US Navy's nuclear submarine USS Albany returns to active service following early delivery by Portsmouth Shipyard.

Portsmouth Naval Shipyard officially delivered the nuclear-powered fast attack submarine USS Albany (SSN-753) back to the U.S. Navy on July 14, 2026, following a compressed nine-month maintenance cycle at Naval Submarine Base New London. The deployment of advanced schedule-recovery protocols by shipyard technical teams successfully prevented multiple weeks of projected delays, ensuring the vessel was returned to service ahead of schedule. This rapid drydock turnaround directly restores a highly capable combat asset to the active undersea fleet to mitigate ongoing availability constraints across the Navy's submarine force.

The Improved Los Angeles-class submarine completed its Drydocking Selected Restricted Availability at Naval Submarine Base New London after entering the auxiliary dry dock on October 2, 2025, and finishing sea trials on July 2, 2026. The technical overhaul involved extensive pressure hull structural inspections, electrical system upgrades, and operational certification of its vertical launch system and propulsion machinery.

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The USS Albany was the last U.S. submarine built using the traditional keel-up construction method and the last launched down a shipway before modular construction became standard. (Picture source: US Navy)

On July 14, 2026, Portsmouth Naval Shipyard returned the USS Albany (SSN-753) to the U.S. Navy after a nine-month Drydocking Selected Restricted Availability at Naval Submarine Base New London in Groton, Connecticut. The Improved Los Angeles-class nuclear-powered attack submarine entered the Auxiliary Repair Dry Dock Shippingport on October 2, 2025, undocked on March 26, 2026, began post-maintenance sea trials on June 29, and returned to New London on July 2. The work included pressure hull and structural inspections, replacement and repair of mechanical and electrical equipment, system reactivation, pier-side testing, and final operational certification. Shipyard schedule-recovery measures prevented several additional weeks of delay, allowing delivery before the Independence Day holiday.

The USS Albany returned to service 36 years after commissioning and less than 11 months after shifting its homeport from Naval Station Norfolk to New London on August 14, 2025. Its return restores one deployable Los Angeles submarine to a force in which maintenance duration, rather than nominal inventory alone, increasingly determines how many attack submarines are available for operations. The USS Albany first entered dry dock for access to underwater hull areas, sea-connected systems, appendages and structural elements that cannot be inspected or replaced while the submarine remains afloat.

After undocking on March 26, the repair project moved into a pierside phase covering reinstallation, alignment, pressure testing, electrical energization and functional checks of propulsion support equipment, auxiliary machinery, hydraulic systems, atmosphere control equipment, navigation systems, communications, sonar and combat system components. The June 29 to July 2 sea trials then placed these systems under operating loads, allowing evaluation of reactor plant performance, turbine response, shaft line behavior, steering, diving and surfacing controls, electrical generation, emergency systems and ship handling. Final delivery required completion of maintenance certification rather than the mere return of the submarine to the pier.

The recovered weeks are operationally significant because they can be converted into crew training, weapons certification, tactical evaluation and deployment preparation instead of remaining lost inside an extended maintenance period. The USS Albany was ordered on November 29, 1983, laid down by Newport News Shipbuilding on April 22, 1985, launched on June 13, 1987, and commissioned on April 7, 1990. It was the last U.S. submarine built through the traditional keel-up method and the last launched down a shipway before modular assembly became the standard approach for U.S. nuclear submarine construction. The USS Albany and USS Topeka were also built with sections of HY-100 high-yield steel in their pressure hulls instead of using only the HY-80 steel installed in earlier Los Angeles-class submarines.

The purpose was to validate forming, welding, and inspection methods later required for the Seawolf-class, whose pressure hull made greater use of higher-strength steel. The USS Albany is 110.3 meters long, 10 meters wide, and 9.4 meters in draft. Its full displacement is listed at 6,247 tonnes, compared with 5,838 tonnes in light condition, and its normal crew totals between 129 and 134 officers and enlisted personnel depending on mission staffing. The submarine is powered by one General Electric S6G pressurized-water reactor using a D2W core rated at 165 MW thermal. Steam generated by the reactor drives two propulsion turbines producing 33,500 shaft horsepower through a reduction gear connected to a single shaft, while ship service turbine generators provide electrical power for sensors, combat systems, pumps, life-support equipment and auxiliary machinery.

A 325-hp secondary propulsion motor, storage batteries and a diesel generator provide limited movement and emergency power if the main propulsion plant is unavailable. Official submerged speed exceeds 25 knots, equivalent to more than 46 km/h, while the precise maximum remains classified. The Los Angeles class was designed for long submerged operations, and reactor fuel is not the limiting factor during routine deployments. Endurance is instead governed by food stocks, crew fatigue, maintenance requirements, weapons expenditure and the operational tasking assigned to the boat. The USS Albany belongs to the 23-boat Flight III group, better known as the Improved 688I subclass, covering USS San Juan (SSN-751) through USS Cheyenne (SSN-773).

