The work of our Undersea Force is complex, dynamic and vital to national security. With a community as broad and diverse as ours, it is important for us to have a shared sense of our main objectives, and to align our efforts to achieve them. The Design for Undersea Warfare serves these purposes.
The Design for Undersea Warfare is intended to be specific enough to clearly define the objective, while being flexible enough to encourage initiative and boldness throughout the force- at all levels- in the attainment of these goals. As such, it has implications for major commanders, facility commanders, submarine commanding officers, and each of our officers and Sailors.
Main Objectives: We will be masters of the undersea domain, able to achieve undersea superiority at the time and place of our choosing. We will be the experts for all matters in undersea warfare. Consistent with decades of past performance, our Undersea Force will apply itself along three main lines of effort:
- Ready Forces: Provide undersea forces ready for operations and warfighting
- Effective Employment: Conduct effective forward operations and warfighting
- Future Force Capabilities: Prepare for future operations and warfighting
It is difficult to separate warfighting from peacetime operations, as they are so closely related. Our undersea forces conduct peacetime operations to prevent war, by deterring and dissuading our adversaries and by assuring our Allies and partners. Peacetime operations further serve to help us understand and shape the battlespace, and to learn the capabilities of potential adversaries. Our goal is that, by virtue of our robust and focused operations, we will clearly be ready to prevail in any conflict. The warfighting readiness and effectiveness of our Undersea Force should serve to compel potential aggressors to choose peace rather than war, restraint rather than escalation, and termination rather than continuation.
Enduring Attributes: What has not changed is that the success of our undersea forces depends on dedicated, technically skilled and engaged warriors.
Areas for Greater Emphasis: There are a number of long-term national security trends that interact to make undersea operations and warfighting capability increasingly important. In light of this, you will find several Focus Areas singled out for renewed dedication within our force. First, there is increased emphasis on the development and certification of relevant warfighting skills at the unit level, at the tactical and operational commander level, at the strategic level, and at supporting commands. Next, you will find increased emphasis on creativity and innovation, sparked by initiative and a heightened sense of authority, responsibility, and accountability at the lowest capable level- even to the individual.
This document defines our way forward in a complex and often unpredictable environment. As such, it will evolve it is not a rigid plan. To ensure that necessary changes can occur, the Design for Undersea Warfare has assessment and learning built in- we will make changes as necessary.
The Design for Undersea Warfare is a framework for action. Read it, think about it, discuss it and act on it.
R. P. BRECKENRIDGE
Director Submarine Warfare Division
J. F. CALDWELL, JR.
Submarine Force U.S. Pacific Fleet
J, M. RICHARDSON
Commander Submarine Force
PART I CONTEXT FOR THE DESIGN
Assumptions about the world, key trends, threats
1. A chaotic and disorderly global security environment will increase demands on the U.S. Navy and U.S. Undersea Forces.
2. Globally proliferating submarines are increasing pressure on freedom of the seas and contesting our undersea superiority.
3. Anti-access, Area Denial (A2/AD) systems challenge our surface and air forces, placing increased responsibility on our undersea forces to enable Assured Access for the Joint Force.
4. America’s vital undersea infrastructure (energy and information) is becoming even more critical and more vulnerable.
5. Our shrinking Submarine Force size requires that each platform individually must support more requirements across a broader area.
6. Deterrence provided by our stealthy, agile, persistent and lethal submarines (SSBNs, SSNs and SSGNs) will remain important against both state and non-state actors.
7. Ubiquitous media presence means we will need to exploit our concealment to provide our leadership options by remaining undetected and non-provocative when desired.
8. The expanded decision space that undersea forces provide will be increasingly valued by senior leadership as the security environment grows in complexity, leading to increased requests for undersea support.
Assumptions about the future
1. The operational environment will become more complex, further stressing the human element in undersea operations and warfighting.
2. Adaptive, determined and tenacious adversaries will exploit our weaknesses with little or no notice
3. Survivable U.S. SSBNs will provide nuclear deterrence for the United States and many of our allies for the foreseeable future.
4. Combatant Commanders will continue to value the unique capabilities and conventional deterrence that SSNs and SSGNs deliver.
5. Unmanned underwater system technology will advance with increased endurance and capability.
6. We will need to fight our Virtual Ship in the cyber domain as capably as we fight in the undersea domain. We must protect our information and our systems from attack and take the fight to the enemy.
