US nuclear submarine surfaces in China's backyard (2024)

The United States military has announced that one of its nuclear submarines has reloaded long-range cruise missiles at a crucial military hub in the western Pacific Ocean.

Photos released on Sunday by the U.S. Department of Defense showed the USS Florida, a conventionally-armed, nuclear-powered submarine, conducted an expeditionary reload of an unknown number of Tomahawk missiles at Naval Base Guam on July 2.

The deployment and rearmament of the Florida in Guam coincided with China's strengthening military cooperation with Russia. The quasi-alliance conducted a joint naval exercise and patrol recently.

It is not common for the United States to disclose the exact locations of its submarines, much less volunteer information about the composition of its armaments. However, surfacing a stealthy boat can send a military signal to potential adversaries like China, Russia and North Korea.

Guam is located 1,500 miles east of the Philippines and south of Japan, making it an ideal forward base for staging and projecting U.S. military power in the western Pacific.

The American territory also forms the so-called second island chain, a series of islands stretching from Japan in the north to New Guinea in the south.

"This operation highlights the U.S. Navy's strategic capability to reload vital munitions anywhere in the world," the caption reads. The Navy has planned to introduce rearm-at-sea capabilities for surface warships in case of a conflict with China in the Pacific.

The Florida is one of the four Ohio-class guided missile submarines (SSGNs) with a displacement of 18,750 tons. It and its sister ships, USS Ohio, USS Michigan, and USS Georgia were converted from nuclear-armed ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs).

Each SSGN can carry a maximum of 154 Tomahawk missiles, where they are loaded in up to 22 missile tubes with seven missiles per tube. It also supports special operation forces by accommodating their equipment and hosting up to 66 relevant personnel.

The Tomahawk missile is the Navy's primary weapon for long-range strike missions. It can be launched from surface ships and submarines and is armed with a conventional warhead and is capable of attacking targets on land and sea from 1,000 miles away.

The missile first saw combat in the Middle East in 1991 during Operation Desert Storm. Since then, it has been used in Libya and Syria, with the most recent case being in the Red Sea against sites used by the Iranian-backed Houthi militants in Yemen.

In November 2023, The Florida entered the Red Sea from its home port in Kings Bay, Georgia. It was one of the U.S. military units carrying out retaliatory airstrikes against Houthi targets in Yemen in January.

The submarine left the Middle East and arrived at Diego Garcia, a British territory located in the Indian Ocean and a strategic military hub for the U.S., for a visit on February 11.

Bryan Herrin, a former Navy submariner who served aboard the Ohio, told Newsweek that the value of expeditionary reloads on submarine is huge.

He said all the Ohio-class SSGNs will be decommissioned in the next four years, which will have a significant impact on the Navy's vertical launching system (VLS) capacity. It is a weapon system used by surface ships and submarines to hold and launch missiles.

The U.S. Navy currently has about 9,900 VLS cells spread across its fleet, while the Chinese navy has around 4,200, according to a report published last month by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).

China will have more naval VLS cells than the U.S. by 2027, the CSIS projected. It suggested the Navy build more VLS-equipped vessels and work to solve technical problems associated with reloading at sea.

According to the Navy, the four SSGNs represent "more than half" of its submarine force's vertical launch payload capacity, providing an "unprecedented" strike capability.