Halibut Hangar

We can expect to see a lot more articles about our newest $2.5 billion dollar Virginia-class submarine as both the prime contractors (General Dynamics and Northrop Grumman) and the Navy (PMS 450)1 begin their push to justify its unprecedented and jaw dropping price tag!

Virginia-class Submarine

To date PMS 450 has made very little or no Virginia-class submarine historical or future cost data, supporting data, and related assumptions publicly available².

It is not meaningful or credible for John Holmander (General Dynamics, Program Office) or others to repeatedly chant numbers, without making public, for analysis, the underlying cost data, supporting data, and assumptions².

Worse, bordering on insulting is to tell our submarine community and the public "the subs are cool. James Bond cool"³. The subs may be "James Bond cool", especially if your last sub was diesel and you're not current on submarine advances, but the question is are they $2.5 billion dollars per copy cool!?

-----notes-----

1. The Navy's Virginia-class submarine program office—executive officer Rear Admiral William H. Hilarides and Program Manager Captain Michael Jabaley (incoming).

2. These are not fixed priced prime contracts requiring the prime contractors to deliver each submarine at a set price and accept all risk and the loss for not doing so.

On the contrary, these are cost reimbursement contracts requiring the prime contractors to spend our tax dollars until they run out or are told to stop, whichever occurs first.

There is no legitimate reason for not disclosing all cost data for the construction of the Virginia-class submarine so long as the prime contracts remain other than fixed price contracts.

3. See Chris Joyner, Clarion Ledger, New Navy nuclear submarine to be christened 'Mississippi' quoting Michael Jabaley.

Veterans from the submarine USS Catfish SS-339 visit the pediatrics cancer wing of Loma Linda University Children's Hospital—replica of its sail in tow.

USS Catfish SS-339

Web:
Sub gives ill kids lift
USS Catfish SS339 Home Page

Originally Published June 24, 2008; Updated and Republished July 09, 2008; Updated and Republished August 12, 2008:

Modern electric submarines have less noisy machinery, greater endurance, reduced indiscretion ratio, and use energy absorbing materials. This increased "stealth" has pushed our Navy's antisubmarine warfare efforts in the direction of using lower frequency, higher power sonar.

However, the new sonar's energy may fatally harm or hinder our whales, dolphins, and perhaps other marine life over disputed distances of between 200 - 482,803 meters—an environmental impact study is needed and our Navy is required by law to provide it.

Our Navy has sought to unsuccessfully interpose a waiver in lieu of conducting the required study. After several adverse rulings our Navy has appealed to the United States Supreme Court for relief from conducting the required study.

The next administration and Secretary of Navy must immediately dismiss Winter v. National Resources Defense Council, Inc. (No. 07-1239) and direct the Navy to conduct the needed impact study.

"The navy thus faced the danger of losing its five-year exemption from the Marine Mammal Protection Act. Perhaps, however, that problem represented a small debt the navy could repay the creatures whose hydrodynamic beauty had inspired the father of the submarine more than a century earlier"--Thomas Parrish, The Submarine--

Res: Lower Court Decision against the Navy 518 F.3d 658 (pdf)

Web:

• Updated 08/12/2008 NYT, Navy Agrees to Sonar System Restriction and SFGate, Navy to restrict sonar blasts to protect whales, other sea mammals. Navy agrees to limit its usage of low-frequency high power sonar.

  Still on appeal from the ninth circuit, in a separate case (see above), is continued usage of mid-frequency sonar.

• Updated 07/09/2008 NYT Opinion Rear Admiral Larry Rice, Marine Mammals and the Navy. Submarines are all about optimization under constraints. In order to optimize given a specific constraint we must understand the constraint(s).

  The study the Navy seeks to avoid conducting via waiver and litigation is about understanding those constraints marine mammals may impose on our submarines—not four dollar a gallon gas.

  It is uncharacteristic for a navy admiral to use demagoguery, PR stunts, and NYT's editorial pages verses the scientific process and data to optimize performance under constraints.

• Updated 07/04/2008 Canadian Press, U.S. Navy has adopted new rules to help protect marine mammals
• Updated 07/04/2008 US Navy, Environmental News
• New sonar ruling backs global restrictions

Originally Published August 02, 2008; Updated and Republished August 07, 2008:

Submarine USS Houston (SSN-713) leaked radioactive discharge into the ocean beginning in March 2008. The radioactive leakage is thought to be the result of a faulty valve. The Navy did not give specifics about the valve or the radioactive discharge, saying only the radioactivity was in the microcurie range. A microcurie1 is one millionth of a curie or 37 thousand decaying atoms per second.

