Benjamin Franklin-class submarine
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Date: 2021-12-08

Benjamin Franklin-class submarine, by Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=4735 / CC BY SA 3.0

#Submarine_classes
#Benjamin_Franklin-class_submarines
#Cold_War_submarines_of_the_United_States
#1960s_ships
The Benjamin Franklin-class submarine was a group of US ballistic missile submarines that were in Navy service from the 1960s–2000s.
The class was an evolutionary development from the earlier James Madison class of fleet ballistic missile submarine.
Having quieter machinery and other improvements, it is considered a separate class.
A subset of this class is the re-engineered 640 class starting with USS George C. Marshall.
The primary difference was that they were built under the new SUBSAFE rules after the loss of USS Thresher, earlier boats of the class had to be retrofitted to meet SUBSAFE requirements.
The Benjamin Franklin class, together with the George Washington, Ethan Allen, Lafayette, and James Madison classes, composed the "41 for Freedom" that was the Navy's primary contribution to the nuclear deterrent force through the late 1980s.
This class and the James Madison class are combined with the Lafayettes in some references.
The Benjamin Franklin-class submarines were built with the Polaris A-3 ballistic missile, and in the early 1970s were converted to carry the Poseidon C-3 missile.
During the late 1970s and early 1980s, six boats were further modified to carry the Trident I （C-4） missile, along with six James Madison-class boats.
These were Benjamin Franklin, Simon Bolivar, George Bancroft, Henry L. Stimson, Francis Scott Key, and Mariano G. Vallejo.
Due to the loss of USS Thresher in April 1963, this class was designed to SUBSAFE standards and its equipment was similar to the Sturgeon-class fast attack submarines （SSNs）.
Previous US SSBNs except the George Washington class had equipment similar to the Thresher-class SSNs.
This class can be distinguished by the fairwater planes' location halfway up the sail; the Lafayettes and James Madisons h...