United States Navy class of fleet ballistic missile submarines
George Washington
class
|
Class overview
|
Operators
|
United States Navy
|
Succeeded by
| Ethan Allen
class
submarine
|
Built
| 1958?1961
[1]
|
In commission
| 1959?1985
|
Completed
| 5
[1]
|
Retired
| 5
[1]
|
General characteristics
|
Type
| SSBN
|
Displacement
| Surfaced: 5,959
long tons
(6,055 t)
Submerged: 6,709
long tons
(6,817 t)
[2]
|
Length
| 381.6 ft (116.3 m)
[1]
|
Beam
| 33 ft (10 m)
[1]
|
Draft
| 29 ft (8.8 m)
[1]
|
Propulsion
| |
Speed
|
- 16 knots (30 km/h) surfaced
- 22 knots (41 km/h) submerged
[2]
|
Range
| unlimited except by food supplies
|
Test depth
| 700 ft (210 m)
[1]
|
Capacity
| 112 (Crew Only)
|
Complement
| Two crews (Blue/Gold) each consisting of 12 officers and 100 men.
|
Armament
| |
The
George Washington
class
was a class of
nuclear-powered
ballistic missile submarines
deployed by the
United States Navy
.
George Washington
, along with the later
Ethan Allen
,
Lafayette
,
James Madison
, and
Benjamin Franklin
classes, comprised the "
41 for Freedom
" group of submarines that represented the Navy's main contribution to the
nuclear deterrent
force through the late 1980s.
Development
[
edit
]
In 1957, the US Navy began using submarines in the nuclear deterrent role, when a pair of World War II vintage diesel-electric boats,
USS
Tunny
and
USS
Barbero
, converted to be able to carry a pair of
Regulus cruise missiles
, began operating deterrent patrols. These two were soon joined by a
pair of purpose built diesel boats
, and a nuclear powered boat,
USS
Halibut
. However, the use of Regulus in the deterrent role showed a number of limitations; as a
cruise missile
, it was vulnerable to interception by fighter aircraft, it was limited to
subsonic
speed, and had a range of less than 1000 km, while the largest of the Regulus armed boats could carry a maximum of five missiles. Additionally, the submarine had to surface to launch a missile, and the missile was guided by a radio signal transmitted from either ship, aircraft or ground station.
[3]
To overcome these limitations, the Navy turned to
ballistic missiles
.
The commissioning of
George Washington
on 30 December 1959, the first submarine Polaris launch on 20 July 1960, and her first deterrent patrol November 1960 ? January 1961 were the culmination of four years of intense effort. The Navy initially worked on a sea-based variant of the
US Army
Jupiter
intermediate-range ballistic missile
, projecting four of the large, liquid-fueled missiles per submarine.
[4]
Rear Admiral
W. F. "Red" Raborn
was appointed by
Chief of Naval Operations
Admiral
Arleigh Burke
to head a Special Project Office to develop Jupiter for the Navy, beginning in late 1955.
[4]
[5]
However, at the
Project Nobska
submarine warfare conference in 1956, physicist
Edward Teller
stated that a compact one-megaton warhead could be produced for the relatively small, solid-fueled
Polaris missile
,
[6]
and this prompted the Navy to leave the Jupiter program in December of that year. Soon Admiral Burke concentrated all Navy strategic research on Polaris, still under Admiral Raborn's Special Project Office.
[5]
The problems of submerged launch, designing a submarine for 16 missiles,
precise navigation
for accurate missile targeting, and numerous others were all solved quickly.
[7]
By comparison, the contemporary
Soviet
Golf-
and
Hotel-class
ballistic missile submarines only carried three missiles each; the Soviets did not commission an SSBN comparable to the George Washington class until 1967 with the introduction of the
Yankee-class submarines
.
Construction
[
edit
]
The Navy ordered a class of
nuclear-powered submarines
armed with long-range strategic missiles on 31 December 1957, and tasked
Electric Boat
with converting two existing
attack submarine
hulls
to
ballistic missile
-carrying boats to quickly create the deterrent force. To accomplish this conversion, Electric Boat persuaded the Navy in January 1958 to slip the launch dates for two
Skipjack
class
fast attack submarines, the just-begun
Scorpion
(SSN-589)
and the not-yet-started
Sculpin
(SSN-590)
. On 12 February 1958,
President
Dwight D. Eisenhower
authorized funding for three ballistic missile submarines.
The
George Washington
class were essentially
Skipjack
class submarines with a 130 foot (40 m) missile compartment, inserted between the ship's control/navigation areas and the nuclear reactor compartment. Contrary to some popular accounts, the
Skipjack
s were not literally "cut in half" to become ballistic missile submarines. The
Scorpion
had only been under construction for two months at Electric Boat in
Groton, Connecticut
before she was reordered as the
George Washington
(SSGN-598)
.
[8]
Material and equipment ordered for the
Scamp
and
Sculpin
were used to build the
Patrick Henry
(SSGN-599)
and
Theodore Roosevelt
(SSGN-600)
at Electric Boat and
Mare Island Naval Shipyard
, respectively.
Newport News Shipbuilding
and
Portsmouth Naval Shipyard
built the
Robert E. Lee
(SSBN-601)
and
Abraham Lincoln
(SSBN-602)
without any components ordered for
Skipjack
-class submarines. The original hull classification of the first three units was SSGN(FBM) (Guided Missile Submarine, Fleet Ballistic Missile) which was changed to SSBN on 26 June 1958.
