The Seawolf was conceived as a faster, better-armed eventual replacement for the Los Angeles class nuclear-powered attack submarines. The first of class, the Seawolf (SSN21), was ordered from the Electric Boat Division of General Dynamics, Connecticut, in January 1989 and commissioned in July 1997. Connecticut (SSN22) was commissioned in December 1998. The third, Jimmy Carter (SSN 23), is to be modified to improve payload carrying and underwater manoeuvrability. The alterations to the design will include modifications to the ballast control, mission management spaces and the creation of a flexible ocean interface known as a "wasp waist", which will enable the deployment and recovery of payloads without the use of torpedo tubes. Other additions include a new high capacity communications mast and ROV handling system. The Jimmy Carter was launched in June 2004 and commissioned in February 2005.
The Seawolf was a product of the Cold War, conceived to maintain the USA’s acoustic advantage over Soviet submarines. With the end of the Cold War and the change of emphasis to littoral operations, the cost of the Seawolf submarines was judged prohibitive and the programme was curtailed in favour of the smaller and cheaper Virginia Class New Attack submarines.
DESIGN
The Seawolf’s modular design introduces important improvements and innovations. It has greater manoeuvrability than the Los Angeles Class, space for later upgrades and weapons developments, and better sonars.
The Seawolf has a submerged displacement of 9,137t dived (12,139t for the Jimmy Carter), and 8,060t surfaced. Full acoustic cladding has been installed. It has a maximum speed of 35 knots dived, and a "silent" speed of 20 knots. It has a crew of 116 personnel, including 15 officers. With a diving depth of 610m, it has been designed with a sub-ice capability, with retractable bow planes.
COMBAT SYSTEM
The combat data system is a Lockheed Martin BSY-2 with a network of some 70 or so 68030 Motorola processors. This being replaced by the Raytheon AN/BYG-1 combat system. Weapons control is managed by the Raytheon Mk 2 fire control system.
MISSILES
Like the improved Los Angeles class, the Seawolf does not have any external weapons. The submarine is armed with both the land-attack and anti-ship version of the Tomahawk missile from Raytheon. The land-attack Tomahawk has a range of 2,500km. A TAINS (Tercom Aided Inertial Navigation System) guides the missile towards the target flying at subsonic speed at an altitude of 20m to 100m. Tomahawk can be fitted with a nuclear warhead which is not normally carried. Block III improvements include an improved propulsion system and Navstar Global Positioning System (GPS) guidance capability. The anti-ship Tomahawk missile is equipped with an inertial guidance and an active radar and anti-radiation homing head. The range is up to 450km.
First underwater launch of the new Raytheon Tactical Tomahawk Block IV missile took place in November 2002. Block IV includes a two-way satellite link that allows reprogramming of the missile in flight and transmission of Battle Damage Indication (BDI) imagery. The missile entered service with USN surface ships in September 2004.
The Seawolf class also carry the Harpoon anti-ship missile from Boeing. Sub-Harpoon uses active radar homing to deliver a 225kg warhead. The range is 130km and the speed is high subsonic.
TORPEDOES
Seawolf has eight 660mm torpedo tubes for launching torpedoes and missiles. 50 missiles/torpedoes are carried. The Gould Mk-48 ADCAP torpedoes combat both high-performance surface ships and fast deep-diving submarines. The torpedo has a 267kg warhead. It is capable of operating with or without wire guidance and uses either or both active and passive homing. Range is 50km (active) and 38km (passive)
COUNTERMEASURES
Countermeasures include the Northrop Grumman WLY-1 torpedo decoy system and a GTE WLQ-4(V)1 electronic countermeasures (ECM) system.
SENSORS
The submarine's sonar suite is the BQQ 5D with bow-mounted active/passive arrays and wide aperture passive flank arrays. Also fitted are TB-16 surveillance and TB-29 tactical towed arrays, which will be replaced by the TB-29A thin-line towed array being developed by Lockheed Martin, and BQS 24 active sonar for close range detection.
The Seawolf submarines are being upgraded with the Lockheed Martin AN/BQQ-10(V4) sonar processing system under the Acoustic-Rapid Commercial-Off-The-Shelf Insertion (A-RCI) programme.
BPS 16 radar, operating at I-band, is fitted for navigation.
