Crew lauds Georgia’s $1B conversion

[unhappycamper]

The Ohio-class submarine Georgia returns to the fleet this month after the three-year overhaul that converted it from a ballistic-missile sub to a Tomahawk-carrying guided-missile sub.


Crew lauds Georgia’s $1B conversion
By Philip Ewing - Staff writer
Posted : Sunday Mar 23, 2008 10:45:11 EDT

ABOARD THE CRUISE-MISSILE SUBMARINE GEORGIA — The crew of this 25-year-old submarine still has some work left in the $1 billion job of converting it from a Cold War deliverer of apocalypse to a weapon in the post-9/11 world. The ship still needs its new combat system, new displays in the control room and — perhaps just as critically, crew members say — its new identity.

In the U.S. sub force, there have long been fast-attack and ballistic-missile subs — and nothing else. Now, with the Georgia’s return to service March 28, the Navy has completed its “new” class of four submarines, their Trident missile tubes excised and replaced with cruise missiles and special-warfare gear. They are first new variety of American submarine in decades.

“We’ve got the fast-attack mission with the Cadillac ride,” said the Georgia’s blue-crew chief of the boat, Command Master Chief (SS) Brett Prince, a veteran of five Ohio-class missile boats. They’re also known as “boomers” or “BNs,” from their Navy designation “SSBN.”

Forget about “mutually assured destruction,” say the Georgia’s sailors. Instead of a blunt instrument for hitting Moscow with 30 megatons, the new Georgia is a 560-foot, 18,700-ton scalpel, designed to send a satellite-guided missile 500 miles inland to kill a single individual, if necessary, and give SEAL operators a smooth ride to work.

The Georgia is in the last year of a three-year overhaul that began in 2005, when the ship entered the yard in Norfolk, Va., to refuel its reactor, get rid of its Tridents and modernize its combat systems. The ship took aboard a small group of reporters March 16 to ride along as the crew conducted final at-sea tests before its ceremony to re-enter the fleet at Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay, Ga.


Rest of article at: http://www.navytimes.com/news/2008/03/navy_georgia_080323w/



uhc comment: $1,000,000,000 is a bit disingenuous if you consider the 147 Tomahawks cost over $2,000,000,000 --> http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=259&topic_id=5225