Versatility of converted subs earns praise - Navy News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Navy Times

Versatility of converted subs earns praise

Its potency has been compared to a floating army division by a special operations general. It’s a war machine so useful to SEALs that it makes them actually want to open up and talk for once.

And its lethality is easily recognized — the official Chinese news agency dubbed it “A Warehouse of Explosives ... a Devil of Deterrence.”

The operational debut of the Navy’s four Ohio-class ballistic missile submarines converted to carry Tomahawk cruise missiles and conduct large-force special warfare missions has exceeded expectations, according to operators, managers and leadership.

Two former silent members of the nuclear triad — the Ohio and Florida — are on deployment loaded with various combinations of Tomahawk cruise missiles, SEALs and submersibles. The Michigan sets out in the coming weeks and will — for the first time on this type of boat — employ the Advanced SEAL Delivery System, a minisub. The Georgia will deploy in 2009.

SSGNs were the main subject of the annual two-day convention of the Naval Submarine League on Oct. 22-23. The praise abounded.

While other ship programs generate fiscal heartburn for Navy leadership and lawmakers, the SSGN program took four massive boomers bound for decommissioning and refueled and converted them over five years for $1 billion each.

“It really was a platform recovered from the scrap heap,” said retired Capt. Mark Bock, the last SSGN program manager.

Depending on the mission, its Tomahawk payload ranges from a standard 105 to a maximum 154 missiles, filling as many as 22 tubes previously designed for C-4 Trident ballistic missiles in seven-shot canisters.

The submerged arsenal is so potent, said Rear Adm. Mark Kenny, a submariner and director of the Navy’s new Irregular Warfare Office, that SSGNs can step into the void of the troubled DDG 1000 destroyer program, a nominally stealthy surface combatant meant to pack a wallop.

“SSGN can fill that role because we have volume,” Kenny said.

With a shorter load of Tomahawks, SSGNs can use several of the missile tubes to hold up to five tractor-trailer loads of ordnance and equipment for embarked SEALs. Two of the 24 tubes were converted to escape trunks for deploying divers, and the deck was widened to accommodate side-by-side dry-deck shelters.

An SSGN has berthing for 66 SEALs, who, when deployed on submarines, are infamous for gnawing through the food supply. But the converted boomers have extra refrigerators and dry storage just for the Frogmen.

“It was no problem feeding the SEALs as much as they need to be fed,” said Capt. Chris Ratliff, who, as commander of the Blue Crew, embarked operators for long periods during Ohio’s deployment to the western Pacific, which included operations he could not discuss. Both Army and Navy special operations forces — who traditionally make the “silent service” — had high praise for all the missions the boat could do.

Ratliff deployed Oct. 14, 2007, from Bremerton, Wash., and because SSGNs are meant to be deployed with blue and gold crews swapping every 90 days, “here we are a year later, and the boat is still out there.”

In addition to holding missiles, escape trunks and SEAL gear, one of the 24 missile tubes is set aside for experimental cargo such as unmanned underwater or aerial vehicles, a priority of the undersea fleet.

“The community is really thinking outside the box when it comes to SSGN,” said Cmdr. Johnny Wolfe, program coordinator for SSGN Strategic Systems.

And like the rest of the submarine fleet, these new-mission boats have the attention of Adm. Gary Roughead, chief of naval operations.

“From the reports I’ve received back from those first two patrols, I’m extremely pleased,” he said.