USS Houston Underway

Web:

• UPDATED 08/21/2008 NavyTimes, City wants to know cause of leak from nuke sub. Japanese city of Sasebo has sent a petition to Tokyo urging it to obtain addition information on the cause of the submarine Houston's recent radiation leak.

  The petition also requests the Japanese government to require US nuclear submarines to adhere too additional preventative precautions when entering the port at Sasebo in the future.

• UPDATED 08/07/2008 USA, U.S. tells Japan submarine leaked radiation over 2 years. Navy says Houston began leaking radiation in June 2006—now reporting the radiation leakage was below detectable measurement limits used by the submarine.
• Japan warned of possible nuclear leak from US sub
• USS Houston (SSN 713), US Military Website

-----notes-----

1. Radioactive decay can be of three types, alpha; beta; and gamma and is measured using three different terms:

• Curie is concerned with the number of decays per unit time.
• Rad is concerned with the amount of energy (radiation) absorbed in 1 gram of matter from radiation.
• Rem is concerned with the amount of energy (radiation) absorbed, modified by the ability of the radiation to cause biological damage.

American submariners are routinely monitored, while on their submarine, for the number of "Rems" their body is absorbing per period of time.

University of Maryland (UM) takes first place in the 11th International Underseas Autonomous Vehicle Competition sponsored by The Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI) and Office of Naval Research. Halibut's pioneering remotely operated vehicle (ROV) was little more than a silicon intensified target camera wrapped in a Styrofoam ball.

Remus1

Underwater currents easily overpowered its puny plastic propulsive propellers making it useful for little more than the pioneering research project it was. On more than one occasion the lifeless "basketball" sized ROV was reeled back into the Halibut by its coaxial tether.

Res: Marine Advanced Technology Education (MATE) Center

-----notes-----

1. Hydroid - REMote environmental sensing UnitS

Originally Published June 04, 2008; Updated and Republished July 30, 2008:

Miss Virginia 2007, Hannah Kiefer, visits America's newest fast attack submarine, USS Virginia, SSN 774. In addition to having our young women visit our newest submarine, our Navy needs to ensure they can stay if they so choose. Hannah, instead of just calling for Miss Virginia 2008 to visit our newest submarine, why not call on the United States Navy to begin assigning our young women to our nation's newest submarine?

Hannah Kiefer, USS Virginia SSN 774

Challenge our young women to crew our submarines. Challenge them to design submarines with: lower costs (USS Virginia costs $2.5 billion, plus!); more advanced technology; improved and advanced materials—the sail on which you and the lieutenant stand is so yesterday (it represents approximately 8-9% of the submarine's total hydrodynamic drag¹)—a platypus like appendage.

Web:

• UPDATED 07/30/2008 Remembering When Women Became Waves. The video gives a short history of women in the Navy ending with a statement implying that women are now fully integrated into the Navy—not quite we still need them to command and crew our nuclear submarines. (also, women cannot be Navy Seals, notwithstanding their ability to meet all the requirements)

• UPDATED 06/18/2008 Winter: Fewer Subs For Now. Speaking at the United States Naval War College Secretary of Navy, Donald C. Winter said he does not support increasing the Virginia-class submarine production rate (from one to two per year).

  ”There is no silver-bullet solution to this financial problem,...We must figure out how to build a more cost-effective fleet and build a fleet that is less costly to operate.”--Donald C. Winter--

• Miss Virginia Visits State's Namesake Submarine
• Virginia Class Submarine - Defense Authorization FY09

-----notes-----

1. Increased hydrodynamic drag, all other things being equal, means more propulsion, which requires a larger (noisy and heavy) or more efficient propulsor and/or propulsion plant.

The sail also has other undesirable attributes for the modern submarine. For example added weight, limited maneuverability, larger energy (sonar, radar, magnetic) cross sections, and high center of gravity (instability).

Some of these undesirable attributes are mitigated by manufacturing modern submarine sails from new composite plastics.

Holland VI launched on May 17, 1897 and was delivered to the United States Navy on April 4, 1900. The Navy retroactively designated it SS 1.

Later, Issac Rice merged the Holland Company, Electro-Dynamic Company, and Electric Launch Company to form today's Electric Boat Company, a division of the General Dynamics Corporation.

Originally Published June 20, 2008; Updated and Republished July 16, 2008:

Navy and Army divers will conduct a joint training exercise to raise the Juliett-class submarine K-77, (1960s) cum Russian Submarine Museum.

The submarine was purchased by the USS Saratoga Museum Foundation in 2002 and placed pier-side at Collier Point Park, Providence, Rhode Island. It conducted public tours, until its freak pier-side sinking in April 2007.

