The original reason the Sea Wolf class was cut short was because it was a multi-billion dollar sub and they wanted cheaper. The Virginia is now a multibillion dollar sub and they are- AGAIN- talking about cutting the class short and going for a cheaper sub. Wouldn’t they have been better off to stick with the Sea Wolf and bring the cost down through serial production? Or is it a case of “we can do a lot better than the Virginias for less so let’s get while the getting is good”? Seems like a big waste of money to continue to sink big R&D numbers into SSNs classes only to build a few units.
By: Neptune - 14th December 2005 at 23:21
Don’t forget that Virginia uses plenty of features from SeaWolf, all in all it won’t be that much of a waste.
By: sferrin - 14th December 2005 at 22:36
By the same token, it would have been far cheaper to have cancelled the Sea Wolf and maintained the Los Angeles class in production.
That would apply if Virginia was a generation ahead of Seawolf. It isn’t really. It would be like ending F-22 production at 80 units, whining because they cost $500 million a piece, replacing it with the F-35 in production for 100 units and whining because they cost too much, and ending up with a Gripen for the price of an F-22 when all is said and done.
By: EdLaw - 14th December 2005 at 21:41
Yes, and the Royal Navy could have just mass produced the E-Class submarines of WW1! The fact is that the LA class are not very up to date, and lacked suffient accoustic ‘edge’ over rivals.
Contrary to political belief, there is a growing threat from submarines: after the end of the cold war, more nations have started operating capable subs. During the cold war, plenty of nations had a few Whisky or Foxtrot boats, but now small nations are gaining Kilo class boats. This means that lots of nations can use chokepoints, like the Straits of Gibraltar, Hormuz, Taiwan, Singapore etc…
By: TinWing - 14th December 2005 at 20:44
The original reason the Sea Wolf class was cut short was because it was a multi-billion dollar sub and they wanted cheaper. The Virginia is now a multibillion dollar sub and they are- AGAIN- talking about cutting the class short and going for a cheaper sub. Wouldn’t they have been better off to stick with the Sea Wolf and bring the cost down through serial production?
By the same token, it would have been far cheaper to have cancelled the Sea Wolf and maintained the Los Angeles class in production.
By: Gepard - 14th December 2005 at 01:33
The reason these runs are reduced can be answered in one word: POLITICS.
Often especially in economic downturns, no one (ie politicians) likes to sign off on billion dollar weapon systems. Its much easier to say “surely we can scrap this monster and develop something smaller, cheaper and better with newer technolgy”. Its an appealing argument to the layman but as everyone on this forum knows cuts in cost come at capability and when said cheaper system has been approved in its reduced capability form, just watch the add ons to the design. This is how JSF (remember no radar, tamper proof technologies), F22 (affordable stealth) and almost all weapon systems are sold. Remember the cheaper Arleigh Burkes? Not really once you add the enclosed flighdeck etc. Astute also comes to mind as an example of deliberately selling a design at a cost thats probably not realistic but will get the project approved…
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December 13, 2005 at 11:57 pm