7. Available financial resources will decrease due to budget pressures.
Expectations Others Have of Our Navy and Undersea Forces:
We will be expected to achieve undersea superiority at the time and place of our choosing.
1. We will use the Navy to gain access despite diplomatic, geographic, and military impediments. (CNO)
2. We will build appropriate Navy force structure and provide it with an appropriate strategic lay-down. (CNO)
3. We will provide forces ready for tasking to Combatant Commanders. (USFF)
4. We will sustain our forces through their Expected Service Life. (USFF)
5. We will reduce Fleet overhead and fund deployable units at a higher priority than everything else. (USFF)
6. We will win wars, deter wars, defeat terrorists, and ease disasters with our Maritime Forces (Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Sea Power)(CS-21)
7. We will secure the US from attack; secure strategic access and retain global freedom of action. (CS-21)
8. We will provide persistently present, combat-ready Maritime forces capable of forcible entry and quick response to other crises. (CS- 21)
9. We will impose local sea control wherever necessary- by ourselves if we must. (CS-21)
10. We will maintain nuclear weapons safety and security.
11. We will maintain nuclear reactor safety and security.
12. We will maintain security of classified material and information systems.
Priorities – Enabling Success and Managing Risk
1. Peacetime Operational Priorities:
Safety: Our operational responsibilities hinge first and foremost on enforcing the highest standards of safety, including the prevention of collision, grounding, serious injury or death.
Stealth: Safety is closely followed by a commitment to remaining undetected as we execute highly sensitive missions in support of our Nation’s security. We must prevent counter detection, compromise of mission details, or exploitation of our sensitive classified information.
Mission Aim: Mission accomplishment within the bounds of safety and stealth is our highest priority.
2. Professional Behavior: We must embody the highest standards of character. At sea, we will conduct ourselves as proud warriors, worthy of bearing arms in the defense of our nation. Ashore, we will be ambassadors of the Nation and the Navy, preventing liberty or public incidents at home or abroad. The Commanding Officer must set a powerful example.
What We Must Do: Forces that Support Our Efforts
Our people are the key to our success. The shared Submarine Culture running through our undersea community is our strongest supporting force. It provides us with our warfighting focus and our operational readiness. It must NEVER be compromised.
Alignment: Our value as a Force is significantly enhanced when we maintain a coherent alignment amongst our senior leadership and with each other. We must ensure we remain consistent both with our broader strategic responsibilities to the Navy and with the other elements of the Undersea Force.
Warfighting:
We expect to operate and fight far forward, independently, behind enemy li11es, for long periods of time, without support We maintain ourselves as ready as possible to leave soon, move quickly and be among the first to penetrate the enemy’s defenses.
We know our potential adversaries and have operating experience in the environments that might become future undersea battlegrounds.
We exploit concealment by the sea as a key to our success, but we respect that the same sea will kill us unless we hold it at bay.
We depend on stealth, surprise and boldness and practice these every day. We safeguard tactical information and avoid exploitable patterns.
We understand that operating undersea is inherently a dangerous business and that only trained and vigilant individuals and teams will keep our ships and crews safe.
We understand calculated risk but avoid unnecessary risk by thinking ahead, anticipating risk and taking mitigating actions.
Readiness:
We stay ready to operate far forward on short notice by managing manpower, training and maintenance to avoid fluctuating readiness.
Our people are the backbone of our success. Submariners are national treasures.
We have small crews. Each person has multiple roles. All are responsible for the ship’s safety, stealth and mission.
We depend on initiative, de-centralized command and teamwork.
We depend on absolute integrity. We employ back-up and second checks, but each person remains individually responsible.
We comply with procedures, founded on technical understanding We know and use the source requirements and references.
We have no peer in our aggressive approach to improvement through assessment and training.
We candidly face the facts – good and bad – and proceed based on well-known standards that are based on thorough analysis.
We ensure nobody is indispensable by building depth of expertise.
We incorporate safety and effective work practices into our habits.
We are resourceful. We always have a Plan B, and we can often fix the equipment even if we lack the parts.
We own our ships, taking meticulous care to maintain them in a state of maximum possible material readiness – ready to go to war.
What We Must Avoid: Forces that Work Against Us
1. Our current approach to inspections and assessments rewards cyclic and temporary narrow excellence instead of excellence which is sustained and broad.