[9]
[8]
The
George Washington
class carried the
Polaris A1 missile
on their patrols until 2 June 1964, when she changed out her A1 missiles for Polaris A3s. The last member of this class,
USS
Abraham Lincoln
(SSBN-602)
swapped out her A1s for A3s on 14 October 1965.
Withdrawal from strategic role
[
edit
]
By the end of 1979, to make room within the limitations imposed by
SALT II
for the
Ohio
-class
ballistic missile submarines, and performing shortened patrols of six weeks due to reduced reactor fuel,
Theodore Roosevelt
and
Abraham Lincoln
offloaded their missiles at the newly established Explosives Handling Wharf at Bangor, Washington. Eventually their missile compartments were completely removed and they were decommissioned by the end of 1982.
[10]
For the same reason, by 1983
George Washington
,
USS
Patrick Henry
(SSBN-599)
, and
USS
Robert E. Lee
(SSBN-601)
had their missiles removed and were reclassified as attack submarines nicknamed, "slow attacks", a role in which they served briefly in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii prior to being decommissioned by early 1985.
[11]
George Washington'
s sail is preserved at the
Submarine Force Library and Museum
at
Groton, Connecticut
.
Boats in class
[
edit
]
Submarines of the
George Washington
class:
[10]
[12]
Name and hull number
|
Builder
|
Laid Down
|
Launched
|
Commissioned
|
Decommissioned
|
Period of service
|
Fate
|
George Washington
(SSBN-598)
(ex-
Scorpion
)
|
General Dynamics Electric Boat
,
Groton, Connecticut
|
1 November 1957
|
9 June 1959
|
30 December 1959
|
24 January 1985
|
25.0
|
Disposed of through
Ship-Submarine Recycling Program
at
Bremerton
, 1998
|
Patrick Henry
(SSBN-599)
|
27 May 1958
|
22 September 1959
|
11 April 1960
|
25 May 1984
|
24.2
|
Disposed of through
Ship-Submarine Recycling Program
at
Bremerton
, 1997
|
Theodore Roosevelt
(SSBN-600)
|
Mare Island Naval Shipyard
,
Vallejo, California
|
20 May 1958
|
3 October 1959
|
13 February 1961
|
28 February 1981
|
20.0
|
Disposed of through
Ship-Submarine Recycling Program
at
Bremerton
, 1995
|
Robert E. Lee
(SSBN-601)
|
Newport News Shipbuilding and Drydock Co.
,
Newport News, Virginia
|
25 August 1958
|
18 December 1959
|
15 September 1960
|
1 December 1983
|
23.1
|
Disposed of through
Ship-Submarine Recycling Program
at
Bremerton
, 1991
|
Abraham Lincoln
(SSBN-602)
|
Portsmouth Naval Shipyard
,
Kittery, Maine
|
1 November 1958
|
14 May 1960
|
8 March 1961
|
28 February 1981
|
20.0
|
Disposed of through
Ship-Submarine Recycling Program
at
Bremerton
, 1994
|
See also
[
edit
]
Citations
[
edit
]
- ^
a
b
c
d
e
f
g
h
i
"SSBN-598 George Washington-Class FBM Submarines"
.
Federation of American Scientists
. Retrieved
18 October
2012
.
- ^
a
b
c
d
Friedman, Norman (1994).
U.S. Submarines Since 1945: An Illustrated Design History
.
Annapolis, Maryland
:
United States Naval Institute
. pp. 196?200, 244.
ISBN
1-55750-260-9
.
- ^
"Regulus 1"
.
astronautix.com
. Archived from
the original
on 10 November 2016
. Retrieved
10 November
2016
.
- ^
a
b
Friedman, pp. 192-195
- ^
a
b
History of the Jupiter Missile, pp. 23-35
- ^
Teller, Edward (2001).
Memoirs: A Twentieth Century Journey in Science and Politics
. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Perseus Publishing. pp.
420?421
.
ISBN
0-7382-0532-X
.
- ^
Friedman, pp. 193-199
- ^
a
b
Polmar and Moore,
Cold War Submarines
, p. 119
- ^
Bauer and Roberts,
Register of Ships of the U.S. Navy
,p. 286
- ^
a
b
Gardiner and Chumbley, pp. 610-611
- ^
Farley, Robert (18 October 2014).
"The Five Best Submarines of All Time"
.
The National Interest
.
- ^
"Missile Submarines of the Cold War"
. California Center for Military History (dead link 2015-05-07). Archived from
the original
on 27 September 2013
. Retrieved
18 October
2012
.
References
[
edit
]
- Bauer, K. Jack; Roberts, Stephen S. (1991).
Register of Ships of the U.S. Navy, 1775-1990: Major Combatants
. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood.
ISBN
0-313-26202-0
.
-
This article incorporates text from the
public domain
Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships
.
- Gardiner, Robert and Chumbley, Stephen,
Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1947?1995
, London: Conway Maritime Press, 1995.
ISBN
1-55750-132-7
.
- Polmar, Norman; Moore, K. J. (2003).
Cold War Submarines: The Design and Construction of U.S. and Soviet Submarines
. Dulles, Virginia: Potomac.
ISBN
978-1-57488-594-1
.
External links
[
edit
]