Virginia-Class Submarine Block III Variant: What You Need to Know
Key Points and Summary – Meet the U.S. Navy’s eight Virginia-class Block III fast-attack submarines, a variant that introduced significant cost-saving and capability-enhancing upgrades.
Key modifications include a redesigned bow featuring a powerful Large Aperture Bow (LAB) sonar array and the replacement of twelve vertical launch tubes with two large, Ohio-class-style payload tubes, each holding six Tomahawk missiles.
The Block III Virginia-Class: One of the Best U.S. Navy Attack Submarines Ever to Sail
The state of Virginia—officially the Commonwealth of Virginia—is affectionately known as “Old Dominion” by virtue of its historical status as the first American colony of the British Empire and because of the domain status given to it by Charles II. Accordingly, there is Old Dominion University (ODU), founded in 1930 and located in Norfolk, Virginia.
Since Norfolk happens to host a United States Navy base, it should be the Virginia-class fast-attack submarines (SSN, as in “Submersible Ship Nuclear”) tasked to sustain the USN’s dominion of the realm of undersea warfare.
Today, in the spirit of the saying “The third time’s the charm,” National Security Journal focuses on the Block III variants of the Virginia-class subs.
Virginia-Class Block III Initial History
A total of eight Block III Virginia-class boats have been built. (There are a total of six Blocks). The first ship of the Block (and 11th of the overall class), USS North Dakota (SSN-784), was built by General Dynamics Electric Boat (GDEB) in Groton, Connecticut, laid down on May 11, 2012, launched on September 15, 2013, and commissioned on October 25, 2014.
Her motto is “Strength from the Soil, Reapers of the Deep,” and Commander Towney Kennard III currently skippers her, backed up by Executive Officer (“XO”) Lt. Cmdr. Mark Johnson and Chief of the Boat (“COB”) ITSCM Erik Whitaker.
As for the remainder of the Block:
USS John Warner (SSN-785):
Built by Huntington Ingalls Industries (HII) in Newport News, Virginia; laid down on March 16, 2013; launched on September 10, 2014; commissioned on August 1, 2015; motto is “Legati ad Defendam Libertatem (‘On a Mission to Protect Freedom’).”
USS Illinois (SSN-786):
Built by GDEB; laid down on June 2, 2014; launched on August 8, 2015; commissioned on October 29, 2016; motto is “Nemo Magis Fortiter (‘None more brave’).” (not to be confused with sci-fi submariner Captain Nemo of Jules Verne’s “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea”)
USS Washington (SSN-787):
Built by HII; laid down on November 22, 2014; launched on March 25, 2016, commissioned on October 7, 2017; motto is “Preserving Peace, Prepared for War.” (Coincidentally, she shares her name with the only battleship to score a one-on-one battleship kill during WWII.)
USS Colorado (SSN-788):
Built by GDEB; laid down on March 7, 2015; launched on December 29, 2016; commissioned on St. Patrick’s Day, March 17, 2018; motto is “Terra Marique Indomita (‘By land and sea, untamed’).”
USS Indiana (SSN-789):
Built by HII; laid down on May 16, 2015; launched on June 9, 2017; commissioned on September 29, 2018; motto is “Silent Victors.”
USS South Dakota (SSN-790):
Built by GDEB; laid down on April 4, 2016; launched on October 14, 2017; commissioned on February 2, 2019; motto is “Subter Mare Dominamur (‘Under the sea we rule’).”
USS Delaware (SSN-791):
Built by HII; laid down on April 30, 2016; launched on December 17, 2018; commissioned on April 4, 2020; motto is “First Defenders of Liberty.”
(For the basis of historical frame of reference, the lead ship of the Virginia class—appropriately named USS Virginia [SSN-774]—was built by GDEB, laid down on September 2, 1999, launched on August 16, 2003, and commissioned on October 23, 2004. Her motto [just like her eponymous state motto] is Sic Semper Tyrannis [‘Thus Always To Tyrants’; yes, that coincides with the infamous words uttered by John Wilkes Booth after he fatally shot Abraham Lincoln].)
Virginia-Class Block III Technical Specifications and Vital Stats
Displacement: 7,900 long tons (8.700 short tons) submerged and fully laden
Hull Length: 377 feet (115 meters)
Beam Width: 34 feet (10 meters)
Propulsion:
1 × S9G Next Generation nuclear reactor generating 280,000 horsepower (210 megawatts); designed for natural circulation core cooling and is capable of operating at a significant fraction of full power without reactor coolant pumps
2 × steam turbines 40,000 shaft horsepower (30 megawatts)
1 × single shaft pump-jet propulsor
1 × secondary propulsion motor
Max Speed (Submerged): At 25 knots (46 km/h; 29 mph)
Range: Unlimited thanks to the nuclear propulsion; deployment endurance is only limited by food supply and maintenance requirements
Test Depth: Over 800 feet (240 meters) (NOTE: Test depth is the depth to which the submarine is certified to descend without any risk of permanent deformation or damage; it is not to be confused with hull crush depth, which is significantly deeper.)