The Providence River bathymetry at the sinking site barely covers the sunken submarine. The salvage divers will repair the damaged main ballast tanks and LP air pumps will slowly fill them until K-77 once again floats.

The divers get some practice and Providence can reopen their submarine museum, after a lot of pier-side clean-up and repair.

Web:

• UPDATED 07/30/2008 AP, Salvage teams raise sunken Russian Sub Museum.
• UPDATED 07/16/2008 Joint Navy, Army Operation to Salvage Sunken Former Soviet Sub Nears Completion. Salvage divers are making progress. They've righted the 49^o list and are applying the patches necessary to pump air in to force the water out.
• Navy, Army Divers Work to Raise Sunken Former Soviet Sub
• Flickr Photo, K 77 - Julett 484 and Flickr, K 77 Rising - U.S. Navy and Army Divers Photos

• Los Angeles-Class (Active;6,900 tons)

  1. USS Los Angeles (SSN 688)
  2. USS Philadelphia (SSN 690)
  3. USS Memphis (SSN 691)
  4. USS Bremerton (SSN 698)
  5. USS Jacksonville (SSN 699)
  6. USS Dallas (SSN 700)
  7. USS La Jolla (SSN 701)
  8. USS City of Corpus Christi (SSN 705)
  9. USS Albuquerque (SSN 706)
  10. USS Augusta (SSN 710)
  11. USS San Francisco (SSN 711)
  12. USS Houston (SSN 713)
  13. USS Norfolk (SSN 714)
  14. USS Buffalo (SSN 715)
  15. USS Olympia (SSN 717)
  16. USS Providence (SSN 719)
  17. USS Pittsburgh (SSN 720)
  18. USS Chicago (SSN 721)
  19. USS Key West (SSN 722)
  20. USS Oklahoma City (SSN 723)
  21. USS Louisville (SSN 724)
  22. USS Helena (SSN 725)
  23. USS Newport News (SSN 750)
  24. USS San Juan (SSN 751)
  25. USS Pasadena (SSN 752)
  26. USS Albany (SSN 753)
  27. USS Topeka (SSN 754)
  28. USS Miami (SSN 755)
  29. USS Scranton (SSN 756)
  30. USS Alexandria (SSN 757)
  31. USS Asheville (SSN 758)
  32. USS Jefferson City (SSN 759)
  33. USS Annapolis (SSN 760)
  34. USS Springfield (SSN 761)
  35. USS Columbus (SSN 762)
  36. USS Santa Fe (SSN 763)
  37. USS Boise (SSN 764)
  38. USS Montpelier (SSN 765)
  39. USS Charlotte (SSN 766)
  40. USS Hampton (SSN 767)
  41. USS Hartford (SSN 768)
  42. USS Toledo (SSN 769)
  43. USS Tucson (SSN 770)
  44. USS Columbia (SSN 771)
  45. USS Greeneville (SSN 772)
  46. USS Cheyenne (SSN 773)

• Seawolf-Class (Active;9,200 tons)

  1. USS Seawolf (SSN 21)
  2. USS Connecticut (SSN 22)
  3. USS Jimmy Carter (SSN 23)

• Virginia-Class (Active;7,800 tons)

  1. USS Virginia (SSN 774)
     • Wikipedia, USS Virginia (SSN-774)
     • Submarine Atlantic, USS Virginia (SSN-774)
     • Global Security, SSN-774 Virginia-class
     • FAS, SSN-774 Virginia-class NSSN New Attack Submarine Centurion
     • Naval Ships Registry, USS Virginia (SSN-774)
  2. USS Texas (SSN 775)
  3. USS Hawaii (SSN 776)
  4. USS North Carolina (SSN 777) End of Block I¹
     • Wikipedia, USS North Carolina (SSN-777)
     • Submarine Atlantic, USS North Carolina (SSN-777)
     • Naval Ships Registry, USS North Carolina (SSN-777)
     • Submarine USS North Carolina Commissioning Ceremonies, (SSN-777)
  5. New Hampshire (SSN 778)
     • Wikipedia, USS New Hampshire (SSN-778)
     • Command Submarine Group Two NL, USS New Hampshire (SSN-778)
     • Naval Ships Registry, USS New Hampshire (SSN-778)
     • Submarine USS New Hampshire Commissioning Ceremonies, (SSN-778); Upcoming
  6. New Mexico (SSN 779)
  7. Missouri (SSN 780)
  8. California (SSN 781)
  9. Mississippi (SSN 782)
  10. Minnesota (SSN 783) End of Block II¹
  11. North Dakota (SSN 784)

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1. Blocks are program points for assessment (congressional, military, design, costs etc) and phase in of prior accumulated design changes, both major and minor.