In 1977, with the Cold War in full swing, the U.K. Royal Navy’s nuclear-powered attack submarine HMS Swiftsure (S-126) slipped right into the heart of a large-scale Soviet Northern Fleet exercise in the Barents Sea. The British submarine penetrated undetected through the layered escort screens of destroyers and frigates and meticulously approached the Russian aircraft carrier Kiev. The submarine recorded extremely valuable acoustic signatures and took incredible underwater periscope pictures of the Soviet carrier’s hull and propellers. As an example of a perfect covert operation, the Soviet Navy had absolutely no idea about the presence of the NATO attack submarine and the amount of valuable data it was able to collect.
HMS Swiftsure on the River Clyde, in Scotland. Crown Copyright
The hunter
The origins of the Swiftsure class of nuclear submarine can be traced back to the mid-1960s. At the time, the Royal Navy was facing the growing threat of nuclear-powered and nuclear-armed Soviet submarines routinely operating in the Atlantic Ocean. To counter these, the Swiftsure included improvements based on the lessons learned from previous all-British-designed classes, allowing for deeper diving, higher speeds, and lower radiated noise.
Powered by a single PWR Mk 1 nuclear reactor and an auxiliary Paxman Ventura diesel generator, submarines of this class were armed with five 533mm torpedo tubes capable of launching Mk 24 Mod 2 Tigerfish and later Spearfish heavyweight torpedoes, and Stonefish/Sea Urchin naval mines. UGM-84 Harpoon anti-ship missiles and UGM-109E Tomahawk Land Attack Missile (TLAM-E) Block IV were subsequently added to the armory.
HMS Swiftsure (S-126). Author’s collection
The previous British Valiant and Churchill classes of SSN had included raft-mounted machinery to isolate mechanical and electrical sources of noise and vibrations from the hull and reduce the overall radiated noise of the submarine. Three different propulsion modes — High, Moderate, and Low — meant that the rafts were locked at high speeds (evasion maneuvers, target interception, etc.) with no noise reduction, but at low and moderate speeds the rafts isolated the machinery (turbines, generators, pumps, etc.) from the hull. For very low, or ‘creep’ speeds, an electric motor was used and there was also a small retractable motor used in case of main propulsion loss. The design changes utilized on the Swiftsure class included rafts that were further improved, with the high-speed locking mechanism no longer required.
A maneuvering station on HMS Swiftsure. Royal Navy
Another exotic feature of the class was the introduction of pump-jet propulsion. This type of propulsion, back then relatively new but now common across almost all new submarine classes, offers several advantages over the standard propeller in many naval combat scenarios. The benefits include quieter propulsion at the same speed as opposed to a standard propeller, plus increased efficiency in some areas of the submarine’s performance envelope. On the other hand, the pump-jet assembly is relatively heavy, and complicated, and may increase a submarine’s drag. However, the lead boat of the class and the protagonist of this story, HMS Swiftsure, was equipped with a standard unshrouded propeller.
In total, six Swiftsure class hulls were completed: HMS Swiftsure (S-126), HMS Sovereign (S-108), HMS Superb (S-109), HMS Spectre (S-104), HMS Spartan (S-105), and HMS Splendid (S-106). Swiftsure was commissioned in 1973, Spectre, the last boat of the class in service, was decommissioned in 2010.
A partial cut-away model of the Swiftsure class nuclear-powered attack submarines. Photo by SSPL/Getty Images
The hunted
Kiev was the lead ship of its class, known in the Soviet Union as Project 1143 Krechet (gyrfalcon), which received the NATO code Kiev class. This warship’s keel was laid on January 21, 1970, at the Black Sea Shipyard in Nikolayev on the southern tip of the Mykolaiv peninsula, in the Ukrainian SSR. The nearly completed ship was launched on December 26, 1972, for outfitting and was officially commissioned on December 28, 1975.
Kiev shortly before its launching ceremony in 1975. Author’s collection
The design of the Kiev class was a surprise to many Western observers. A hybrid between a vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL)/helicopter carrier and a guided missile cruiser, the most recognizable features were the angled flight deck on the port side, a massive island on the starboard side, and a dedicated space on the bow with four huge twin launchers for the enormous P-500 Bazalt (SS-N-12 Sandbox) anti-ship missile; eight missile reloads were also provided. For anti-aircraft defense, there were two twin launchers for M-11 Shtorm (SA-N-3 Goblet) surface-to-air missiles and another
