The following graphic was issued this week by the United States Navy, Commander, Submarine Forces in an effort to help members of Congress better understand the rationale for building a new fleet of ballistic missile submarines to replace the current Trident fleet.
The Trident II D-5 missiles deployed on the nation's 14 OHIO Class submarines carry multiple thermonuclear warheads, each one many times the destructive force of the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Rear Adm. Joesph Tofalo has said that, “A single Trident submarine is the sixth largest nuclear nation in the world all by itself."
Carrying enough nuclear warheads to incinerate an entire continent, Trident is certainly an important tool in our nation's military tool box, and it most certainly can make lots of people "go away" in a flash.
The successor to the OHIO Class submarine fleet is known as the SSBN(X), and is currently in research and development. A fleet of 12 new submarines will cost approximately $100 billion to build.
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