There are numerous reasons not to care about this. The first being there is no verification and the USN would never say if they did, or didnt, detect the SSN. Thats why I smell a rat over this happening right after their budget for SSN programs have been cut.
We have so many long range SLCMs, on so many USN platforms, most of all SSNs and SSGNs, we decided not to put nukes on our SLCMs cause it would be so destabilizing theres no point in doing so. The danger of the Russians freaking out and/or making a mistake, as they have done so many times in the past, would make the chance for nuclear war greater then not deploying them would.
We have 4 Ohio class SSGNs, Boomers taken off the SSBN line, that each can fire 154 SLCMs each if we chose to arm them so. We have 50+ attack SSNs, most of which can be armed with dozens of SLCMs, that can fire off 16 at a time. Each SLCM, if we chose to arm them with nuclear warheads could be dialed to blow at 150 kt "Hiroshima was 16 kt". We have 400 stored but simply chose NOT to deploy them.
Why wouldnt we? Well for one thing the Russians have only a few Akulas with a possible nuclear loadout. Since we have 14 SSBMs, ballistic missiles boats so quiet even we cant find them, each capable of launching 24 MIRV'ed Trident-ll SLBMs. Whats the point? Thats the most quiet submarine in the world , capable of delivering 280+ very accurate 450 kt warheads 5,000 miles. While their warhead load out has been limited by START treaties just one of them is capable of utterly destroying 280 cities.
And the Russians know they are out there. Like black holes in the ocean. So this is either one of two things. A USN ploy to get more funding. Or a Russian ploy to look like a bigger world player. Either way for someone who served during the Cold War, when we had Hundreds of B-52s on Hot platforms, three classes of ICBMs, each had gads of theater IRBMs and gravity bombs, all of them on hair trigger. This is nothing.
