Skate-class submarine

The Skate - class was the first series production of nuclear submarines of the U.S. Navy. The class consisting of four boats, which were all made ​​in the 1980s, out of service.

History

The first unit of the class was laid on 21 July 1955 by General Dynamics Corporation Electric Boat Division in Groton Co., California to Kiel, the last unit on June 20, 1956. Pending the entry into passed at the first three units of two and a half years each and longer at the fourth one year. Shipyard was the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard for two units and Electric Boat and the Mare Iceland Naval Shipyard for one submarine.

The class was, according to the prototype USS Nautilus (SSN -571 ) and USS Seawolf (SSN -575 ), the first class of Serienbauten. The four boats were from the late 1950s until the 1980s in service.

Technology

The boats of the Skate class were approximately 81.5 meters long and 7.6 meters wide. Their displacement was immersed at 2850 tons standard. The hull was made ​​in the historical construction as found in the Second World War use, not in the hydrodynamically optimized teardrop shape, as it was introduced in later classes.

The first two units of the class received a pressurized water reactor type S3W, the last two a S4W. However, all reactors were upgraded to the more modern type S5W over the years. The S stands for the genus, submarine here, the number indicates the generation of reactors, the W indicates the manufacturer, in this case each of the Westinghouse Electric Corporation. The reactor operation using two waves that were submerged up to 22 knots speed up the boat.

The armament consisted of four 533 -millimeter torpedo tubes in the bow and two rear-facing in the rear.