41 for Freedom

Ok one more time here trying to fix the stupid links (the link tool on the toolbar is grayed out)

Anyone here ever heard of this? Thought I would shine a little flashlight on part of US military history that is generally out of sight, out of mind, the ballistic missile submarine (SSBN) force. "41 for Freedom" referred to the first 41 SSBNs of the George Washington/Layfayette/Madison/Franklin classes, which were all named for different patriots. My little plug is for the USS Francis Scott Key (SSBN 657), whose main distinction was being the first of these "old" boomers to be backfitted to carry the Trident I missile. The "new" boomers of the Ohio class (SSBN 726) are what people mean when they talk about "one of the Tridents" (submarines) but these old boats actually carried the bulk of the seaborne ballistic missile load from the 1960s into the 1990s. www.ssbn657.com has some neato submarine pictures if you want a break from Abrahms battle tanks, Apache gunships and fireteam door-to-door tactics.Whattya' know, there is just a little bit of small arms stuff here after all

Every now and then the Captain would have them break out one of the M14s to do some blasting (surfaced only, of course).Link fixed. My interest in the Key was that I was the Reactor Controls Officer and then the Assistant Weapons Officer on the Key Blue crew from 1990 to 1993, including the decomm in Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard. When I arrived in 1990 we were still watching out for Soviet SSNs lurking off the east cost trying to pick us up as we went out on patrol, by the time we decommed in 1993 there wasn't even a USSR anymore :) or :( since maybe Russia & CIS isn't all that different from the USSR

www.ssbn657.com

Well, one more little sort-of gun related thing to mention from the USS Francis Scott Key... the Trident-I (C4) missile/weapons system, which was the Key's main battery.

If you're a good shooter, you can shoot maybe 1 MOA or so perhaps with a rifle? I'm not all that good with a rifle, but I can do maybe 1MOA with my rifle and a bipod at 100 yards. 1 MOA ~ 1 inch at 100 yards.

I'm not using the actual numbers here of course, these are order of magnitude estimates I've seen published in various open media places. But, consider the "group size" of the projectiles we would have been throwing at the USSR.

Ballpark accuracy per "projectile" (each missile carried a number of them, each of which could be sent to its own target), was say 100 yards at a range of 4000 miles (the real numbers are different of course, these are just open-source estimates). That's a group size of about 3600 inches at 4000 miles. (1 nautical mile = 2000 yards)
So, working it back to 100 yards, that comes out to a group size of 0.045 inches at 100 yards, or 0.045 MOA.

Pretty cool stuff considering the submarine was designed in the early 1960s with late 1950s technology, and the missile system was brought online in the late 1970s using late 1960s technology.

Well, one more little sort-of gun related thing to mention from the USS Francis Scott Key... the Trident-I (C4) missile/weapons system, which was the Key's main battery.

If you're a good shooter, you can shoot maybe 1 MOA or so perhaps with a rifle? I'm not all that good with a rifle, but I can do maybe 1MOA with my rifle and a bipod at 100 yards. 1 MOA ~ 1 inch at 100 yards. Certainly good enough to specify which eye, right or left, you want to poke a hole in on the bad guy's head at 100 yards, and good enough for a head shot or a varmint shot some distance further out. So how does lobbing a Trident missile at the enemy compare in terms of accuracy?

I'm not using the actual numbers here of course, these are order of magnitude estimates I've seen published in various open media places. But, consider the "group size" of the projectiles we would have been throwing at the USSR.

Ballpark accuracy per "projectile" (each missile carried a number of them, each of which could be sent to its own target), was say 100 yards at a range of 4000 miles (the real numbers are different of course, these are just open-source estimates). That's a group size of about 3600 inches at 4000 miles. (1 nautical mile = 2000 yards)
So, working it back to 100 yards, that comes out to a group size of 0.045 inches at 100 yards, or 0.045 MOA.

Pretty cool stuff considering the submarine was designed in the early 1960s with late 1950s technology, and the missile system was brought online in the late 1970s using late 1960s technology.

-xsquidgator