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Not sure at all how I feel about this.

Of all of the elements of our TRIAD, the subs are by far the most important.

But I don’t have current numbers.

Not sure at all how I feel about this.

Of all of the elements of our TRIAD, the subs are by far the most important.

But I don’t have current numbers.

18 Ohio SSBN's were built. With the four converted to SSGNs, there are still 14 left ... with 336 available Trident tubes.

Tridents can carry up to 8 MIRVs, for a theoretical total of 2688 thermonuclear warheads. This is assuming that all 14 boats are deployable, and that each Trident carries the maximum of 8 warheads. WRT the warheads, in practice, allegedly, SSBNs deploy on patrol with a MIRV mix of 1 to 8 warheads on the Trident missles - no sense in throwing away 7 warheads if there's only a single target that needs to be incinerated)

WRT to how many subs are out on patrol the SSBNs operate on the Blue/Gold crew system. Each boomer has two crews, with the crews rotating to ensure that the boats spend the maximum amount of time at sea on deterrance patrols as possible.

IIRC those four subs were scheduled to be decommissioned at their mid-life point due to one of the START treaties anyways. Better to have them as SSGNs for the next 20 years than to have them cut up for razor blades in Bremerton.

I might be wrong, but I believe that these subs would have to be decommissioned because of the SALT treaties if they weren’t converted to conventional weapons systems. So, we’re not losing any part of the triad that wouldn’t be dismantled anyway.