2. Our TYCOM and ISIC efforts tend to limit a Commanding Officer’s freedom and flexibility. Shared responsibility and accountability between the ship and the chain of command is limiting CO’s ability to achieve success. Excessive administrative distractions are burdensome.
3. We lose sight of the fact that warfare is a human-centric problem. Insufficient emphasis is given to developing creativity and initiative, both of which are essential to the practice of de-centralized command upon which effective undersea warfare is based.
4. Our solutions to problems can tend towards bureaucratic, process-dominated approaches.
PART II
SUMMARY OF THE DESIGN FOR UNDERSEA WARFARE
Three Lines of Effort with Associated Focus Areas
Our undersea force has long approached its responsibilities for securing national security along three Lines of Effort (LOEs), depicted in Figure 1. The Design for Undersea Warfare also identifies associated Focus Areas, which describe the emphasis required within each LOE.
Each of the three Lines of Effort has associated Focus Areas:
Ready Forces-Provide Undersea Forces Ready for Operations and Warfighting:
This captures our responsibility to prepare undersea forces for scheduled or emergent deployments as well as warfighting. The time horizon for this Line of Effort is roughly five years.
Focus Areas:
Enhance CO initiative and character, including the responsibility, authority, and accountability to prepare the ship for operations and warfighting; structure the relationship with Squadrons, Groups and Type Commanders to shift the responsibility for preparation, planning, execution, assessment and improvement more to the ship. Maximize CO effectiveness by nurturing character and integrity at every opportunity.
Sustain warfighting readiness during the inter-deployment period; adjust the interaction within the chain of command to reward stable, broad excellence vice short-term, cyclic pulses; return tactical initiative to the operating forces.
Develop Undersea Warfare Commander Doctrine and TTP; integrated C2 for both manned and unmanned undersea systems; practices for effective coordination of mixed undersea forces with other forces.
Effective Employment-Conduct Effective Undersea Operations and Warfighting: This captures our responsibility to work with operational commanders to be ready to establish undersea superiority at the time and place of our choosing. Effectively employ undersea forces to reliably and professionally deliver the operational and warfighting performance expected by the Combatant Commanders. The time horizon for this Line of Effort is roughly five years.
Focus Areas:
Active engagement with Fleet and Operational Commanders to develop coordinated theater specific campaign plans that optimally employ our undersea forces; enhance development of innovative strategic and tactical employment of undersea forces (e.g., C7F Submarine Campaign Plan and supporting CSP Submarine Response Plan); tighten our assessment processes with Operational Commanders and supporting players to make us more effective warfighters.
Increase the deliberate and planned demonstration of warfighting capabilities and access at the submarine and force level enhancing confidence in our abilities and systematically proving we can do what’s required; lead in development of Theater USW Doctrine and teamwork; improve Mission Assurance to ensure we can fight through a range of C41 challenges in peacetime and war. Improve operational availability of undersea forces while forward (through improved resilience, achieve better reliability, on-board repair, in-theater repair)
Future Force Capabilities-Prepare for Future Undersea Operations and Warfighting: This defines the future role of undersea forces, the associated requirements for platforms, payloads, manpower and operations, and the decisions, policies and resourcing required. The time horizon for this Line of Effort is roughly five years and beyond.
Focus Areas:
Develop an integrated approach to future undersea capabilities that coordinates platform, payload volume, payload, people and force posture plans; link the plan to required near term decisions or investments; take necessary actions to evolve tactical security in the face of anticipated threat improvements.
Outline the strategy to continue to access, train, and retain the very best people that will fill our ranks. This will require creative approaches to find and attract the best and the brightest that the nation has to offer- people of character and integrity, technically skilled, with personal and leadership abilities.
Define the future role of undersea forces to make best use of undersea concealment for national security, incorporating hedging strategies to accommodate uncertainty in global trends, technology and adversary’s capability and intent.
Obtain SSBN, SSGN, SSN and Payload decisions to address SSBN requirements, SSGN replacement, the SSN force structure shortfall, and emergent payload requirements.
PART III
DETAILED DISCUSSION OF EACH LINE OF EFFORT
Ready Forces:
Providing Undersea Forces Ready for Operations and Warfighting
Goals
1. Prepare undersea forces to safely and effectively complete peacetime operations directed by operational commanders. These operations will also support warfighting effectiveness.
2. Prepare undersea forces to effectively conduct wartime operations on short notice as directed by operational
commanders.
