USS Triton (SSRN/SSN-586), the only member of her class, was a nuclear powered radar picket submarine in the United States Navy. She was the only Western submarine powered by two nuclear reactors. Triton was the second submarine and the fourth vessel of the United States Navy to be named for the Greek god Triton. This naming convention was unusual at the time; U.S. Navy submarines were usually named for various species of fish. At the time of her commissioning in 1959, Triton was the largest, most powerful, and most expensive submarine ever built at $109 million (equivalent to $ billion in ) excluding the cost of nuclear fuel and reactors.
Triton shakedown cruise in early 1960 saw her become the first vessel to execute a submerged circumnavigation of the Earth, in Operation Sandblast. The voyage was made under the command of Captain Edward L. "Ned" Beach Jr. Tritons mission as a radar picket submarine was made obsolete after two years by the introduction of the carrier-based Grumman WF-2 Tracer airborne early warning aircraft. She was converted to an attack submarine in 1962 and became the flagship for the Commander, Submarine Forces, U.S. Atlantic Fleet (COMSUBLANT) in 1964. She was decommissioned in 1969, the first U.S. nuclear submarine to be taken out of service.
Triton hull was moored at the St. Julien's Creek Annex of Norfolk Naval Shipyard in Portsmouth, Virginia as part of the reserve fleet until 1993, though she was struck from the Naval Vessel Register in 1986. In 1993, she was towed to Puget Sound Naval Shipyard to await the Nuclear Powered Ship and Submarine Recycling Program. Triton landed on the keel resting blocks in the drydock basin on 2007 to begin this recycling process, which was completed effective 30 November 2009. Tritons sail superstructure was saved from the recycling process and is now part of the USS Triton Submarine Memorial Park located on Port of Benton Boulevard in Richland, Washington.
Design history
General characteristics Triton was a first-generation U.S. nuclear-powered submarine, along with , , , and (and her three sisters).Polmar and Moore. Cold War Submarines, p.xiii, and Chapter 4, pp. 90–93. While serving as fully operational units of the U.S. Navy, the vessels also played key developmental roles.Polmar and Moore. Cold War Submarines, p. 66. Nautilus introduced the use of nuclear power for ship propulsion.Polmar and Moore. Cold War Submarines, pp. 57–60. Seawolf utilized a liquid-metal nuclear reactor using liquid sodium as an alternative heat exchange medium to pressurized water.Polmar and Moore. Cold War Submarines, pp. 60–63. Halibut was the first nuclear-powered submarine to perform a strategic nuclear deterrence patrol armed with Regulus cruise missiles.Polmar and Moore. Cold War Submarines, pp. 90–93. The Skate-class submarines were the first nuclear-powered submarine class with more than one boat built.Polmar and Moore. Cold War Submarines, pp. 63–64. Tritons unique contribution to the development of nuclear power for naval propulsion was her dual reactor plant, which provided the speed required for radar picket missions.Polmar and Moore. Cold War Submarines, pp. 64–66.
Radar picket submarines (Navy classification "SSR") were developed after World War Two to provide intelligence information, electronic surveillance, and fighter aircraft interception control for forward-deployed naval forces. Unlike destroyers used as radar picket ships during the war, these submarines could avoid attack by submerging if detected. The U.S. Navy's MIGRAINE program involved converting existing fleet submarines into radar picket vessels, and the Navy also ordered two purpose-built diesel-electric SSRs, and . However, these were incapable of sustaining the high submerged or surfaced speeds necessary to operate with fast carrier task forces and therefore unsuitable to the task.Friedman, U.S. Submarines Since 1945, pp. 90–94.
Nuclear power offered the only possible solution. Triton was designed in the mid-1950s as a radar picket submarine capable of operating at high speed, on the surface, in advance of an aircraft carrier task force. Tritons high speed came from her twin-reactor nuclear propulsion plant, with a designed speed, surfaced and submerged, of . On 27 September 1959, Triton achieved "well in excess of" during her initial sea trials.Polmar and Moore. Cold War Submarines, p. 67.Largess and Horwitz. "USS Triton: The Ultimate Submersible," pp. 178 and 180.
To meet her radar picket role, Tritons main air search radar initially used the AN/SPS-26, the U.S. Navy's first electronically scanned, three-dimensional search radar which was laboratory tested in 1953. The first set was installed on board the destroyer leader prior to its installation on board Triton in 1959.Polmar. The Naval Institute Guide to the Ships and Aircraft of the U.S. Fleet, p. 527. Since it was scanned electronically in elevation, the AN/SPS-26 set did not need a separate height-finding radar. A submarine version of SPS-26, designated BPS-10, was under development, and it was slated for installation on Triton. To process her radar, electronic, and air traffic data, Triton had a Combat Information Center (CIC) located in a separate air control compartment, situated between Tritons reactor and operations compartments.Friedman. U.S. Submarines since 1945, pp. 95–96.
