NUCLEAR-POWERED II
The most significant single development in
submarine technology has undoubtedly been the use of nuclear
propulsion. The first nuclear-powered boat was the USS Nautilus,
launched in 1955. Nuclear power freed submarines from the need to
surface or schnorkel. Subs could stay at sea for months longer than
before and stay submerged indefinitely.
Nuclear power had the biggest impact on submarine
construction, beginning with the first nuclear submarine, USS
Nautilus, in 1954. Nuclear power plants permitted the construction of
the first true submarines. Non-nuclear submarines are properly
submersibles—vessels capable of submerging that actually spend most
of their time on the surface, recharging their electrical batteries.
Nuclear-powered submarines, however, can stay submerged indefinitely,
limited only by crew fatigue, because water and oxygen are two of the
by-products of their nuclear reactors. The post-war development of
guided weapons led to two classifications of nuclear submarines.
1. Attack submarines perform the traditional
submarine missions: attacking surface ships and hunting other attack
submarines. The threat of fast attack submarines became so acute,
post-war surface vessels incorporated helicopter facilities into
their design, as only aircraft could hope to counter the faster
submarines.
2. Ballistic-missile submarines, carrying
long-range guided ballistic missiles armed with nuclear warheads, act
as a last line of nuclear deterrence. The first ballistic-missile
submarine, the USS George Washington, was commissioned in 1959. The
first launch of a ballistic missile from a submarine came from the
USS George Washington in 1960.The Soviet, British, French, and
Chinese navies followed suit with their own ballistic-missile
submarines. One type of these submarines, the Russian Typhoon, is, at
26,000 tons displacement, the largest submarine in the world.
SOVIET RESPONSE.
Only recently has reliable information become
public on the Soviet Navy’s efforts to match the US Navy’s
achievement in nuclear-powered submarines. Work on the first Soviet
design began in September 1952, roughly four years behind the
Americans. The team was headed by V M Peregudov and N A Dollezhal,
with Academician A P Alexandrov as chief scientific adviser. Special
Design Bureau 143 was assigned the task of turning the Project 627
design into reality in the spring of 1953. Detailed design work took
only 18 months, and in the summer of 1958, K.3 sailed on her sea
trials. When the reactor plant ‘went critical’ on 4 July the
Soviet Navy’s nuclear fleet came into existence.
Known to NATO as the ‘November’ type, the new
nuclear attack submarine (SSN) entered service as K.3, but was later
named Leninskii Komsomol (Lenin’s Young Communist League). She was
followed by 12 more Project 627A boats, known to the Soviets as the
‘Kit’ class, and the same power plant was used in the Project 658
(’Hotel’) and Project 659 (’Echo’), hence the Western
nickname for the reactor plant, the HEN. Both ‘Hotel’ and ‘Echo’
were armed with long-range anti-ship missiles - SSGNs in US Navy
standard nomenclature.
There was great alarm in the US Navy and NATO when
the Soviet nuclear programme got under way so quickly, and even more
when the performance of the ‘Novembers’ was monitored. But the
Soviets were having trouble with the pressurised water reactor (PWR)
HEN plant, and turned to liquid metal cooling. The Project 645 boat
K.27 was a ‘November’ with the prototype reactor cooled by
lead-bismuth. It was successful, but had the serious operational
drawback of making the SSN more dependent on shore support. For
similar reasons the US Navy developed a liquid sodium-cooled plant
for the Seawolf (SSN-575), but discovered that its disadvantages
outweighed the benefits. Improvements in the design of PWRs provided
the same results for less money.
Although taken by surprise at the speed with which
the Polaris missile system was tested and introduced into service,
the Soviet Navy did not wait long to provide a response. In 1963, the
first Project 651 (NATO’s ‘ Julie”‘) appeared: the K.I56.
Sixteen of these diesel-electric submarines (SSGNs) were built, armed
with four launch tubes for P-6 Progress (SS-N-3A ‘Shaddock’)
missiles in the casing. These were raised to the firing position, a
system repeated in the nuclear-powered Project 675 (’Echo’)
class. The 28 boats of this class had double the armament of the
‘Juliett’ design, together with the benefit of nuclear
propulsion, but the 555-km (300-mile) ‘Shaddock’ bore no
comparison with Polaris.
