/!\ must read
(…) this may be the first time an SSBN patrol has been conducted in the Indian Ocean (…) it could be a warning to the Russian Federation,
(le fauteuil de Colbert (fr), oct.23)
US Navy: SSBN-736 USS "West Virginia" on patrol in the Indian Ocean, a case study of the Nuclear Posture Review 2018?
The United States CENTral COMmand (CENTCOM) - one of the eleven Unified Combatant Commands - has notified, via press release, and supporting photographs, that the SSBN-736 USS West Virginia (1990) sailed into international waters of the Arabian Sea on 19 October 2022. And that General Michael "Erik" Kurilla, CENTCOM Commander since April 1, 2022, and Vice Admiral Charles Bradford "Brad" Cooper II, Commander of the Fifth Fleet, were received on board. This would be the first deployment of a US SSBN (Sub-Surface Ballistic Nuclear) in the Indian Ocean and perhaps the most explicit manifestation of US nuclear posture - through naval, submarine and nuclear diplomacy - since 24 February 2022, i.e. the Russian Federation's invasion of Ukraine.
The knowledge of the presence of the SSBN-736 USS West Virginia (1990) was not the result of a voluntary or involuntary "indiscretion" by its crew, intended to warn a limited number of players of the consequences of such an advanced presence. However, the publication of a press release, together with three photographs purporting to represent the presence on board of General Michael "Erik" Kurilla, commander of CENTCOM since 1 April 2022, and Vice-Admiral Charles Bradford "Brad" Cooper II, commander of the Fifth Fleet, and of the ship itself, testifies to the desire to place this information in the public domain, underlining all the more so, by the channel used, the importance of the message to be delivered and the desire for it to receive maximum coverage.
This differs, for example, from the SSBN-740 USS Rhode Island (1994) stopover at HMNB Clyde (Faslane) between 1 and 5 July 2022. She was escorted by the Type 23 frigate HMS Portland (2001) and her Agusta Westland EH101 Merlin heavy lift helicopter. And its presence was confirmed by a terse statement from US EUCOM. This was then a scheduled and cyclical stopover: two previous similar stopovers, involving a US Navy SSBN, had taken place at the same UK naval base on 2 July 2019 and 7 October 2016. Another distinction to be highlighted is the diplomatic context, as July was not a month of heightened international tensions and was not linked to military operations in Ukraine.
The patrol of the SSBN-736 USS West Virginia (1990) proceeds from different rationales:
First, and since the admission to active service of SSBN-598 USS George Washington (1959) on 30 December 1959, this may be the first time an SSBN patrol has been conducted in the Indian Ocean: there were regular patrols in the North Atlantic Ocean, as far as the Norwegian Sea - with a dedicated naval base at Holy Loch (1961 - 1992) with Fleet Ballistic Missile (FBM) Refit Site One supporting Submarine Squadron 14 - and the icy Arctic Ocean, and in the Mediterranean - SSBN-609 USS Sam Houston (1962 - 1991) called at Izmir in April 1963 as a reaffirmation of the US strategic presence with regular patrols thereafter from Naval Station Rota, despite the withdrawal of the PGM-19 Jupiter MRBMs, by virtue of the settlement of the Cuban Missile Crisis (14-28 October 1962) - but also and always in the Pacific Ocean, with patrol areas evolving according to improvements in the range of the Strategic Sea-Ground Ballistic Missile (SSGBM) or Submarine Launched Ballistic Missile (SLBM) and the international context.
Second, this patrol of the SSBN-736 USS West Virginia (1990) is related to a strategically important US Navy operational experiment in the Indian Ocean that has received little or no comment.
First, it was noted that the US Navy's Naval Support Facility Diego Garcia in the British Indian Ocean Territory has and maintains infrastructure to support Ohio class SSGNs (14 + 4).
In a second phase, SSGN-728 USS Florida (1983) conducted a deployment of astonishing duration: more than 800 days (~ February 2018 - 9 May 2020). Support was provided to the ship only during port calls, without any dry docking in a pool or form. Of the eleven port calls, two were made at the Naval Support Activity, Souda Bay and at the Naval Support Facility Diego Garcia: both lasting three to four weeks.
A similar mission was conducted by SSGN-729 USS Georgia (1984), lasting 790 days (24 July 2020 - 22 September 2022?). The ship was visible on satellite imagery and its presence confirmed by press release during a stopover at the Naval Support Facility Diego Garcia (25 - 29 September 2020) during which it may have benefited from long-term dockside maintenance for three to four weeks.
