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Originally Posted by Kapitan
In fairness yes the Kastroma took a light hit but if you look at the damage to the San fransisco it makes you wonder just how much damage did baton rouge suffer?
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The San Francisco damage was immense. That, too, was also outside of the pressure hull, though. Or, at least a bulk of it was. The sonar dome is outside the pressure hull. "Small scrapes", as Wikipedia describes it, on the pressure hull could be much deadlier (or more crippling) to an LA than the front-end collision on the San Francisco.
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Originally Posted by Kapitan
I am aware of the HY ratings i did read the Virginia is built along similar lines to the Astute in terms of steel used and pre fabrication methods following on from the Seawolf.
I gathered from many sources that the reason for seawolfs expense wasn't all down to the kit inside it was the hull and many sources pointed to HY130 being used but HY100 is still expensive, as for the Virginias using HY120 this could mean a deeper diving submarine?
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Well, the Seawolf also has a significantly larger beam. The circumference of the Seawolf hull is nearly 40% longer than for the Virginia and the Seawolf isn't too much shorter, so the Seawolf has more steel. (A rough calculation gives approximately 10% more steel assuming constant hull thickness between Seawolf and Virginia. I'm not sure that's a valid assumption if the Seawolf can dive deeper than the Virginia, though).
For a crude example, if the Virginia hull thickness is the same as the LA, that would mean a greater diving depth. If they wanted the same diving depth as HY80 on the LA, however, they could use a thinner wall made of HY120. However, the Virginia weighs a lot more so I'm not sure about the thinner part. It's probably a combination of slightly thinner but still a somewhat greater diving depth.