[tanknetter]

Not sure at all how I feel about this.

Of all of the elements of our TRIAD, the subs are by far the most important.

But I don’t have current numbers.

18 Ohio SSBN's were built. With the four converted to SSGNs, there are still 14 left ... with 336 available Trident tubes.

Tridents can carry up to 8 MIRVs, for a theoretical total of 2688 thermonuclear warheads. This is assuming that all 14 boats are deployable, and that each Trident carries the maximum of 8 warheads. WRT the warheads, in practice, allegedly, SSBNs deploy on patrol with a MIRV mix of 1 to 8 warheads on the Trident missles - no sense in throwing away 7 warheads if there's only a single target that needs to be incinerated)

WRT to how many subs are out on patrol the SSBNs operate on the Blue/Gold crew system. Each boomer has two crews, with the crews rotating to ensure that the boats spend the maximum amount of time at sea on deterrance patrols as possible.

IIRC those four subs were scheduled to be decommissioned at their mid-life point due to one of the START treaties anyways. Better to have them as SSGNs for the next 20 years than to have them cut up for razor blades in Bremerton.

[Paul Ross]

Better to have them as SSGNs for the next 20 years than to have them cut up for razor blades in Bremerton.

Precisely. It needs to be pointed out that if the Navy hadn't been able to go this route with conversion of the 4 Tridents, Bush, who is deeply steeped in unilateral nuclear disarmament pledges to the Russians and Chinese, would have been compelled to dismantle them entirely.

Poisoned fruit from his "Treaty of Moscow"...even though the Ruskies are NOT dismantling their SS-18s as was expected.

This was a way to keep the "assets" from going into the boneyard. They can actually be refitted back to strategic boats relatively painlessly...removing the "quad-pack" inserts in their tubes, and replacing them with the original Trident missile capsule.

It would be interesting to see if the fire-control systems original to the Trident aren't being left for reserved future use...or if the new systems added haven't merely had that option as a "two-fer". I doubt you will see anyone actually admitting to that...and likely you will see some professedly knowledgeable submariner deny it outright and stoutly too.

Can't let it slip to the enemy what our REAL capabilities are to restore strategic strength are.

But no matter how much spin is put on this, knowing the mindset of the Chicoms and the Russian coms pretending to be nationalists (Putin) they likely aren't buying the spin.