By Kris Osborn, Warrior President
The US Navy is in the early phases of designing a new generation of quiet, lethal and highly networking attacked submarines called SSN (X), a platform expected to emerge in the 2040s.
Despite some recent budget delays, the project shows promise and it quite ambitious, as it seeks to engineer a paradigm-changing attack boat with greater speed, increased firepower and a new generation of quieting technologies.
A significant March 2025 Congressional Research Report published by USNI, called Navy Next-Generation Attack Submarine (SSN[X]) Program: Background and Issues for Congress.
The Navy states that the SSN(X) … “will provide greater speed, increased horizontal [i.e., torpedo-room] payload capacity, improved acoustic superiority and non-acoustic signatures, and higher operational availability. SSN(X) will conduct full spectrum undersea warfare and be able to coordinate with a larger contingent of off-hull vehicles, sensors, and friendly forces.” (Budget-justification book for FY2025 Research, Development, Test, and Evaluation, Navy account, Vol. 3 [Budget Activity 5], p. 1299.)”
Advanced Beyond Virginia-class
The US Navy’s Block III and Block V Virginia-class attack submarines are being built with a series of breakthrough technologies intended to help secure the service’s undersea advantages in an increasingly challenged threat environment, yet the Navy is simultaneously progressing with efforts to engineer yet another breakthrough, next-generation class of attack submarines for the 2040s…called SSN(X). The initial plan was to ensure the new boats were being developed by 2035, however that timeline now seems to be pushed back to 2040, according to a 2024 Congressional report.
Virginia-class Breakthroughs
Block V Virginia-class submarines are being built with massively increased firepower enabled an added 80-ft section of missile tubes called the Virginia Payload Modules, and both Blocks III and Blocks V are receiving a suite of new systems to include more sensitive antennas for networking and detection and added coating and quieting technologies to enhance the boat’s “stealth” attributes. Blocks III and V are also receiving a new Large Aperture Bow advanced sonar for acoustic detection, fly-by-wire computer automated navigational systems and extended “fiber optic” cable to ensure commanders can see incoming threat and sensor data from anywhere within the ship.
These advances, widely celebrated by the Navy, are considered quite substantial. Many of them began as experimental prototypes on the USS South Dakota, a Block III Virginia class submarine, and have since been integrated as operational systems across the Navy’s fleet of Block III boats. Given this, how might the service succeed in engineering yet another series of paradigm-changing technological advances?
Congressional Assessment
Along with these general parameters of significance regarding the technologies for the SSN(X) boats, the Navy appears to have a broader, fleet-centric capability vision for the boats intended to incorporate advanced attributes from several cutting-edge submarines.
“Navy officials have stated that the Navy wants the SSN(X) to incorporate the speed and payload of the Navy’s fast and heavily armed Seawolf (SSN-21) class SSN design, the acoustic quietness and sensors of the Virginia-class design, and the operational availability and service life of the Columbia-class design,” the CRS essay explains.
Undersea Multi-Domain Networking
Perhaps the largest and most ambitious elements of the Navy’s concept for SSN(X) will likely pertain to networking technologies, as that is an area now characterized by fast-moving technological breakthroughs enabling new generations of undersea and multi-domain networking.
While the Congressional report does not cite examples, it does specifically refer to the Navy’s intent to “coordinate” across domains, something which would suggest the service develop new generations of cross-domain networking for the ship.
“SSN(X) will conduct full spectrum undersea warfare and be able to coordinate with a larger contingent of off-hull vehicles, sensors, and friendly forces,” the CRS report states.
This question of networking and undersea data sharing is likely to be the largest area for possible technological breakthrough and may be the core foundation of the Navy’s push for an entirely new generation of undersea technologies for SSN (X) by 2040.
Undersea networking of data has long presented a substantial technological challenge, as RF signals don’t travel well beneath the surface and wireless systems for undersea are quite difficult to engineer. For years, Navy submarines have had to surface or “nearly surface” to achieve wireless and GPS connectivity across surface, land and aerial domains, something which of course further exposes the boat to enemy attack or detection. Undersea drones regularly need to collect and store data while on a mission which can only be downloaded upon return to a host ship.
Despite these long-standing limitations, and the fact that only some kinds of extremely low-frequency RF can function undersea, the Navy continues to surge into a new realm of wired and wireless manned and unmanned networking. Submarine-integrated acoustical sensor data can now be wired to surface drones and “gateways” before being translated into surface RF or GPS to enable undersea platforms to send real-time data to surface, air and land nodes. Gateway technologies, which are cutting edge and continuing to emerge quickly in new form factors, essentially “translate” one transport layer to another. In essence, this means a gateway node on the surface is capable of receiving acoustic signals and “converting” them to RF for surface transmission. This translation, which relies upon advanced computer technology, would be designed to enable fast, real-time undersea-to-surface data sharing. For example, the Navy is already “hard-wiring” undersea drones in position to send acoustical sensor data through a cable over long distances to gateway surface nodes in position to send arriving data to surface and air platforms. This kind of connectivity allows submarines to remain submerged at safer stand-off distances, yet still enables undersea drone platforms to gather and “send” time-sensitive data to the surface.
Even further, both industry and the Navy are working on breakthrough undersea GPS-like connectivity possibly able to enable real-time submarine to submarine, submarine to drone and submarine to surface connectivity. and undersea mine-hunting drones such as the Navy’s “Barracuda” now operate with a growing ability to wirelessly “detect” mines and then detonate.
Production Struggles
Alongside the potential promise of a new generation of submarines by 2040, there are ongoing production and development challenges now being encountered by the Navy which may account for why the SSN(X) was delayed from 2035 to 2040.
The Navy is struggling to sustain a high production op-tempo for its evolving fleet of Virginia-class attack submarines in order to help offset or mitigate an expected attack submarine deficit emerging as Los Angeles class boats retire. Can Virginias be built fast enough? There are ongoing Congressional and Navy efforts to increase Virginia-class production up to two boats per year by securing funding and surging production capacity. Added to this complexity, a production delay could idle or deplete a crucially needed industrial base of workers trained with the skills needed to build submarines. For many years, the Navy has been working with Electric Boat and HII to “flex” the industrial capacity such that it can accommodate a faster and larger submarine construction schedule.
“The delay of SSN(X) construction start from the mid-2030s to the early 2040s presents a significant challenge to the submarine design industrial base associated with the extended gap between the Columbia class and SSN(X) design programs, which the Navy will manage.” the CRS report says.
Given this situation, it seems likely that current production struggles are derailing US Navy timetable ambitions for its SSN(X) boat.
Kris Osborn is the President of Warrior Maven – Center for Military Modernization. Osborn previously served at the Pentagon as a Highly Qualified Expert with the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army—Acquisition, Logistics & Technology. Osborn has also worked as an anchor and on-air military specialist at national TV networks. He has appeared as a guest military expert on Fox News, MSNBC, The Military Channel, and The History Channel. He also has a Masters Degree in Comparative Literature from Columbia University.
