The christening was about people at least as much as it was about technology. At the top of the people list were Jimmy Carter himself, and his spouse of fifty-eight years, Rosalynn Carter. Unique among Presidents of the United States, Jimmy Carter was a nuclear submariner before going into politics. President Carter spoke briefly, mostly to introduce Rosalynn before she made a few remarks and then swung the traditional bottle of champaign. Other distinguished speakers filled out the program, leading up to the consummate moment when that bottle broke and sprayed, while Carter's plank-owner crew stood proudly on her hull. Electric Boat is just down the Thames River from the Naval Submarine Base, New London. So the crowd included many hundreds of folks involved in the design and construction of Jimmy Carter and other nuclear submarines, plus some of the folks who take such ships out to sea on deployments, and quite a few of their families and friends. The presence of children, even infants, seemed to emphasize how relevant undersea warfare really is to America's future.

Carter is the third and last of the Seawolf class, powerful follow-ons to the previous Los Angeles class. The basic Seawolf-class design was firmed up at the height of the Cold War, and originally some thirty in the class were planned. The Seawolfs were to be the ultimate in deep water sub-on-sub combat vessels, to decisively take on anything the Soviet Navy could throw our way. Seawolf-class maximum diving depth, top speed, and firepower are rumored to be extraordinary -- details are top secret, of course. (Since the collapse of the USSR, new fast-attack sub construction has moved to the Virginia class, optimized for the ever-changing, near-shore operations characteristic of the post Cold War era and the Global War on Terror. But make no mistake -- the Seawolfs remain as relevant now as they ever were when our foe was the Kremlin.)

Carter differs from her sister ships, Seawolf and Connecticut, in a very significant manner. Carter had an extra hundred-foot-long hull section inserted behind her sail (conning tower). This section, called the Multi-Mission Platform, is best described by a phrase from the christening's beautiful keepsake brochure: "a test bed for the evolution of submarine missions in the 21st century." The MMP provides ample space within the main hull to carry, launch, and recover big weapons and off-board probes that simply can't fit through a torpedo tube or inside a Tomahawk vertical launch system tube. These will include unmanned undersea vehicles and unmanned aerial vehicles bearing a whole new level of surveillance/espionage, offense, defense, and communication sensors, countermeasures, and ordnance. Another goal of the MMP is to evaluate enhanced means to launch and support Special Operations personnel, such as Navy SEALs.

Jimmy Carter has other revolutionary features besides the MMP. Auxiliary Maneuvering Devices at bow and stern give the ship greatly added maneuverability in tight quarters, ranging everywhere from under-ice operations in the Arctic or Antarctic to the shallow and cluttered coastal environment typical of today's and tomorrow's counter-terror and peacekeeping tasks. Carter also has an Advanced Communications Mast permitting a very high digital data transmission and reception rate. This ACM is rather important in the emerging context of network-centric cooperation, between multiple platforms and commanders, needed to win in different types of modern warfare.

Carter brings the Seawolf class full circle, bridging the gap -- in time and in hardware requirements -- between national security problems of the previous few decades and the next few. Carter is indeed far more than merely a test bed. Once she joins the fleet, she'll instantly become one of the deadliest fighting ships the U. S. Navy has ever owned: Her eight extra-wide torpedo tubes, and the massive weapon capacity inside her huge torpedo room, are enough right there to make sure of that. Besides, testing and live operations go hand-in-hand in the Silent Service. While remaining conscious of safety (force protection), American submariners have always met the call to push themselves and their "boats" to the limits of equipment performance and human tactical ingenuity under fire.

The physical process of the christening emphasized this last point. Submarine construction practices have changed. No longer does the unfinished vessel, once her hull is seaworthy, slide into the water with a gigantic splash. Throughout her christening, Jimmy Carter (the ship, not the man!) never moved. She sat in a flooded dry dock, having been placed there much earlier by a gigantic rail-mounted forklift system. Mrs. Carter broke the champaign not by swinging it against the bow, but by banging it against the back edge of the top of the sail.

This might at first seem like a bit of a let-down from the noisier, messier ceremonies of old. The exact opposite is true, though, if you think about it symbolically. Submarines are all about stealth. Quiet invisibility is one of their primary strengths. Attention-getting motion, thrashing around while the white water flies, is the last thing on any submariner's mind, when mission success -- and personal survival -- are at stake.

In a sad and ironic postscript, soon after Jimmy Carter was christened, Ronald Reagan passed away. President Reagan was honored last year when the nuclear powered supercarrier USS Ronald Reagan, constructed at Northrop Grumman's Newport News Shipbuilding, was commissioned in Virginia. Pivotal events of the Carter and Reagan Administrations, and the legacy both leaders gave our country during their years in the White House, will provide inspiration, and food for thought and debate, for a long time to come. Yet both Navy ships have barely begun their service lives. June 5, 2004 thus represents both an ending and a beginning, which taken together make the day a historic one.

JoeBuff.Com / Joe Buff Inc. Joe Buff, President Dutchess County, New York E-Mail readermail@JoeBuff.Com