Yankee-class submarine

The Yankee class, Soviet designations Project 667A Navaga (navaga) and Project 667AU Nalim (burbot) for the basic Yankee-I, were a family of nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines built in the Soviet Union for the Soviet Navy. In total, 34 units were built: 24 in Severodvinsk for the Northern Fleet and the remaining 10 in Komsomolsk-on-Amur for the Pacific Fleet. Two Northern Fleet units were later transferred to the Pacific.

The Yankee-class were subject to a wide variety of modifications; these ships have a different designation to the original model.

Design
The Yankee-class nuclear submarines were the first class of Soviet ballistic missile submarines (SSBN) to have thermonuclear firepower comparable with that of their American and British Polaris submarine counterparts. The Yankee class were quieter in the ocean than were their Hotel-class submarine predecessors, and had better streamlining that improved their underwater performance. The Yankee class were actually quite similar to the Polaris submarines of the U.S. Navy and the Royal Navy. These boats were all armed with 16 submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBM) with multiple nuclear warheads as nuclear deterrents during the Cold War, and their ballistic missiles had ranges from 1500 - 2500 nmi.

General characteristics (Yankee I)

 * Length: 128 m
 * Beam: 11.7 m
 * Draught: 9 m
 * Surface displacement: 7,760 tonnes
 * Full (Diving) displacement: 11,500 tonnes
 * Speed: 28 kn
 * Power plant: 2 VM-4 reactors
 * Hull: Low magnetic steel
 * Crew: 114
 * Compartments: 10
 * Armament:
 * 4 21 in torpedo tubes for 14 Type 53 torpedoes or mines.
 * 2 16 in torpedo tubes for 4 Type 40 torpedoes
 * 16 SS-N-6 liquid-fueled ballistic missiles

Operational history
The Yankee-class SSBNs served in the Soviet Navy in three oceans: the Atlantic Ocean, the Pacific Ocean, and the Arctic Ocean beginning in the 1960s. During the 1970s about three Yankee-class were continually on patrol in a so-called "patrol box" in the Atlantic Ocean just east of Bermuda and off the US Pacific coast. This forward deployment of the SSBNs was seen to balance the presence of American, British, and French nuclear weapons kept in Western Europe and on warships (including nuclear submarines) in the surrounding Atlantic Ocean, including the Mediterranean Sea and the Eastern Atlantic.

The lead boat K-137 Leninets received its honorific name on 11 April 1970, two and one half years after being commissioned.

One Yankee-class submarine, SOVIET SUBMARINE K-219, was lost on 6 October 1986 after an explosion and fire on board. This boat had been at sea near Bermuda, and she sank from loss of buoyancy because of flooding. Four of her sailors died before rescue ships arrived. The events surrounding the loss of this boat has continued to be controversial.

At least one other boat in this class was involved in a collision with a U.S. Navy nuclear submarine.

Because of their increasing age, and as negotiated in the SALT I, START I and START II treaties that reduce nuclear armaments of the United States and the Soviet Union, all boats of Yankee class were disarmed, decommissioned and sent to the nuclear ship scrapyards.

Variants
There were eight different versions of the Yankee-class submarines:

In addition, Soviet/Russian classification includes the Delta-class submarines within the same family of Project 667; Deltas being Project 667B onwards.

Popular culture
In Tom Clancy's 1986 techno-thriller Red Storm Rising, the entire Yankee-class of SSBNs are proposed to be taken out of service and scrapped by the Soviet Union as part of the Maskirovka I, in part to have the United States to do likewise with its own first-generation George Washington class, Ethan Allen class and Lafayette class SSBNs, and allay NATO misgivings of the USSR's intentions.