The US Navy's communication does not indicate whether this is an experiment for the benefit of, for example, nuclear attack submarines (SSN and SSGN), in order to increase the "forward" presence and therefore the number of boats actually deployed in the area. This is clearly a long-term effort, having found a kinematics globally fixed around 800-day missions, allowing the organisation of support throughout the stopovers (~10 to 12), two of which are of long duration (3 to 4 weeks), and with a rotation of crews who were rather carrying out 4 to 6-month missions.
It is quite remarkable that the changeover from an SSGN to an SSBN from the same Ohio class (14 + 18) would require adapting the maintenance programme and availability checks of the Trident 2D5 SLBMs, within a navy that has already deployed SSBNs to naval bases on foreign soil (La Rota, Holy Loch for example).
Thirdly, the patrol of the SSBN-736 USS West Virginia (1990) and its 20 UGM-133A Trident 2D5, punctually interrupted by its illumination, on the occasion of its navigation in the Arabian Sea, intervenes in an international context suffering from a resurgence of tensions. It is not easy to try to highlight which protagonists may be targeted. The capital of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Tehran, is 1,665 km from the centre of the Arabian Sea and therefore the SSBN-736 USS West Virginia (1990) would have to patrol further west or south in order to launch its SLBMs outside the minimum firing range. This raises the question of whether the 20th Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) could be the recipient of this call for restraint.
Unless it could be a warning to the Russian Federation, vis-à-vis the evacuation of Kherson in the eponymous oblast and the more or less explicit hints of an attack on the Kakhovka hydroelectric dam, or even just a nuclear strike on the city of Kherson, whose inhabitants have been called upon to evacuate "immediately" while Ukrainian troops advance to reduce the Russian "pocket".
The SSBN-736 USS West Virginia (1990) and its 20 UGM-133A Trident 2D5s are about 3,900 km from Kherson. This firing position could hardly be thwarted by the presence of Russian submarines in the Indian Ocean, or even most of the world's navies. This firing position seems to be ideal for 'stressing' opposing defences due to a 'bell-shaped' trajectory that reduces flight time and increases maximum speed. Furthermore, the use of MSBS / SLBMs ensures the ability to penetrate adversary defences along potential trajectories that appear to be of little or no concern to regional air defence capabilities, particularly those with an anti-ballistic missile or ABM purpose.
This raises questions about the mix of 20 Trident 2D5 UGM-133As between W76-1 and W76-2 warheads:
The Nuclear Posture Review 2018 (February 2018), whose preparatory work began and was conducted under the leadership of General James Norman Mattis (20 June 2017 - 1 January 2019) before the election of Donald J. Trump (8 November 2016), proposed, among other things, the development of a Sea-Launched Cruise Missile (SLCM) carrying a nuclear warhead (SLCM-N) and a new low-yield nuclear warhead for use with the Ship Submersible Ballistic Nuclear (SSBN). Two recommendations that could help support an operational posture against forces that the Pentagon has wanted since at least the 2010 Nuclear Posture Review.
The 2018 Nuclear Posture Review postulated a demonstrated need for a low-yield nuclear weapon whose operational purpose would be anti-forces and anti-hardened or buried structures in the perspective of a so-called "regional war". More precisely, it would be a response to the evolution of the Russian nuclear doctrine, suspected or clearly accused, depending on the protagonists, of having lowered the threshold for the use of nuclear weapons through the "doctrine of escalation and de-escalation", the very existence of which is the subject of bitter debate.
In any case, the "low-yield nuclear weapon" should make it possible to re-establish the deterrent value of the American military forces deployed in the various "regions" by a response of the same nature and thus re-establish deterrence. Its operational utility is to be balanced against that of tactical or "sub-strategic" nuclear weapons in the NATO term B61 in its various "mods": the B61s are not deployed in the United States. The B61s are only deployed in Europe and not, for example, in Asia (Japan, South Korea). A UGM-133A Trident 2D5 carrying the W76-2 can fill this gap. Also, the same missile equipped with the same warheads can be launched on the order of the American president and reach its target during a crisis in less than an hour because the SSBN on alert is constantly ready to execute this order. The same B61 launch requires a longer delay because of the alerting of NATO forces capable of delivering these weapons.
The US nuclear arsenal has an inventory of approximately 448 UGM-133A Trident 2D5 Submarine Launched Ballistic Missiles (SLBMs). Of these 448 SLBM, 240 are actually deployed on SSBNs. The other 208 or so are used as spare parts and consumable missiles to support the flight test programme of a missile with evolutionary prospects through the Trident 2D5 Life Extension Programme, which is expected to extend their operational service from 2028 to 2042.
