U.S. Navy Deploys Two Nuclear Attack Submarines Near Guam as Indo-Pacific Tensions Rise.

Two U.S. Navy Los Angeles-class fast-attack submarines surfaced together off Guam in a rare, tightly controlled formation exercise supported by naval aviation. The event highlights how forward-deployed undersea forces are training for coordination and rapid response in an Indo-Pacific region with shrinking warning times.

Two U.S. Navy Los Angeles-class fast-attack submarines, USS Asheville (SSN 758) and USS Annapolis (SSN 760), surfaced together off Guam on December 17, 2025, for a tightly controlled photo exercise alongside an MH-60S Sea Hawk from Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron 25. According to information published by Commander, Submarine Squadron 15, on February 9, 2026, the event was staged in the Indo-Pacific under conditions that highlight coordination and safety rather than stealth. The image is more than a public affairs moment. It captures a deliberately uncommon posture for platforms built to stay unseen, and it offers a window into how the U.S. Navy is using Guam-based undersea forces to signal readiness in a region where warning times are shrinking.
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USS Asheville (SSN 758) and USS Annapolis (SSN 760) conduct a rare surfaced formation photo exercise off Guam on December 17, 2025, operating side by side under airborne oversight from an MH-60S Sea Hawk to rehearse coordinated procedures and signal forward undersea readiness in the Indo-Pacific (Picture source: U.S. DoW).

Asheville and Annapolis are late-production “improved 688” boats, a variant engineered to be quieter than earlier Los Angeles-class submarines while carrying upgraded sensors and combat systems. In basic physical terms, the class is designed around speed and endurance: roughly 6,900 tons submerged, about 360 feet in length, able to exceed 25 knots, with published diving depths in the 800-plus foot category. Those numbers translate into tactical freedom of maneuver, particularly in the Western Pacific’s vast operating boxes where rapid repositioning can decide whether a contact becomes a kill or fades into acoustic clutter.

Their strike relevance is anchored in payload: Los Angeles-class attack submarines are equipped with 12 Vertical Launch System tubes for Tomahawk cruise missiles, adding a salvo option that does not consume torpedo-room stowage. Beyond VLS, the boats retain torpedo-tube launch capability for additional weapons, letting commanders mix land-attack missiles, heavyweight torpedoes, and mines according to mission. In a contingency, that flexibility matters because it allows an SSN to swing from intelligence collection to sea denial to precision strike without the visible logistics tail that follows surface combatants.

The U.S. Navy fields Tomahawk Block IV and Block V variants as long-range, all-weather, subsonic weapons with a range on the order of 900 nautical miles, guided by a blend of inertial navigation, terrain contour matching, digital scene matching, and GPS. Block IV introduced two-way satellite communications for in-flight retargeting and the ability to loiter, while the Block V modernization adds navigation and communications upgrades and is structured to incorporate follow-on variants, including a Maritime Strike Tomahawk seeker kit and the Joint Multiple Effects Warhead System. From a tactical perspective, this means a Guam-based SSN can hold land targets at risk across multiple arcs while the fleet fields a Tomahawk family that is steadily migrating toward more dynamic targeting and harder target sets.

For undersea fights, the decisive weapon remains the Mk 48 ADCAP heavyweight torpedo. Designed to defeat fast, deep-diving nuclear submarines and high-performance surface ships, it can be wire-guided for midcourse control and then home with active and passive acoustics in the terminal phase, enabling reattacks if a target evades the first run. The point is not the published speed and range figures, which are necessarily conservative in open sources, but the tactical effect: a submarine commander can prosecute with a weapon built to punch through modern countermeasures and still deliver a catastrophic under-keel detonation profile against surface combatants.

So why stage a “joint” event around two submarines and a helicopter? Because high-end undersea warfare is never purely undersea. An MH-60S does not hunt submarines like an MH-60R, but it is a practical enabler for safe, coordinated surface operations: communications relay, immediate search-and-rescue coverage, medical evacuation readiness, and airborne oversight during close maneuvering. Guam-based helicopter squadrons maintain a continuous SAR and medevac posture in the 7th Fleet area, making them the natural aviation partners when submarines conduct controlled evolutions near the island’s busy sea lanes.

Is it usual to see two attack submarines side by side? In operational terms, no. Submarines survive by separation, stealth, and ambiguity, and even friendly close-formation steaming carries collision risk and radiates intent. When it does happen, it is typically in permissive waters, on the surface, and for a reason that outweighs the doctrinal instinct to disappear: seamanship training, coordinated transits, safety demonstrations, or deliberate signaling. Underwater, multiple submarines can absolutely work in concert, but they do it distributed, not stacked, using deconfliction measures that preserve acoustic advantage and reduce mutual interference.

The strategic context is Guam itself: U.S. Navy messaging has consistently framed Naval Base Guam and Polaris Point as a forward undersea strongpoint. Submarine Squadron 15 is described as operating at the tip of the spear with a forward-deployed posture in support of a free and open Indo-Pacific. The island’s value is geography: it is close enough to matter, far enough to sustain operations, and it enables faster rearm and repair than a trans-Pacific sprint back to the continental United States. Forward deployment is where submarines replenish, repair, and rearm in time of conflict, and the force based there includes multiple Los Angeles-class boats alongside newer Virginia-class submarines.

The message is that U.S. can operate in coordinated packages that combine undersea strike platforms with aviation support and tight procedural discipline. Operationally, it hints at surge depth: not one submarine on station, but multiple hulls available from a forward hub. Strategically, it is deterrence through controlled visibility, reminding adversaries that even legacy “improved 688” boats can deliver modern Tomahawk effects and credible sea denial while remaining among the hardest targets in the inventory once they submerge again. In a region defined by missile salvos, long-range sensors, and contested logistics, the Navy is using rare surface-level transparency to make a simple point: the undersea force is already forward, already armed, and already training as a team.