LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Virginia Class Submarine
built 178 days ago
The Virginia Class Submarine is the first U.S. submarine to be designed for battlespace dominance across a broad spectrum of regional and littoral missions as well as open-ocean, "blue water" missions. The program design goal is to produce a submarine flexible enough to carry out seven very different missions.
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The Virginia Class Submarine Program Office is applying the lessons learned from successful Government and industry programs of similar scope and complexity to improve producibility and lower costs. Integrated Product and Process Development (IPPD) teams are bringing the combined experience of the shipbuilders, vendors, designers, engineers, and ship operators to bear on the ship design. The early involvement of production personnel on these teams ensures an excellent match between the design and the shipbuilder’s construction processes and facilities, allows a smoother transition from design to production, and reduces the number of engineering change orders typically required during lead ship construction. The ship is designed using a state-of-the-art digital database, which allows all members of the IPPD teams to work from a single design and provides three-dimensional electronic mock-ups throughout the design process.
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The Ohio Class submarine is the element to the balance of power in the world that is the wild card. Stealthy and silently probing the depths, its job is to remain undetected until it is too late. Keeping the peace since the launch of the first Ohio class namesake in 1979, these submarines carry a large amount of detail.
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The Virginia class submarine has one of the most advanced torpedo delivery systems in the fleet. In addition to torpedoes, the Virginia-class will be armed with Tomahawk cruise missiles and has been designed to host the Advanced SEAL Delivery System (ASDS) and Dry-Deck Shelter to support various missions.
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The K-159, a November-class submarine, sank when it was hit by a storm while being towed to be scrapped in September 2003. Its reactors are filled with three-quarters of a ton of spent uranium. A British Ministry of Defence salvage team will examine the vessel's two nuclear reactors, and determine whether it can be raised from a depth of more than 900 feet. The British team will work with Norwegian and Canadian diving experts and Dutch salvage engineers. If the hull is intact the team may pump in compressed air to allow the K-159 to rise with the assistance of balloons. If the vessel is too badly damaged it may just be entombed in concrete and left on the seabed.
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Holmander credits the cost-cutting efforts in part to the experienced designers on the team, who drew upon their work on the previous class submarine to redesign the bow of the Virginia-class. They have taken 12 vertical launch tubes off the ship and replaced them with two larger payload tubes that are capable of launching missiles and other payloads. The bow, as a result, will cost $40 million less to build, he said.
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Virginia Class Submarine