These 240 Trident 2D5 SLBM can be armed with :
The number of configurations cannot be too large, since 'only' ten of the fourteen SSBNs can be fully equipped with missiles. This implies a 'critical mass' to be allocated to each scenario on which the operational posture is built.
It should be noted that restricting the number of warheads carried from eight to only two implies an increase in the range, which was originally 12,000 km, with all its payloads.
The recommendation on low-yield nuclear weapons was followed by the development of the W76 mod. 2 (W76-2) nuclear warhead with the allocation of 65 million dollars via an amendment on 13 April 2018. In the open literature, it is said that its nominal power would be between 5 and 7 Kt, compared to 90 Kt for the W76-1. Reduced power, not adjustable.
The year 2019 would have seen the W76-2 go into production by Pantex Ordnance Plant at a rate of 50 units. The first - First Production Unit (FPU) - would have rolled off the line as early as February 2019 and the last would have been delivered in September 2019. The newcomer would have been declared operational the same year.
Also in the open literature, two possible configurations of SLBM Trident 2D5 or 'Mk 4A' are mentioned:
On 4 February 2020, the Pentagon issued a press release stating that the SSBN-734 USS Tennessee (Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay (1979), Atlantic Ocean) had conducted the first operational patrol of the W76 mod. 2 (W76-2), probably between December 2019 and January 2020. This is one of the recommendations of the Nuclear Posture Review 2018, which is coming to fruition quite quickly. The choice of the ocean as the location for the first patrol leaves no doubt that the Russian Federation is the main interested party in this development.
It is in this perspective that the patrol conducted by the SSBN-736 USS West Virginia (1990) into the Arabian Sea, and more broadly into the Indian Ocean, raises the question of a possible textbook case of the application of the Nuclear Posture Review 2018, with a clear warning to Moscow in this case.
/deepl
(…) this may be the first time an SSBN patrol has been conducted in the Indian Ocean (…) it could be a warning to the Russian Federation,
(le fauteuil de Colbert (fr), oct.23)
US Navy: SSBN-736 USS "West Virginia" on patrol in the Indian Ocean, a case study of the Nuclear Posture Review 2018?
The United States CENTral COMmand (CENTCOM) - one of the eleven Unified Combatant Commands - has notified, via press release, and supporting photographs, that the SSBN-736 USS West Virginia (1990) sailed into international waters of the Arabian Sea on 19 October 2022. And that General Michael "Erik" Kurilla, CENTCOM Commander since April 1, 2022, and Vice Admiral Charles Bradford "Brad" Cooper II, Commander of the Fifth Fleet, were received on board. This would be the first deployment of a US SSBN (Sub-Surface Ballistic Nuclear) in the Indian Ocean and perhaps the most explicit manifestation of US nuclear posture - through naval, submarine and nuclear diplomacy - since 24 February 2022, i.e. the Russian Federation's invasion of Ukraine.
The knowledge of the presence of the SSBN-736 USS West Virginia (1990) was not the result of a voluntary or involuntary "indiscretion" by its crew, intended to warn a limited number of players of the consequences of such an advanced presence. However, the publication of a press release, together with three photographs purporting to represent the presence on board of General Michael "Erik" Kurilla, commander of CENTCOM since 1 April 2022, and Vice-Admiral Charles Bradford "Brad" Cooper II, commander of the Fifth Fleet, and of the ship itself, testifies to the desire to place this information in the public domain, underlining all the more so, by the channel used, the importance of the message to be delivered and the desire for it to receive maximum coverage.
This differs, for example, from the SSBN-740 USS Rhode Island (1994) stopover at HMNB Clyde (Faslane) between 1 and 5 July 2022. She was escorted by the Type 23 frigate HMS Portland (2001) and her Agusta Westland EH101 Merlin heavy lift helicopter. And its presence was confirmed by a terse statement from US EUCOM. This was then a scheduled and cyclical stopover: two previous similar stopovers, involving a US Navy SSBN, had taken place at the same UK naval base on 2 July 2019 and 7 October 2016. Another distinction to be highlighted is the diplomatic context, as July was not a month of heightened international tensions and was not linked to military operations in Ukraine.
