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Aviation History
1963
1963 - 1953.PDF
756 Lockheed Missiles & Space Co launch crew at Cape Canaveral prepare an A3X missile for firing down the Atlantic Missile Range. This latest type of Polaris has also been successfully fired from surface ships and a submarine, and is scheduled to become operational next year Port Canaveral. An extensively modified post-1945 Mariner-class cargo ship, it has a complete submarine-type fire-control, navigation and launching system. The ship serves as both a floating launch complex for missile flight testing and as a working example of the kind of installation which could be placed aboard surface ships. Observation Island has served the additional role of floating school for training FBM submarine crews, and is the seagoing link between the Atlantic Missile Range and FBM submarines as they visit the Cape for training with missiles. Flight tests of Polaris are conducted at Cape Canaveral. Other tests on various parts of the missile have been conducted at Point Mugu, Sacramento, San Francisco, and China Lake in California, at San Clemente Island off the California coast, and in Carderock and Cumberland, Maryland. Among Naval shipyards being equipped to meet the special requirements of the FBM submarines are Portsmouth, New Hampshire: Charleston, South Carolina; and Bremerton, Washing ton. A Naval Weapons Annexe at the Naval Ammunition Depot, Charleston, serves as a missile assembly and loading point. Here completed missile sections and subsystems are received from contractor plants, assembled, checked out and stored or loaded FLIGHT International, 7 November 1963 MISSILES 1963 aboard FBM submarines. A Polaris Missile Facility for the Pacific is being constructed at Bangor, Washington, and will serve the same purpose for FBM submarines stationed in the Pacific as NWA Charleston does in the Atlantic. The submarine tender USS Proteus (AS 19) was for over two years based at Holy Loch, Scotland, providing supplies, service and all but major repairs to the FBM submarines of the 14th Squadron now in being. This includes supplying missiles and loading them into submarines. A second tender, USS Hunley (AS 31), was commissioned in June 1962 and relieved Proteus on March 15. Two additional tenders are under construction, as noted in an accom panying table. Deployment The first FBM unit to be formed was the US Navy Submarine Squadron 14, commanded by Capt David B. Bell. Subron 14 is equipped with ten SSBNs: 598-602, 608-611 and 618. Its home base is the tender anchored at Holy Loch, Scotland (address, Dunoon, Argyll), which is currently USS Hunley. Subron 14 has been operational for nearly three years, the original patrol of SSBN 598 having begun before the Holy Loch base was activated. Last year it was announced that the second FBM unit would be Subron 16. This has now been formed under the command of Capt Phillip A. Beshany, and its base will be in the Mediterranean (Rota, Spain, has been named). Ships assigned to Subron 16 number ten. A third squadron is in the early formative stage, probably for operations in the Pacific. Royal Navy At their meeting in Nassau, Bahamas, last December, Prime Minister Macmillan and President Kennedy agreed upon the adoption of Polaris by the Royal Navy. The United Kingdom has agreed to purchase Polaris missiles from the US Government to equip submarines designed and built in Britain. All missiles will be supplied complete except for warheads; they will then be equipped with warheads of British design and manufacture. Polaris A2 missiles would be bought at the "common contract price." Polaris A3 missiles would be bought at this price plus a surcharge of five per cent as a British contribution towards the R&D costs. At the time of writing, a programme of four British submarines has been embarked upon. In this journal's February 28 issue an official Admiralty artist's impression of one of these ships appears. It is of extremely "clean" design, and studies for this type of ship have obviously been in hand over a long period. Compared with the American FBM submarines, the British vessel appears to have the conning-tower sail further aft; and the hydroplanes are removed from the sail to the upper part of the forward hull. Displacement (presumably on the surface) is given as 7,000 long tons. Hull and reactor will be of British design. Two of the ships are being built by Vickers-Armstrongs (Shipbuilders) at Barrow, and the other two are the responsibility of Cammell Laird & Co of Birkenhead. British companies are expected to receive contracts for approximately £130m under this initial programme, out of a total expenditure of approximately £200m. Nearly a!i the balance will go to such important US contractors as Northror Nortronics, General Electric, Hughes Aircraft, Interstate Elec tronics, NAA Autonetics, Westinghouse, Vitro and many others whose work it would be folly to attempt to duplicate. On May 8 the Civil Lord of the Admiralty announced "We are making Rosyth the refitting yard for Polaris submarines, which will employ an extra 400 men; we are making Faslane (in the Gan: Loch, seven miles from the US Navy Polaris base) the operatinj; base for Polaris submarines, and during the constructional perio SSBN TENDERS Desg'n AS 19 AS 31 AS 32 AS 33 Name Proteus Hunley Holland Builder Charleston Naval Shipyard Newport News Ingalls Shipyard Corp'n Puget Sound Naval Ship'd Keel laid 15.9.41 28.11.60 5.3.62 15.1.63 Launched 12.11.42 28.9.61 19.1.63 Comm'd 31.1.44* 16.6.62 Deployed 28.2.61 15.3.63 * Converted to present role in 1958.
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