Sturgeon-class Submarines

Lead ship. Improved sensors over the Permit class. SUBROC anti-submarine missile. Speed and quieting that made the class the primary Soviet submarine hunter through the 1970s and 1980s. Set the standard 36 identical boats had to meet.

Atlantic Fleet. GIUK gap operations through the Cold War's most intense decades. Soviet submarines had to transit Greenland-Iceland-UK to reach the open Atlantic. Whale was positioned to detect, track, and engage them there.

Collided with a Soviet Echo II-class nuclear submarine in the Pacific in 1970 during a close trail operation. Both submarines survived. Classified for decades. When revealed, became one of the clearest illustrations of how close to actual combat Cold War submarine operations came.

Atlantic Fleet Cold War anti-submarine warfare and intelligence collection. North Atlantic operations through the most contested years of the undersea competition. Specific operational record largely classified.

Pacific Fleet. Extended patrols tracking Soviet submarines out of Vladivostok and Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky. Gathering intelligence and maintaining the undersea deterrence that kept the Pacific from becoming a Soviet lake through the 1970s.

Pacific Fleet primary anti-submarine warfare operations through the 1970s as the Soviet Pacific submarine force reached its Cold War peak. Aspro and her sisters bore the burden of tracking that expansion before the Los Angeles class arrived in sufficient numbers.

Atlantic Fleet. North Atlantic and Mediterranean Cold War operations. If the Soviets ever sent their submarine force against NATO carrier groups or Atlantic shipping lanes, boats like Sunfish would have been the first line of response.

Multiple under-ice Arctic operations. One of the most demanding submarine environments on earth. Weapons jam, vehicle engines die, blood plasma freezes. Pargo operated there anyway. Accumulated the operational experience only years of sustained hard missions produce.

Conducted the first submerged survey of the entire Arctic Basin from the Pacific side in 1970. Mapped the seafloor under the polar ice cap. That data was simultaneously scientific and operationally essential for submarines that might have to maneuver under Arctic ice in wartime.

Pacific Fleet Cold War operations across the full arc of the Cold War submarine competition. Maintained surveillance and deterrence from Hawaii to the Sea of Japan through three decades of Soviet submarine expansion in the Pacific.

Atlantic Fleet. North Atlantic and Mediterranean Cold War anti-submarine warfare. Improved sensors over the Permit class made Ray significantly more capable at long-range submarine detection. Better tactical system integration gave commanders better situational awareness than any previous design.

Atlantic Fleet Cold War operations through the most demanding decades of American-Soviet submarine competition in the North Atlantic. Named for a species that moves in sudden bursts. Apt description of a fast-attack submarine's tactical doctrine.

Under Commander Chester Mack, tracked a Soviet Yankee-class ballistic missile submarine for 47 consecutive days in 1969-1970. Gathered intelligence on Soviet missile submarine patrol patterns and acoustic signatures that shaped ASW doctrine for a decade. Mack received the Navy Cross.

Collided with a Soviet submarine in 1974 during close-approach intelligence operations in the Pacific. Classified for years. Characteristic of the risks American submarines accepted as routine when trailing Soviet boats at close quarters. Both submarines survived.

Pacific Fleet Cold War operations during maximum Soviet Pacific Fleet expansion. Maintained surveillance on Soviet submarines operating out of Vladivostok and Petropavlovsk through the period when the Soviet Navy was building toward its Cold War peak strength.

Arctic under-ice operations 1971. Declassified photographs of that mission. showing the ice canopy from below and the blue-green light of the polar ocean. became widely circulated online. Atlantic and Pacific deployments through Cold War service.

Atlantic Fleet. North Atlantic Cold War ASW operations. Primary response to the Soviet submarine threat against NATO's Atlantic sea lanes. The lifelines that would have supplied Europe in any conventional war with the Warsaw Pact ran through Bluefish's operating area.

Atlantic Fleet Cold War anti-submarine warfare. Sturgeon class remained the most capable American fast-attack design through most of the 1970s. Billfish and her sisters bridged the gap between the Permit class and the Aegis era.

Named for SS-228. most intact surviving WWII American submarine, preserved at Battleship Memorial Park in Mobile, Alabama. The original Drum: 12 war patrols, 15 Japanese ships sunk. SSN-677 carried that name into three decades of Cold War nuclear service.

Named for SS-311, which on 29 November 1944 sank the Japanese carrier Shinano. Largest warship ever sunk by a submarine. Shinano had been in service less than 24 hours. SSN-678 carried that name into three decades of Cold War service.

Named for SS-236, second-highest scoring American WWII submarine. 23 ships sunk on 14 war patrols. Original Silversides preserved at the Great Lakes Naval Memorial in Muskegon, Michigan. SSN-679 carried the name into the nuclear era.

Named for the Massachusetts congressman whose career on the House Armed Services Committee funded the nuclear submarine fleet. Naming a submarine for a congressman was unusual. Naming one for the man who spent his career building the Navy that built submarines was appropriate.

Named for SS-310, which sank three Japanese submarines in four days in February 1945. Most submarines sunk by any single American submarine in the war. Original Batfish preserved at Muskogee War Memorial Park in Oklahoma. SSN-681 carried that anti-submarine warfare legacy into the Cold War.

Named for SS-282, modified in the 1950s to carry Loon missiles. an early experiment with submarine-launched cruise missiles. SSN-682 operated in a fleet where submarine-launched missiles had become standard equipment. Pacific Fleet Cold War service.

Most decorated American submarine of the Cold War. Nine Presidential Unit Citations. Multiple Navy Unit Commendations. Missions almost entirely classified to this day. Underwater cable tapping and intelligence collection operations. More decorations than any other submarine in American history. The specifics may never be fully declassified.

Named for SS-244, which on 19 June 1944 sank the Japanese carrier Shokaku during the Battle of the Philippine Sea. Shokaku had participated in the Pearl Harbor attack. SSN-684 carried that name into Cold War nuclear service across multiple decades.

Named for the South Carolina congressman who chaired the House Armed Services Committee 1965-1971. Most powerful congressional advocate for military spending of his era. Said if the Pentagon asked for a dollar he would give them two. Named a nuclear submarine for him because he earned it.

Last Sturgeon-class submarine. Named for the Georgia senator who chaired the Senate Armed Services Committee through the Cold War's most critical decades. SSN-687 was the final boat of a class of 37 that bore the primary burden of American undersea operations through the Cold War.