I’m not sure why this is a news story unless it’s just the “inactivation” announcement. The Miami wasn’t being re-fueled, just painted and otherwise maintained. It’s a little long in the tooth anyway and is/was on its last reactor core. The Navy ran the numbers quite some time ago and decided they’d rather put the money into a new hull with a fresh, lifetime, core than repair it for a limited cycle. After all it’s an LA class and many of them have been parked already. The Cincinnati is being chopped at Bremerton at this moment.
I thot it was a nice touch that the firebug punk, Nervous Norvis, got the 400 million $ restitution order. That’ll probly motivate him to write a book now that he’s got time on his hands.
The USS Miami has a nominal 30 year life - and a mid-point refueling. IIRC - the sub has(had) about 10 years left of operational service.
Consider the USS San Francisco - another LA class sub that impacted an undersea mountain and damaged the nose. Because she still had lots of life left...they took another LA class sub being decommed (USS Honolulu) ...and transplanted the nose from her to the San Fran.
Now ...the USS San Fransisco has been designated to be converted to a Moored Training Ship - to be used for training new enlisted and officers as a part of the Navy Nuclear Propulsion Training pipeline, and will replace an old MTS (either ex-626 or ex-635 - nearly 50 year old boomers that were converted to MTS use.)
Seems to me that a way of keeping the Miami operational would be to do the same...take a decomm LA class sub and move the complete Ops compartment/forward onto the Miami - which still has a good reactor compartment and engine room and 10 years of core life.
For comparison - a new Virginia Class Sub costs about $2.5 Billion ...or $833 Million per 10 years of use. If the Miami could be restored to operational for less than $400 Million ....it would be a bargain!
Since the 688 subs were fairly ‘cookie cutter’ fab - it would be far easier to transplant a new forward section than the previously planned ‘gut and restore’.
OTOH - anther good choice might be to designate the Miami as a Moored Training Ship...since they gut the ops compartment to put in additional ‘stuff’ to support ‘prototype-type’ operations!