Page 134 - How It Works - Book Of Amazing Answers To Curious Questions, Volume 05-15

Awesome power

See inside the lead submarine
of the Ohio class
Crew quarters
With nine
crewmembers bunked
per room, the crew
quarters are cramped.
Each sailor gets their
own bunk pan to store
personal belongings.

Engine room
The engine room houses the
gearing, generator and engine
turbine. The nuclear reactor
provides enough power to reach
submerged speeds of over 20 knots
(37 kilometres/23 miles per hour).

What’s inside

a nuclear Nuclear reactor
The S8G nuclear reactor
weighs 2,750 tons, and is 17
metres (55 feet) long. It
provides a whopping
submarine? 44,742 kilowatts (60,000
shp) of power.

Learn the secrets behind one of the United States’
most powerful weapons

SS Ohio patrols the world’s oceans in power, drinking water and oxygen. It produces
stealth and silence, virtually breatheable air via a clever process that uses
Uundetectable. It’s longer than the electricity to separate oxygen from the
Washington Monument is high, measuring an hydrogen in seawater. This allows USS Ohio to
impressive 170 metres (558 feet). remain submerged for up to 90 days; the only
USS Ohio is the lead submarine of the Ohio limitation being food supplies. A large crew is
class, the United States Army’s largest required to operate USS Ohio and will typically
nuclear-powered submarines. This class is include 15 officers in addition to 140 other

made up of 18 submarines, all of which were sailors. All of the crew are exceptional sailors,
originally equipped with a full nuclear and volunteer to go aboard the submarine.
armament of ballistic missiles. Between 2002 Plans have been announced to replace the
and 2008, the US Navy modified the four oldest Ohio-class submarines in the near future. The

Ohio-class submarines (which included USS US Navy is currently in the early stages of the
Ohio) into guided-missile submarines (SSGN), Ohio Replacement Program, with the
which carry non-nuclear missiles. The construction of the new submarines scheduled
remaining 14 carry roughly 50 per cent of the to begin by 2021.
United States’ active thermonuclear warheads. However, financial limitations are becoming

One of the silos that held a nuclear missile an issue, as each replacement submarine is Command

before USS Ohio was modified is now a hatch to predicted to cost more than £3.2 billion ($4.9 control centre
allow Navy Seals to exit the submarine for billion). Until this new breed of submarines This is the submarine’s
covert operations. materialise, USS Ohio and the rest of the Ohio brain, where all its controls
USS Ohio has been designed to be highly class will remain a formidable resource for the are located. The periscope is
self-sufficient, capable of producing its own United States’ military. also accessed here.

134 How It Works