The first SLBM in service was the R-13 (SS-N-4
‘Sark’) - developed for the Project 629 (’Golf’) class and
the Project 658 (’Hotel’) class (three carried in the fin or
sail). These boats were soon rearmed with the 650-mile R-21 ‘Serb’
missile, but the Russian designers eventually produced an SSBN
clearly influenced by the American boats. This was the Project 667A
(’Yankee’), which appeared in 1967. They resembled the ‘George
Washington’ class in layout, with 16 R-27 (SS-N-6 ‘Sawfly’)
missiles, credited with a range of 1500 miles.
Admiral Gorshkov‘s Tenure
Given the damage done to the Soviet Union by
Germany, and the immense amount of resources that had been poured
into the war, it was impossible to provide the i11dustrial resources
necessary for the creation of such a gargantuan fleet. Instead, the
Soviet Navy leadership tried to complete the twenty-four big cruisers
of the Sverdlov class. The main concern of the top admirals was not
so much to have dominating firepower at sea as to create vessels in
which crews would learn the trade of being sailors before being
trained to fight.
Much of the momentum to acquire a large surface
fleet died with Stalin in 1953. His death was followed by the usual
Kremlin infighting, and when First Secretary Nikita Khrushchev
denounced Stalin. and the “cult of the person of Stalin” in his
February 1956 speech to the 20th Congress of the Soviet Union, it was
evident that there was a new power source, one to which Admiral
Gorshkov immediately gravitated. (It would not be until 1958 that
Khrushchev assumed the post of premier, and became head of both state
and party.)
Thus it was in 1956, eleven years after the Great
Patriotic War ended, that Gorshkov was given command of the Red Navy.
He immediately paid lip service to Khrushchev’s policy that large
surface ships were obsolete and that missiles and submarines were the
weapons of the future. He also supported Khrushchev’s view that the
Red Navy was an important element of foreign policy and supervised
the provision of surface ships, submarines, personnel, and materials
for mine warfare to countries the Soviet Union wished to influence.
Gorshkov sanctioned the huge Soviet submarine
construction program that was bringing new boats into service at the
rate of eighty per year. Their purpose was to defeat the enemy by
disrupting naval and sea communications. The United States and the
North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) nations were seen as the
principal enemy, and if a conventional war were fought, the Soviet
Union believed that between eighty and one hundred large transports
would be arriving at European ports daily, with as many as 2,000
vessels en route simultaneously. Such a massive effort could only be
defeated by a massive submarine force.
Yet both the United States and the Soviet Union
had moved forward with nuclear weapons and missiles. If the war
turned out not to be conventional, but rather nuclear, submarines
would be needed to launch nuclear missiles against enemy carrier
groups, and against the enemy coast.
Gorshkov was thus faced with enormous
opportunities and challenges. On the one hand, under his guidance,
the Soviet Navy had to be swiftly elevated in quality and capability
to undertake the missions that Khrushchev envisioned. On the other,
he did not have a large share of the military budget nor, more
importantly, a broad base of personnel upon whom to draw to command
and man his ships.
It would be his most important task to see that
the best possible candidates were selected to command submarines and
be responsible for nuclear weapons. (Nuclear-powered submarines were
just visible on the horizon.) To achieve this Gorshkov had to create
the doctrine and supervise the training of the Soviet Navy, which
lacked all the components of naval experience and confidence that are
so vital in wartime. At the same time, he had to elevate the stature
of the navy within the military complex of the USSR, so that it would
receive a fair and adequate share of the military budget. Finally, he
had to attend to the myriad other details of building and running a
huge navy, while still nourishing his private dream of creating a
large and balanced surface fleet.
There are many ways to evaluate Gorshkov’s
relative success or failure.