Crew Complement: 15 commissioned officers and 120 enlisted seamen
Armament:
-12 × vertically launched missiles:
-2 × Vertical Launching System (VLS) payload tubes, each capable of launching six cruise missiles (12 × Tomahawk BGM-10925 × torpedo tube launched torpedoes & missiles:
-4 × 21″ torpedo tubes for Mark 48 torpedoes or UGM-84 Harpoon missiles
What Makes the Block III So Special? In 4 Words: They Can Do Everything
The Block IIIs are differentiated from the first two Blocks of Virginias by the following features:
Revised bow with a Large Aperture Bow (LAB) sonar array; this array is horseshoe-shaped and water-backed (replacing the spherical, air-backed main sonar array, which had been used on all USN SSNs since 1960), and consists of a passive array (which provides improved performance) and a medium-frequency active array.
As noted by Defense Industry Daily, “Eliminating the hundreds of SUBSAFE penetrations that help maintain required pressure in the air-backed sonar sphere will save approximately $11 million per hull…The SUBSAFE eliminations, plus the life-of-the-hull transducers, will help to reduce the submarines’ life cycle costs as well by removing moving parts that require maintenance, eliminating possible points of failure and repair, and removing the need for transducer replacements in drydock … The bow redesign is not limited to these changes, however, and includes 25 associated redesign efforts. These are estimated to reduce construction costs by another $20 million per hull beginning with the FY 2012 submarine.”
Emulation of weapons technology from the Ohio-class guided missile submarines (SSGN), namely two VLS tubes each containing six missiles. The changeover from 12 VLS tubes to two tubes results in “Net savings [of] about $8 million to program baseline costs,” according to that same Defense Industry Daily article.
Operational History
“You’ll always be our great Virginia./You’re the birthplace of the nation:/Where history was changed forever./Today, your glory stays, as we build tomorrow.”—”Our Great Virginia,” official state anthem of Virginia since 2015
Understandably, much of what the USN’s submarine force does on deployments is shrouded in secrecy; after all, it’s nicknamed “The Silent Service” for a reason.
That said, it was a Block III boat that had the honor of being the first specimen of the entire Virginia class to be “blooded” in combat. During her first deployment on 14 April 2018, the USS John Warner took part in targeted strikes against Syrian chemical weapons facilities belonging to the regime of then-strongman Bashar al-Assad, firing six Tomahawk cruise missiles in the process.
Meanwhile, during a ceremony in July 2024, the USS Washington (unofficially nicknamed the “Blackfish”) was awarded a Presidential Unit Citation (PUC) for completing “three demanding missions vital to national security that resulted in obtaining sensitive and unique intelligence information.”
As noted in a 2016 official info page from the Office of the Director, Operational Test and Evaluation (DOT&E) is the principal staff assistant and adviser to the US Secretary of Defense on operational and live fire test and evaluation activities, “The Operational Commander will employ the Virginia class Block III submarine to conduct open-ocean and littoral covert operations that support the following submarine mission areas: • Strike warfare • Anti-submarine warfare • Intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance • Mine warfare • Anti-surface ship warfare • Naval special warfare • Battle group operations”
Where Are They Now?
“Left my home in Norfolk, Virginia, California on my mind…”—“Promised Land” by Elvis Aaron Presley
All of the Block III Virginias remain in active service, though the majority of them are not actually homeported at Naval Station Norfolk. (With all due love and respect to Elvis, none of them are homeported in California, though Naval Base Point Loma in San Diego does host Submarine Squadron 11 [COMSUBRON ELEVEN], which consists of four older Los Angeles-class SSNs, namely the USS Alexandria [SSN-757], USS Santa Fe [SSN-763], USS Scranton [SSN-756], and USS Greenville [SSN-772].)
The Block III homeports are divvied as follows:
–Naval Submarine Base New London, Connecticut: USS North Dakota, USS South Dakota, USS Delaware
–Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii: USS Illinois, USS Washington, USS Colorado, USS Indiana
-Naval Station Norfolk, Virginia: USS John Warner
About the Author: Christian D. Orr, Defense Expert
Christian D. Orr is a Senior Defense Editor. He is a former Air Force Security Forces officer, Federal law enforcement officer, and private military contractor (with assignments worked in Iraq, the United Arab Emirates, Kosovo, Japan, Germany, and the Pentagon). Chris holds a B.A. in International Relations from the University of Southern California (USC) and an M.A. in Intelligence Studies (concentration in Terrorism Studies) from American Military University (AMU).
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