The USS Georgia (SSGN-729) sails into Kings Bay, Georgia, in preparation for decommissioning. The Navy is phasing out its four SSGN boats, with no clear replacement ready for service. (US Navy/Mass Communications Spc. 1st Class Travis S. Alston)

Relabeling Submarines Won’t Make the US Navy Any Stronger

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Instead of redesignating existing SSN submarines as SSGNs, the Navy would be better served by attempting to fast-track new ones.

The United States Navy is set to lose one of its most powerful undersea platforms in the years to come. To deal with the capability gap, one might expect it to commission the building of a new submarine. Instead, however, it is simply reclassifying an existing submarine to paper over the gap—and conceal the looming threat to US readiness.

In 1993, immediately after the Cold War, the United States and Russia signed the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START II). One of the provisions of that treaty limited both Washington and Moscow to 14 ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs) capable of carrying nuclear weapons. At the time, the United States was on track to have 18 Ohio-class ballistic missile submarines; rather than scrap or mothball the old submarines, it simply removed the nuclear missile infrastructure on four of them, making them guided-missile submarines (SSGNs) instead.

To de-nuclearize, the four SSBNs had their 24 missile tubes that held Trident Submarine Launched Ballistic Missiles (SLBM) removed and replaced with 22 missile tubes that could hold seven (non-nuclear) Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles (TLAMs) each, for a total of 154 missiles. The converted submarines were also given the space and necessary changes to host........

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