US christens latest Virginia-class SSN
The Virginia-class submarine USS Montana (SSN 794) was launched on 12 September in a ceremony at Newport News Shipbuilding, a division of Huntington Ingalls Industries.
Construction of Montana began April 2015, as the third of ten Block IV Virginia-class submarines to be built for the USN.
The new submarines will replace older Los Angeles-class boats as the latter are withdrawn from service.
Compared with previous Virginia-class boats, Block IV reduces the total cost of ownership for the USN by making small-scale design changes to increase the component-level lifecycle of the submarine, thereby increasing availability between maintenance.
Block IV submarines are scheduled to undergo three major maintenance overhauls and conduct 15 deployments during their lifetime, compared to four overhauls and 14 deployments with Blocks 1 to III.
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