A hypothetical command exchange illustrates concern that a heavily modified missile boat would still be treated as an ordinary Virginia-class attack submarine. A decision-maker hears the class name and orders it into a mission despite the SSGN qualification. Distinctive individual names are suggested as a possible aid, but the objection is that those names would not prevent the class label from dominating the decision. This gives the preference for a ballistic-missile-derived SSGN an organizational rationale alongside the earlier arguments about hull dimensions.
Notable Point · 1:15:59-1:18:50
Could the Virginia name obscure an SSGN's different role?
A hypothetical tasking mistake shows how keeping the Virginia class name could obscure the different employment of a submarine carrying a much larger strike payload.