Russia would have panicked: The Navy wanted 29 Seawolf-class submarines

Summary and everything you need to know: The Seawolf-class submarine was developed during the Cold War as the pinnacle of U.S. naval technology to counter Soviet advances. Costing $5 billion a piece, these nuclear-powered fast-attack submarines were faster, quieter, and more heavily armed than their predecessors.

– They featured advanced technologies such as a hull constructed entirely of HY-100 steel, allowing for deeper dives, and a pump-jet propulsion system for stealthier locomotion. However, the collapse of the Soviet Union led to budget cuts and shifts in defense priorities, resulting in the cancellation of the program after only three submarines had been built: USS Seawolf, USS Connecticut, and USS Jimmy Carter.

– These ships remain a testament to what a dominant fleet could have been had the Cold War continued.

-The Seawolf-class is a remarkable machine. But only three Sea wolves were ever produced. Why? For the same reason that production of most weapons systems was stopped: money.

Seawolf-class submarines: Cold War marvels limited by post-Cold War budgets

Money was not an issue during the Cold War. Instead, taxpayers and their elected officials happily and generously spent money on defense programs during the Cold War – from the F-117 stealth aircraft to the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier to the “Star Wars” missile defense system to the Seawolf-class submarine.

In many ways, the Cold War amounted to a sophisticated arms race. In all areas – air, land and sea – the superpowers were racing to develop and produce the most advanced military equipment.

The pace of the arms race was such that it could only trigger an existential conflict. It was necessary because both the United States and the Soviet Union possessed nuclear weapons, which led both nations to put many of their resources into promoting their nuclear triad.

At sea, the development of the nuclear triad meant building nuclear-powered submarines that could remain stealthy indefinitely and had the ability to launch missiles with nuclear warheads. In this way, they could provide a hard-to-track nuclear launch pad that could be secretly deployed in any water in the world.

The result: deterrence. And to maintain the lead in deterrence, each superpower upped the ante on submarine investments. The climax of the escalating investments on the American side was the Seawolf-class submarine.

But with the collapse of the Soviet Union, the impetus for much of America's defense spending also disappeared. Taxpayers and their duly elected representatives withdrew their support. Funding dried up. Defense programs were canceled – some of them still in their infancy, such as the Seawolfof which only three were produced. But the three Sea wolves They are still in service today, patrolling the world's oceans, and are a reminder of what the U.S. fleet might have looked like had the Cold War lasted a decade or two longer.

A world-class submarine

The Seawolf is a nuclear-powered fast attack submarine with a unit price of US$5 billion (in 2018 dollars).

The ship is not cheap. But the high price produced an impressive submarine: larger, faster, quieter and more heavily armed than the previous (and widely used) Los Angeles-Class.

“The US Navy had its builders put all kinds of goodies into the Seawolf Submarine”, National interest Author Brent Eastwood wrote for National Interest months ago. The “beauties” begin with the hull, which is built entirely of HY-100 steel – an improvement over the weaker HY-80 steel used to build earlier submarines. With the improved steel hull, the Seawolf could dive to a depth of 490 meters. Seawolf could also cruise; with the submarine’s pressurized water reactor S6W, the Seawolf had a top speed of 35 knots – not a world record, but still very impressive. More importantly, the Seawolf is very quiet and features a “propeller-less pump-jet propulsion system” that “enables it to remain acoustically unobtrusive even when cruising at a brisk 20 knots, while most submarines are forced to crawl at 5 to 12 knots to remain unobtrusive,” Eastwood explained.

And, true to the goals of the Cold War, Seawolf was built to accommodate up to 50 UGM-109 Tomahawk cruise missiles – and was thus a warning to the Soviet Union.

Unfortunately, the Navy stopped production of the SeawolfOriginally 29 Seawolf Submarines were to be built. Three were completed – the Seawolf, ConnecticutAnd Jimmy Carter – before the program was discontinued.

About the author: Harrison Kass

Harrison Kass is a defense writer with over 1,000 published articles. He is a lawyer, pilot, guitarist, and professional hockey player and joined the U.S. Air Force as a student pilot but was medically discharged. Harrison holds degrees from Lake Forest College, the University of Oregon, and New York University. He lives in Oregon and listens to Dokken.

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