America's SSRB Crises.
How to sink a boat before it's afloat
The film Red October came out a year before I was born. When I first watched it, it was already nearly a decade old. Films of that era had a strange combination of cloudy atmosphere and decent resolution, and Red October typified that style elegantly.
The book, and possibly also the movie, takes place in 1984, which in many ways represents the height of the Cold War’s status quo. The likelihood of nuclear Armageddon had more or less passed and what remained was a set of standardized theatrics of mutual respect. Those were the glory years, and films like Red October are celebrations of it - a time of extraordinary technological achievement and progress bought by the mutual assured annihilation if either went too far or fell too far behind. March together, or die.
I recall watching the digital battlefield used to track ships and thinking to myself, “wow I can’t wait until they make a game like that!”
Of course, they never did make a game like that.
In the 1980s, building an SSRB - a submarine capable of deleting an entire country - cost something in the $3B USD range, by 2020 dollars. The United States built 18 Ohio-class submarines, most of them of the SSRB type, and their role is something of a psychological curiosity to me. For the past 40 years, these subs have patrolled the oceans in prolonged subsurface incognito waiting games. The whole idea is that no one knows where the subs are - sometimes, not even the United States. Every 6 or so months, they come up to remind America they are still alive. If the subs discover an irradiated wasteland where once stood the United States, their job is to go to America’s enemies and nuke them just to be sure nothing survives. By and large, this is the job of an SSRB crew: America’s Dead Hand Switch.
Of course, 40 years is a long time, and many of these ships are nearing the end of their life cycle. Back in the mid 2000s, the US became all-to aware of this, and thus began the planning of a replacement. With the first Ohios launched in 1981, they settled on beginning the replacements in 2029 just shy of their 50th birthday. Called “Columbia”, this new generation of SSRBs got an initial estimated budget of $4B. Of course, that was back in 2010, before the global trade strains started from wars and diseases. More on that in a bit.
Although the first Ohio started construction in the 1970s, the concept of the Ohio was first drawn up between 1966 through 1967, making the Ohio a product of that incredible technological sprint the United States underwent on the way to the Moon. When the first Ohio was ordered, it took 7 years to complete it, first taking sail late in 1981. These are fairly complex and challenging machines to make, after all. Current projections say each Columbia will take 9 years to build, and procurement of the technology needed to operate the machine is increasingly strained. The price tag has gradually gone up from $4B, to $6B in 2017, to $9B in 2021, to a now whomping $15B in the post-pandemic economy of 2022. That would be a program comparison of some ~$40B for all Ohio to some ~$347B for all Columbia, though I do not know the cost for all Ohio off-hand. But in simple terms, that means just one Columbia will cost 5 Ohio class craft. The obvious impracticalities for a 1:1 parity has resulted in a scheduled 11 Columbia to replace the current 18 Ohio. Though it is worth mentioning, the 18 Ohio class replaced what was originally 41 vessels that were quickly put together to create a make-shift Ballistic fleet. In many ways, this marks something of a continuation of that downtrend.
The Navy simply does not have the resources to foot a 10x bill for new SSBNs, and although no announcements have been made, it's almost certain the Navy will fail to build even half of these subs. This will inevitably leave a gap in naval ballistic capacity down the line that cannot be avoided. Let's consider this little factoid: due to delays in the construction, the first Columbia, originally intended to replace the first Ohio retirements, will fail to meet that 2029 deadline and cause a 3 year gap where we will have a declining fleet presence - assuming no further delays. Can we say with confidence this trend will not exacerbate into the future? I do not think so. Furthermore, due to the cost the first Columbia is projected to remain in service until 2085, even longer than the Ohio class. In 2029, when the first Ohio retires, it will have been sailing for 47 years! Columbia will have to last 55! If We assume the last Columbia to be built will be sometime in the 2050s, it will have to remain in service until the next century! Are you confident this overpriced can reliant on increasingly rare metals and microchips will last half a century? I'm not. Can we even project technological viability that far along? Doubtful.
Just this past year, the manufacturer chosen to build the first Columbia had a total software upgrade flop that set the construction back months, if not years. As an added funny detail, the vessel had to be renamed to "District of Columbia", as the ship currently named Columbia was delayed from retirement due to being needed at sea for longer than expected - no doubt due to these delays. The first ship won't even bare the name of the class.
When discussing SSBNs one must understand the 1980s were the height of their development, with films like Red October celebrating the awe of these machines. Submarines are by far the most advanced ship on the planet today, with even carriers having lagged behind in their prominence due to their vulnerability to hypersonic strikes - A submarine still has an ocean coat to protect it. But those glory days near the end of the Cold war seem firmly behind us, and the US looks likely to have a crises in SSBN supremacy sometime in the 2030s as the Ohios start to retire and the capacity to build Columbias starts to decline. It's possible the existing 18 Ohios will end up being retrofitted up to Columbia standards rather than building new fleets entirely.
As far as I’m concerned, it’s just more hints of the wall we face maintaining our current level of civilization. We seem doomed to hit it, and likely to deny ever noticing it was there when we do.
If you’re curious to read more about this mounting crises:
Maybe the Ohio class will have the same fate as the B-52.