By Zachary Keck
Global Security Newswire (GSN) reported last week that the Senate Appropriations Defense Subcommittee has taken the first steps towards eliminating the Virginia Payload Module (VPM) for the U.S. fast attack Virginia-class submarines. The move, if it gets through Congress, would be the latest blow to a Prompt Global Strike (PGS) program that seems increasingly out of reach.
According to GSN, the Subcommittee wrote in the summary to their markup that the bill “terminates the Virginia Payload Module due to high cost, risk, and lack of validated requirement.”
The move comes just a year and a half after then Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta announced the new program during a press conference on the Pentagon’s budget.
“The Navy will invest in a design that will allow new Virginia class submarines to be modified to carry more cruise missiles and develop an undersea conventional prompt strike option,” Panetta said at the January 2012 press conference.
Read the full story at The Diplomat