3. Develop and refine, through experimentation, the command and control doctrine and TTP for the Undersea Warfare Commander for manned and unmanned systems.
In reaching these goals, our process must certify that the quality of provided forces meets standards. Furthermore, the process must be sustainable. It must not depend on shifting material and manpower excessively from one submarine to another in order to meet short-term commitments.
Ready Forces: Focus Areas for Increased Emphasis
Enhance CO initiative and character, responsibility, authority, and accountability to prepare the ship for operations and warfighting; structure the relationship with squadrons, groups and type commanders to shift the center of gravity for preparation, planning, execution, assessment and certification more to the ship; emphasize CO ability to distinguish acceptable risk from undue risk. Enhance CO effectiveness by nurturing integrity and a strong character at every opportunity.
Adopt a culture of sustained warfighting readiness during the inter-deployment period; adjust the interaction within the chain of command to reward stable, broad excellence vice short-term, cyclic pulses; return tactical initiative to the operating forces. Mindset: “This is the last week of peace before goi11g to war.”
Develop Undersea Warfare Commander Doctrine and TTP; integrated C2 for both manned and unmanned undersea systems; practices for effective coordination of mixed undersea forces with other forces.
Ready Forces: Detailed Application of the Focus Areas
1. Personnel Readiness: Improve the accession, training, and retention of our people. This will be done through Systematic Rating Deep Dives (FIT), Unplanned Losses (UPLs) Deep Dive, follow-up on Engineering Department Master Chief (EDMC) community corrective actions. Enhance Sailor and Family resiliency with a systematic approach to preparing our Sailors and their families for submarine duty responsibilities. Improve the effectiveness of the officer career training pipeline, providing a more coherent, career approach towards developing a submarine Commanding Officer- including more deliberate emphasis on the developmental role of sea tours.
2. Fleet Readiness and Training Plan (FRTP): Revise the FRTP to increase the amount of time available for the ship’s Commanding Officer and ISIC to effectively train their crews. Lengthen FRTP underway periods to increase stable, at-sea training time. Increase CO latitude in tailoring submarine schedules.
3. Training: Update the Continuing Training Manual (CTM) and Continuing Training Support System (CTSS) to provide COs more useful assistance on how to build a successful training program. (Examples: better planning tools, Force Exam Bank use, alignment of qualification and training, and better tracking in CTSS). While maintaining the predominantly human element in training, consider approaches to distance support for training, particularly in examinations. Establishing a predominantly watch-team approach to operational training.
4. Assessment: Provide an instruction that describes assessment as a means for improvement. Shift the emphasis from external (ISIC) exam workups in support of snapshot assessments, to developing and evaluating a submarine crew’s ability to assess itself, correct and improve itself, and establish a mindset of sustained, broad superior performance. Adjust engagement at the ship, ISIC and TYCOM levels to focus on developing the mindset and behaviors for sustained performance, while shifting the center of gravity for assessment and improvement to the submarine and CO. As a supporting action, achieve a more steady strain approach to readiness by considering more unscheduled exams (e.g. TREs and ORSEs). Ensure that exams include an assessment of the sustaining mindset and behaviors on board the submarine.
5. Maintenance/Materiel: As we have throughout our history, we will set and achieve uncompromising standards of material readiness-our environment demands nothing less.
Intermediate Maintenance: Reduce lost operating days and degraded readiness due to maintenance schedule overruns by optimizing the planning and scheduling of maintenance periods within the FRTP and during refits. Manage transitions (first/last 100 hours) more tightly, emphasize planning, strict control of growth/new work and adherence to key events schedule.
Depot Maintenance: Control duration and cost by better planning and transition management. Work with NAVSEA to shorten SSBN ERO duration. Manage depot maintenance transition with rigor similar to deploying a ship. Forecast work package requirements via more accurate Technical Foundation Papers to enable proper Shipyard loading and resourcing. Work with NAVSEA to establish better execution and planning metrics.
Modernization: Focus modernization efforts to more concisely address improved human-systems interfaces and reduced training burdens while improving the capabilities and reliability of key sensors such as towed arrays and photonics masts. Better balance operational requirements, fiscal realities, and sustainability in the COTS strategy.
Supply: Improve sustainment and reduce cannibalization by better supply support (particularly Virginia class) and proactive management of onboard and off hull supply parts with NAVSEA and NAVSUP partners.