The patrol of the SSBN-736 USS West Virginia (1990) proceeds from different rationales:
First, and since the admission to active service of SSBN-598 USS George Washington (1959) on 30 December 1959, this may be the first time an SSBN patrol has been conducted in the Indian Ocean: there were regular patrols in the North Atlantic Ocean, as far as the Norwegian Sea - with a dedicated naval base at Holy Loch (1961 - 1992) with Fleet Ballistic Missile (FBM) Refit Site One supporting Submarine Squadron 14 - and the icy Arctic Ocean, and in the Mediterranean - SSBN-609 USS Sam Houston (1962 - 1991) called at Izmir in April 1963 as a reaffirmation of the US strategic presence with regular patrols thereafter from Naval Station Rota, despite the withdrawal of the PGM-19 Jupiter MRBMs, by virtue of the settlement of the Cuban Missile Crisis (14-28 October 1962) - but also and always in the Pacific Ocean, with patrol areas evolving according to improvements in the range of the Strategic Sea-Ground Ballistic Missile (SSGBM) or Submarine Launched Ballistic Missile (SLBM) and the international context.
Second, this patrol of the SSBN-736 USS West Virginia (1990) is related to a strategically important US Navy operational experiment in the Indian Ocean that has received little or no comment.
First, it was noted that the US Navy's Naval Support Facility Diego Garcia in the British Indian Ocean Territory has and maintains infrastructure to support Ohio class SSGNs (14 + 4).
In a second phase, SSGN-728 USS Florida (1983) conducted a deployment of astonishing duration: more than 800 days (~ February 2018 - 9 May 2020). Support was provided to the ship only during port calls, without any dry docking in a pool or form. Of the eleven port calls, two were made at the Naval Support Activity, Souda Bay and at the Naval Support Facility Diego Garcia: both lasting three to four weeks.
A similar mission was conducted by SSGN-729 USS Georgia (1984), lasting 790 days (24 July 2020 - 22 September 2022?). The ship was visible on satellite imagery and its presence confirmed by press release during a stopover at the Naval Support Facility Diego Garcia (25 - 29 September 2020) during which it may have benefited from long-term dockside maintenance for three to four weeks.
The US Navy's communication does not indicate whether this is an experiment for the benefit of, for example, nuclear attack submarines (SSN and SSGN), in order to increase the "forward" presence and therefore the number of boats actually deployed in the area. This is clearly a long-term effort, having found a kinematics globally fixed around 800-day missions, allowing the organisation of support throughout the stopovers (~10 to 12), two of which are of long duration (3 to 4 weeks), and with a rotation of crews who were rather carrying out 4 to 6-month missions.
It is quite remarkable that the changeover from an SSGN to an SSBN from the same Ohio class (14 + 18) would require adapting the maintenance programme and availability checks of the Trident 2D5 SLBMs, within a navy that has already deployed SSBNs to naval bases on foreign soil (La Rota, Holy Loch for example).
Thirdly, the patrol of the SSBN-736 USS West Virginia (1990) and its 20 UGM-133A Trident 2D5, punctually interrupted by its illumination, on the occasion of its navigation in the Arabian Sea, intervenes in an international context suffering from a resurgence of tensions. It is not easy to try to highlight which protagonists may be targeted. The capital of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Tehran, is 1,665 km from the centre of the Arabian Sea and therefore the SSBN-736 USS West Virginia (1990) would have to patrol further west or south in order to launch its SLBMs outside the minimum firing range. This raises the question of whether the 20th Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) could be the recipient of this call for restraint.
Unless it could be a warning to the Russian Federation, vis-à-vis the evacuation of Kherson in the eponymous oblast and the more or less explicit hints of an attack on the Kakhovka hydroelectric dam, or even just a nuclear strike on the city of Kherson, whose inhabitants have been called upon to evacuate "immediately" while Ukrainian troops advance to reduce the Russian "pocket".
The SSBN-736 USS West Virginia (1990) and its 20 UGM-133A Trident 2D5s are about 3,900 km from Kherson. This firing position could hardly be thwarted by the presence of Russian submarines in the Indian Ocean, or even most of the world's navies. This firing position seems to be ideal for 'stressing' opposing defences due to a 'bell-shaped' trajectory that reduces flight time and increases maximum speed. Furthermore, the use of MSBS / SLBMs ensures the ability to penetrate adversary defences along potential trajectories that appear to be of little or no concern to regional air defence capabilities, particularly those with an anti-ballistic missile or ABM purpose.
This raises questions about the mix of 20 Trident 2D5 UGM-133As between W76-1 and W76-2 warheads:
The Nuclear Posture Review 2018 (February 2018), whose preparatory work began and was conducted under the leadership of General James Norman Mattis (20 June 2017 - 1 January 2019) before the election of Donald J. Trump (8 November 2016), proposed, among other things, the development of a Sea-Launched Cruise Missile (SLCM) carrying a nuclear warhead (SLCM-N) and a new low-yield nuclear warhead for use with the Ship Submersible Ballistic Nuclear (SSBN). Two recommendations that could help support an operational posture against forces that the Pentagon has wanted since at least the 2010 Nuclear Posture Review.