Design work on a nuclear-powered radar picket submarine (SSRN) began in 1954–1955.Friedman. U.S. Submarines since 1945, p. 95. As initially designed, Triton had a three-level hull, with the Combat Information Center (CIC) (see image) located on the middle level. The overall length was initially , with a beam of . Also, as initially designed, her displacement was 4,800 tons surfaced and 6,500 tons submerged. January 1955 performance estimates called for the SAR propulsion plant to produce , with a surfaced speed of and a submerged speed of . Triton initially had the same dual radar system installed on the non-nuclear radar picket submarines (i.e., BPS-2 search radar and BPS-3 height-finder set) housed in a large, stepped sail (see image). Construction cost was initially estimated at $78 million. Subsequent growth of the SAR propulsion plant necessitated the overall increase in Tritons length and tonnage, although without any loss in speed, while the installation of the AN/SPS-26 3D search radar allowed the elimination of a separate height-finder.Friedman. U.S. Submarines since 1945, pp. 95–96, 256n3, 263n10.
Triton was to be the lead boat of a proposed class of nuclear-powered radar picket submarines. A December 1955 long-range naval planning report envisioned five carrier strike groups, each supported by two radar picket submarines. The total force included two non-nuclear Sailfish-class submarines and eight nuclear submarines. With construction costs for Triton escalating, this long-range requirement was revised in 1957 to provide four nuclear-powered radar picket submarines for a single nuclear-powered carrier group, with the four remaining conventionally powered carrier groups supported by two diesel-electric radar picket submarines each.Friedman. U.S. Submarines since 1945, p. 96.
At the time of her construction, Triton was the largest submarine ever built. Her knife-like bow, with its bulbous forefoot, provided improved surfaced sea-keeping for her radar picket role. Her surface sea-keeping was further enhanced by high reserve buoyancy (30%), provided by 22 ballast tanks, the most ever in an American submarine. She was the last submarine to have a conning tower, as well as the last American submarine to have twin screws or a stern torpedo room. Her sail was the largest ever aboard an American submarine, measuring long, tall, and wide, and designed to house the large AN/SPS-26 3D air-search radar antenna when not in use. She also had a compartment solely for crew berthing, with 96 bunks, and two separate chief petty officers' (CPOs') quarters. With an overall length of , Triton was the longest submarine in the history of the United States Navy until the nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine was commissioned in 1981.
Characteristics Tritonnuclear-powered radar picket submarine I-400submarine aircraft carrier "underwater cruiser" mine-laying submarine Navy United States Navy Imperial Japanese Navy French Navy United States Navy Commissioning date 1959 1944 1934 1928 Length Beam Draft Surface displacement Submerged displacement Notes
Propulsion Triton was the only submarine outside of the Soviet Union designed with a two-reactor propulsion plant. Her S4G reactors were seagoing versions of the land-based S3G reactor prototype. Both reactors composed the Submarine Advanced Reactor (SAR) program, a joint venture between the U.S. Navy, Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), and General Electric.Polmar and Moore. Cold War Submarines, p. 64; Appendix C.Friedman. U.S. Submarines Since 1945, p. 125.Largess and Horwitz. "USS Triton: The Ultimate Submersible," pp. 174–178. As originally designed, Tritons total reactor output was rated at . However, Triton achieved during her sea trials (pictured), and her first commanding officer, Captain Edward L. Beach Jr., believed Tritons plant could have reached "had that been necessary".
Both of Tritons reactors share the same compartment, with the number one reactor located forward and the number two reactor located aft within that compartment. The number one reactor supplied steam to the forward engine room and the starboard propeller shaft. The number two reactor supplied steam to the after engine room and the port propeller shaft. Each reactor could individually supply steam for the entire ship, or the reactors could be cross-connected as required.Beach. Around the World Submerged. p. 5. It is this enhanced reliability, redundancy, and dependability of a dual-reactor plant that was a key factor in the selection of Triton to undertake the first submerged circumnavigation of the world.First Submerged Circumnavigation 1960, B-5.
Tritons dual-reactor plant met a number of operational and engineering objectives, specifically the high speed requirement to meet her radar picket mission, which continues to be a source of speculation and controversy to this day. During the early 1950s, many engineers at Naval Reactors branch of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) were concerned about depending on single-reactor plants for submarine operations, particularly involving under-the-ice Arctic missions.Polmar and Moore. Cold War Submarines, pp. 65, 68. The presence of two de-aerating feed tanks, which are used only on surface warships, suggested that Tritons twin-reactor plant may have served as a testbed for future multi-reactor surface warships.Beach. Salt and Steel, p. 263.Largess and Horwitz. "USS Triton: The Ultimate Submersible," p. 179. The SAR program was the first production naval reactor developed by General Electric for the U.S. Navy, and GE used this SAR experience for the High Power Reactor (HPR) program that led to the development of the D1G and D2G naval reactors used on , , , and classes of nuclear-powered surface ships.Largess and Horwitz. "USS Triton: The Ultimate Submersible," p. 178.
Finally, the U.S. Navy was debating the best approach to optimize performance, particularly underwater speed, for its nuclear submarine fleet. Triton achieved high speeds through brute horsepower, rather than the more hydrodynamically efficient teardrop-shaped hull form pioneered by which, when combined with nuclear power, allowed to achieve higher speed with less horsepower.
Combat systems
Weapon systems