ANALYSIS – In what much of the media is calling a ‘rare' announcement, Team Biden has notified the world of the arrival of an Ohio-class nuclear powered guided missile submarine (SSGN) in the Middle East.
This, as Israel ramps up its ground offensive against Hamas terrorists in Gaza, and Iran and its proxies seethe nearby.
However, as I have previously noted, Joe Biden has made a habit recently of announcing nuclear sub visits.
And not just visits by conventionally armed former ‘boomers' cruise missile subs like this one, but of nuclear armed ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs) as well.
Most recently in May and June when an SSGN and an SSBN were publicly shown in South Korea.
In May I wrote:
While the U.S. has occasionally openly surfaced its submarines in the past, the pace picked up in the last year with publicized port visits by nuclear-armed Ohio-class submarines as well as Los Angeles-class subs carrying conventional Tomahawk cruise missiles.
One nuke sub even popped up near the Strait of Hormuz not far from Iran.
Ronald O'Rourke, the chief naval forces analyst for the Congressional Research Service, cited “unusual Navy actions late last year to publicize the presence” of nuclear-armed vessels “in the Arabian Sea, at Diego Garcia, at Gibraltar and in the Atlantic.”
And while the U.S. Central Command only noted it was an Ohio-class sub on its X post, the photo seems to show an SSGN transiting the Suez Canal. This is an SSGN, a former SSBN converted to carry conventionally armed Tomahawk cruise missiles instead of Trident D5 missiles with multiple nuclear warheads.
At 560 feet long, 18,750 tons submerged, and carrying as many as 154 Tomahawk land attack cruise missiles (TLAMs), the Ohio-class guided missile submarines (SSGNs) are among the U.S. military's most formidable conventionally armed weapons.
Their TLAM load is 50% more than U.S. guided-missile destroyers carry, and almost four times what the US Navy's newest attack subs are armed with.
Each Tomahawk can carry up to a 1,000-pound high-explosive warhead. The U.S. Navy has four of these sea monsters.
Additionally, the four SSGNs can launch special forces missions from a Dry Deck Shelter (DDS). DDSs can deploy and recover special forces commandos while remaining submerged.
The announcement is obviously a message to Iran and its proxies in the region. The sub joins a flotilla of other U.S. Navy assets already in the area, including two carrier strike groups and a Marine amphibious ready group.
An SSGN brings a lot of firepower to the mix.
As CNN reported:
“SSGNs can deliver a lot of firepower very rapidly,” said Carl Schuster, a former director of operations at the US Pacific Command's Joint Intelligence Center told CNN in 2021.
“One-hundred and fifty-four Tomahawks accurately deliver a lot of punch. No opponent of the US can ignore the threat.”
The magnitude of that firepower was shown in March 2011, when the guided missile sub USS Florida fired almost 100 Tomahawks against targets in Libya during Operation Odyssey Dawn. The attack marked the first time the SSGNs were used in combat.
As everyone keeps saying, these announcements are supposed to be rare, but in April, the Navy announced that the USS Florida, one of the two East Coast-based SSGNs, was operating in the Middle East.
And, in October 2022, the USS West Virginia surfaced near Iran to receive CENTCOM commander General Michael Kurilla.
Still, while not as rare as it used to be, the announcement of the missile sub should still give our enemies added reasons to be worried.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.
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