Nuclear Submarine - History

History

The idea for a nuclear-powered submarine was first proposed by the Naval Research Laboratory's Ross Gunn in 1939.

The United States launched the USS Nautilus, the first nuclear submarine, in 1954. Nautilus could remain underwater for up to four months without resurfacing.

Construction of the Nautilus was made possible by the successful development of a nuclear propulsion plant by a group of scientists and engineers at the Naval Reactors Branch of the Atomic Energy Commission. In July 1951, the U.S. Congress authorized construction of the world's first nuclear-powered submarine, under the leadership of Captain Hyman G. Rickover, USN.

The Westinghouse Corporation was assigned to build its reactor. After the submarine was completed, Mamie Eisenhower broke the traditional bottle of champagne on Nautilus' bow. On 17 January 1955, it began its sea trials after leaving its dock in Groton, Connecticut. The submarine was 320 feet long, and cost about $55 million.

The Soviet Union soon followed the United States in developing nuclear-powered submarines in the 1950s. Stimulated by the U.S. development of the Nautilus, Soviet work on nuclear propulsion reactors began in the early 1950s at the Institute of Physics and Power Engineering, in Obninsk, under Anatoliy P. Alexandrov, later to become head of the Kurchatov Institute. In 1956, the first Soviet propulsion reactor designed by his team began operational testing. Meanwhile, a design team under Vladimir N. Peregudov worked on the vessel that would house the reactor.

After overcoming many obstacles, including steam generation problems, radiation leaks, and other difficulties, the first nuclear submarine based on these combined efforts entered service in the Soviet Navy in 1958.

At the height of the Cold War, approximately five to ten nuclear submarines were being commissioned from each of the four Soviet submarine yards (Sevmash in Severodvinsk, Admiralteyskiye Verfi in St. Petersburg, Krasnoye Sormovo in Nizhny Novgorod, and Amurskiy Zavod in Komsomolsk-on-Amur). From the late 1950s through the end of 1997, the Soviet Union, and later Russia, built a total of 245 nuclear submarines, more than all other nations combined.

Today, six countries deploy some form of nuclear-powered strategic submarines: the United States, Russia, France, the United Kingdom, People's Republic of China, and India. Several other countries, including Argentina and Brazil, have ongoing projects in different phases to build nuclear-powered submarines.

In the United Kingdom, all former and current nuclear submarines for the Royal Navy (with the exception of three: HMS Conqueror, HMS Renown and HMS Revenge) have been constructed in Barrow-in-Furness (at BAE Systems Submarine Solutions or its predecessor VSEL) where construction of nuclear submarines continues. Conqueror is the only nuclear-powered submarine ever to have engaged an enemy ship with torpedoes, sinking the cruiser ARA General Belgrano with two Mark 8 torpedoes during the 1982 Falklands War.