Word: seawolfs
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...discomfort of conservative hard-liners, budget compromise appears inevitable. The Pentagon will need $475 billion in added spending over the next five years merely to finish projects started under Reagan, and that doesn't include various expensive weapons -- the Stealth bomber, Seawolf submarine, D5 Trident missile -- soon to be out of development and ready for production. Bailing out faltering savings and loan companies and updating antiquated nuclear-production plans may require $70 billion more in new funding. Bush himself, by James Baker's count, has proposed $40 billion in additional spending for new domestic initiatives, including more than $6 billion...
...Navy has good reason to be sensitive to charges that Soviet submarine technology has grabbed the lead. As naval exercises repeatedly demonstrate, a battle for control of the seas would largely be fought underwater. The U.S. Navy wants the Seawolf to track and destroy Soviet missile submarines before they can launch their deadly cargoes, and to neutralize Soviet attack subs before they can sink the U.S.'s vital missile-launching Trident fleet...
Capable of cruising more than 1,000 ft. below the ocean surface at speeds up to 35 knots, the Seawolf will carry an arsenal of sophisticated acoustical homing torpedoes that can track and attack submarines and surface ships. From almost 100 ft. down, a mix of nuclear-tipped or conventional missiles and mines will be launched through eight large-bore torpedo tubes...
...Seawolf's high-tensile steel hull will withstand pressures of 100,000 lbs. per sq. in., permitting the sub to dive to depths between layers of water at different temperatures where it can hide from enemy sonar. When it comes time to surface, not even the polar ice cap will be able to keep the Seawolf down. The low, streamlined sail -- conning tower to landlubbers -- will be hardened to absorb the shock of breaking through the ice. Retractable bow planes will permit the Seawolf to navigate under the Arctic, the huge (5.4 million sq. mi.) new battleground of underwater...
...this hoped-for capability, many top defense experts wonder if the Seawolf truly is the right sub at the right cost at the right time. In the past, the Navy has relied on vastly superior technology to nullify the Soviets' 3-to-1 numerical advantage in submarines. But rather suddenly, the U.S. lead in submarine technology has seriously eroded. Says Admiral Carlisle Trost, Chief of Naval Operations: "The Soviets are where we thought they'd be in the mid-1990s...