Worse, those fifty attack subs represented aging technology… and in the superscience world of undersea combat, technology did not age well. The transfer of the Memphis to Navy R&D had been prompted by congressional criticism that the Navy was not pursuing advanced technology for its submarine forces, and the improved L.A. submarines were a partial answer… but not a complete one. When the Walker spy-family scandal had broken in the eighties, the Navy realized that the Soviets would very soon possess submarines as stealthy and as deadly as even the improved L.A. boats.
So the Seawolf project had been born, emerging from design studies in the midseventies, but refined and given shape under the impetus of the Soviet submarine threat of the eighties. Originally planned as the Navy's "submarine of the twenty-first century," Sea-wolf would be far quieter than the Los Angeles attack boats. Faster, stealthier in every way, and carrying a mammoth arsenal of torpedoes and Tomahawk missiles, Seawolf had been intended to counter high-tech Soviet submarines — especially the sleek and deadly Akula, the so-called Walker-class boat designed using the secrets sold to Moscow by the Walkers. Thirty Seawolf-class attack subs were planned.
Then, with astonishing suddenness, the Soviet empire had collapsed, and much of Moscow's vaunted military was revealed to be a rotting shell. Somehow, the need for an eighty-boat fleet hadn't seemed quite so urgent, especially in light of the fast-rising price tag for the Seawolf. Already incredibly expensive when she was originally designed — in the seventies, cost estimates had run to about $1.3 billion per unit — cost overruns and redesigns swiftly sent that estimate soaring. At $4 billion per sub, the Seawolf was indeed a "golden fish."
And so, in August of 1990, after a four-month review, Seawolf procurement was reduced to twelve units. A new attack submarine — then called Centurion, because now it would be the "submarine of the new century" — was proposed as a complement for the twelve-boat Seawolf fleet, aiming for a total submarine force of fifty-five boats. The Defense Acquisition Board had ordered that the new boat cost less than a billion dollars per unit.
By that time, Seawolf was at ground zero in a raging controversy between the Defense Department, Congress, and the White House. In January of 1992, the Department of Defense had announced that only one Seawolf would be built. In a backhanded twist of politics, President Clinton — usually no friend of the military — had promised to raise the number from one to three as a bit of political palm-greasing to the state of Connecticut, where the Seawolfs would be constructed. More than one observer had noted the irony of a Democratic president resurrecting a military project a Republican president had wanted cancelled.
And so the Seawolf project would end with three units — the Seawolf herself, launched in 1995, followed by the Connecticut in 1997 and the Jimmy Carter in 2003. The Navy had long since shifted its full attention to Centurion, which was now referred to as the NSSN, or "New SSN" project. By 1998, the NSSN had been named Virginia, yet another bit of political baksheesh. Connecticut was the location of one submarine builder, the Electric Boat Division of General Dynamics, but Virginia was the other, with the yards at Newport News.
But political gestures or no, the budgets battles were continuing. By 2000, the NSSN program had been cut to twelve funded units, with one to be launched per year beginning in 2004. By 2005, the number had been cut to four, with the lead boat scheduled for launching in 2006. The Navy ultimately still wanted thirty Virginia-class subs, but the way things had been going with Congress and the military budget-snippers lately, that number seemed most unlikely.
"You know, Congressman," Garrett said carefully, "the Navy has done its share of budget-busting, I admit, but it seems to me that the Navy Department and Congress are too often sabotaging each other. Remember the about-face you guys pulled on us over Newport News?"
Originally, the Virginia was supposed to have been assembled entirely at Electric Boat here at New London in Connecticut, a decision that would have closed the submarine yards at Newport News, Virginia. That move, it was estimated, would have trimmed quite a bit from the Navy's appropriations budget and helped meet congressional demands to cut costs and close bases. Congress, however, had stepped in and ordered the Navy to use both Electric Boat and Newport News. Shipyard workers in the sovereign state of Virginia voted, and they would vote for the congressmen who kept them employed.
"Well, son, yes, I do. But it worked out okay, didn't it?"
"After a fashion, Congressman. After a lopsided and very expensive fashion."
Eventually, the Navy had encouraged both yards to participate in the building of all Virginia-class boats. Newport News built the bow, stern, sail, crew compartments, auxiliary machinery, and weapons handling spaces of each boat; Electric Boat built the pressure hull, command and control compartments, engine room, and the main propulsion unit raft. Both yards would construct the nuclear reactors. They would then be pieced together, two at Electric Boat, two at Newport News.
At least, that was what the gouge was this week.
"You know and I know, Captain," Blakeslee went on, "that this whole process has been politicized to an incredible extent. And you're right. It's not efficient, and we do get in each other's way. I'm here, though, because I can't help but wonder if we can't just cut across the whole mess… Alexander's solution to the Gordian knot, right?" He made a chopping motion with his hand. " Ffft! Done."
"And put all the shipyard workers out of business?"
"They would keep working on the Los Angeles SSNs. Damn it, Commander, every one of the fancy electronic doodads on both the Seawolf and the Virginia could have been retrofitted into the L.A. boats, and for a fraction of the cost!
"If someone could just justify to me why we need this damned thing," Blakeslee said, gesturing at the Virginia's hull overhead. "You know and I know, America's biggest concern today is the goddamn al Qaeda. Terrorists don't have submarines and they don't have merchant fleets. They don't even have a navy. There is no power in the world today to match our surface navy. We are the undisputed masters of the world's sea lanes. Why, I ask you, do we need the Virginia program?"
Garrett gave Blakeslee a sidelong look. Was it possible the man was trying to goad him into opening up?
He took a deep breath. "Congressman, I'm sure you've seen more briefings and papers on the Virginia than I have. Virginia is the answer to Congress's original demands — that the Navy build a submarine utilizing the latest technology, capable of extended littoral operations, with the ability both to conduct missile bombardment of inland targets and to support special operations force insertions along any coast.
"Virginia possesses twelve vertical launch tubes for Tomahawk TLAM cruise missiles, letting her hit targets 1,600 miles from the ocean, and that means something like 80 to 90 percent of the world's land surface is within her reach. She has four torpedo tubes that can handle Mark 48 ADCAP torpedoes, with a range of seven miles, or Harpoon antiship missiles with a range of eighty miles or better. She has facilities on board for SEALs or Marine Recon personnel, which she can put ashore anywhere in the world through a nine-man lockout trunk. She is as quiet as the Seawolf, which means she's ten times quieter than an improved L.A. boat… and that's in spite of being considerably smaller than Seawolf. Standard engineering doctrine holds that the larger you build the submarine, the easier it is to make it quiet.