The Seawolf-class submarine was intended to succeed the Los Angeles-class, but due to the end of the Cold War, only three were built. They are the fastest, quietest, and most heavily armed submarines in the world, with a crew of 140 and a cost of $2.8 billion per unit. The US military decided to build 35 Virginia-class submarines instead.
A Seawolf-class submarine is an attack-class submarine ordered built in 1989, near the end of the Cold War. The Seawolf-class submarine was the intended successor to the Los Angeles-class, of which 23 had been built, and remains the backbone of America’s nuclear-powered fast attack submarines. Because the Cold War ended when the Seawolf-class submarine series was being built, the number of units was reduced from 29 to 12, and then just three. The three existing Seawolf-class submarines today are USS Seawolf, USS Connecticut, and USS Jimmy Carter. Instead of making more Seawolf submarines, the US military decided to build 35 Virginia-class submarines, which are slightly smaller and cheaper.
Like all military submarines, a Seawolf-class submarine is extremely expensive, costing around $2.8 billion per unit. This class of submarine has been described as “the fastest, quietest and most heavily armed underwater vessel in the world.” The first top-down redesign of US submarines since the 1960s, the Seawolf-class submarines are 107 m (353 ft) in length (except USS Jimmy Carter with a length of 138 m (453 ft), displacement of 9,138 tons, width of 12 m (40 ft), and a submerged speed of approximately 30 knots (34 mph).Like all nuclear-powered submarines, the Seawolf-class submarines have tremendous range, limited only by the food supplies and the sanity of the crew.Speaking of the crew, Seawolf’s submarines have 140, including 12 officers and 128 enlisted soldiers.
As mentioned above, the Seawolf-class submarines are the most heavily armed submarines ever built. Unlike their ballistic missile-launching cousins, Seawolf submarines are designed to attack surface ships and other submarines. They have eight torpedo tubes, which carry hundreds of torpedoes, and 50 Tomahawk cruise missiles, which can be used to hit targets on land and at sea. Seawolf submarines are distinguished by being more difficult to detect moving at high speed than a standing still Los Angeles-class submarine. Defense writer Robert Karniol wrote that the USS Jimmy Carter, a Seawolf-class submarine, is “Washington’s premier spy submarine.
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