6. Develop Undersea Warfare Commander Doctrine: Formalize standardized doctrine and procedures for coordinating the operations and effects of the full range of undersea systems with special emphasis on incorporating unmanned undersea systems into broad Navy operations. Anticipate emerging changes in communications, networking and autonomous operations to keep TTP current.
Effective Employment:
Conducting Effective Undersea Operations and Warfighting Today
Goals
1. Optimally employ our undersea forces independently or as part of a team in support of our operational or warfighting responsibilities.
2. Reliably and professionally accomplish the missions tasked by the operational commanders while effectively managing risk and stealth.
3. Upon direction, go to war and immediately execute the combatant commanders’ direction.
This objective is about establishing undersea superiority at the lime and place of our choosing through the optimum employment of undersea forces. It involves every element from the deliberate advanced planning of forward operations and SSBN patrols to the conduct of combat operations.
Effective Employment: Focus Areas for increased emphasis
Active engagement with Fleet and Operational Commanders to develop coordinated theater specific campaign plans that optimally employ our undersea forces; enhance development of innovative strategic and tactical employment of undersea forces (e.g., C7F Submarine Campaign Plan and supporting CSP Submarine Response Plan); tighten our assessment processes with Operational Commanders and supporting players to make us more effective warfighters.
Increase the deliberate and planned demonstration of warfighting capabilities and access at the submarine and force level enhancing confidence in our abilities and systematically proving we can do what’s required; lead in development of Theater USW Doctrine and teamwork; improve Mission Assurance to ensure we can fight through a range of C41 challenges in peacetime and war. Improve operational availability of undersea forces while forward (through improved resilience, achieve better reliability, on-board repair, in-theater repair).
Effective Employment: Detailed Application of the Focus Areas
1. Theater Specific Employment Planning-Submarine Campaign Plans:
Formally coordinate and proactively engage Fleet and Operational commanders to thoroughly understand theater OPLANs, required capabilities (including access) and gaps. Encourage creative employment of submarines and undersea assets to conduct forward operations that improve our warfighting readiness and take advantage of our full range of capabilities (e.g., SSGN). Working closely with operational commanders, build a multi-year employment plan and theater-specific Submarine Campaign Plans. By necessity, plans must include solutions to warfighting in communications degraded environments. Integrate innovative demonstrations of undersea force employment or warfighting capabilities into deployments. Integrate capability development into the preparation of Ready Forces.
2. Operating Our Ships-Developing Confidence and Demonstrating Operational and Warfighting Excellence:
Exploit opportunities to enable COs and crews to operate in anticipated wartime areas, walk the battlefield, prove access and demonstrate warfighting skills and postures (e.g., operations in degraded C2/GPS, operational agility, application of wartime ROE, in-theater torpedo firings, SSBN patrols uninterrupted by Brief Stops, etc). Systematically test and evolve guidance based on lessons learned and experience gained. Conduct entire deployments or patrols at heightened stealth postures; assess stealth insitute with short notice planned events (e.g., P3, SECEX). Exploit real world and exercise opportunities to incorporate unmanned systems (aerial and underwater) into forward operations and warfighting demonstrations. Provide feedback to help evolve USW Commander Doctrine and better leverage the capabilities of our undersea platforms and supporting forces. Include COs in the development of operational orders including proposed tasking, identification of best practices and pitfalls, and required mission rehearsals. Increase attention to calculated risk versus undue risk.
3. Sustaining Our Advantage-Forward Materiel Availability: Sustain the availability of essential systems in forward areas by improved reliability, logistic support, at-sea repair capacity and back-up/redundant modes of operation. Increase expected availability of tenders in Phase 0 and wartime. Submarine sensors, antennas, DSE support equipment, fire control and weapons require improved forward availability, as does !USS-related equipment. Improve forward ordnance availability. Demonstrate warfighting support such as in-theater reloading, at-sea resupply, remote site maintenance and other required skills.
4. Sustaining the Fight-Mission Assurance: Ensure our readiness to support the Operational Commander throughout a range of C41 challenges in peacetime and war. Build on existing collaboration and coordination between Submarine Operating Authorities to ensure seamless undersea support to the warfighter. Review, assess, and improve Continuity of Operations Plans.
