Silenced Service

The world is building more submarines, including non-nuclear boats that are extremely quiet and therefore difficult to detect. Doctine has it that the best anti-submarine weapon is another submarine.

So it is discouraging, to say the least, with China among the nations building more and better submarines, that our submarine fleet is on course to decline to possibly dangerous levels for several decades before relief is planned with new construction reaching the fleet in numbers greater than retirements:

The shortage will begin in 2022, when the number of SSNs will fall below 48. The bottom will be in 2028, when only 41 SSNs will be available, and the shortage won't end until 2034.

Well that's just great.