CDR Salamander - Hold you breath, click the heels of your LOX boots three times, and you have a SSGN!

The inevitable started last week.

The U.S. Navy has begun retiring its first of four Ohio class guided missile submarines, with the USS Georgia scheduled to be officially inactivated on July 31 following its return to Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay. The retirement marks the beginning of the end for the world’s most heavily armed tactical submarines, which were designed to carry 154 Tomahawk land attack cruise missiles. Their withdrawal from service is particularly notable due to a lack of a similarly heavily armed replacement for the vessels. Originally commissioned in 1984 as ballistic missile submarines to carry strategic nuclear weapons, the four ships were converted into a guided missile submarine during the 2000s to allow them to contribute to conventional war efforts.

That is the rub—the VLS tubes. At a time when people are considering deploying missile barges because we knowingly undercapitalized our fleet for a Pacific fight, we are decommissioning our largest method of getting long-range precision strike in theater in mass.

The very real-world experiences from Ukraine to Iran have finally forced even the most blind to see that modern warfare is neither short nor thrifty with long-range precision weapons. The Navy and its TLAM are a cornerstone to our ability to project power ashore with precision and mass. Those 154 VLS tubes carried by each of the four converted Ohios are/were essential to any CONOPS involving the People’s Republic of China in WESTPAC.

The sunset of the Ohio SSGN sub-class isn’t a surprise to anyone, but those arguing for wartime effectiveness lost out time and time again to those chasing the illusion of efficiency and shifting future-risk to someone else’s PCS cycle in the “out-years.”

Well Shipmate, the out-years are now. As far back as 2012, we’ve tried to remind everyone about the importance of what an SSGN brings to the table.

In my perfect world, we would accept some risk on the SSBN numbers side for a few years to do the right thing along the lines of what I proposed in 2019 for the Columbia Class SSBN:

Part of me would rather see 8 SSBN and 2-4 SSGN from the design, but that is just me. Those SSGN bring a lot of punch forward when needed ... and flexibility.

In 2023, I put a little more detail to Plan Salamander—with a desire for even more SSGN than what I thought we needed pre-Russo-Ukrainian War of 2022.

I emphasize again, on bended knee, we need a SSGN version of the Columbia SSBN and the order needs to be SSBN, SSGN, SSBN, SSGN, SSBN, SSGN, SSBN, SSGN, SSBN, SSGN, SSBN, SSGN, SSBN, SSBN, etc.

I’ll accept temp risk on SSBN side #s wise, we need SSGN more.

That would have given us a 16x7=112 with a full-TLAM load-out in the vertical tubes alone.

Well, that wasn’t/isn’t going to happen, the nuclear autists scared everyone away by screeching, “Nuclear deterrent! Eleventy!!!” at 190 decibels.

However…have you ever wanted something so bad that you start seeing any place that it might be plausible?

At the end of last year, it was clear that with the next Block V Virginia SSN, someone was trying to do for SSGN what the Super Hornet guys did with the F/A-18.

Get what you can, not what you want.

Well, I’m not saying I manifested this designation change back in December of last year…but…if we are not going to let the perfect be the enemy of the good, then let’s call it.

On Monday, we decided to change “glad” to a peppier “happy”—something that was hinted at back in May.

Today, the Department of the Navy announced a decisive step to sharpen its competitive edge, reclassifying nineteen planned Virginia Class submarines equipped with the Virginia Payload Module (VPM) as guided missile submarines (SSGN). This pivotal shift clearly differentiates these advanced platforms from traditional Virginia Class fast attack submarines (SSNs), signaling a leap forward in undersea warfighting capability, lethal combat power, and global deterrence.

This is truth in advertising, and brings us back to what SSGNs were at the start.

Our first SSGN were really four SSGs and one SSGN of the Regulus boats of the 1950s and early 1960s. They were for land attack.

The Soviet Union had dedicated SSG/SSGN during the Cold War that had dual land and surface attack role, but we got out of the game except for a handful of torpedo tube launched TLAM and the dozen VLS tubes in the Flight II and Flight III Los Angelas Class SSN and after the Cold War, the Block 1-IV Virginia Class SSN.

Desert Storm broke the seal on conventional TLAM use, and that realization helped get us back in the SSGN business once the opportunity presented itself with the Ohio conversions. With those heading into history, we’ll have to make due with the Block V.

What is a Block V Virginian SSN?

The Block V at 460 feet is a beast. 82% the length of a Columbia SSBN (and Ohio SSBN, they’re the same length at 560 feet), and 22% longer than the previous VA Blocks. The sexy they bring to the game is the possibility of exchanging 28 TLAM for 12 Conventional Prompt Strike (CPS) missiles. American SSNs are just beasts. We no longer have nimble boats once the still-not-that-nimble-at-362 feet remaining Los Angelas Class SSN decommission.

With the Block V, we won’t get our 154 VLS of the Ohio SSGN, nor my theoretical Columbia Class SSGN-mod’s 112 VLS. Nope, if we leave the Conventional Prompt Strike missiles on the beach, we’ll get 40 TLAM. TLAM that will be used for land attack…back to where SSGN’s got their start. Then again, with the Tomahawk Anti-Ship Missile (TASM) Maritime Strike Tomahawk (MST) variant returning, that also gives you a 40 MST stream attack…which will ruin any surface officer’s day.

One final bitter note before I completely let go of the SSGN variant of the Columbia-class SSBN: those 16 missile tubes on the SSBN when converted to conventional SSGN would give you 16 x 3 = 48 CPS missiles.

Just saying.

For reference, the Russian Yasen Class SSGN can carry 32 missiles for attacks at sea or ashore.

We should take what we can get. That low-point in 2029-30…it is really just criminal…but there it is. Those who are long retired made decisions that made their tour easy resulting in today’s reality that those who came after them would have to deal with the problem—but here we are.

Cut steel and get to work.

NB: Yes, there are torpedo tube launched Tomahawk Land Attack Cruise Missiles (TLAM), but for the sake of this article, we won’t be counting them.

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