u/jm_leviathan

Recently I've been looking into the evolution of asserted US Navy SSN inventory requirements over time. Given the widely asserted ASW focus of the Cold War inventory, intuitively one would expect a strong (which is not to say necessarily linear) relationship between USN SSN inventory requirements and the Soviet submarine threat, both the number of Soviet boats (SSNs/SSGNs/SSBNs) and their relative capabilities. It appears that the JSOP/JSPD future "minimum risk" requirement at the end of the Carter administration stood at 131 SSNs (JCS 2015, p. 275) and something closely resembling this number appears to have been carried forward into the mid-1980s (CBO 1985, p. 21). The reduced target of 100 SSNs pursued as part of the broader 600-ship Navy appears to correspond to the "planning force" articulated in the JSPD at that time, accepting a somewhat greater ("prudent") level of risk (Roe 1981, pp. 35-37).

Google Gemini tells me that this 100 SSN inventory objective was made up of 30 SSNs providing direct support for 15 CVBGs, four SSNs providing same for four SAGs, and 66 SSNs directed to forward activities, principally maintaining barrier operations across the GIUK gap and tailing Soviet SSBNs. As is often the case, however, the sources that Gemini provides for this breakdown, while often interesting and useful in their own right, do not actually contain the specific claims attributed to them. Hence I'm wondering if Redditors here can shed any more light on the subject.