Cold War Submarine Operations by the West
Three circumstances radically changed the paradigm
of Western submarine operators immediately after World War II: the
Allies’ overwhelming victory in that conflict, the transformation
of the Soviet Union from an ally into the West’s preeminent
opponent, and the advent of true submarines—epitomized by the
German Type XXI boats, whose technology was readily accessible to all
the erstwhile allies. Countering the potential major threat fast
submarines could present to transatlantic and transpacific lines of
communications and to the free operation of Western surface task
forces permeated naval planning. Consequently, antisubmarine warfare,
both defensive and offensive, became the central focus of Western
submarine operations.
The limitations of existing boats, even after
major modifications such as the GUPPY program in the U.S. Navy, and
the constraints of current propulsion technologies at first entailed
concentration on interception. Submarines were deployed forward,
ideally in close proximity to Soviet naval bases or, if that was
impractical, at “choke points,” relatively tightly defined
passages through which Soviet boats would have to travel to reach
their targets. Early hunter-killer tactics relied on slow, stealthy
boats using passive sonar and fire-control equipment, but actual
operations quickly demonstrated the limited effectiveness of both the
boats and their electronics.
The advent of nuclear-powered boats quickly
changed the antisubmarine warfare situation for Western submarines
forces from the 1960s. Their greater size provided space for very
powerful sonar o u t fits whose capabilities finally came close to
fulfilling the needs of stealthy hunter-killer operations. Their
vastly enhanced submerged endurance made prolonged ambush deployments
off Soviet bases or at choke points a realistic option. Powerful
sonar, speed, and endurance also opened up the possibility of
maintaining continuous submerged surveillance of Soviet submarines;
an urgent requirement in the Cold War situation once the Soviet Union
began deploying strategic missiles aboard dedicated submarine
platforms. Furthermore, the submerged speed and endurance of nuclear
boats at last made feasible the long-running concept of fleet
submarines. They, however, did not take on the role of ambushers of
enemy surface forces (the original fleet submarine concept) but
rather operated as effective wide-ranging, stealthy escorts for
important fast surface task forces, especially those centred on
carriers which had become the principal targets of Soviet submarines.
The operations of British nuclear boats as distant escorts for the
task force operating against the Falklands/Malvinas in 1982 vividly
illustrated this role; the sinking of the Argentinian cruiser General
Belgrano on 2 May by HMS Conqueror and the subsequent self-blockade
of Argentina’s carrier Veinticinco de Mayo in port thereafter
clearly demonstrated how effectively submarines could perform task
force escort missions.
Two developments further expanded the mission
portfolio of Western submarines: the use of submarine-launched cruise
missiles and the growth of the Soviet surface fleet. The addition of
cruise-missile launch capability to attack submarines enabled them to
perform land attack missions with great precision against narrowly
defined targets. During the 1990s submarine-launched punitive
Tomahawk cruise missile strikes against facilities of specific
importance became the means of choice whereby the United States
attempted to reinforce its foreign policy decisions and retaliate
against regimes and organizations for attacks on U.S. citizens and
assets. For example, on 20 August 1998 the United States launched
Tomahawk missiles against six terrorist bases in Afghanistan and a
factory in Sudan suspected of producing nerve gas in retaliation for
the bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania on 7 August. The
commissioning of aircraft carriers into the Soviet Fleet also
promptly revitalized the submarine mission of surface warship attack,
so that Western nuclear boats took on the role of shadowing Soviet
carrier forces that long had been an important function of Soviet
submarines.
Cold War Submarine Operations by the Soviet
Bloc
At the end of World War II the Soviet Union had
the largest submarine force in the world, although it was far from
being the most effective either in the quality of its equipment or
its operators. The onset of tensions with its erstwhile allies in
Western Europe and North America that led to the Cold War made
containing the threat of the West’s overwhelming naval
preponderance, and especially its carrier forces, a major Soviet
military goal. Consequently, using as a basis the captured German
elektroboote technology, the Soviet Union rapidly built up a very
large force of modern submarines whose primary missions were
intercepting and shadowing Western carrier forces and, should a
conflict occur, attacking the transatlantic shipping bridge that
carried reinforcements and supplies from North America to Europe.
