The USS Nautilus is one of several new U.S. naval vessels that could soon be built using the same technology that powered the submarine that sank the USS Cole.
The Navy is expected to announce the first-ever class of new submarines, known as the “Submarine Fleet Expansion Program,” or SFRP, on Monday, according to a report by The Associated Press.
Navy officials say the new class will be built at a cost of $1.8 billion and cost the Navy $8.6 billion to build.
It will include the USS Nantucket, which is currently in dry dock in Newport News, Virginia.
The Nautiliches, known in military parlance as a “super sub,” was the flagship of the United States Navy in the early 1980s.
It was decommissioned in 2010, and was replaced by the USS Bunker Hill, which was also decommissioning.
The new class is expected take the Nautilios place in the U.A.E. Navy, which would make it more flexible than previous submarines, which are built to survive underwater, according a Navy official.
“This is a lot of new material,” Navy Secretary Ray Mabus said at a ceremony Monday for the ship.
“There’s no question that this is going to be a significant improvement in the survivability of a submarine, but also the versatility.”
Navy ships currently in the Navy’s Submarine Expansion Program include the S/S Nautilius, which went down in 2000, and the S2, which sank the Lusitania off the coast of Spain in 2004.
The USS Hornet, the newest submarine, was designed to be more maneuverable than the Nauts, but it was never built.
The Navy is currently seeking proposals for the next-generation USS Bunker Hat, which could be launched by 2019.
With a new generation of submarines, there are going to need to be bigger ships, and they’re not going to come cheap, Navy officials have said.
But some experts say the next generation of the submarine is unlikely to be as fast as the one that sank Cole, which operated for more than a decade before being disabled by an explosion off the Louisiana coast.
After the Cole disaster, Congress required the Navy to spend $4.4 billion on the SFRPs.
Under the new program, the Navy is seeking proposals from potential buyers for up to 10 ships that could be built over a 20-year period.
The program will not fund new ships.
The Navy plans to buy the Nautical Sciences Center in Coronado, California, and it will begin building submarines at the Coronadero Naval Air Station.
In addition to the Nancys, the Nantuys will be replaced by a new Class IIB submarine called the LUS, according the Navy.
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