Kyle Mizokami is a writer based in San Francisco who has appeared in The Diplomat, Foreign Policy, War is Boring and The Daily Beast. The subs also mount two steam turbines, one for quiet operation.Įighteen Ohio-class submarines were built-fourteen serve on as ballistic missile submarines while four were rearmed with conventional Tomahawk cruise missiles.
The nuclear missile silos, laid out in two rows behind the sail, are flush with the hull to decrease flow noise. Noise-generating equipment is placed on sound-isolating mounts. Stealthy features include a cylindrical, fish-shaped hull for fast movement with minimal noise. The Ohio submarines, at 18,450 tons submerged are the largest submarines ever built by the United States.
Among submarines, the most powerful combination of lethality and stealth is almost certainly the Ohio-class nuclear powered ballistic missile submarines.Ī popular-possibly apocryphal-legend about the Ohio class holds that they were never detected by rival Soviet submarines and submarine detection systems.
Stealth doesn’t just apply to aircraft-submarines have been incorporating stealthy features for decades. Air Force originally planned to order 750 F-22s to replace the F-15A and F-15C, but orders were slashed to 183 aircraft.