A second mission quickly developed: countering
Western submarines that had adopted antisubmarine warfare as their
primary task. A dangerous cat-and-mouse game ensued that persisted
throughout the Cold War between Soviet and Western submariners,
primarily in the waters of the Arctic, North Atlantic, and
North-western Pacific oceans, and the Mediterranean Sea. The boats,
their equipment, their weapons, and their operators became ever more
sophisticated but the objective remained the same: to secretly
intercept an opponent and maintain stealthy contact thereafter.
The deployment of Western ballistic missile
submarines quickly led the Soviet Navy to react in the same way as
Western forces by deploying its attack submarines for operations to
locate and shadow the missile boats from their departure from port
throughout their missions. Stealth, endurance, and sophisticated
sonar and fire control were crucial to the success of such
operations, which persisted throughout the Cold War and beyond to the
present.
Anti-carrier operations received a substantial
boost in effectiveness with the advent of fast nuclear boats armed
with long-range anti-shipping missiles. This development closely
coincided with the deployment of Soviet strategic missile submarines,
whose survival in the open waters of the Atlantic and Pacific
depended heavily on the ability of Soviet attack boats to neutralize
Western carriers and submarines. This became even more important with
the advent of long-range ballistic missiles capable of targeting
North America without their launch platforms having to leave the
relative safety of the Arctic Ocean. The Soviet Navy developed the
concept of “bastion defence” in which its attack submarines and
strong surface antisubmarine forces would neutralize Western efforts
to penetrate this zone of safety with their boats while the Soviet
anti-carrier force prevented U.S. carrier task forces from supporting
penetration operations or initiating their own attacks on the
strategic missile submarines.
Throughout the Cold War attack submarines operated
by all the protagonists played a vital role. They were in the
forefront of both defensive and offensive operations, operating right
off their opponent’s bases, trailing both surface and submerged
opposition assets, and protecting their own forces from interception
and possible attack.
STRATEGIC MISSILE SUBMARINES
The advent of atomic and nuclear weapons, the
physical distance between the two principal protagonists in the Cold
War, the range limitations of existing and imminent missile
technologies, and concerns about the vulnerability of bomber aircraft
led to the investigation of the potential of submarines as launch
platforms for missiles. As the United States and the Soviet Union
explored the possibilities of this new submarine mission, the craft’s
added attractions—stealth, mobility, and relative
invulnerability—became more apparent, and it eventually came to
occupy a position of at least parity with land-based strategic
missiles and clear superiority over conventional bombers.
Because Germany was the first nation to deploy
strategic missiles, its experience and concepts played a noticeable
role in the development of U.S. and Soviet concepts. When Allied
forces landed in Normandy and advanced into northern France and
Belgium, they o v e r-ran the launching sites for Germany’s V-2
ballistic missiles. The range limitations of the V-2 missile
(approximately 185 miles) had placed most targets in the United
Kingdom beyond its strike capabilities, and attacks against the
United States had clearly been far beyond the bounds of possibility.
Such considerations had led the missile development staff at
Peenemünde to study options for launching ballistic missiles at sea.
The solution they chose was a self-contained canister, incorporating
a launching platform, control space, and propellant stowage, that
could be towed by a submarine to its firing position and
water-ballasted upright for launch. Successful shore side testing of
this system was completed in late 1944, and construction of
operational units had commenced; none, however, were completed before
the war ended.
The United States and the Soviet Union each took
possession of both the technology and the engineers from the V-2
missile at the end of World War II. This knowledge laid the
foundations for both nations’ subsequent development of strategic
ballistic missiles for the delivery of atomic and nuclear warheads.
Similarly, they used the knowledge acquired from the German V-1
program as the basis for developing their own land-attack cruise
missiles that, initially, were more attractive than ballistic
missiles because it was easier to endow them with longer reach. Both
navies quickly appreciated the advantage of deploying land-attack
missiles aboard submarines, since it offered the potential for
launching weapons against their opponent’s homeland from a stealthy
platform.
The U.S. Navy initially concentrated its efforts
in exploiting cruise missile technology for land-attack missions. It
conducted test firings of Loon missiles (the U.S. production version
of the V-1) from the submarines Cusk and Carbonero in early 1947,
using radio-command guidance to improve their accuracy. Both boats
served as guidance ships for later trials of the Regulus near-
supersonic nuclear-armed cruise missile, fired from surface ships.
