Tag Archives: Polaris missile

‘A New Kind of Navy Man Pioneering a New Concept of Sea Power in the Age of Space’

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Enjoy this great 27-minute circa 1960 film “Man And The FBM” covering the Navy’s Cold War Fleet Ballistic Missile submarine force and the UGM-27 Polaris nuclear-tipped SLBMs they carried. 

Keep in mind, the film was made just a few years after USS Nautilus took to the sea and only 15 since the first, comparatively puny, A-bomb was dropped from a propeller-driven bomber.

These first nuclear-powered FBM submarines, armed with long-range strategic missiles, were ordered on 31 December 1957, with the building attack submarine USS Scorpion (SSN-589) lengthened with a 130-foot section to accommodate 16 Polaris missiles.

Rear Admiral William F. Rayborn, USN (left), and Admiral Arleigh A. Burke, USN, Chief of Naval Operations. Examine a cutaway model of the ballistic missile submarine George Washington (SSBN-598), July 1959. Official U.S. Navy photograph. Catalog#: USN 710496.

Completed as USS George Washington (SSBN-598), she was commissioned on 30 December 1959, just short of two years later, the first of the “41 for Freedom” boats that kicked off the strategic missile deterrent patrol system still maintained today. Footage of the GW’s commissioning is included in the film. 

Seldom heard from, the 41 boats of the FBM program made an incredible 2,824 armed patrols during their time on earth, each typically about 65 days. This is about 502 patrol years at sea during the Cold War.

Enjoy!

The colors, the colors

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A series of photos showing colored water slugs being fired from a missile tube aboard the James Madison-class ballistic missile submarine USS Daniel Boone (SSBN-629) at Mare Island in February 1964 as part of her sea trials, pre-commissioning. These are not colorized and look something like Kool Aid being launched into low Earth orbit.

USN photo # 61778-4-64, courtesy of Darryl L. Baker., via Navsource http://www.navsource.org/archives/08/08629.htm

USN photo # 61779-4-64

Commissioned 23 April 1964, Boone served 30 years in the Navy, decommissioned and struck from the Naval Register, 18 February 1994 after completing an amazing 75 strategic deterrence patrols. Her primary weapon was first the 2,500nm-ranged/3-warhead Polaris SLBM then later the 3,200-nm/10 warhead Poseidon C-3 and finally the Trident I C-4 after 1980.

Gratefully, all she ever fired from her 16 tubes in anger was those waterslugs.