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USS George Washington, the first U.S. missile submarine, successfully launched the first Polaris missile from a submerged submarine on July 20, 1960. The A-2 version of the Polaris missile was essentially an upgraded A-1, and it entered service in late 1961. It was fitted on a total of 13 submarines and served until June 1974.
Polaris missile launch from HMS Revenge in 1983 Sixteen tubes for Polaris A3 Submarine-launched ballistic missiles were carried, in two rows of eight. [ 4 ] The missiles had a range of 2,500 nautical miles (2,900 mi; 4,600 km), [ 7 ] [ 8 ] and each missile could carry three 200 kt (840 TJ) nuclear warheads. [ 9 ]
A Polaris A-1 missile (left) and a Polaris A-3 missile (right) at the USS Bowfin Submarine Museum in Honolulu, Hawaii. A mission led by Sir Solly Zuckerman, the Chief Scientific Adviser to the Ministry of Defence, left for the United States to discuss Polaris on 8 January 1963.
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.
The construction was unusual in that the bow and stern were constructed separately before being assembled together with the American-designed missile compartment. The design was a modification of the Valiant-class fleet submarine, but greatly extended to incorporate the missile compartment between the fin and the nuclear reactor. The length was ...
Polaris A-1 on launch pad LC-25A in Cape Canaveral. The world's first operational nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine (SSBN) was USS George Washington (SSBN-598) with 16 Polaris A-1 missiles, which entered service in December 1959 and conducted the first SSBN deterrent patrol November 1960 – January 1961. [6]
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The ship was assigned to the 10th Submarine Squadron (United Kingdom) where it operated as the first of the UKs new Polaris based nuclear deterrent. [2]Her Polaris system was updated in 1984 with the Chevaline IFE (Improved Front End) that included two new warheads and re-entry bodies and penaids, super-hardened to resist ABM attack, replacing the original three ET.317 warheads.