The future Block IV Virginia-class submarine USS Arkansas (SSN 800) was recently launched into the James River at Newport News. She was ordered on 28 April 2014 and not laid down until November 2022, highlighting how far behind 774 production is running.
Arkansas SSN 800 Rollout from MOF to FDD
Arkansas SSN 800 with dock flooded before Launch
Arkansas SSN 800 Launch
Arkansas SSN 800 Launch
Arkansas is the 27th Virginia-class submarine and will be the 13th delivered by HII’s NNS.
She is the fifth vessel to be named for the “Toothpick State,” following CGN-41, a Virginia-class nuclear-powered guided missile cruiser that left the fleet unexpectedly in 1998, and BB-33, the iconic Wyoming-class dreadnought that gave 34 years of service across both World Wars.
“Opening the Attack” Painting, Watercolor on Paper; by Dwight C. Shepler; 1944 D-Day, USS Arkansas opening up off Normandy. NHHC 88-199-ew
U.S. Coast Guard icebreaker Storis during the run for a short-cut Northwest Passage prepares to send helicopters aloft on ice reconnaissance before proceeding eastward through Amundsen Gulf to Dolphin and Union Straits, Canadian Northwest Territory (July 23, 1957). 26-G-5782
The name USCGC Storis is one of the most hallowed to the Coast Guard.
Commissioned in 1942, the heavily-armed 230-foot icebreaker earned her chops in the “Weather War” against the Germans in Greenland, later became the first U.S. vessel to circumnavigate the North American continent after she cleared the Northwest Passage, and stood watch over Alaska– supporting the DEW Line and rebuffing Soviet interlopers during the Cold War. Once it thawed, she became the first foreign warship to visit the Russian Pacific Fleet bastion of Petropavlovsk since 1854.
Only narrowly escaping preservation as a museum ship following her decommissioning in 2007, the service has apparently bestowed the name on a much less noble successor.
Rather than holding out to name one of the big new Polar Security Cutters currently under construction, the USCG is apparently renaming the third-hand 360-foot oilfield support vessel Aiviqas USCGC Storis (WAGB-21), as detailed by images coming from Tampa Ship LLC in Florida, where she is undergoing a rushed conversion before entering federal service sometime in 2026.
Icebreaker Aiviq is now in USCG Icebreaker Red and carries the name Storis on its transom. (Source: GCaptain)
Icebreaker Aiviq is now in USCG Icebreaker Red and carries the name Storis on its transom. (Source: GCaptain)
The Coast Guard intends to permanently homeport the vessel in Juneau, Alaska, a departure from its longstanding tradition of basing icebreakers in Seattle.
China trembles.
Meanwhile, in DDG-1000 news…
Some 16 months after arriving in Pascagoula, and with her original twin 155mm Advanced Gun Systems replaced with 12 new Conventional Prompt Strike missile tubes, USS Zumwalt (DDG 1000)undocked on 6 December and returned to the water of the Pascagoula River.
Zumwalt undocking, 6 December 2024, Pascagoula, HII photo
Zumwalt undocking, 6 December 2024, Pascagoula, HII photo
She will now undergo testing in the Gulf of Mexico before returning to the fleet and the (hopeful) IOC of her new hypersonic boost-glide weapon system.
Keep in mind that Zumwalt was laid down in 2011 and commissioned eight years ago, so it will be nice to finally see her with a set of teeth…eventually.
USS Arkansas was christened on the 83rd anniversary of Pearl Harbor. HII photo
It is a great name and it’s nice to see it on the NVR again, after a 26-year absence.
When commissioned, likely in 2026, the advanced Block IV boat will be the fifth warship to carry the name of The Natural State including the mighty Wyoming-class battleship (BB-33) and a Virginia-class nuclear-powered guided missile cruiser (CGN-41).
Of note, BB-33 was at anchor in Casco Bay on the sleepy Sunday morning of 7 December 1941, part of the Atlantic Neutrality Patrol, a task that spared her a spot on Battleship Row in Pearl that day.
She would be in the gunline off Normandy.
Opening the Attack Painting, Watercolor on Paper; by Dwight C. Shepler; 1944 D-Day. Arkansas is in the foreground, and French cruisers George Leygues and Montcalm are in the background. NHHC 88-199-ew
Once her work was done in Europe, she of course returned to the Pacific to support the landings at Iwo Jima and Okinawa.
Allied warships of Bombarding Force C, which supported the landings in the Omaha Beach area on June 6, 1944. The column is led by USS Texas (Battleship No. 35) (left), still with her 1930s mast houses, with the British Town-class light cruiser HMS Glasgow (C21), USS Arkansas (Battleship No. 33), Free French cruisers George Leygues and Montcalm following. The picture was taken from the Captain-class frigate/Buckley-class destroyer escort HMS Holmes (K581).
IWM – McNeill, M H A (Lt) Photographer
The Texas group would provide gunfire to open Dog one exit in Vierville-sur-Mer and support the Rangers attempting to destroy enemy guns at Pointe du Hoc, and remain offshore for the next ten days until the battle moved inland.
D-Day Map showing Firing Plan from USS Texas (BB-35) NHHC_1969-232-A_full
By the 15th, Texas had to flood compartments to create a list, upping the elevation of her guns enough to make the German lines near Isigny and Carentan.
However, that didn’t put the old American Great War-era dreadnought on the sidelines, as both Texas and Arkansas would steam to the Med where they bombarded the French Riviera during the Dragoon landings (Texas sent another 172 rounds of 14-inch and 171 of 3-inch into the Old Republic that August) and then to Iwo Jima (where Texas fired 923 rounds of 14-inch and 967 of 5-inch between 16 and 21 February 1945) and spend seven weeks in March and April off Okinawa (Texas: 2,019 14-inch, 2,640 5-inch, 490 3-inch, 3,100 40mm and 2,275 20mm rounds against air and shore targets).
