Word: seawolf
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Meanwhile, workers have found brittleness and cracks in most of the welds of the Navy's futuristic SSN-21 Seawolf-class submarine, the first of which is under construction in Groton, Conn. The responsibility seems to belong to the Navy, which set standards for welding a new high-tensile steel that apparently permitted too much carbon in the welding rod. Though the hull was 15% completed when the problem was detected, builders may have to start from scratch using new steel. There are serious doubts whether the $2.5 billion sub-killing craft will ever...
...Pentagon's new image of competence has suffered a bit of a setback. Officials at Electric Boat in Groton, Conn., have discovered that the $1.7 billion SEAWOLF attack submarine being built there is too large for the Thames River. To move the vessel, the Navy will have to dredge a $12 million, eight- mile channel. Some residents contend that the removal of 2.7 million cu. yds. of contaminated sludge will harm the fishing industry, and have called for a full environmental-impact study before the digging begins...
...Cobra helicopters, so efficient in the fighting, will close; the Army wants a new heavy battle tank and a high-tech helicopter instead. The Navy will eliminate or scale back some weapons designed for battling the Soviets, including its Trident SLBM submarine program and its hunter-killer Seawolf submarine procurement, and reduce its overall carrier group strength from 13 to 12. Increased costs will almost certainly force the Air Force to cut its proposed purchase of 120 C-17 transport planes...
...plated strategic-weapons systems. But, notes Gordon Adams, respected director of the independent Defense Budget Project, "he did not even hint at slowing down any of them." These include the mobile MX/rail garrison missile project (budgeted for $2.8 billion), the B-2 Stealth bomber ($540 million apiece), and the Seawolf submarine ($3.5 billion apiece), not to mention the Strategic Defense Initiative (which the Administration wants to increase from $3.6 billion to $4.5 billion next year...
This approach might justify not building more than one advanced Seawolf attack submarine. The reliable Los Angeles class is still the best attack sub in the world, fully capable of protecting American vessels against enemy prowlers...