Alarcón, Alejandro A. Vilches From Novembers to Sierras. Soviet Nuclear-Powered Attack Submarines

One volume in the Technology @ War series. For 30 years during the Cold War, the nuclear submarines developed and produced by the Soviet Union were considered one of the main threats to transatlantic traffic. Project 627 Kit the first Soviet nuclear submarine was built in response to the appearance of USS Nautilus (SSN-675, the US Navy's first nuclear-powered attack submarine) and entered service in 1963. Originally, it was supposed to enter US naval bases and use torpedoes with thermonuclear warheads to destroy everything in range. Only later were they used for conventional torpedo attacks on enemy warships and transport ships along sea lanes far from the USSR. The 627 class was already obsolete when it entered service and was soon replaced by the 671 Yorsh class, followed by the 671RT Syomga and 671RTM/RTMK Shchuka class nuclear submarines, better known in the West by their ASCC/NATO reporting names Victor I, Victor II and Victor III : the first Soviet-designed submarines with a drop-shaped hull, designed to hunt and destroy US ballistic missile submarines. The last third generation of Soviet SSNs covered in this book consisted of four classes, built in smaller numbers. While the Victors were built in large numbers, the Soviet Navy also tested various concepts, including super-expensive ships with a hull made entirely of titanium, but also a powerful liquid-metal-cooled reactor made of lead and bismuth. This is how the class of Project 705 Lira submarines came about. Known in the West as the Alpha class, these submarines were the fastest military submarines ever built. They were designed to cruise at high speed in the North Atlantic and intercept selected targets. Based on extensive research using Soviet and Russian literature as well as some first-hand sources and richly illustrated with authentic photographs and scale colour profiles, From Novembers to Sierras is an exclusive source of information on the design, construction and operational history of three generations of the most important types of Soviet warships of the Cold War.