The

Soviet Navy The Soviet Navy was the naval warfare Military, uniform service branch of the Soviet Armed Forces. Often referred to as the Red Fleet, the Soviet Navy made up a large part of the Soviet Union's strategic planning in the event of a conflict with t ...

's Project 611 (

NATO reporting name NATO uses a system of code names, called reporting names, to denote military aircraft and other equipment used by post-Soviet states, former Warsaw Pact countries, China, and other countries. The system assists military communications by providi ...

: Zulu class) were one of the first Soviet post-Second-World-War

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 Navy, Soviet and Russian Navy, Russian navies ...

s. They were similarly capable to the American

GUPPY The Greater Underwater Propulsion Power Program (GUPPY) was initiated by the United States Navy after World War II to improve the submerged speed, maneuverability, and endurance of its submarines. (The "Y" in the acronym was added for pronouncea ...

fleet-boat conversions. They were a contemporary of the

Whiskey-class submarine Whiskey-class submarines (known in the Soviet Union as Projects 613, 640, 644, and 665) are a class of diesel-electric attack submarines that the Soviet Union built in the early Cold War period. Design The initial design was developed in th ...

s and shared a similar sonar arrangement. Like most conventional submarines designed 1946–1960, their design was influenced by the German

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

Type XXI submarine Type XXI submarines were a class of German diesel–electric '' Elektroboot'' (German: "electric boat") submarines designed during the Second World War. One hundred eighteen were completed, with four being combat-ready. During the war only two w ...

Design

The first few boats of the class were equipped with twin 57mm and twin 25mm anti-aircraft guns and no snorkels, although the guns were removed and snorkels added soon after the boats entered service.Friedman, p. 398 Six were converted in 1956 to become the world's first

ballistic missile submarine A ballistic missile submarine is a submarine capable of deploying submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) with nuclear warheads. These submarines became a major weapon system in the Cold War because of their nuclear deterrence capabi ...

s, one armed with a single

R-11FM The R-11 Zemlya (), GRAU index 8A61 was a Soviet Union, Soviet tactical ballistic missile. It is also known by its NATO reporting name SS-1b Scud-A. It was the first of several similar Soviet missiles to be given the reporting name Scud. Variant R ...

Scud missile A Scud missile is one of a series of tactical ballistic missiles developed by the Soviet Union during the Cold War. It was exported widely to both Second and Third World countries. The term comes from the NATO reporting name attached to the m ...

and five others with two Scuds each. They were designated as Project AV 611 and received the NATO reporting name of Zulu V. The missiles were too long to be contained in the boat's hull, and extended into the enlarged sail. To be fired, the submarine had to surface and raise the missile out of the sail.

Soviet submarine B-67 The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

successfully launched a missile on 16 September 1955. The Zulus were the basis for the very successful

Foxtrot-class submarine The Foxtrot class was the NATO reporting name of a class of diesel-electric patrol submarines that were built in the Soviet Union. The Soviet designation of this class was Project 641. The Foxtrot class was designed to replace the earlier Zulu cl ...

, which lent their hull to the Golf class of ballistic missile submarine.

Boats

Twenty-six boats were built overall, entering service from 1952 to 1957, 8 of them in

Leningrad Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the List of cities and towns in Russia by population, second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the Neva, River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland ...

and 18 in

Severodvinsk Severodvinsk (; ) is a city in the north of Arkhangelsk Oblast, Russia, located in the delta of the Northern Dvina, west of Arkhangelsk, the administrative center of the oblast. As of the 2021 Census, the population was 157,213. Due to the p ...

. Their names were initially ''B-61'' through ''B-82'' and ''B-88'' through ''B-91'', with most renamed in the 1970s or 1980s. The class received the

s Zulu I through Zulu V, the last referring to the five converted missile-firing submarines (excluding the prototype). It is unclear from references how many of each subclass were built. Most were repurposed for non-combat purposes before being destroyed.

Notes

Citations

Bibliography

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External links