PROPULSION
The nuclear-powered Seawolf has a GE PWR S6W reactor system, two turbines rated 52,000hp (38.8MW), a pumpjet propulsor, a single shaft, and one secondary propulsion submerged motor.
It'll be even better if u could've posted some pictures of this bad ass submarine. lol..
and your purpose of pasting the whole article from naval-technology is ... ?
anyway, just to liven it up ...
2-1 odds that LN will post here
1-1 odds that LN will insert reference to Collins Class
1-2 odds that LN will slam Collins Class if referenced ...
any takers? :D
my odds are that he will post pictures of the submarine.
I do find it strange that people will still focus on the sea wolf when the USN has gone on to the Virginia.....
I'm guessing 90% likelihood, RSN will go with kockums for next generation sub. Since someone already mentioned a certain class down under, it would be an appropriate time to highlight that kockums also helped in the construction.
got AOS option ? :P
i bet lionnoisy sure talk about our sjoormen and gotland class about supported platform/acquisitions vs. the poor old "orphaned" collins class.
but he hasnt come online today. his usual online pattern is once at 10 am, once at about 2-3pm and one more at about 8 / 9 pm
In any case, isnt the seawolf class supposed to be a replacement for the sturgeon class elint/ intelligence subs as well ?
havent some of them been modified and lengthened to include SEAL launchers and such ?
Sea Wolf was supposed to be the LA class replacement. 29 were planned. Ultimately cost too much so they went for the slightly cheaper Virginia. The Virginias ended up costing even more due to cost overruns and the USN ended up with smaller subs.
Originally posted by slim10:Sea Wolf was supposed to be the LA class replacement. 29 were planned. Ultimately cost too much so they went for the slightly cheaper Virginia. The Virginias ended up costing even more due to cost overruns and the USN ended up with smaller subs.
And the same fate will soon befall the F-35. The F-35 in some cases is more expensive than the F-22. I blame the military contractors for leaching and the Pentagon for fickle-mindedness.
See the problem is that the morons decided to spend more money to design a new submarine from ground up. Granted a lot of technology issues were solved, but a new submarine presents new engineering challenges. By the same token, the F-35 simply resulted in more duplicated spending because 1. new competition, new funds required, 2. New challenges because the Marines annally demanded VTOL 3. Those damn cost overruns again. The end result was an aircraft that though might be slightly more advanced than the F-22 in certain areas, lags in the end because of a lack of supercruise, radar aperture is slightly smaller thus inferior, slightly smaller bombload etc. and now a nice huge price tag that wobbles around because it hinges on allies not changing their minds on buying the aircraft.
Originally posted by slim10:Sea Wolf was supposed to be the LA class replacement. 29 were planned. Ultimately cost too much so they went for the slightly cheaper Virginia. The Virginias ended up costing even more due to cost overruns and the USN ended up with smaller subs.
it's not only about the cost, it's also about cold war era is over, so US shift it's focus to littoral operation,
Originally posted by BadzMaro:It'll be even better if u could've posted some pictures of this bad ass submarine. lol..
i don't know how to post picture ,sorry
Sea Wolf was supposed to be the LA class replacement. 29 were planned. Ultimately cost too much so they went for the slightly cheaper Virginia. The Virginias ended up costing even more due to cost overruns and the USN ended up with smaller subs.
yeap, but there wasnt any replacement for the sturgeon class, so the task fell upon the Sea wolf to fulfill elint/ intelligence as well.
wikipedia states that 1 ship out of the three sea wolf class has been modified to carry SEALs and has a longer hull by 30m (100ft)
i wonder if its really 1 ship out of the class of 3 or all 3 ships.
Originally posted by slim10:Sea Wolf was supposed to be the LA class replacement. 29 were planned. Ultimately cost too much so they went for the slightly cheaper Virginia. The Virginias ended up costing even more due to cost overruns and the USN ended up with smaller subs.
I'm not sure if that was quite right. The way I understood it, the Sea Wolf was never intended to replace the LA class. At least not in the 1-for-1 manner. It was one of those "super-submarines" supplementing the SSN fleet with a fleet-killing capabilities.
Its 8 Torpedo tubes can set up a hell of an ambush for a surface fleet, something the LA class nor the Virginia classes could not do.
Surely these new yank subs still can't give Russian ones a run for their money?
