Discussion Items

While I'm off doing politics stuff, here are a couple of items for people to discuss if they feel like it.

1) The CRS updated their white paper on the Ohio Replacement (SSBN[X]) program.  While they won't do it (because the Navy's manufacturing partners would lose out on lots of R&D money, and Congress wouldn't allow that), I think we already have a perfect option for the next SSBN -- base it on the Seawolf hull. It already has an almost Ohio-diameter hull, we've proven we can put a module in the middle of one, and it's plenty quiet. The main problem would be that our SSBNs would be faster then our Virginia-class SSNs, and I can't see the Navy going for that.

2) The CNO came out with a new program with standards for selecting COs as a CYA reaction to all the recent problems. From the letter, it appears that not much will change for the Submarine Force, unless the ridiculous Department Head 360 Review the skimmers are going to pilot gets adopted fleet-wide. If so, we'll get a bunch of Engineers getting the opportunity to talk to a "certified counselor", probably about their "feelings". Normally, I'd worry that the pussification of the CO pool could put us at risk in a wartime scenario, but I think our technical superiority will remain in place for the next 20 years or so that will allow us to overcome that; by that time, the pendulum should have swung enough that society will understand once again that sometimes you need a man with a tattoo on his dick to do the dirty work of commanding a warship at sea. (Sometimes, that man might even be a woman, as long as she knows what's needed to kill the enemy and sink his ships. Because, in the final analysis, that's our job, not "talking it out" with "certified counselors".)