Two other fleet submarines, the Tunny and the Barbero, received full
conversions for front-line operation of Regulus missiles, entering
service in 1953 and 1955, respectively. They soon were joined by the
two purposes- built boats of the Grayback class and, in 1959, by the
nuclear-powered Halibut. A large force of more elaborate nuclear-
powered cruise missile submarines was proposed to supplement the
Halibut. All boats were to carry the supersonic Regulus II, but,
after limited testing, that missile was cancelled in December 1958 as
redundant to requirements (and to concentrate funding and effort on
the Polaris ballistic missile); thus the submarines were reordered as
nuclear-powered torpedo-attack craft.
The Soviet Navy exploited the concepts of the
German V-2 missile launch canisters to develop a design for a very
large submarine capable of firing both ballistic and cruise missiles
against land targets. In the 1949 preliminary design the 5,400-ton
(surfaced) Project P-2 boat could carry twelve R-1 ballistic missiles
(the Soviet production version of the V-2) and additional cruise
missiles, but its engineers were unable to solve a host of
development problems, leading to the project’s termination. The
same design bureau began work the following year on Project 624, a
2,650-ton (submerged) cruise missile submarine powered by a
closed-cycle Walter steam turbine based on the plant designed for the
German Type XXVI boat. When that, too, was halted, work began on
Project 628, a cruise missile–armed development of the wartime
Series XIV design, but the Soviet Navy’s rejection of its missile
terminated efforts in 1953.
Thereafter, the Soviet Navy simultaneously pursued
the development and deployment of both cruise and ballistic missile
submarines. The diesel-electric Project 611A class (NATO- designated
Zulu-IV) submarine B- 62, with a single launch tube, was the first to
fire an R-11 ballistic missile (NATO-designated Scud) on 16 September
1955. The succeeding Project 611AB class (NATO-designated Zulu-V)
were the first operational ballistic missile submarines, the first
boat (the B-67) commissioning on 30 June 1956. These six boats could
launch their two R-11FM missiles from vertical tubes in the sail and
retained the torpedo capabilities of their conventionally armed
sisters. They were followed by 22 Project 629 class (NATO-designated
Golf) boats armed with three improved R-13 missiles and 9 similarly
armed nuclear-powered boats of the Project 658 class (NATO-designated
Hotel).
Meanwhile, after trials with two boats between
1955 and 1959— a Project 611 (NATO-designated Zulu) and a Project
613 (NATO-designated Whiskey)—two series of operational conversions
based on the Whiskey design entered service from 1960, as the six
Project 644 class (NATO-designated Whiskey Twin Cylinder) and the six
Project 665 class (NATO-designated Whiskey Long Bin). Soviet
designers also pursued development of nuclear-powered cruise missile
submarines, initially exploring a modified version of the fleet ’s
first nuclear-powered attack boat as Project 627A and then a much
larger 7,140-ton (submerged) type as Project 653, both optimized for
submerged operation. But problems with the P-20 missiles for those
vessels halted development. Instead, a new nuclear- powered design,
Project 659 (NATO-designated Echo I), which featured a conventional
hull form to maximize stability while launching missiles on the
surface, entered service from 1961. On 14 December 1959, however, the
new Strategic Rocket Forces were established. That arm of service
took control of all land-based strategic missiles, downgrading the
importance of the navy’s cruise missile boats and leading to the
decision to concentrate efforts on sea-based ballistic missiles and
focus cruise missile efforts on anti-ship warfare.
Soviet ballistic missile submarines were initially
very vulnerable during launch, because they had to surface to fire
their missiles. On 10 September 1960, the B-62 of the Project 611AB
class successfully fired a ballistic missile while submerged. The new
D-4 launch system it tested replaced the earlier D-2 system
originally fitted in the Project 629 and Project 658 classes of
ballistic missile submarines that began entering service in 1960. The
upgraded Project 629A and Project 658M boats carried three
liquid-fuelled R-21 ( NATO-designated Sark) missiles with a range of
870 miles (twice that of the earlier R-13 weapons) in vertical tubes
and recommissioned beginning in February 1962.