Originally posted by Shotgun:I'm not sure if that was quite right. The way I understood it, the Sea Wolf was never intended to replace the LA class. At least not in the 1-for-1 manner. It was one of those "super-submarines" supplementing the SSN fleet with a fleet-killing capabilities.
Its 8 Torpedo tubes can set up a hell of an ambush for a surface fleet, something the LA class nor the Virginia classes could not do.
The original contract was originally 12 submarines. They could have possibly extended the contract some time down the line.
Originally posted by Pentaxdude90:Surely these new yank subs still can't give Russian ones a run for their money?
Russian submarines have gotten very quiet over the last 2 decades. So much so that the West (and the Russians themselves probably) are developing/deploying ultra low frequency active sonar to detect submarines now.
I'm not really very current with Russian Subs... but even their Akula II SSNs didn't have comparable detection capabilities compared to the SeaWolf or Virginia. They caught up with the 688i, but it seems like the Americans are still ahead.
Finally got off my butt and starting looking at official history instead of guessing.
Sea Wolf was originally a 29 boat class to maintain a 100 boat sub-force. By 1989, LA class had 39 in service with another 23 contracted. The remaining 58 boats at that time included SSN-637 class (Sturgeons) so I'm going to partially credit sgstars for that one.
By 1990, there were several issues with construction, periscope/torpedo technology etc. DoD indicated that due to cost, they would prefer a smaller force rather than maintain 100. DoD cut the contract to 12 boats in Jan 1991 (for a force of ~70+) <- credit to F_N for no. Jan 92, Pres Bush Snr wanted to stop at 1. Nov 6, 1992 saw funds provided for 3 sea wolfs. By 1995, future force structure was already targeted at 45-55. New SSN program initiated to replace LA class which eventually became the Virginia class.
The official links that support the above (there are more but too lazy to post). The technology issues and expectations are in the pdfs....
http://archive.gao.gov/t2pbat22/132451.pdf
http://archive.gao.gov/d24t8/141178.pdf
http://archive.gao.gov/d48t13/141872.pdf
http://archive.gao.gov/d35t11/147995.pdf
http://archive.gao.gov/d36t11/148058.pdf
http://www.gao.gov/archive/1995/ns95004.pdf
Virginia
http://www.gao.gov/archive/1997/ns97025.pdf
http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d03895r.pdf
Originally posted by slim10:Finally got off my butt and starting looking at official history instead of guessing.
Sea Wolf was originally a 29 boat class to maintain a 100 boat sub-force. By 1989, LA class had 39 in service with another 23 contracted. The remaining 58 boats at that time included SSN-637 class (Sturgeons) so I'm going to partially credit sgstars for that one.
By 1990, there were several issues with construction, periscope/torpedo technology etc. DoD indicated that due to cost, they would prefer a smaller force rather than maintain 100. DoD cut the contract to 12 boats in Jan 1991 (for a force of ~70+) <- credit to F_N for no. Jan 92, Pres Bush Snr wanted to stop at 1. Nov 6, 1992 saw funds provided for 3 sea wolfs. By 1995, future force structure was already targeted at 45-55. New SSN program initiated to replace LA class which eventually became the Virginia class.
The official links that support the above (there are more but too lazy to post). The technology issues and expectations are in the pdfs....
http://archive.gao.gov/t2pbat22/132451.pdf
http://archive.gao.gov/d24t8/141178.pdf
http://archive.gao.gov/d48t13/141872.pdf
http://archive.gao.gov/d35t11/147995.pdf
http://archive.gao.gov/d36t11/148058.pdf
http://www.gao.gov/archive/1995/ns95004.pdf
Virginia
http://www.gao.gov/archive/1997/ns97025.pdfhttp://www.gao.gov/new.items/d03895r.pdf
Woah hang on... too much text to absorb. So the Sea Wolf was never meant to replace the LA class right?
Yup, not LA replacement. It was a follow-on to the LA. Kind of like a F-15 to the cheaper F-16 (LA-class). The Virginias are the LA-class replacements.
That was what I thought...
The F-15 thing worked the other way round actually. The F-16s to complement the eagles in terms of numbers and dogfight capability.
Originally posted by Shotgun:I'm not really very current with Russian Subs... but even their Akula II SSNs didn't have comparable detection capabilities compared to the SeaWolf or Virginia. They caught up with the 688i, but it seems like the Americans are still ahead.
