The first sea-based missile deterrent forces were a small number of conventionally powered
cruise missile submarines and surface ships fielded by the United States and the Soviet Union in the 1950s, deploying the
Regulus I missile and the Soviet
P-5 Pyatyorka (also known by its
NATO reporting name SS-N-3 Shaddock), both land attack
cruise missiles that could be
launched from surfaced submarines. Although these forces served until 1964 and (on the Soviet side) were augmented by the nuclear-powered
Project 659 (Echo I class) cruise-missile submarines, they were rapidly eclipsed by SLBMs carried by nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines beginning in 1960.
Ballistic missile submarine origins The
Imperial Japanese Navy s are considered the strategic predecessors to today's ballistic submarines, especially to the Regulus missile program, which began about a decade after World War II. During World War II, German researchers developed the
A4 (V2), the first ballistic missile. Toward the end of the war, a V2 version was developed at the
Peenemünde Army Research Station to be towed in a launch container behind a submarine. Each submarine was to tow up to three of these 36-meter containers, manned by ten soldiers, through the
North Sea. Off
England, the container would have been brought to the surface and the missiles fired. Prototypes were already being tested on the
Baltic coast before the project had to be abandoned in 1945 with the evacuation of
Peenemünde. Three containers were already under construction at that time. The commander of the Army Experimental Station,
Walter Dornberger, described the project as "not unpromising". The first nation to field ballistic missile submarines was the Soviet Union, whose first experimental vessel was a converted
Project 611 (Zulu IV class) diesel-powered submarine equipped with a single ballistic missile launch tube in its sail. This submarine launched the world's first SLBM, an
R-11FM (SS-N-1 Scud-A, naval modification of SS-1
Scud) on 16 September 1955. Five additional Project V611 and AV611 (Zulu V class) boats became the world's first operational ballistic submarines with two R-11FM missiles each, entering service in 1956–57. They were followed by a series of 23 specifically designed
Project 629 (Golf class) boats, completed 1958–1962, with three vertical launch tubes incorporated in the sail/fin of each submarine. The initial
R-13 (SS-N-4) ballistic missiles could only be launched with the submarine on the surface and the missile raised to the top of the launch tube, but were followed by
R-21 (SS-N-5) missiles beginning in 1963, which were launched with the submarine submerged. The world's first operational nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine was with 16
Polaris A-1 missiles, which entered service in December 1959 and conducted the first SSBN deterrent patrol November 1960 – January 1961. (The
United States Navy's
hull classification symbols for nuclear ballistic missile submarines are
SSBN – the
SS denotes submarine, the
B denotes
ballistic missile, and the
N denotes that the submarine is
nuclear powered.) The Polaris missile and the first US SSBNs were developed by a Special Project office under Rear Admiral
W. F. "Red" Raborn, appointed by
Chief of Naval Operations Admiral
Arleigh Burke.
George Washington was redesigned and rebuilt early in construction from a fast attack submarine, USS
Scorpion, with a missile compartment welded into the middle. Nuclear power was a crucial advance, allowing a ballistic missile submarine to remain undetected at sea by remaining submerged or occasionally at
periscope depth () for an entire patrol. A significant difference between US and Soviet SLBMs was the fuel type; all US SLBMs have been solid fueled while all Soviet SLBMs before 1980 were liquid fueled. The USSR and subsequently Russia deployed three different SLBM types with solid fuel (
R-31 in 1980,
R-39 Rif in 1983, and
RSM-56 Bulava in 2018). However, these did not replace liquid-fueled SLBMs in service, and new liquid-fueled SLBMs were developed and introduced (
R-29RM introduced in 1986,
R-29RMU introduced in 2007) after deployment of the R-31 and R-39. With more missiles on one US SSBN than on five Golf-class boats, the Soviets rapidly fell behind in sea-based deterrent capability. The Soviets were only a year behind the US with their first nuclear powered ballistic missile boat, the
ill-fated K-19 of
Project 658 (Hotel class), commissioned in November 1960. However, this class carried the same three-missile armament as the Golfs. The first Soviet nuclear submarine with 16 missiles was the
Project 667A (Yankee class), the first of which entered service in 1967, by which time the US had already commissioned 41 SSBNs, nicknamed the "
41 for Freedom". The United Kingdom's first nuclear ballistic missile submarine was the of four submarines built for the
Royal Navy as part of the
UK Polaris programme. The first to be completed was , laid down in February 1964 and launched in September 1966. After commissioning in 1967, a period of sea trials followed, culminating in the test firing of a Polaris missile from the
USAF Eastern Test Range off
Cape Kennedy in February 1968.
Resolution commenced her first operational patrol in June 1968. France's first nuclear ballistic submarine followed very closely. The first French SLBM submarine,
Le Redoutable was laid down in 1964 in
Cherbourg and launched in March 1967.
Le Redoutable entered operational service in December 1971 and was the first of a series of six ships, with a 7,500-ton displacement and equipped with 16 French-made
M1 missiles.