The 2018 Nuclear Posture Review postulated a demonstrated need for a low-yield nuclear weapon whose operational purpose would be anti-forces and anti-hardened or buried structures in the perspective of a so-called "regional war". More precisely, it would be a response to the evolution of the Russian nuclear doctrine, suspected or clearly accused, depending on the protagonists, of having lowered the threshold for the use of nuclear weapons through the "doctrine of escalation and de-escalation", the very existence of which is the subject of bitter debate.
In any case, the "low-yield nuclear weapon" should make it possible to re-establish the deterrent value of the American military forces deployed in the various "regions" by a response of the same nature and thus re-establish deterrence. Its operational utility is to be balanced against that of tactical or "sub-strategic" nuclear weapons in the NATO term B61 in its various "mods": the B61s are not deployed in the United States. The B61s are only deployed in Europe and not, for example, in Asia (Japan, South Korea). A UGM-133A Trident 2D5 carrying the W76-2 can fill this gap. Also, the same missile equipped with the same warheads can be launched on the order of the American president and reach its target during a crisis in less than an hour because the SSBN on alert is constantly ready to execute this order. The same B61 launch requires a longer delay because of the alerting of NATO forces capable of delivering these weapons.
The US nuclear arsenal has an inventory of approximately 448 UGM-133A Trident 2D5 Submarine Launched Ballistic Missiles (SLBMs). Of these 448 SLBM, 240 are actually deployed on SSBNs. The other 208 or so are used as spare parts and consumable missiles to support the flight test programme of a missile with evolutionary prospects through the Trident 2D5 Life Extension Programme, which is expected to extend their operational service from 2028 to 2042.
These 240 Trident 2D5 SLBM can be armed with :
- 1486 W76 mod. 1 (W76-1) nuclear warheads with a nominal power of 90 Kt, at a rate of 1 to 8 'mirved' warheads per 'Mk 4A' missile (2008), enough to arm a theoretical maximum of 185 missiles;
- 384 W88 nuclear warheads with a nominal power of 455 Kt, at a rate of 1 to 8 'mirved' warheads per 'Mk 5' missile (1990), enough to arm a theoretical maximum of 48 missiles;
- 50 nuclear warheads W76 mod. 2 (W76-2) nuclear warheads with a nominal power of between 5 and 7 Kt.
The number of configurations cannot be too large, since 'only' ten of the fourteen SSBNs can be fully equipped with missiles. This implies a 'critical mass' to be allocated to each scenario on which the operational posture is built.
It should be noted that restricting the number of warheads carried from eight to only two implies an increase in the range, which was originally 12,000 km, with all its payloads.
The recommendation on low-yield nuclear weapons was followed by the development of the W76 mod. 2 (W76-2) nuclear warhead with the allocation of 65 million dollars via an amendment on 13 April 2018. In the open literature, it is said that its nominal power would be between 5 and 7 Kt, compared to 90 Kt for the W76-1. Reduced power, not adjustable.
The year 2019 would have seen the W76-2 go into production by Pantex Ordnance Plant at a rate of 50 units. The first - First Production Unit (FPU) - would have rolled off the line as early as February 2019 and the last would have been delivered in September 2019. The newcomer would have been declared operational the same year.
Also in the open literature, two possible configurations of SLBM Trident 2D5 or 'Mk 4A' are mentioned:
- One understands that two missiles per Ohio class SSBN on patrol would receive two Trident 2D5 SLBMs each loaded with two W76-2s, enough to arm twenty-five missiles, or twelve Ohio class SSBNs;
- the other configuration is much more flexible, as it only mentions one or two Trident 2D5 SLBMs each loaded with one to eight W76-2s.
On 4 February 2020, the Pentagon issued a press release stating that the SSBN-734 USS Tennessee (Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay (1979), Atlantic Ocean) had conducted the first operational patrol of the W76 mod. 2 (W76-2), probably between December 2019 and January 2020. This is one of the recommendations of the Nuclear Posture Review 2018, which is coming to fruition quite quickly. The choice of the ocean as the location for the first patrol leaves no doubt that the Russian Federation is the main interested party in this development.
It is in this perspective that the patrol conducted by the SSBN-736 USS West Virginia (1990) into the Arabian Sea, and more broadly into the Indian Ocean, raises the question of a possible textbook case of the application of the Nuclear Posture Review 2018, with a clear warning to Moscow in this case.
/deepl