In 1955, the United States began work on a
submarine-launched ballistic missile that would ultimately become the
Polaris. Designers also began working on options for launching
ballistic missiles from submarines. Initially their designs were
conceived to accommodate modified versions of the U.S. Army’s
liquid-fuelled Jupiter missile and emerged as similar to the Skipjack
class attack boats, with much enlarged sails incorporating the
necessary launch tubes. The urgent development of the solid-fuelled
Polaris, however, made a more efficient arrangement possible. The
first U.S. ballistic missile submarines used a modification of the
Skipjack class attack boat design, lengthening the hull by 130 feet
to accommodate 16 launch tubes in two rows of eight, additional
auxiliary machinery, and special navigation and missile-control
equipment. The navy was able to accelerate production by reordering a
nuclear attack boat, the Scorpion, as a ballistic missile submarine
and incorporating its machinery and structural material into its
construction. The first U.S. Navy ballistic missile submarine, the
George Washington, commissioned on 30 December 1959. The George
Washington test fired two Polaris missiles while submerged on 20 July
1960 in the Atlantic and departed on its first operational patrol on
15 November 1960.
The Polaris missile was upgraded over time, its
range increasing with each iteration. The fourth upgrade produced a
new missile, the Poseidon, which featured Multiple Independently
Targeted Re-entry Vehicles (MIRVs). Each missile could carry 10–14
independently targeted nuclear warheads. It was relatively
straightforward to upgrade existing ballistic missile submarines to
launch successive versions of Polaris/ Poseidon missiles, since it
was not necessary to enlarge their launch tubes to accommodate them.
The first boat to take Poseidon missiles to sea, the James Madison,
departed on patrol on 30 March 1971, while the final war patrol by
any of the 41 submarines armed with these missiles was not completed
until 1994.
The Soviet Union was slower than the United States
in developing ballistic missile submarines capable of carrying heavy
loads of these weapons. In part this was attributable to an
attraction toward deploying cruise missile boats, since cruise
missiles seemed to offer greater and less complex development
potential than ballistic weapons and the submarines would be capable
of undertaking a broader range of missions. The emergence of a
politically powerful rival for funding in the form of the Strategic
Rocket Forces also inhibited development of boats matching the
weapons capabilities of U.S. strategic submarines. The disappointing
results of efforts to field long-range, heavily armed cruise missiles
and the success in overcoming difficulties in developing
solid-fuelled ballistic weapons led the Soviet Fleet to develop and
deploy a large force of powerfully armed strategic missile
submarines: 34 of the Project 667A class (NATO-designated Yankee)
followed by 43 of the various versions of the Project 667B type
(NATO-designated Delta), which entered service between late 1967 and
early 1986.
Both the United States and the Soviet Union
continued to develop longer-range, more powerful ballistic missiles,
which therefore were larger, and the bigger submarines required to
accommodate them. For the United States the new missile was the
Trident—substantially larger than the Poseidon—which led to the
design of the Ohio-class submarines, the largest in the world at that
time. They embarked 24 of the new weapons, an arrangement regarded as
a considerably more efficient use of submarine platforms. The first
of 18 boats, the Ohio, commissioned on 11 November 1981. All remain
in service, although four are being converted to launch up to 154
cruise missiles via 22 vertical tubes, rather than ballistic
missiles, with more possibly converting in the future. The Soviet
Union countered with its Project 941 class ballistic missile
submarines (NATO-designated Typhoon), the first, the TK- 208,
commissioning on 12 December 1981. They use an unusual double
pressure hull form, are even larger than the Ohio class, and thus are
the world’s largest submarines, although they carried only 20 R-39
ballistic missiles (NATO-designated Sturgeon) in vertical tubes. The
six boats of the class remain in service.