Says who? Even the Americans have been careful about disclosing any of their weaknesses. The public estimate is the Akula I alone if I am not wrong is as good/nearly as the 688I if not better. Also, it is not so much a matter of who is extremely quieter than who now, but whether the submarine captain is smart enough to utilize his submarine effectively. All submarines have a silent cruise speed and when stalking the prey, no submarine captain will breach that speed but rather stay below that. High silent speeds are of course useful but by no means a definite game changer. The Russians have for the last few decades worked pretty hard to match the West and they have quite a few innovations. For example, they have one torpedo that has two stages and can be launched from a few tens of kilometers before striking the enemy ship, thereby keeping the submarine as far away from the enemy vessel.
At this point of time, it has come down to a game of tactics. Russian submarine reactors now have an air-circulation mode similar to that of the Ohio submarines (and no doubt the Seawolf). They can be damn bloody quiet when they want to be. It should be telling that the trend is heading towards a towed active sonar array in part to look for diesel subs but also nuclear submarines as well.
To reinforce this, read this article by Norman Polmar, a US naval anaylst (who apparently was notorious for leaking classified information)
http://www.fas.org/man/congress/1997/h970318n.htm
interesting.
i thought the trend was to go into ULF sonar or VLF sonar arrays ? strategypage has an interesting articles about heavyweight torpedos today.
apparently no modern wire guided torpedo has been fired since wwII if you take the strategypage article seriouslly and dont count the USS Scorpion.
i'd like to add it has to do with the salinity of the water and the various thermoinclines. hardware will only take you so far. under the cooler and denser (supposedly more saline layer), the sub is more quieter than one which is in the warmer and less dense thermoincline layer (im not too sure on this, my knowledge of this is pretty vague)
anyone knows what are the thermoinclines for our waters ? our Sjoormens/Vastergotlands were adapted and Tropicalized to adapt for our waters right ?or was it more of a install air-conditioning for warmer waters in singapore vs cold baltic waters ?
what about the indonesian Kilos and Malaysian Scorpenes ? are they adapted too ? ATM RTN has no submarine vessels right ?
Originally posted by sgstars:interesting.
i thought the trend was to go into ULF sonar or VLF sonar arrays ? strategypage has an interesting articles about heavyweight torpedos today.
apparently no modern wire guided torpedo has been fired since wwII if you take the strategypage article seriouslly and dont count the USS Scorpion.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonar_2087
http://fas.org/irp/program/collect/lfa.htm
It's Ultra Low Frequency Active Towed Sonar Array.
The Sonar 2087 being installed on the British Type 23 frigates is a Towed Low Frequency Active Sonar. These days subs are so bloody quiet, it's time to go back to the good o' Active Sonar.
As for torpedoes, they have their own acoustic homing, or wake homing (for Russians only).
A decent book to read on Submarine design is again by Norman Polmar: Cold War Submarines.
Originally posted by Fingolfin_Noldor:Says who? Even the Americans have been careful about disclosing any of their weaknesses. The public estimate is the Akula I alone if I am not wrong is as good/nearly as the 688I if not better. Also, it is not so much a matter of who is extremely quieter than who now, but whether the submarine captain is smart enough to utilize his submarine effectively. All submarines have a silent cruise speed and when stalking the prey, no submarine captain will breach that speed but rather stay below that. High silent speeds are of course useful but by no means a definite game changer. The Russians have for the last few decades worked pretty hard to match the West and they have quite a few innovations. For example, they have one torpedo that has two stages and can be launched from a few tens of kilometers before striking the enemy ship, thereby keeping the submarine as far away from the enemy vessel.
At this point of time, it has come down to a game of tactics. Russian submarine reactors now have an air-circulation mode similar to that of the Ohio submarines (and no doubt the Seawolf). They can be damn bloody quiet when they want to be. It should be telling that the trend is heading towards a towed active sonar array in part to look for diesel subs but also nuclear submarines as well.
I was referring to the Akula II's ability to detect, hence detection capabilities. Its been long acknowledged that Russians have been building very quiet and capable boats. However, last I heard anything about this (hence I am a little out of date), is that the Americans still had better sonars and other forms of detection methods.
Its not just about towed sonar arrays, but the quality of the hydrophones and acoustics analysis capabilities as well.