Cruise missile submarine

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This article is about guided missile submarines. For the Pakistani sea-commando unit, see frogman#Pakistan.

A cruise missile submarine is a submarine that can launch cruise missiles. SSGN is the United States Navy hull classification symbol for a nuclear-powered cruise missile submarine. The SS denotes a "submersible ship", the G denotes "guided missile," and the N denotes "nuclear powered."

1 U.S. Navy
2 Soviet Navy
3 See also
4 External links

[edit] U.S. Navy

The first SSGN in the U.S. Navy was USS Halibut (SSGN-587). She was built to launch the nuclear tipped Regulus Missile in the 1950's. When the Regulus program ended in 1964, she became SSN-587.

The U.S. Navy is modifying the four oldest Ohio class Trident submarines to SSGN configuration. This is achieved by the installation of vertical launching systems (VLS) in a configuration dubbed "multiple all-up-round canister (MAC)", which converts 22 of the 24 missile tubes which previously held one large nuclear-tipped strategic ballistic missile each, with 7 smaller Tomahawk cruise missiles, and the 2 remaining tubes are converted to lock out chambers (LOC) to be used by special forces personnel who can be carried on board. This will give them the capability to carry 154 Tomahawk missiles. The MAC tubes can also be used to carry and launch UAVs or UUVs which give the ship remote controlled "eyes & ears" allowing the ship to act as a forward-deployed command & control center. If the maximum of 154 Tomahawk missiles were loaded, one Ohio class SSGN would carry an entire Battle Group's equivalent of cruise missiles.

Ohio (SSGN-726) completed its conversion and began sea trials in early 2006. Since that time, USS Michigan (SSGN-727) and USS Florida (SSGN-728) have rejoined the fleet in the new configuration with USS Georgia (SSGN-729) has completed conversion and will return to active service in March, 2008. Florida conducted the initial testing required to determine whether the SSGN project was in fact possible. This included the first launching of a Tomahawk missile from the SSBN platform. [1]

[edit] Soviet Navy

The Soviet Navy had several submarines that were called SSGNs by Western observers. These were armed with anti-shipping missiles such as the SS-N-19 or land attack missiles. They were given the NATO reporting names Golf, Echo, Yankee, Charlie and Oscar.