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Ballistic missile submarine
A ballistic missile submarine is a submarine capable of deploying submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) with nuclear warheads. These submarines became a major weapon system in the Cold War because of their nuclear deterrence capability. They can fire missiles thousands of kilometers from their targets, and acoustic quieting makes them difficult to detect (see acoustic signature), thus making them a survivable deterrent in the event of a first strike and a key element of the mutual assured destruction policy of nuclear deterrence. The deployment of ballistic missile submarines is dominated by the United States, Russia (following the collapse of the Soviet Union) and China. In fact, 70% of nuclear warheads in the USA are carried by ballistic missile submarines.
Smaller numbers are in service with France, the United Kingdom and India.
North Korea is also suspected to have an experimental submarine that is diesel-electric powered.
Ballistic missile submarines should be distinguished from so-called nuclear submarines, which does not refer to a submarine carrying nuclear weapons, but instead refers to submarines with a nuclear propulsion engine.
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.
Imperial Japanese Navy I-400-class submarines 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.
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Ballistic missile submarine AI simulator
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Ballistic missile submarine
A ballistic missile submarine is a submarine capable of deploying submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) with nuclear warheads. These submarines became a major weapon system in the Cold War because of their nuclear deterrence capability. They can fire missiles thousands of kilometers from their targets, and acoustic quieting makes them difficult to detect (see acoustic signature), thus making them a survivable deterrent in the event of a first strike and a key element of the mutual assured destruction policy of nuclear deterrence. The deployment of ballistic missile submarines is dominated by the United States, Russia (following the collapse of the Soviet Union) and China. In fact, 70% of nuclear warheads in the USA are carried by ballistic missile submarines.
Smaller numbers are in service with France, the United Kingdom and India.
North Korea is also suspected to have an experimental submarine that is diesel-electric powered.
Ballistic missile submarines should be distinguished from so-called nuclear submarines, which does not refer to a submarine carrying nuclear weapons, but instead refers to submarines with a nuclear propulsion engine.
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.
Imperial Japanese Navy I-400-class submarines 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.