Nuclear powered hunting submarine
A nuclear-powered hunting submarine is a military submarine that is powered by a nuclear reactor and is used both for reconnaissance and for attacking enemy ships. A classic task for such boats was and is the protection of the larger submarines with ballistic missiles (SSBN / SNLE) of allied armed forces against enemy hunting submarines.
The NATO name for nuclear-powered hunting submarines is SSN ( English Ship Submersible Nuclear ) or SNA ( French Sous-marin nucléaire d'attaque ).
Armament
Today, SSN / SNA are mostly armed with torpedoes and guided missiles. Some US and UK submarines are also equipped with Tomahawk cruise missiles and Harpoon anti -ship missiles . These were first used in the Second Gulf War in 1991.
The American and Russian navies use nuclear-powered fighter submarines to protect Ohio- or Typhoon-class missile boats .
The so far only successful attack by an SSN on an enemy ship took place in 1982 during the Falklands War , when the HMS Conqueror sank the Argentine cruiser General Belgrano with two torpedoes .
history
With the Nautilus , the US Navy put the first SSN and the first nuclear submarine into service in 1954. The Soviet Navy followed suit with the Leninsky Komsomol in 1958 . In 1963 the Royal Navy put the first European SSN, the Dreadnought, into service. Twenty years later, France also built its first SSN with the Rubis . As early as 1974, China put a Han-class SSN into service.
All of these states continue to build SSN.
Current and future SSN classes
- Los Angeles class (partly already decommissioned)
- Seawolf class
- Virginia class
- Trafalgar class (partly already decommissioned)
- Astute class - under construction
- Project 671RTM (partly already decommissioned)
- Project 945
- Project 971
- Project 885
- Rubis class
- Suffren class - under development
Navy of the People's Republic of China :
Individual evidence
- ↑ ... not as long as I am Prime Minister. Neue Zürcher Zeitung , April 14, 2007, accessed on June 14, 2019 .