Juliett-class submarine

K-77, Juliett-class submarine
Class overview
Operators:	Soviet Navy
Preceded by:	Echo I
Succeeded by:	Charlie class
In commission:	1963–1994
Planned:	35
Completed:	16
Retired:	16
General characteristics
Type:	Submarine
Displacement:	3,174 long tons (3,225 t) surfaced; 4,137 long tons (4,203 t) submerged
Length:	90 m (281 ft 9 in)
Beam:	10 m (31 ft 2 in)
Draft:	7 m (23 ft)
Propulsion:	two 4,000 shp (3.0 MW) D-43 and one 1,750 shp (1.30 MW) 2D-42 diesel engines, two 3,000 shp (2.2 MW) PG-141 main and two 500 shp (0.37 MW) PG-140 creep electrical motors, two screws
Speed:	16.8 kn (31.1 km/h) surfaced, 18 knots (33 km/h) submerged (trial)
Range:	9,000 nmi at 8 kn (17,000 km at 15 km/h) surfaced, 18,000 nmi at 7 kn (33,000 km at 13 km/h) with additional fuel, 810 nmi at 2.74 kn (1,500 km at 5.07 km/h) submerged
Endurance:	800 hours submerged, stores for 90 days
Test depth:	235 m (775 ft) test, 365 m (1200 ft) design
Complement:	82 (12 officers, 16 petty officers, 54 men)
Armament:	Four SS-N-3 Shaddock (P-5 or P-6), or SS-N-12 Sandbox (P-500 4K-80 Basalt) nuclear-capable cruise missiles, six 533 mm (21-inch) bow torpedo tubes with 18 torpedoes, four 400 mm (16-inch) stern torpedo tubes with four torpedoes

The Project 651, known in the West by its NATO reporting name Juliett class, was a class of Soviet diesel-electric submarines armed with cruise missiles. They were designed in the late 1950s to provide the Soviet Navy with a nuclear strike capability against targets along the east coast of the United States and enemy combatants (aircraft carriers). The head of the design team was Abram Samuilovich Kassatsier. They carried four nuclear-capable cruise missiles with a range of approximately 300 miles, which could be launched while the submarine was surfaced and moving less than four knots (7 km/h). Once surfaced, the first missile could be launched in about five minutes; subsequent missiles would follow within about ten seconds each. Initially, the missiles were the inertially-guided P-5 (NATO reporting name SS-N-3c Shaddock). When submarine-launched ballistic missiles rendered the P-5s obsolescent, they were replaced with the P-6 (also NATO reporting name SS-N-3a Shaddock, though a very different missile) designed to attack aircraft carriers. A special 10 m² target guidance radar was built into the forward edge of the sail structure, which opened by rotating. One boat was eventually fitted with the Kasatka satellite downlink for targeting information to support P-500 4K-80 "Bazalt" (SS-N-12 Sandbox) anti-ship cruise missiles.

The Juliett class had a low magnetic signature austenitic steel double hull, covered by two inch (50 mm) thick black tiles made of sound-absorbing hard rubber. They had exceptionally high reserve buoyancy, and were divided into eight watertight compartments:

Initial plans called for 35 submarines of this class. In fact only 16 were actually built, two - including the lead sub, by the Baltic Shipyard, St. Petersburg and the rest by the Krasnoye Sormovo Shipyard in Nizhny Novgorod. They were commissioned between 1963 and 1968, and served through the 1980s. The last one was decommissioned in 1994.