Whiskey-class submarine. Whiskey-class submarines (known in the Soviet Union as Projects 613, 640, 644, and 665) are a class of diesel-electric attack submarines that the Soviet Union built in the early Cold War period.

Design

The initial design was developed in the early 1940s as a sea-going follow-on to the S-class submarine. As a result of war experience and the capture of German technology at the end of the war, the Soviet Union issued a new design requirement in 1946. The revised design was developed by the Lazurit Design Bureau based in Gorkiy. Like most conventional submarines designed between 1946 and 1960, the design was heavily influenced by the World War II German Type XXI U-boat.

Patrol variants

Between 1949 and 1958 a total of 215 submarines of this type were commissioned into the Soviet Navy. The vessels were initially designed as coastal patrol submarines. These patrol variants are known in the west as Whiskey I, II, III, IV, and V and were called Project 613 in the Soviet Union.

Whiskey I − twin  guns mounted on the conning tower
Whiskey II − twin  guns and twin 25 mm guns
Whiskey III − guns removed
Whiskey IV − 25 mm guns and fitted with a snorkel
Whiskey V − no guns - streamlined conning tower and snorkel, most Whiskey-class were modified to this variant

Missile variants

In the 1950s and 1960s, some Whiskey submarines were converted to guided missile submarines, with the capability to fire one to four SS-N-3 Shaddock cruise missiles. In 1956, the first prototype was ready. It was a regular Whiskey class modified with a launch tube aft of the sail containing a single SS-N-3c. This vessel was known in the West as Whiskey Single Cylinder. Between 1958 and 1960, six additional Whiskey-class submarines were converted to carry guided missiles. These boats had two missile tubes behind the sail, and were known in the west as the Whiskey Twin Cylinder, and Project 644 boats by the Soviets.

Between 1960 and 1963, six boats received an extended sail that could contain four Shaddock missiles. These were called Whiskey Long Bin in the West and Project 665 in the Soviet Union. All guided missile variants of the Whiskey class carried the P-5/ NATO SS-N-3c Shaddock land-attack missile, and had to surface in order to fire their missiles. The boats of the single and twin cylinder class also had to raise their missile tubes, which were normally positioned horizontally.

The "Long Bin" boats did not handle well, with the launch tubes causing stability problems, and water flow around the missile fittings was very noisy.  All were soon retired from service. Some were converted to Project 640 radar picket boats (called Whiskey Canvas Bag in the West). While others were converted for intelligence-gathering missions. In the Soviet Navy, the patrol variants of this class were replaced by the . The guided missile variants were replaced by the .

Production programme

The Soviet Union built a total of 236 or 215 Whiskeys (sources vary; it appears the initial 21 Chinese-built boats are often included with the Soviet boats). Vice Admiral Burov, head of the Soviet Defense Ministry's Shipbuilding Institute from 1969 to 1983, confirms 215 units built.

Operators

The Whiskey-class had a long service life, with 45 still on the active list of the Soviet Navy in 1982. All Whiskey-class submarines are now decommissioned.

  − 4 vessels were left behind by the Soviets in 1961 following their expulsion  from the country. Only two were operational in 1991. Three were sold as scrap metal while as of 2022, the Albanian government was considering converting the remaining submarine into a museum ship  
  − 2
  − 26 vessels, 21 of which were built locally with Soviet-supplied parts as the Type 03 
  − 7 
  − 14 
  − 4 vessels, remained in the Korean People's Army Navy inventory as late as 2004 
  − 4 
  − 20 were still in active service in 1991

Incidents involving Whiskey-class submarines
 On 27 January 1961,  was lost due to accidental flooding while the boat was submerged. The valve that should have prevented water from entering the snorkel did not work properly.
 In 1961, when Enver Hoxha decided to expel all Soviet personnel from Albania, four submarines were sabotaged by their former crews before being abandoned. They were later repaired by Chinese technicians and returned to service in 1964.
 On 24 November 1972, the   of the Royal Norwegian Navy had "contact" with what they presumed was a Whiskey-class submarine, after 14 days of "hunt" in Sognefjord. Military documents released in 2009 confirmed this episode.
 On 21 October 1981,  was run down by the merchant vessel Refrizherator-13 in Golden Horn Bay, Vladivostok.
 On 27 October 1981,  ran aground in Swedish territorial waters near the Karlskrona naval base.
On 19 June 1984, a Whiskey-class submarine was caught in a fishing-net and surfaced within the Norwegian exclusive economic zone (EEZ).
 On 14 December 1989 a decommissioned Whiskey-class submarine under tow for scrapping in Nakskov was sunk  west of Bornholm. Attempts to raise it in 1991 failed and it sunk nearby in deeper water.
 On 5 February 2007, the decommissioned  took on water and sank off the coast of Denmark while being towed to become part of a naval museum.
 In 2009 a previously unknown and unidentified sunken Whiskey-class submarine was discovered within Sweden's EEZ close to the island of Gotland. It was a decommissioned submarine which sank while under tow to be scrapped in Denmark. News of the discovery was not made public until March 2011.

Surviving examples
S-189 is preserved as a museum in Saint Petersburg, Russia.  (ex-S-290) is preserved in Surabaya, Indonesia. , Albania's #105 existed at Pasha Liman Base in south Albania, though it was deteriorating.

Notes

References

Bibliography

 

 Weir, Gary E., and Boyle, Walter J. Rising Tide: The Untold Story of the Russian Submarines That Fought the Cold War  Basic Books, 2003.

Further reading

External links

 History, Development, and Use of the Whiskey-class Submarine
 Encyclopedia of Ships  
 Whiskey class submarines - Complete Ship List (English)

Submarine classes
 
Submarines of the People's Liberation Army Navy
Russian and Soviet Navy submarine classes
Submarines of the Korean People's Navy
Ships of the People's Liberation Army Navy