Submarine seen off West Seattle: USS Albuquerque’s final voyage

(U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Amanda R. Gray)

With U.S. Navy facilities relatively close by, submarine sightings happen here now and then. Robert reported this one on Wednesday – and later shared the link through which we obtained the photo and the backstory: After 32 years and a half-million miles of service, the fast-attack submarine USS Albuquerque (SSN 706) passed by on its way to Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Bremerton to “commence its inactivation process,” says the Navy. Its last voyage followed an inactivation ceremony in San Diego a week earlier; the nuclear-powered submarine’s inactivation also drew a tribute in its namesake city. The process of “inactivating” a nuclear submarine is explained by the Kitsap Sun, which says this one joins about a dozen others awaiting dismantling, at a cost of at least $25 million each.

4 Replies to "Submarine seen off West Seattle: USS Albuquerque's final voyage"

  • Robert October 29, 2015 (9:22 am)

    this is not the time to be cutting our navy with the russians and the chinese building attack ships and subs at a very alarming rate. our military is down to skeleton size and getting outdated.

    • WSB October 29, 2015 (9:23 am)

      Robert – According to some of the sources I browsed while writing this overnight, there ARE new subs joining the fleet. Look up the Virginia Class. – TR

  • HazyCascadian October 29, 2015 (10:48 am)

    Robert, we are not downsizing the navy. Old Los Angeles class subs are being retired as new Virginia class subs are coming online. As for the Russians and Chinese building subs at “an alarming rate”, they’re really not. They are building up their long neglected navies, but relatively slowly and they’re decades behind the US in operational capability. Russia has fewer than 40 attack submarines, most of which are deisel-electrics. The Chinese have many submarines, but the vast majority are copies and modernized versions of old Soviet designs. And they have 9, maybe 10, nuclear powered attack subs. The US Navy has 54 attack subs, 14 ballistic missile subs and 4 cruise missile subs, all nuclear powered. Your premise that our navy is small and out dated is entirely false.

  • Brent October 29, 2015 (2:59 pm)

    The US spends more on its Navy than any other country spends on defense.

Sorry, comment time is over.