are, it doesn't take an invasion of the US to cripple the US. Chinese invasions of, say, Japan, Taiwan, Indonesia, and/or South Korea would do the job of crashing our economy quite nicely.

I do, however, agree that we need a restructuring of the military. I would like to see the Air Force retire the B-1B bombers, for example, and focus more on long-range logistics. And I think the Navy needs more small multipurpose frigates than Aegis cruisers; the former is better for combatting modern piracy than the latter. Something small, heavy on the midrange artillery and light on the high-tech missiles.

For example.

But herein lies my concern. You don't see any way a foreign country can invade the US. I don't see any way a foreign country can invade the US. That doesn't mean there isn't a way; just that you and I can't see the circumstances under which it could happen. And I worry that China, which has long-term leadership and the political will to conceive of and carry out multi-decade-long strategies, is working towards that point in an obscure, gradual process that would not be apparant until way too late.

They've already managed to take over our manufacturing capability, for example, and we joyfully let them because it made the capitalists happy. But I wonder...

What if one day in the future 5 different cargo ships arrived at 5 West Coast ports. And just before they docked, just before Customs would have inspected them... 5 multi-megaton nuclear bombs detonated. Opening shots in a nuclear war? Terrorist attack? Another major step in a long-term strategy of dominance? :shrug: Who knows? But would China care a nickel's worth for the lives they took in such an attack? I doubt it. Chinese communists and fascists have the same psychopathic indifference to human life as American capitalists.

[Enthusiast]

24. And we were well

aware of the size and threat of the Japanese fleet in the 1930s. And we were well aware of their capacity and drive to increase the power and scope of their navy. And if any power on earth was inspired to build up naval resources to a level that would compete with the U.S. we would certainly be intimately aware of it like never before. In other words, no one can hide a navy large enough to threaten us without the U.S. taking measures to remake our navy in response to the threat.

There is simply NO justification for building these attack submarines. Especially under the dire circumstances we find ourselves.