The Navy’s Block V Virginia-class Submarine Has a Secret
Story by Peter Suciu • Yesterday 2:35 PM
Meet The US Navy’s Block V Virginia-class Submarine That Has A Secret…Payload Module – A little over a year ago, the United States Navy awarded a $2.42 billion contract modification to General Dynamics’ Electric Boat subsidiary to build an additional Block V Virginia-class submarine equipped with the Virginia Payload Module (VPM).
The deal was awarded by The Naval Sea Systems Command in Washington D.C, and was an extension of the original contract that was awarded in December 2019 for nine boats with an option for a tenth. With that added submarine, the total cost of the contract with primary contractor Electric Boat will be $24.1 billion, a net increase of $1.89 billion for the full contract. The Block V is more than just a few upgrades. In fact, the VPM will give the Virginia-class, which is already a heavily armed nuclear-powered fast-attack submarine, with a massive increase in capabilities. The Block V will greatly increase the number of missiles that can be carried and essentially make it a cruise missile submarine (SSGN).
At the same time, it won’t take away from what the boats do best.
Meet the Virginia-class
Designed for use in both the open-ocean and for littoral missions, which include anti-submarine warfare (ASW) and intelligence gathering operations, the U.S. Navy’s Virginia -class was developed to replace the more expensive Seawolf-class while still providing a capable boat to address nautical threats from near-peer adversaries in the 21st century.
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