5. Assessing Our Performance-Feedback to Make Us Better: Establish tighter feedback to the submarine preparation process from operational commanders, other forces and the intelligence community regarding forward operations. Formally assess training doctrine, tactical development, tactical security, modernization plans, concepts of operation, system performance, and forward maintenance practices. Scrutinize Tier 2/3 events and formalize lessons-learned. Assess likely future warfighting environments and determine what is necessary for success and make the necessary adjustments across the Force.
Future Force Capabilities:
Preparing for Future Undersea Operations and Warfighting
Goals
1. Define the future role of undersea forces in both operations and warfighting.
2. Determine platform, payload, payload volume, people and posture requirements.
3. Coordinate future missions with other warfare communities.
4. Translate requirements into decisions, policy and funding.
This area of effort deals with the future beyond the next five years and must take into consideration uncertainty about future projections. There are, however, some factors that can be reliably foreseen: by the existing program of record, the number of nuclear submarines will shrink by about 30 percent over the next 20 years. By 2030, our forward presence will decline by more than 40 percent and our undersea strike capacity will drop by almost 60 percent. Despite these trends, there is every reason to believe that the future of naval warfare will place increasing, and not decreasing demands on undersea forces. This divergence of resources and demands places ever greater stress on the importance of an integrated approach for our future undersea capability development.
Future Force Capabilities: Focus Areas for Increased Emphasis
Define the future role of undersea forces to make best use of undersea concealment for national security, incorporating hedging strategies to accommodate uncertainty in global trends, technologies and adversaries.
Develop an Integrated Undersea Future Strategy to align requirements for platforms, payloads, payload volume, people, and force posture.
Obtain SSBN, SSGN, SSN and Payload decisions to address SSBN requirements, SSGN replacement, the SSN force structure shortfall, and emergent payload requirements.
Future Force Capabilities:
Detailed Application of the Focus Areas
1. Future Role of Undersea Forces-Long Term Undersea Warfighting Vision: Create a clear and broadly accepted vision of the growing importance of undersea forces in a future with increasing anti-access area-denial (A2AD) systems. Refine Navy and Joint Force understanding of the importance of undersea concealment to maritime military success. Advocate the implementation of the Concept for Leveraging the Undersea Environment. Highlight the distinction between A2AD defense, penetration and defeat.
2. Future Payload, Platform, Payload Volume, People and Posture-Integrated Undersea Future Strategy: Platforms: Determine requirements for OHIO Replacement SSBN and its impact on SSGN replacement. Determine requirements for SSGN replacement and implications on SSBNs and SSNs. Determine approach for dealing with the SSN shortfall after 2024 and how that impacts SSGN replacement options.
Payload Volume: Consider the merits of the Virginia Payload Module to replace lost payload volume (distributed vs. concentrated firepower). Plan to simplify payload interfaces.
Payloads: Enhance the military utility of existing payloads through incremental evolutionary changes without needing new programs. Plan to resume torpedo production. Determine new payloads required and their impact on payload volume needs. Consider future sonar system requirements. Conduct liaison with SOCOM to determine the way ahead for SOF payloads. Align payloads with evolving tactical security needs.
People: Determine system and payload changes (sonar, fire control, software, etc.) to enable reduced manning. Identify means to promote increased operational efficiency. Anticipate and define necessary new skill sets, then determine how best to recruit, train and retain them.
Posture: Identify the implications to future operations given different force levels, payloads, basing and manning schemes.
Determine how best to operationally integrate diverse undersea systems, including UUVs, in the future. Refine the mission area of subsea warfare and the systems/operations needed to carry it out.
3. Long-term decisions, policies and funding-SSBN, SSGN, SSN and Payload decisions:
SSBN: Attain decisions on the OHIO Replacement capabilities, including stealth, survivability, and sustainment model. Ensure long-term continuity of sea-based strategic deterrence. SSGN: Attain decisions on replacement of SSGN capacity when SSGNs retire, including Virginia Payload Module R&D and procurement funding.
SSN: Attain and sustain two-per-year procurement of Virginia class SSNs. Gain support for extending the life of selected SSNs to help fill the SSN shortfall without impacting the plan for SSN replacement. Defer the New SSN while continuing procurement of additional Blocks of VA-class SSNs with associated incremental enhancements until after completion of OHIO Replacement class procurement.
Payloads: Encourage the development of undersea payloads by other resource sponsors, including Conventional Prompt Global Strike (OSD), Large Displacement Unmanned Undersea Vehicles (LDUUV)(N2/N6), next generation SOF vehicles (SOCOM), and Distributed Netted Systems.