These submarines introduced quieter machinery, improved acoustic isolation, retractable bow diving planes, under-ice capability, enhanced sonar processing and reduced radiated noise compared with earlier flights. The USS Albany carries 12 vertical launch cells for BGM-109 Tomahawk land-attack cruise missiles in addition to four 533 mm torpedo tubes. The torpedo tubes can fire Mk 48 ADCAP heavyweight torpedoes, UGM-84 Harpoon anti-ship missiles and torpedo-tube-launched Tomahawks, and can also deploy Mk 67 mobile mines and Mk 60 CAPTOR encapsulated torpedo mines. The separate vertical launch battery allows the submarine to conduct land attack without using its torpedo tubes, preserving ready weapons for anti-submarine or anti-surface engagements.

The class can carry as many as 37 weapons when torpedoes, missiles and mines are counted together, although the actual load depends on mission planning, stowage limits and the expected threat environment. The USS Albany’s sensor suite combines bow, hull and towed-array sonar with digital combat control systems designed to generate firing solutions without exposing the submarine through active emissions. The Improved Los Angeles-class originally used the AN/BSY-1 Submarine Advanced Combat System and AN/BQQ-5E sonar architecture, including a spherical bow array, conformal hull hydrophones and long towed arrays. Later modernization introduced the AN/BQQ-10 Acoustic Rapid Commercial Off-the-Shelf Insertion system, which replaced legacy processors with an open computing architecture that can accept repeated hardware and software upgrades.

The processing chain supports passive detection, frequency-line analysis, target classification, bearing tracking, and target motion analysis against submarines and surface ships. Updated combat control equipment integrates sonar tracks with Mk 48 ADCAP torpedo employment, Tomahawk mission planning, and tactical data exchange. This gives the USS Albany the ability to conduct anti-submarine warfare, anti-surface warfare, covert surveillance, intelligence collection, strike warfare, and Special Operations Forces support from the same hull. The USS Albany has operated across the North Atlantic, Mediterranean Sea, Persian Gulf, Gulf of Oman, Caribbean and European waters during more than three decades of service.

Its 1997 deployment with the USS John F. Kennedy (CV-67) carrier battle group covered both the U.S. 5th and 6th Fleet areas and included a southbound transit of the Suez Canal, operations in the Mediterranean and Persian Gulf, and port calls in Gibraltar, Italy, France, Spain, Greece, Israel, Bahrain and Cyprus. During its 2004 deployment, the USS Albany participated in Dogfish, Arabian Shark, Shark Hunt and Majestic Eagle, combining anti-submarine exercises with operations in the Mediterranean, Arabian Sea and Persian Gulf. In 2006, the submarine supported Caribbean counter-narcotics missions that contributed to the seizure of more than 2.8 tonnes of narcotics. It covered 34,500 nautical miles during its 2010 deployment and more than 40,000 nautical miles during the extended 2012-2013 deployment.

The USS Albany completed additional deployments in 2008, 2019-2020, 2021-2022 and 2024, then participated in the multinational Cutlass Fury 25 anti-submarine warfare exercise off Canada before transferring to New London in August 2025. The USS Albany’s return has a measurable effect on the US Navy's undersea force availability because a submarine in prolonged depot maintenance remains part of the official fleet but contributes no deployment days, no forward presence, and no operational tasking. Los Angeles-class submarines still account for a major share of the U.S. Navy attack submarine inventory, but retirements are removing older hulls faster than Virginia-class construction is replacing them.

The Virginia-class output remains constrained by skilled labor shortages, supplier limitations, module delays and competition for nuclear-certified workers and industrial capacity from the Columbia-class ballistic missile submarine program. Public shipyards therefore influence force levels through the duration and predictability of overhauls, modernization periods and drydocking availabilities. Returning the USS Albany several weeks earlier than a further delayed schedule would have allowed provides immediate SSN capacity without waiting years for a new submarine to be funded, built, tested, and commissioned. It also reduces pressure on other boats that would otherwise absorb additional deployments, intelligence missions, carrier strike group support, and training commitments.

Written by Jérôme Brahy

Jérôme Brahy is a defense analyst and documentalist at Army Recognition. He specializes in naval modernization, aviation, drones, armored vehicles, and artillery, with a focus on strategic developments in the United States, China, Ukraine, Russia, Türkiye, and Belgium. His analyses go beyond the facts, providing context, identifying key actors, and explaining why defense news matters on a global scale.

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