Thursday, February 5, 2015

USS Florida (SSGN 728) returns from 3-month deployment

Commander, Submarine Group Ten Public Affairs, The Periscope, Feb 4

The Blue crew of the Ohio-class guided-missile submarine USS Florida (SSGN 728) returned to Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay Jan. 29 following a regularly scheduled deployment lasting over three months in the Central Command area of responsibility.
Prior to returning to Kings Bay, Florida (Blue) held a brief change of command ceremony in Diego Garcia on Jan. 26 where Capt. Nathan Martin relieved Capt. Owen Travis as commanding officer.
As the sixth U.S. Navy ship named for the 27th state, the Ohio-class guided-missile submarine Florida was converted from a trident ballistic-missile submarine in April 2006. The SSGN conversion program produced transformational capability on a time-compressed schedule and with a drastically lower price tag. Instead of designing an entire new platform to perform the same mission capabilities, the conversion program reduced the cost to the Department of Defense by about $1 billion per ship. 
Similar to her role as a SSBN, Florida as a SSGN, remains a lethal deterrent force. As a SSGN, she is configured to perform precision strike, joint special operations forces operations, operational preparation of the battlespace, SSGN/SSN consort operations, carrier and expeditionary strike group operations, and future payloads experimentation.

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