Navy Christens Newest Attack Submarine Virginia

The U.S. Navy will christen Virginia, lead ship of the latest class of attack submarines, Saturday, Aug. 16, 2003, during an 11 a.m. EDT ceremony at Electric Boat in Groton, Conn.

Sen. George Allen of Virginia will deliver the ceremony’s principal address. Lynda Johnson Robb, wife of former Sen. Charles Robb of Virginia and the daughter of 36^th President Lyndon Baines Johnson, will serve as ship’s sponsor.

The ceremony will be highlighted in the time-honored Navy tradition when Robb christens the ship by breaking a bottle of champagne over the submarine. This is the sixth ship of the U.S. Navy to carry the name Virginia since the original Virginia was commissioned in 1777. The most recent Virginia was the nuclear powered guided missile cruiser which was decommissioned in 1994.

The Navy's next-generation attack submarine, the Virginia class, will provide the U.S. Navy with the capabilities it requires to meet the threats of the 21st century. Virginia will have improved stealth, sophisticated surveillance capabilities and special warfare enhancements that will enable it to meet the Navy's multi-mission requirements.

Virginia will be able to attack targets ashore with highly accurate Tomahawk cruise missiles and conduct covert long-term surveillance of land areas, littoral waters or other sea forces. Virginia will also have superior anti-submarine and anti-ship warfare capabilities, provide special forces delivery and support, and conduct mine delivery and minefield mapping. With enhanced communications connectivity. The submarine also will provide important battle group and joint task force support, with full integration into carrier battle group operations.

Virginia is 377 feet in length, has waterline beam of 34 feet, a navigational draft of 32 feet, displaces approximately 7,800 tons submerged, and can dive to depths greater than 800 feet, and can sustain speeds of more than 25 knots when submerged. She is also designed with a reactor plant that will not require refueling during the planned life of the ship – reducing lifecycle costs while increasing underway time.

The ship’s prospective commanding officer, Capt. David Kern, a native of Binghampton, N.Y., and a Naval Academy graduate, will lead a crew of approximately 132 officers and enlisted Navy personnel.

The superior capabilities of Virginia class will ensure the United States maintains undersea dominance, in both deep and shallow waters, well into this century.

NSSN VIRGINIA CLASS ATTACK SUBMARINE, USA

The Virginia Class New Attack Submarine is an advanced stealth multi-mission nuclear powered submarine for deep ocean anti-submarine warfare and for littoral (shallow water) operations. Although the Seawolf submarine was developed to provide an eventual replacement for the US Navy Los Angeles Class submarines in combating the Soviet forces, the prohibitive unit cost and changing strategic requirements led to the US Navy defining a smaller new generation attack submarine.
The Electric Boat Division of General Dynamics, Connecticut is the lead design authority for the Virginia Class. The US Navy has awarded contracts for the first four vessels. General Dynamics Electric Boat is constructing the first of class, Virginia (SSN 774), which is to be delivered in 2004 and commission in 2006, and the third vessel, Hawaii SSN 776 (commission in 2008). Virginia Virginia was laid down in September 1999 and the pressure hull was completed in November 2002. Northrop Grumman Newport News will construct the second, Texas SSN 775 (commission in 2007) and fourth, North Carolina SSN 777 (in 2009). The keel for Texas was laid down in July 2002. The US Navy's total requirement is for 30 of the class.

DESIGN

The engineering teams and the design and build teams at Electric Boat in partnership with the Naval Sea Systems Command, NAVSEA, of the US Navy have used extensive CAD/CAE simulation systems to optimise the design of the submarine. The hull size is length 377ft by beam 34ft and the displacement is 7,300t dived, which is smaller than the more expensive Seawolf Attack Submarine with displacement 9137t dived. The hull structure contains structurally integrated enclosures, which accommodate standard 19in and 24in width equipment for ease of installation, repair and upgrade of the submarine's systems. The submarine is fitted with modular isolated deck structures, for example the submarine's Command Center will be installed as one single unit resting on cushioned mounting points. The submarine's control suite is equipped with computer touch screens. The submarine's steering and diving control is via a four-button, two-axis joystick. The noise level of the Virginia is equal to that of the US Navy Seawolf, SSN 21, with a lower acoustic signature than the Russian Improved Akula Class and Russian Fourth Generation Attack Submarines. To achieve this low acoustic signature, the Virginia incorporates newly designed anechoic coatings, isolated deck structures and a new design of propulsor. Goodrich is supplying High Frequency Sail Array acoustic windows and composite sonar domes.

