The USN buget has gone down by 25% over the last 15 years which means theres just enough to support what they got now and only just, so to save some money they git rid of the less capible units and bring in the more capible units ie the virginia's however i doubt the virginias will ever match the numbers of the 688 theres simply no need for a 65 strong fast attack fleet any more.
Right now america has only 45 at the most attack submarines russia has 48 both diesel and nuclear she too is down sizing to around 30.
Why do you need 65 attack submarines when the wars of today are fought by aircraft and men on the ground it seems a big waste of money to keep all thess obsolete submarines in service to provide cover, the SSN744's are fully capible of carrier battle group cover single handedly so are the seawolfs it makes more sence to reduce the fleet and concentrate on the area that does need the attention which is the newer carriers and destroyers and aircraft not to mention auxilaries mine warfare ships and patrol craft these are the ships that will be most needed in the future.
If iran mines the straight of hormuz its not going to be a submarine thats going to clear a path it will be the smaller mine warfare vessels however most of americas mine warfare vessels are nearing 20 or have gone over 20 years old they are pretty out of date they are in need of replacing.
Britiain maintains 22 mine warfare vessels that also double up as coastal patrol craft why because they can see that mine warfare is a very nessasery ship to have in a navy every one else has seemed to shun them even russia china france germany america and a fair few others.
So what do you do with the older less capible units you get rid then make way for the new but at the moment its 4x688's for 1x SSN744
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