The Virginia-class fast-attack submarine USS Minnesota transits Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on June 20, 2024, as it begins sea trials after undergoing a two-year maintenance period. (Claudia LaMantia/U.S. Navy)
The Navy will beef up its submarine squadron on Guam in the coming months by homeporting one of the service’s most advanced fast-attack subs there.
The Virginia-class USS Minnesota is expected to arrive in the U.S. territory sometime during the next fiscal year that begins Oct. 1, Lt. Cmdr. Rick Moore, a spokesperson for U.S. Pacific Fleet Submarine Force, said by email Friday.
“We are committed to posturing our most capable platforms to preserve peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific region,” he wrote. “Although I am unable to discuss specifics at this time, the Navy routinely assesses its overseas force positioning, to include forward-deployed naval force submarines homeported in Guam.”
USS Minnesota, which was commissioned in 2013, is currently homeported at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam. In early July, it completed a two-year maintenance overhaul at the Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard and Intermediate Maintenance Facility in Hawaii.
Guam is of growing importance to the Pentagon’s Indo-Pacific strategy as China continues to expand its Navy and its ambitions in the region.
The U.S. territory is home to Andersen Air Force Base, Naval Base Guam and Camp Blaz, a massive Marine Corps base still under construction.
The island would serve as a crucial hub in the event of a conflict with China because it is the westernmost American territory and closest to the South China Sea, a flashpoint in the region.
The nuclear-powered Virginia-class subs will eventually replace the Navy’s aging fleet of Cold War-era Los Angeles-class vessels.
Virginia-class subs are designed for a greater range of missions, with an emphasis on littoral operations, according to a Navy fact sheet. They support a host of missions, including anti-submarine warfare, anti-surface ship warfare, strike warfare, surveillance and reconnaissance.
The subs are designed so that their torpedo rooms can be reconfigured to hold a large number of special operations forces and their equipment during extended deployments.
Guam was homeport to five Los Angeles-class submarines for most of 2022, a group that included USS Annapolis, USS Jefferson City, USS Asheville, USS Springfield and USS Key West.
In early 2023, however, the Key West headed back to the U.S. mainland after 35 years of service in the fleet and awaits decommissioning.
