USS Barracuda (SSK-1)
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| Career | |
|---|---|
| Laid down: | 1 July 1949 |
| Launched: | 2 March 1951 |
| Commissioned: | 10 November 1951 |
| Fate: | scrapped |
| General Characteristics | |
| Displacement: | 765 tons |
| Length: | 196 feet 1 inch |
| Beam: | 24 feet 7 inches |
| Draft: | 14 feet 5 inches |
| Speed: | 13 knots |
| Complement: | 37 officers and men |
The three SSK boats, Barracuda (SSK-1), Bass (SSK-2), and Bonita (SSK-3), were built around the large BQR-4 bow-mounted sonar array as part of Project Kayo, which experimented the use of passive acoustics with low-frequency, bow sonar arrays. When the boat was rigged for silent running, these arrays gave greatly-improved convergence zone detection ranges against snorkeling submarines. The SSKs themselves were limited in their anti-submarine warfare abilities by their low speed and their need to snorkel periodically, but the advances in sonar technology they pioneered were invaluable to later nuclear-powered submarines.
Barracuda joined Submarine Development Group 2 with her home port at New London, Connecticut. She cruised along the Atlantic coast of the United States and Canada, in the Caribbean Sea, and made a voyage to Greenock and Rothesay, Scotland, in June 1955. On 16 December 1956 her name was changed from K-1 to Barracuda (SSK-1). During intervals between and after these cruises, Barracuda operated along the eastern seaboard carrying out training and experimental exercises.
'\'Barracuda'' was redesignated SST-3 on 3 July 1959 and decommissioned on 15 August 1959. She was scrapped between 8 April and 8 July 1974 near Charleston, South Carolina, possibly at the Braswell Shipyards.
See USS Barracuda for other ships of the same name.