COMMAND SYSTEM

The C3I (Command, Control, Communication and Intelligence) system is being developed by a team led by Lockheed Martin Naval Electronics & Surveillance Systems-Undersea Systems (NE&SS-Undersea Systems) of Manassas, Virginia. It will integrate all of the vessel's systems - sensors, countermeasures, navigation, weapon control, and will be based on open system architecture (OSA) with Q-70 Colour Common Display Consoles. Weapon control will be provided by Raytheon with a derivative of the CCS Mk 2 combat system.

WEAPON SYSTEMS

The submarine is equipped with twelve vertical missile launch tubes and four 533mm torpedo tubes. The vertical launching system has the capacity to launch 16 Tomahawk submarine launched cruise missiles (SLCM) in a single salvo. There is capacity for up to 26 Mk 48 ADCAP Mod 6 heavyweight torpedoes and Sub Harpoon anti-ship missiles to be fired from the 21in torpedo tubes. Mk 60 CAPTOR mines may also be fitted. Virginia will be fitted with the AN/WLY-1 acoustic countermeasures system being developed by Northrop Grumman, which provides range and bearing data, and the mast-mounted AN/BLQ-10 electronic support measures (ESM) system from Lockheed Martin Integrated Systems. An integral lock out/lock-in chamber is incorporated into the hull for special operations. The chamber can host a mini-submarine, such as Northrop Grumman's Oceanic and Naval Systems Advanced SEAL Delivery System (ASDS), to deliver special warfare forces such as Navy Sea Air Land, SEAL, teams or Marine reconnaissance units for counter-terrorism or localised conflict operations.

SENSORS

The Virginia Class sonar suite will include bow-mounted active and passive array, wide aperture passive array on flank, high-frequency active arrays on keel and fin, TB 16 towed array and the Lockheed Martin TB-29A thinline towed array, with a variant of AN/BQQ-10 sonar processing system. A BPS 16 navigation radar, operating at I-band is fitted. The submarines will have two Kollmorgen AN/BVS-1 Photonic Masts, rather than optical periscopes. Sensors mounted on the non-hull penetrating Photonic Mast include LLTV (low light TV), thermal imager and laser rangefinder. The mast is the Universal Modular Mast developed by Kollmorgen and its Italian subsidiary, Calzoni. The Boeing LMRS Long-term Mine Reconnaissance System will be deployed on the Virginia Class. LMRS includes two 6m autonomous unmanned underwater vehicles, an 18m robotic recovery arm and support electronics.

PROPULSION

The main propulsion units are the GE Pressure Water Reactor S9G, designed to last as long the submarine, two turbine engines with one shaft and a pump jet propulser. The speed is 28 knots dived.

Battleship #13, later BB13 USS Virginia: 1906-1923

USS Virginia, lead ship of a class of 14,948-ton battleships, was built at Newport News, Virginia. Commissioned in May 1906, she operated along the U.S. northeastern coast until mid-September of that year, when she went to Havana, Cuba, for a month during a period of unrest in that nation. Virginia returned to Cuban waters in March and April 1907, then took part in ceremonies marking the tricentennial of the English settlement at Jamestown, Virginia. In December 1907, she was one of the fleet of U.S. battleships that departed Hampton Roads, Virginia, to begin a historic cruise around the World. After steaming around South America, the ship visited the U.S. west coast, Hawaii, the Philippines, Japan, China, Ceylon, and ports in the eastern Mediterranean before returning to Hampton Roads in February 1909.

Following repairs and alterations that lasted from February into June 1909, Virginia's appearance was transformed by the addition of a new "cage" foremast and the replacement of her original "white and buff" color scheme with the grey of the modern battle fleet. In addition to routine operations along the U.S. Atlantic coast and in the Caribbean area, she visited France and England in late 1909 and tested techniques for coaling at sea in 1910. She also received a second "cage" mast during this time. In 1913 and 1914, Virginia provided naval presence off Mexico, before and during the U.S. intervention at Vera Cruz.

When the United States entered World War I in April 1917, Virginia was out of commission, receiving repairs at the Boston Navy Yard. Returning to active service in August 1917, she was kept busy training sailors for the rapidly-expanding Navy for the rest of that year and well into 1918, then operated as a convoy escort until the war ended in November. From December 1919 until July 1919, Virginia was employed as a transport, bringing home more than 6000 war veterans from France. Inactive after that, she received the hull number BB-13 in June 1920 and was decommissioned in the following August. USS Virginia was transferred to the War Department in August 1923 and sunk in aerial bombing tests off the North Carolina coast a month later.

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		No. 594-03

IMMEDIATE RELEASE		August 14, 2003