Name: Why Submarines In The U.S. Navy Are Getting An Expensive Update
Uploaded: 2021-06-05T02:23:55.000Z
Duration: 10 min 1 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

submarines are quiet, deadly and expensive. submarines come in

two main types diesel powered conventional submarines and

Relative clauses (Restrictive vs. nonrestrictive)

submarines that run on nuclear power. The US Navy's underwater

ambitions since the 1950s have been driven by nuclear a nuclear

powered submarine can stay out to sea for months and has almost

unlimited range. Combined with nuclear weapons. This makes the

Navy's so called Boomer sub. Some of the deadliest boats in

Navy specifically has a very important part of this job its

ballistic missile submarines carry a substantial portion of

the US nuclear warheads. But even these billion dollar boats

Los Angeles class attack submarines and Ohio class

ballistic missile and cruise missile boats are getting older

and they need to be replaced. Our friends in Indonesia have

suffered a terrible tragedy in the last few weeks. With an old

submarine you know, we don't know what happened yet. But the

older a ship or submarine is, the more likely it is to suffer

an accident at sea. The Navy has ambitious goals for the future

stand in the way now the state of Navy shipyard infrastructure

is not great. On the way out the door the Trump administration

said over 400 ships in the battle force fleet plus 130 or

so unmanned vessels so a total fleet size of over 500 ships.

So how can the US Navy field the submarine fleet of the future

building ships is hard in crafting a vessel for wars even

harder. Boats like those in the Virginia class, which is an

attack submarine can cost $3.4 billion and take seven years to

build. These views are my own. Certainly I don't represent the

Department of Defense or the US Navy in any capacity. submarines

are really right at the center of Fleet design, partly because

that's an area where the US still considers itself to have

kind of an uncontested advantage. And since the 1950s,

the Navy has relied on companies such as General Dynamics

electric boat and Huntington Ingalls industries to produce

these nuclear powered underwater weapons of war. A Navy is a long

term project, and it requires some some real kind of visionary

leadership to ensure that the fleet remains relevant in the

capabilities that it has, and that we continue to replace

ships as they get older. Which is why the US Navy has what is

known as a 30 year plan. To build these ships, the US Navy

needs shipyards operating at full strength.

Right now the Navy is go undergoing a 20 year plan that

costs $21 billion to upgrade its infrastructure. They've been

underfunded for the past couple of decades as have been other

priorities. Right now we're hitting a point where there are

very significant maintenance delays. The US Navy currently

and the Navy wants to start shipbuilding on two to three

Virginia class subs per year in roughly one Columbia class per

year until around 2035. The Columbia class is a ballistic

missile submarine capable of launching nuclear weapons 1000s

of miles. It's a crucial part of American nuclear policy. The

Navy estimates the total cost $109.8 billion for 12 boats, but

experts at the US Government Accountability Office remain

concerned about the ability of the US to build these boats with

current shipyards and suppliers how large the Navy can become

and how many submarines that can build are all controlled by the

defense budget passed in Congress. There is there is a

very real conversation that has to take place about where our

budget is prioritized. This roughly 1/3 mix going to the Air

Force the army in the in the Navy doesn't really suit our

from fiscal year 2015 to 2019. Though shipyards completed 75%

of maintenance periods for submarines and aircraft carriers

too late, you know over time, and that accounted for over 7000

days of maintenance delay. So the Navy is trying to fix that

they've made some progress in the last two years, but there's

still a lot of work to be done. If the Navy messes up a 30 year

plan the consequences could be devastating.

China's shipbuilding capabilities have skyrocketed in

the last two decades, Chinese shipyards have been churning out

commercial ships and military vessels at a rapid pace. This

has left the US Navy with a dilemma on how to allocate

precious tax dollars to keep up. China operates a mix of nuclear

subs and conventional subs, but its Navy also operates mainly

close to its own shores. That means the range of Chinese

Our nuclear strategy is different, it's specific, and to

nuclear triad refers to the three main ways the US could

by air and by sea. The Navy specifically has a very

important part of this job its ballistic missile submarines

carry a substantial portion of the US nuclear warheads. And it

is the most survivable leg of the nuclear triad. So once a

nuclear submarine is out to sea, it's sailing in the middle of

the Atlantic or the Pacific oceans, it's nearly impossible

This is why replacing existing Ohio class submarines armed with

ballistic missiles is such a big concern within the US Navy.

So the Columbia class submarine is the ballistic missile

submarine. The goal is a 2028 delivery to the Navy and early

2030s. You'll start seeing them you know, subbing in for the

Ohio class, the Ohio class started the false one was

delivered in 1984. And those have a 42 year lifespan so we're

starting to hit the end of of their lifespans. And the

Columbia game the Columbia class out there, as I mentioned, is a

Navy's number one priority. In early 2021. The US Government

Accountability Office expressed concerns that the new Columbia