Deployment and further development The short range of the early SLBMs dictated basing and deployment locations. By the late 1960s the
UGM-27 Polaris A-3 missile was deployed on all US and UK ballistic missile submarines. Its range of was a great improvement on the range of Polaris A-1. The A-3 also had three warheads that landed in a pattern around a single target. The Yankee class was initially equipped with the
R-27 Zyb (SS-N-6) missile with a range of . The US was much more fortunate in its basing arrangements than the Soviets. Thanks to
NATO and the US possession of
Guam, US SSBNs were permanently forward deployed at Advanced Refit Sites in
Holy Loch,
Scotland and
Rota, Spain for
Atlantic and
Mediterranean areas, and Guam for the
Pacific areas, by the middle 1960s resulting in short transit times to patrol areas near the Soviet Union. With two rotating crews per SSBN, about one-third of the total US force could be in a patrol area at any time. The Soviet bases, in
Severomorsk near
Murmansk for the Atlantic and the
Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky area for the Pacific, required their submarines to make a long transit through NATO-monitored waters in the Atlantic to their mid-ocean patrol areas to hold the
Continental United States (CONUS) at risk. US SSBN submarine missions usually last for approximately ninety days (the maximum duration is limited by the supply of food and other consumables that can be carried on board, as well as crew endurance, rather than by the amount of the nuclear fuel on board) and occurs with 18 months maintenance and repair breaks. The new missiles had increased range and eventually Multiple Independently Targeted Re-entry Vehicles (
MIRV), multiple warheads that could each hit a different target. The Delta I class had 12 missiles each; the others have 16 missiles each. All Deltas have a tall superstructure (aka casing) to accommodate their large liquid-fueled missiles.
Poseidon and Trident I Although the US did not commission any new SSBNs from 1967 through 1981, they did introduce two new SLBMs. Thirty-one of the 41 original US SSBNs were built with larger diameter launch tubes with future missiles in mind. In the early 1970s the
Poseidon (C-3) missile entered service, and those 31 SSBNs were backfitted with it. Poseidon offered a massive MIRV capability of up to 14 warheads per missile. Like the Soviets, the US also desired a longer-range missile that would allow SSBNs to be based in CONUS. In the late 1970s the
Trident I (C-4) missile was backfitted to 12 of the Poseidon-equipped submarines. The SSBN facilities of the base at Rota, Spain were disestablished and the
Naval Submarine Base King's Bay in
Georgia was built for the Trident I-equipped force.
Trident and Typhoon submarines Both the United States and the Soviet Union commissioned larger submarines designed for new missiles in 1981. The American large SSBN was the , also called the "Trident submarine", with the largest SSBN armament ever of 24 missiles, initially Trident I but built with much larger tubes for the
Trident II (D-5) missile, which entered service in 1990. The entire class was converted to use Trident II by the early 2000s. When the commenced sea trials in 1980, two US SSBNs had their missiles removed to comply with
SALT treaty requirements; the remaining eight were converted to
attack submarines (SSN) by the end of 1982. These were all in the Pacific, and the Guam SSBN base was disestablished; the first several
Ohio-class boats used new Trident facilities at
Naval Submarine Base Bangor,
Washington. Eighteen
Ohio-class boats were commissioned by 1997, four of which were converted to
cruise missile submarines (SSGN) in the 2000s to comply with
START I treaty requirements. (Typhoon-class) nuclear ballistic missile submarine. The Soviet large nuclear ballistic missile submarine was the
Project 941 Akula, more famously known as the Typhoon class (and not to be confused with the
Project 971 Shchuka attack submarine, called "Akula" by NATO). The Typhoons were the largest submarines ever built, at 48,000 tons submerged (more than 2½ times the displacement of the
Ohio-class). They were armed with 20 of the new
R-39 Rif (SS-N-20) missiles. Six Typhoons were commissioned 1981–1989. The United Kingdom commissioned the 15,600-ton in 1993, to carry up to 16 Trident II missiles. France commissioned in 1997 the 12,600-ton , equipped with up to 16 French-made
M45 missiles.
Post-Cold War With the
collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the
Cold War in 1991, construction of new nuclear submarines by Russia was put on hold for over ten years and was slowed in the United States. Additionally the US rapidly decommissioned its 31 older remaining SSBNs, with a few converted to other roles, and the base at Holy Loch in Scotland was disestablished. Most of the former Soviet nuclear submarine force was gradually scrapped under the provisions of the
Nunn–Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction agreement through 2012. The Russian ballistic missile submarine force then stood at six Delta IVs, three Delta IIIs, and a lone Typhoon used as a testbed for new missiles (the R-39s unique to the Typhoons were reportedly scrapped in 2012). Upgraded missiles such as the
R-29RMU Sineva (SS-N-23 Sineva) were developed for the Deltas. In 2013 the Russians commissioned the first , also called the
Dolgorukiy class after the lead vessel. By 2015 two others had entered service. This class is intended to replace the aging Deltas, and carries 16 solid-fuel
RSM-56 Bulava missiles, with a reported range of and six MIRV warheads. The US is set to replace the
Ohio-class, with construction beginning in 2020. The United Kingdom and France are set to replace in the early 2030s their current fleets composed respectively of
Vanguard and
Triomphant with third generation
Dreadnought and unnamed
SNLE 3G SLBMs. In 2009,
India launched the first of its indigenously built s. The submarines are armed with
K15 and
K-4ballistic missiles. Follow on variants with longer range ballistic missiles called
K-5 and
K6 are in works. North Korea test-fired ballistic missiles from submarines in 2021 and 2022. ==Purpose==