USS Texas returns scores of sailors to Pearl Harbor

» Photo gallery: USS Texas returns

Santa delivered a 377-foot-long, 7,800-ton, $2.7 billion Christmas present Friday to some Navy families at Pearl Harbor: the submarine USS Texas with more than 130 crew members aboard.

The Virginia-class submarine returned from its maiden western Pacific deployment just after 2 p.m. to more than 200 cheering family members and fellow sailors at pier Sierra 1 at the submarine base.

The Texas, with technology that allows it to operate in the shallower seas that foreign diesel-electric subs prefer, traveled more than 31,000 miles on the six-month deployment, with port calls in Guam; Yokosuka, Japan; Busan, South Korea; and a first for a Virginia-class sub, a stop at Subic Bay in the Philippines.

Lauren Bresnahan not only got her husband, navigator Lt. Scott Bresnahan, 31, home in time for Christmas, but he’s also back in time for the birth of his first child, due Jan. 1.

"It’s really the best gift I could receive: having him home before Christmas and having all the families be able to celebrate with loved ones," Lauren Bresnahan said.

Lt. Bresnahan won’t get much downtime after the deployment because he’ll soon be changing diapers.

"Hopefully he’s been reading the book he left with — one of those ‘prepare to be a dad’ books, and we’ll do a crash course next week to get him ready," his wife said.

Pearl Harbor’s three Virginia-class subs have been making a name for themselves in the western Pacific since the Navy’s newest attack submarines began arriving in Hawaii in July 2009.

The USS Hawaii returned in February from its first western Pacific deployment.

The USS North Carolina, the third Virginia-class sub at Pearl Harbor, left Hawaii Dec. 1 and is now in Yokosuka, Japan.

The Navy’s first major combat craft designed for a post-Cold War environment, the Virginia-class subs have six side-mounted sonar arrays, plus arrays in the bow, sail and nose, improving the ability to operate in the littorals, or coastal waters.

Submarine captains say the question no longer is how fast and deep a submarine can dive, but how slow and shallow it can go. The littorals are where a lot of foreign diesel subs operate.

Cmdr. Robert Roncska, commander of the Texas, said the boat "exceeded all expectations," but much of that success is classified.

"Unfortunately, I can’t talk about the ship’s operation, but I can guarantee you that the Texas has proven the Virginia-class can go anywhere in the 7th Fleet," Roncska said.

The 7th Fleet includes the western Pacific and Indian Ocean. Anti-sub and anti-ship warfare exercises were held with Japan and South Korea.

A continuing problem has dogged the Texas, the second Virginia sub built, with chunks of a rubberlike coating applied to the hull to deaden sound shearing off during deployment, a problem noted before on early Virginia subs.

"With any new class of ship, you find that you have some things that you need to work on — and we have corrected those problems with future platforms. We’re going into a shipyard availability where we’ll be able to fix this," Roncska said.