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Golf-class submarine

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Golf II class submarine
Golf II class submarine
Class overview
Operators Soviet Navy
Preceded byZulu V class
Succeeded byHotel class
In service1958–1990
Completed23
General characteristics
Displacementlist error: <br /> list (help)
2,794 tons surfaced/3,553 tons submerged (629)
2,300-2,820 tons surfaced/2,700-3,553 tons submerged (629A)
Lengthlist error: <br /> list (help)
98.4 m (629)
98.9 m (629A)
Beam8.2 m
Draughtlist error: <br /> list (help)
7.85 m (629)
8.5 m (629A)
Propulsion3 × diesel engines, each 2,000 bhp (1,500 kW); 3 × electric motors, 5,200 shp (3,880 kW); 3 shafts.
Speedsurface - 17 kn, 9.500 nmi/5 kn; submerged - 12kn
Range70 days endurance
Test depthlist error: <br /> list (help)
260 m (design)
300 m (maximum)
Complementlist error: <br /> list (help)
80 (629)
83 (629A)
Armamentlist error: <br /> list (help)
3 × missile tubes
3 × Project 629 boats D-1 launch system with R-11FM missiles
Remaining boats D-2 launch system with R-13 missiles
1966 onwards 629A upgrade D-4 launch system with R-21 missiles
6 × 533 mm torpedo tubes

Project 629, also known by the NATO reporting name of Golf class, were diesel electric ballistic missile submarines of the Soviet Navy. They were designed after six Zulu class submarines were successfully modified to carry and launch Scud missiles. All Golf boats had left Soviet service by 1990.

Class history

Design was started in the mid-1950s at the OKB-16 design bureau along with the D-2 missile system which it was to carry, and was based on the Foxtrot. The submarine was originally designed to carry three R-11FM ballistic missiles with a range of around 150 km. These were carried in three silos fitted in the rear of the large sail behind the bridge. They could only be fired on the surface but the submarine could be underway at the time. Only the first three boats were equipped with these—the remaining ones were equipped with the longer range R-13 missiles.

The first boats were commissioned in 1958 and the last in 1962.

The boats were built at two shipyards — 16 in Severodvinsk and 7 in Komsomolsk-na-Amure in the Far East. Fourteen were extensively modified in 1966–1972 and became known as 629A's by the Soviet Navy and Golf IIs by NATO (the original version having been designated Golf I). The major change was the upgrade of the missile system to carry R-21 missiles and increased speed. A few others had different conversions, for example one boat was converted to a minelayer (629E)[citation needed].

All boats had left Soviet service by 1990. In 1993, ten were sold to North Korea for scrap.

In 1959 the project technology were also sold to China which built a single modified example in 1966 which is apparently still in service.

Several views of a Project 629A (Golf II) ballistic missile submarine

Project Azorian

On March 8, 1968, 1,560 nautical miles (2,890 km) northwest of Oahu in the Pacific Ocean the Golf II class submarine K-129 exceeded its crush depth for unknown reasons and imploded, the accident being registered by the SOSUS network. The entire crew of 98 was lost and the vessel sank with three ballistic nuclear missiles as well as two nuclear torpedoes. The United States recovered parts of the submarine in July 1974 from a depth of around 5 km, in an operation named Project Azorian.[1]

Two nuclear submarines that had been facing retirement, USS Halibut (SSN-587) and USS Seawolf (SSN-575), were rebuilt and pressed into service as deep sea search vehicles. After Halibut discovered a sunken Soviet submarine containing at least one intact ballistic missile complete with nuclear warhead, Melvin Laird, United States Secretary of Defense under President Richard Nixon, approved Azorian. Six years later, 350 nautical miles (648 km) north of the Hawaiian Leeward Islands, a mechanical claw descended 17,000 feet (5,200 m) to the bottom of the Pacific and, guided by computers on board the Glomar Explorer, clamped onto 5,000 tons of twisted, rusting steel and began slowly raising it to the surface. It is unknown for sure how successful the effort was, but the United States has admitted to recovering a portion of K-129, which included six bodies of Soviet sailors.[2]

References

  1. ^ "Project Azorian: The Story of the Hughes Glomar Explorer" (PDF). Studies in Intelligence, CIA. Fall 1985. Retrieved 2010-02-13.
  2. ^ Decades Later Details Emerge About CIA Hunt for Soviet Sub