Britain, France, and China also operate strategic
missile submarines. The British turned to the United States for their
missiles, purchasing Polaris A-3 missiles, launch tubes, and control
systems but developing their own warheads. The design process for the
four boats of the Resolution class took a path similar to that of the
first U.S. ballistic missile submarines. The British essentially used
the design for their own Valiant class attack submarines and inserted
the missile launching section from contemporary U.S. vessels abaft
the sail to create the final design for their own boats. The first of
the class, the Resolution, departed on its first operational patrol
on 15 June 1968. When the United States developed the more powerful
Trident missile, Britain negotiated an amendment to the original
Polaris agreement in 1982 to acquire the new weapon and the necessary
systems for its operation. The four boats of the Vanguard class used
a greatly enlarged version of the Resolution class design. Unlike
their U.S. equivalents, the British boats carry only 16 missiles.
They began operational patrols in December 1994.
Largely at the instigation of President Charles de
Gaulle, the French also created a submarine nuclear deterrent force.
The French took a wholly independent route, developing their own
indigenous M1 strategic ballistic missile system. The six submarines
of the Rédoutable class also were the first French nuclear- powered
boats, and they began operational patrols in 1971. After 1985 these
boats were upgraded to launch the M4 missile with MIRV capability. As
in the United States, the Soviet Union, and Britain, advances in
missile design necessitated the development of larger submarines to
accommodate the more powerful weapons. The four French boats of the
Triomphant class carry 16 M45 ballistic missiles capable of launching
up to 6 MIRV warheads to a distance of 3,750 miles. These large boats
are unusual in using a nuclear-powered turboelectric propulsion
system. They are scheduled to receive upgrades to launch new M51
weapons, with a range of 5,000 miles, beginning in 2010.
After China joined the “nuclear club,” it too
inclined toward developing submarines to launch strategic missiles.
In the absence of indigenous capability to realize that ambition, it
turned to its then ally for assistance. The Soviet Union fabricated
hull sections for two Project 629 class (NATO-designated Golf)
ballistic missile submarines at Komsomolsk and transferred them,
together with machinery and launch systems, to China in the early
1960s. The Chinese assembled one boat at Darien in the mid-1960s and
commissioned it as its Type 035. The other boat, however, was never
assembled. The completed submarine was deployed for testing: first of
Soviet R-11F weapons and later of indigenously derived missiles. In
1981, China launched a single example of its Type 092 ballistic
missile submarine (NATO-designated Xia). This was an enlarged version
of China’s first nuclear-powered attack submarine design, the Type
091 class (NATO-designated Han), lengthened to accommodate launch
tubes for twelve JL-1 solid-propellant ballistic missiles with a
range of 1,100 miles carrying a 200- to 300-kiloton warhead. That
single boat became operational in 1983, although it was not until
1988 that the Chinese satisfactorily resolved launch control
problems. Between 1995 and 1998 it was upgraded to deploy improved
JL-2 weapons equipped with up to four MIRV warheads and with a
maximum range of 5,000 miles. China is reported to be developing a
new class of four nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines (Type
094), but little reliable information on their characteristics is
available.
STRATEGIC MISSILE SUBMARINE OPERATIONS
The U.S. Navy began operating its Regulus-armed
submarines on strategic deterrent patrols in September 1958. Exactly
one year later, these boats initiated the continuous deployment of
one or more cruise missile submarines in the North Pacific, targeting
sites in the Soviet Far East for attack in the event of war. These
patrols continued until July 1964, when the boats terminated their
deterrent mission. Conventional Soviet cruise missile boats, on the
other hand, undertook only relatively short-range missions in the
Baltic Sea and Arctic Ocean until they were withdrawn from front-line
service in the late 1960s, although they no longer operated land
attack missiles after 1965. Their nuclear-powered cohorts of the
Project 659 class (NATO-designated Echo I), however, were very active
in the North Atlantic and the Pacific. One boat, the K- 122, was
seriously damaged internally by a battery fire on 21 August 1980
while operating off Okinawa; the fire killed nine crewmen and left
the ship without power. Soviet ships had to tow the submarine to its
base at Vladivostok.
