The ''George Washington'' class was a class of nuclear-powered

ballistic missile submarines A ballistic missile submarine is a submarine capable of deploying submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) with nuclear warheads. The United States Navy's hull classification symbols for ballistic missile submarines are SSB and SSBN – ...

deployed by the

United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage ...

. ''George Washington'', along with the later , , , and classes, comprised the " 41 for Freedom" group of submarines that represented the Navy's main contribution to the

nuclear deterrent Nuclear strategy involves the development of doctrines and strategies for the production and use of nuclear weapons. As a sub-branch of military strategy, nuclear strategy attempts to match nuclear weapons as means to political ends. In addit ...

force through the late 1980s.

Development

In 1957, the US Navy began using submarines in the nuclear deterrent role, when a pair of World War II vintage diesel-electric boats, and , 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, . However, the use of Regulus in the deterrent role showed a number of limitations; as a

cruise missile A cruise missile is a guided missile used against terrestrial or naval targets that remains in the atmosphere and flies the major portion of its flight path at approximately constant speed. Cruise missiles are designed to deliver a large warh ...

, 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. To overcome these limitations, the Navy turned to

ballistic missile A ballistic missile is a type of missile that uses projectile motion to deliver warheads on a target. These weapons are guided only during relatively brief periods—most of the flight is unpowered. Short-range ballistic missiles stay within t ...

s. 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 The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cla ...

Jupiter Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest in the Solar System. It is a gas giant with a mass more than two and a half times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined, but slightly less than one-thousand ...

intermediate-range ballistic missile An intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) is a ballistic missile with a range of 3,000–5,500 km (1,864–3,418 miles), between a medium-range ballistic missile (MRBM) and an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). Classifying ...

, projecting four of the large, liquid-fueled missiles per submarine.Friedman, pp. 192-195 Rear Admiral W. F. "Red" Raborn was appointed by

Chief of Naval Operations The chief of naval operations (CNO) is the professional head of the United States Navy. The position is a statutory office () held by an admiral who is a military adviser and deputy to the secretary of the Navy. In a separate capacity as a memb ...

Admiral

Arleigh Burke Arleigh Albert Burke (October 19, 1901 – January 1, 1996) was an Admiral (United States), admiral of the United States Navy who distinguished himself during World War II and the Korean War, and who served as Chief of Naval Operations during th ...

to head a Special Project Office to develop Jupiter for the Navy, beginning in late 1955.History of the Jupiter Missile, pp. 23-35
/ref> However, at the

Project Nobska Project Nobska was a 1956 summer study on anti-submarine warfare (ASW) for the United States Navy ordered by Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Arleigh Burke. It is also referred to as the Nobska Study, named for its location on Nobska Point nea ...

submarine warfare conference in 1956, physicist

Edward Teller Edward Teller ( hu, Teller Ede; January 15, 1908 – September 9, 2003) was a Hungarian-American theoretical physicist who is known colloquially as "the father of the hydrogen bomb" (see the Teller–Ulam design), although he did not care for ...

stated that a compact one-megaton warhead could be produced for the relatively small, solid-fueled Polaris missile, 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. The problems of submerged launch, designing a submarine for 16 missiles, precise navigation for accurate missile targeting, and numerous others were all solved quickly. By comparison, the contemporary

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

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 submarine The Yankee class, Soviet designations Project 667A ''Navaga'' (navaga) and Project 667AU ''Nalim'' (burbot), was a series of nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines built in the Soviet Union for the Soviet Navy. In total, 34 units were bui ...

Construction

The Navy ordered a class of

nuclear-powered submarine A nuclear submarine is a submarine powered by a nuclear reactor, but not necessarily nuclear-armed. Nuclear submarines have considerable performance advantages over "conventional" (typically diesel-electric) submarines. Nuclear propulsion, ...

s armed with long-range strategic missiles on 31 December 1957, and tasked

Electric Boat An electric boat is a powered watercraft driven by electric motors, which are powered by either on-board battery packs, solar panels or generators. While a significant majority of water vessels are powered by diesel engines, with sail power ...

with converting two existing

attack submarine An attack submarine or hunter-killer submarine is a submarine specifically designed for the purpose of attacking and sinking other submarines, surface combatants and merchant vessels. In the Soviet and Russian navies they were and are called ...

hulls to

-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 fast attack submarines, the just-begun and the not-yet-started . On 12 February 1958,

President President most commonly refers to: *President (corporate title) * President (education), a leader of a college or university * President (government title) President may also refer to: Automobiles * Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ...

Dwight D. Eisenhower authorized funding for three ballistic missile submarines. The ''George Washington'' class were essentially ''Skipjack'' class submarines with a 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 Groton is a town in New London County, Connecticut located on the Thames River. It is the home of General Dynamics Electric Boat, which is the major contractor for submarine work for the United States Navy. The Naval Submarine Base New London is ...

before she was reordered as the ''George Washington'' (SSGN-598). 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 The Mare Island Naval Shipyard (MINSY) was the first United States Navy base established on the Pacific Ocean. It is located northeast of San Francisco in Vallejo, California. The Napa River goes through the Mare Island Strait and separates t ...

, respectively.

Newport News Shipbuilding Newport News Shipbuilding (NNS), a division of Huntington Ingalls Industries, is the largest industrial employer in Virginia, and sole designer, builder and refueler of United States Navy aircraft carriers and one of two providers of U.S. Nav ...

and

Portsmouth Naval Shipyard The Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, often called the Portsmouth Navy Yard, is a United States Navy shipyard in Kittery on the southern boundary of Maine near the city of Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Founded in 1800, PNS is U.S. Navy's oldest continuo ...

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. 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, swapped out her A1s for A3s on 14 October 1965.

Withdrawal from strategic role

By the end of 1979, to make room within the limitations imposed by

SALT II The Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) were two rounds of bilateral conferences and corresponding international treaties involving the United States and the Soviet Union. The Cold War superpowers dealt with arms control in two rounds of ...

for the 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.Gardiner and Chumbley, pp. 610-611 For the same reason, by 1983 ''George Washington'', , and 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. ''George Washingtons sail is preserved at the

Submarine Force Library and Museum The United States Navy Submarine Force Library and Museum is located on the Thames River in Groton, Connecticut. It is the only submarine museum managed exclusively by the Naval History & Heritage Command division of the Navy, and this makes it a ...

Boats in class

Submarines of the ''George Washington'' class:

References

* * * Gardiner, Robert and Chumbley, Stephen, ''Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1947–1995'', London: Conway Maritime Press, 1995. . *

External links