Speaking of submarines......

[unhappycamper]

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



Ohio class submarine
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Ohio class is a class of nuclear-powered submarines used by the United States Navy. The United States has 18 Ohio-class submarines:

* 14 nuclear-powered SSBNs (ballistic missile submarines), each armed with 24 Trident II SLBMs; they are also known as "Trident" submarines, and provide the sea-based leg of the nuclear triad of the United States strategic nuclear weapons arsenal
* 4 nuclear-powered SSGNs (cruise missile submarines), each capable of carrying 154 Tomahawk cruise missiles with either conventional or nuclear warheads


I remember posting stories about the conversion of four Ohio class subs to the SSGN category in the Veterans forum. In addition to 154 Tomahawk missiles, the four Ohio class subs have space put in them to also house up to 40 SEALs and submersibles.

Oct-14-07 - First converted SSGN to deploy overseas Saturday - Psssst. Those 154 Tomahawks cost $2+ billion dollars per sub

Feb-16-08 - Ohio sub a new twist on underwater warfare

Mar-24-08 - Crew lauds Georgia’s $1B conversion

Oct-28-08 - Versatility of converted subs earns praise


That's another $12 billion dollars of taxpayer money to 'keep us safe'.

Ka ching.

[unhappycamper]

1. A kick to get off page 2.

:kick:

[Greyhound]

2. How on earth did they ever convince enough of the duped that a submarine is a defensive

weapons platform?

:kick: & R

[FBaggins]

3. Not sure why you keep posting it... but Psssst...

...they don't cost anywhere near $2+ billion for 154 Tomahawks.

Last I heard, the entire Tomahawk program cost a bit over $11Billion (for several thousands units).

Even accepting your figures in that first link, your math was off by an order of magnitude... and the figures were incorrect.

[unhappycamper]

4. Yup, you're correct.

My math was off by an order of magnitude. The 154 Tomahawks on these boats 'only' cost slightly more than $200 million dollars.

Tomahawk missiles: Wikipedia sez $US 569,000 per copy. I always check for military hardware costs elsewhere.

This google search turned up:

U.S. SEA LAUNCHED CRUISE MISSILE sez $1.4 MILLION TO OVER $2 MILLION DEPENDING ON
VERSION

Ground Launched Cruise Missile sez $1.3 mil(lion).


BGM-109 Tomahawk sez $1,4000,000 - average unit cost (TY$).


154 * $569,000 = $87,626,000

154 * $1,300,000 = $200,200,000

154 * $1,400,000 = 215,600,000



My bad.

[FBaggins]

5. No problem.

It's not like it's chump change after all.

BTW - all of those numbers could be correct. There's the cost of the entire program divided by the number of units... or you could take the cost of the program, minus development costs (and divide that by the number of unite)... or you could just look at the incremental cost of building the next unit (with development and plant construction already "sunk").

That low figure is closest to "what it costs to arm this sub" if you consider the fact that all of the development costs have already been spent (mostly decades ago) and you only have to pay to run 154 of them down the already-existing assembly line. Ignoring the fact that the missiles need to be replaced when they're used.

There's a still cheaper accounting that's possible. There are thousands of Tomahawks in existence. The Navy could just determine that they don't have to build any at all... they just need to move them from storage to the SSGN. Then it's almost "free".

That's part of how the IOWA class battleships were so cheap to recommission back in the 80s (that, and the fact that those puppies were built to last).