U.S. ballistic missile submarines began deterrent
patrols in the Atlantic in November 1960 and in the Pacific in
December 1964. To maximize sea time, the U.S. Navy introduced a new
system for operating its strategic missile submarines. Each boat was
assigned two complete crews (differentiated as the Blue and Gold
crews, the navy colors). While one crew took the boat on a 60-day
deterrent patrol, the other was training, resting, or on leave. Upon
the boat’s return to port, the active crew oversaw replenishment
and repairs, then exchanged with the alternate crew, which took the
boat on patrol again. This crewing system has been maintained
continuously to date; it allows the navy to maintain up to two-thirds
of its active ballistic missile submarine fleet at sea at any moment.
The early Soviet conventional Project 611AB class
(NATO-designated Zulu-V) operated exclusively in European waters as
theatre threat weapons. The later conventional Project 629 class (
NATO-designated Golf) and nuclear-powered boats of the Project 658
class (NATO-designated Hotel) operated extensively with the Northern,
Baltic, and Pacific fleets from 1962 until 1989. During those
operations the K-129 of the Project 629 class was lost on patrol in
the North Pacific after an internal explosion on 8 March 1968. The
Central Intelligence Agency undertook a clandestine salvage operation
in 1974 using the purpose-built salvage vessel Glomar Explorer to
recover the Soviet submarine. During the lifting of the wreck the
hull broke apart, and only the forward section was recovered for
examination and subsequent disposal. The Project 658 class was
plagued with problems, largely a consequence of poor workmanship and
inadequate quality control. A coolant pipe burst aboard the lead
member of the class, the K-19, while it was operating submerged near
Greenland on 4 July 1961, exposing the entire crew of 139 officers
and men, of whom 14 died, to excessive radiation. After repairs the
K-19 returned to operations but collided with the U.S.
nuclear-powered attack submarine Gato on 15 November 1969, damaging
both boats. Then, on 24 February 1972, while on patrol 800 miles
northeast of Newfoundland, the K- 19 suffered a catastrophic failure
in its cooling system, resulting in the deaths of 28 of its crew. The
powerless submarine was towed back to its base on the Kola Peninsula,
repaired, returned to service on 5 November 1972, and not
decommissioned until 1990. Other members of the class also suffered
major power plant problems, often requiring tows back to port, and
leading to a major reappraisal of inspection procedures during
construction and repair.
The Soviet Union began deploying the large
strategic missile submarines of the Project 667A class
(NATO-designated Yankee) on deterrent patrols off the Atlantic coast
of the United States from June 1969 and off the Pacific coast from
October 1970. Thereafter, the Soviet Navy maintained two to four of
the class off the Atlantic coast and at least one off the Pacific
coast. After these submarines had been supplemented by the larger
boats of the Project 667B type (NATO-designated Delta), the Soviets
kept 10 to 14 vessels at sea on deterrent patrols, with about
three-quarters of all its ballistic missile submarines ready for
almost immediate service. It also developed systems enabling
submarines to launch missiles while alongside in their homeports to
maximize their ability to intervene in a conflict at short notice.
This disposition of forces exploited the range advantage of the
Soviet liquid-fuelled missiles, which enabled their submarines to
operate within “bastions,” oceanic areas protected by the Soviet
Fleet’s own antisubmarine and anti-ship forces from attack by NATO
antisubmarine and strike operations. That capability became even more
effective when the huge Project 941 class ballistic missile
submarines (NATO-designated Typhoon) became operational in late 1981;
the range of their weapons was sufficient for them to operate in the
Arctic Ocean, where they were virtually immune from attack.
Both the British and French ballistic missile
submarine forces adopted a crewing system similar to that devised by
the U.S. Navy, using two crews to maximize operational deployments.
The two forces have consistently maintained about three-quarters of
their submarines in operational status, with the other quarter
undergoing major refits. However, the smaller number of submarines
each navy possessed meant that few boats were at sea. During the Cold
War up to half of the total forces were deployed on deterrent patrols
at any one time, but both navies now operate at a reduced tempo. Each
fleet is currently reduced to four submarines, usually with only one
on patrol at any given time. China, with a single boat, does not
maintain standing patrols. Its single Type 092 submarine has rarely
ventured outside Chinese territorial waters.