Submarine - launched ballistic missile A submarine - launched ballistic missile ( SLBM ) is a ballistic missile capable of being launched from submarine s . Modern variants usually deliver multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle s ( MIRVs ) each of which carries a nuclear warhead and allows a single launched missile to strike several targets . Submarine - launched ballistic missiles operate in a different way from submarine - launched cruise missile s . Modern submarine - launched ballistic missiles are closely related to intercontinental ballistic missiles , and in many cases SLBMs and ICBMs may be part of the same family of weapons . History . The first practical design of a submarine - based launch platform was developed by the Germans near the end of World War II involving a launch tube which contained a ballistic missile and was towed behind a submarine . The war ended before it could be tested , but the engineers who had worked on it went on to work for the USA and USSR on their SLBM programs . These and other early SLBM systems required vessels to be surfaced when they fired missiles , but launch systems eventually were adapted to allow underwater launching in the 1950 - 1960s . The United States made the first successful underwater launch of a Polaris A1 on 20 July 1960 . Forty days later , the Soviet Union made its first successful underwater launch of a submarine ballistic missile in the White Sea on 10 September 1960 from the same converted Project 611 ( Zulu Class ) submarine that first launched the R - 11FM ( SS - N - 1 Scud - A , naval modification of SS - 1 Scud ) on 16 September 1955 . However , the Soviet Union was able to beat the U . S . in launching and testing the first armed SLBM , an R - 13 that detonated in the Novaya Zemlya Test Range in the Arctic Ocean , doing so on 20 October 1961 , just ten days before the gigantic 50 Mt Tsar Bomba ' s detonation in the same general area . Ballistic missile submarine s have been of great strategic importance for the USA and Russia and other nuclear powers since the start of the Cold War , as they can hide from reconnaissance satellite s and fire their nuclear weapons with virtual impunity . This makes them immune to a first strike directed against nuclear forces , allowing each side to maintain the capability to launch a devastating retaliatory strike , even if all land - based missiles have been destroyed . This relieves each side of the necessity to adopt a launch on warning posture , with its grave attendant risk of accidental nuclear war . Additionally , the deployment of highly accurate missiles on ultra - quiet submarines allows an attacker to sneak up close to the enemy coast and launch a missile on a depressed trajectory ( a non - optimal ballistic trajectory which trades off reduced throw - weight for a faster and lower path , effectively reducing the time between launch and impact ) , thus opening the possibility of a decapitation strike . Types of SLBMs . Specific types of SLBMs ( current , past and under development ) include : Non - military use . Some former Russian SLBMs have been converted into Volna and Shtil ' launch vehicles to launch satellites – either from a submarine or from a launch site on land .