Submarine-launched ballistic missile
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Submarine-launched ballistic missiles or SLBMs are ballistic missiles delivering nuclear weapons that are launched from submarines. Modern variants usually deliver multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles (MIRVs) each of which carries a warhead and allows a single launched missile to strike several targets.
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[edit] Description
As early as 1934, H. G. Wells predicted, in his The Shape of Things to Come, the use of submarines carrying "long-range air torpedos with directional apparatus". Though he envisaged these as carrying chemical rather than nuclear warheads, he grasped the far reaching strategic implications. "The smallest of these raiders carried enough of such stuff to 'prepare' about eight hundred square miles of territory; it could have turned London or New York into a cityful of distorted corpses. These vessels made London vulnerable from Japan, Tokyo vulnerable from Dublin; they abolished the last corners of safety in the world."
The first successful tests of a submarine-based launch platform were by German U-boats in World War II using a submarine towed launch platform. These and other early SLBM systems required vessels to be surfaced when they fired missiles, but after World War 2, launch systems were quickly adapted to allow underwater launching. In September of 1955, the Soviet Union was the first country to launch a ballistic missile from a submarine.
Ballistic missile submarines have been of great strategic importance for the USA and Russia since the start of the Cold War, as they can hide from reconnaissance satellites and fire their nuclear weapons with virtual impunity. This makes them immune to a First Strike directed against nuclear forces, allowing each side to maintain the capability to launch a devastating retaliatory strike, even if all land-based missiles have been destroyed. Additionally, the deployment of highly accurate missiles on ultra-quiet submarines allows an attacker to sneak up close to the enemy coast and launch a missile on a depressed trajectory - a very close range attack which will hit its target in a matter of minutes, thus opening the possibility of a decapitation strike.
Numerous international press reports since the middle 1990s attribute to Israel a policy of mounting missiles with nuclear warheads on the submarines it obtained from Germany, for use especially in the event of Iran developing nuclear arms of its own. The government of Israel persistently denies all such reports, though they will neither confirm nor deny whether they have nuclear weapons[citation needed].
[edit] Types of SLBMs
Specific types of SLBMs include:
- French:
- US and UK:
- Polaris missile
- Poseidon missile
- Trident missile - current
- Soviet Union/Russia:
- People's Republic of China:
- JL-1 and JL-2 (under development)
- India
- Sagarika (under development)
[edit] Types of SSBNs
Specific types of ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs) include:
- Benjamin Franklin class submarine - former, US
- Triomphant class submarine - current, France
- Ohio class submarine - current, US
- Resolution class submarine - former, UK
- Vanguard class submarine - current, UK
- List of NATO reporting names for ballistic missile submarines - current and former, Russia
- Xia class submarine - current, China
[edit] See also
- ICBM
- nuclear navy
- nuclear warfare
- nuclear strategy
- submarine
- submarine-launched missile
- Strategic triad
- vertical launching system
[edit] External links
Air-to-air missile (AAM) · Air-to-surface missile (ASM) · Surface-to-air missile (SAM) · Surface-to-surface missile (SSM) · Ballistic missile · Intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) · Submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) · Anti-ballistic missile (ABM) · Cruise missile · Anti-ship missile (AShM) · Anti-submarine Rocket (ASROC) · Anti-tank guided missile (ATGM) · Anti-satellite weapon (ASAT)
List of missiles
Guidance types
Anti-radiation missile · Wire-guided missile · Infrared guidance · Beam riding · Laser guidance · Active radar guidance · Semi-active radar guidance
