Golf - class submarine Project 629 , also known by the NATO reporting name of Golf class , were diesel electric ballistic missile submarine s of the Soviet Navy . They were designed after six Zulu class submarine s were successfully modified to carry and launch Scud missile s . All Golf boats had left Soviet service by 1990 . All have been since disposed of . According to some sources at least one single Golf - class submarine is operated by China , to test new SLBMs . Class history . Project 629 was started in the mid - 1950s along with the D - 2 missile system which it was to carry , and was based on the Foxtrot . Design task was assigned to OKB - 16 , one of the two predecessors ( the other being SKB - 143 ) of the famous Malachite Central Design Bureau , which would eventually become one of the three Soviet / Russian submarine design centers , along with Rubin Design Bureau and Lazurit Central Design Bureau ( " Lazurit " is the Russian word for lazurite ) . The submarine was originally designed to carry three R - 11FM ballistic missiles with a range of around 150 km . These were carried in three silos fitted in the rear of the large sail behind the bridge . They could only be fired with the submarine surfaced and the missile raised above the sail but the submarine could be underway at the time . Only the first three boats were equipped with these — the remaining ones were equipped with the longer range R - 13 missiles . The first boats were commissioned in 1958 and the last in 1962 . The boats were built at two shipyards — 16 in Severodvinsk and 7 in Komsomolsk - na - Amure in the Far East . Fourteen were extensively modified in 1966 – 1972 and became known as 629A ' s by the Soviet Navy and Golf IIs by NATO ( the original version having been designated Golf I ) . The major change was the upgrade of the missile system to carry R - 21 missiles which could be launched from inside their tubes with the submarine submerged and increased speed . In later years a few were converted to test new missiles and others had different conversions . All boats had left Soviet service by 1990 . In 1993 , ten were sold to North Korea for scrap . In 1959 the project technology were also sold to China which built a single modified example in 1966 which is apparently still in service . Project Azorian . On March 8 , 1968 , northwest of Oahu in the Pacific Ocean the Golf II class submarine K - 129 exceeded its crush depth for unknown reasons and imploded , the accident being registered by the SOSUS network . The entire crew of 98 was lost and the vessel sank with three ballistic nuclear missiles as well as two nuclear torpedoes . The United States recovered parts of the submarine in July 1974 from a depth of around 5 km , in an operation named Project Azorian . Two nuclear submarines that had been facing retirement , and , were rebuilt and pressed into service as deep sea search vehicles . After " Halibut " discovered a sunken Soviet submarine containing at least one intact ballistic missile complete with nuclear warhead , Melvin Laird , United States Secretary of Defense under President Richard Nixon , approved Azorian . Six years later , north of the Hawaiian Leeward Islands , a mechanical claw descended to the bottom of the Pacific and , guided by computers on board the Glomar Explorer , clamped onto the mass of twisted , rusting steel and began slowly raising it to the surface . It is unknown for sure how successful the effort was , but the United States has admitted to recovering a portion of K - 129 , which included six bodies of Soviet sailors that were buried at sea with full honors .