Check out the new bow.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/navy-just-took-delivery-most-110800898.html

http://www.gdeb.com/news/ebnews/PDF/ebnews_2007_10.pdf

 

It's like a steerable headlight of sound.

 

Pretty nice boat(s). I liked this quote:

The Navy and the submarine industrial base have worked hard to reduce the cost of buying and maintaining the Virginia-class submarines as they try to ramp up the production of attack boats to meet an SSN shortfall. General Dynamics Electric Boat is understandably proud of their work on Colorado.

Possibly some recall the WWII movie released around 1956 Run Silent Run Deep starring Clark Gable and Burt Lancaster. When the more for cost reductions began we coined a new phrase "Run Silent Run Cheap".
I still have a few commemorative pens and a shirt from when we shipped the first Virginia Class reactor ship sets. We had a dinner to celebrate the event. The pens are dated February 2000. How many new subs we build is pretty much what funding allows. Originally we were to build 2 boats per year and it was later reduced to one boat per year. For those with an interest in submarines The Legend of Electric Boat by Jeffery L. Rodengen is a really good and interesting book. A cool place to visit if ever wandering the area is The Submarine Force Library & Museum Home of the USS Nautilus located in Groton, Connecticut. There is a walk through the USS Nautilus, the United State's first nuclear powered submarine. Today every active aircraft carrier and submarine in the US Fleet runs under nuclear power. Pretty cool stuff.
The Colorado represents a whole new concept in the Virginia Class submarines with the newest and most highly developed reactor ship sets available.

Ron