Fish don't vote.

[QuarterMaster]

Los Angeles-Class: The Submarine the Russian Navy Hated

[Davjacva]

Ed, this must've come from the comedians at Comedy Central. From the first paragraph on I was laughing. The first 'I-boat', 5th flight boats, were delivered in the late '80's, and the last one, a 6th flight, was delivered in 1996. While some of these boats have been around for 35 years, a lot were prematurely decommissioned at around 15 years. 688's lost the ability for under-ice ops, that 637's could do until the I-boats came out. The 6th flight I-boats (Mod-25 boats, of which there were 4) weren't as fast as a 637, because they couldn't make enough steam. I don't know what sub the Royal Navy's talking about, but no 688 has a maximum operating depth of 1475ft. 688's don't even have the test depth of an old boomer. There's a lot of stuff 688's could do better, handle better at high speeds for instance, but there were things that it really didn't do well at...like hovering. 688's also didn't have mine (Mk-60 and Mk-67) capabilities until the last 6th flights and a few of the 5th. We won't mention about nuclear weapon capabilities with I-boats either. Now what would you rather live on? I'd take a 637 over a 688 any day, but I'd take a 688 over a 774 hands down, even can make that decision in a drunken stupor. A lot of these boats are still around because of there's no other option. They doubled and extended Virginia class construction, but it still doesn't fill the bill. There was a lag time of 8 years when nothing was being constructed and it really hurt us. I could tell you what the condition these boats come in to a yard period and it's really shocking compared to just 10 years before. When you think about the Ohio, it's been around for 42 years, but boats under the Trident program are a different animal and in an entirely different condition.