SSBN Module Under Design

Defense Industry Daily brings us news that the UK has, indeed, taken steps towards outsourcing the design as well as the construction of some of its future navy. However, in this case, it's something that makes sense. The U.S. Navy Sea Systems Command has contracted with Electric Boat to design a 'Common Missile Compartment' - a submarine section consisting of the launchers and associated fire-control gear - for the next generation of U.S. and U.K. SSBNs. This makes perfectly good sense, since both nations now use identical missiles and (likely) will continue to do so in future. The U.S. already handles missile management for the U.K., installing missiles (without warheads) from a common 'pool' at Kings Bay, Georgia onto U.K. SSBNs which then are mated to warheads home in Britain.

In any case, the use of modular missile compartments dates back to the first operational U.S. FBM submarine, when the SSN-589 Scorpion, already on the ways at Electric Boat, was cut, plugged and modified to become the SSBN-598 George Washington, first of the Polaris boats. While the modifications did go fairly far beyond the simple insertion of the missile compartment, the basic hull remained unchanged.

It is also significant that only the missile compartment is to be designed via this contract. As Galrahn noted earlier, the U.K. does (wisely) maintain its design and development capability even at the expense of shipbuilding in order to maintain their ability to build a navy. Given this, it makes perfect sense to outsource the section of the boat whose function is already maximally beholden to the U.S. for production and operation, while leaving those parts of the submarine that comprise the ship itself for local design. The U.S., as well, reaps advantages in that we can share design costs for the least mutable part of a new SSBN design, leaving the ship sections later to reap lessons and technology gained in the interim. I would point out that if modularity is the new watchword for U.S. shipbuilding, watch for this missile compartment, when complete, to bear external measurements suspiciously close to current U.S. submarine production such as the Virginia-class boat in the image. While not necessarily intended at the moment, the ability to utilize this design via a plug-in addition to a by-then tried and familiar hull form would be a significant savings - especially since the SSBN mission set is much more predictable than that of the SSN, and the years intervening are not likely to cause any difficulty with mission change, creep or other modification.

Picture is of the Virginia-class submarine USS New Hampshire SSN-778 from flickr user MATEUS_27:24&25 and is licensed via CC.