The Project 651, known in the West by its NATO reporting name

NATO reporting name

NATO reporting names are classified code names for military equipment of the Eastern Bloc...

 Juliett class, was a class of Soviet diesel

Diesel engine

A diesel engine is an internal combustion engine that uses the heat of compression to initiate ignition to burn the fuel, which is injected into the combustion chamber...

-electric submarine

Submarine

A submarine is a watercraft capable of independent operation below the surface of the water. It differs from a submersible, which has more limited underwater capability...

s armed with cruise missiles. They were designed in the late 1950s to provide the Soviet Navy

Soviet Navy

The Soviet Navy was the naval arm of the Soviet Armed Forces. Often referred to as the Red Fleet, the Soviet Navy would have played an instrumental role in a Warsaw Pact war with NATO, where it would have attempted to prevent naval convoys from bringing reinforcements across the Atlantic Ocean...

 with a nuclear strike capability against targets along the east coast of the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 and enemy combatants (aircraft carriers). The head of the design team was Abram Samuilovich Kassatsier. They carried four nuclear-capable cruise missile

Cruise missile

A cruise missile is a guided missile that carries an explosive payload and is propelled, usually by a jet engine, towards a land-based or sea-based target. Cruise missiles are designed to deliver a large warhead over long distances with high accuracy...

s with a range of ~300 miles, which could be launched while the submarine was surfaced and moving less than four knots (7 km/h). Once surfaced, the first missile could be launched in about five minutes; subsequent missiles would follow within about ten seconds each. Initially, the missiles were the inertially-guided P-5 (NATO reporting name

NATO reporting name

NATO reporting names are classified code names for military equipment of the Eastern Bloc...

 SS-N-3

SS-N-3

The P-5 "Pyatyorka" was a Cold War era turbojet-powered cruise missile of the Soviet Union, designed by the Chelomey design bureau. The missile entered service in 1959...

 Shaddock). When submarine-launched ballistic missile

Submarine-launched ballistic missile

A submarine-launched ballistic missile is a ballistic missile capable of delivering a nuclear warhead that can be launched from submarines. Modern variants usually deliver multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles each of which carries a warhead and allows a single launched missile to...

s rendered the P-5s obsolescent, they were replaced with the P-6 (also NATO reporting name

NATO reporting name

NATO reporting names are classified code names for military equipment of the Eastern Bloc...

 SS-N-3

SS-N-3

The P-5 "Pyatyorka" was a Cold War era turbojet-powered cruise missile of the Soviet Union, designed by the Chelomey design bureau. The missile entered service in 1959...

 Shaddock, though a very different missile) designed to attack aircraft carriers. A special 10 m² target guidance radar was built into the forward edge of the sail structure, which opened by rotating. One boat was eventually fitted with the Kasatka

Kasatka

Kasatka is a female Orca who lives at SeaWorld San Diego and the mother of Takara, Nakai, and Kalia. She was captured off the coast of Iceland on October 26, 1978, at the age of one year. Her name probably comes from the Russian word Kasatka , a generic name for Orcas...

 satellite downlink for targeting information to support P-500 4K-80 "Bazalt" (SS-N-12

SS-N-12

The P-500 Bazalt is a liquid-fueled, rocket-powered, supersonic cruise missile used by the Soviet and Russian navies. Developed by OKB-52 MAP , its GRAU designation is 4K80. Its NATO reporting name is SS-N-12 Sandbox. It entered service in 1973 to replace the SS-N-3 Shaddock...

 Sandbox) anti-ship cruise missiles.

The Juliett class had a low magnetic signature austenitic

Austenite

Austenite, also known as gamma phase iron, is a metallic non-magnetic allotrope of iron or a solid solution of iron, with an alloying element. In plain-carbon steel, austenite exists above the critical eutectoid temperature of ; other alloys of steel have different eutectoid temperatures...

 steel double hull, covered by two inch (50 mm) thick black tiles made of sound-absorbing hard rubber. They had exceptionally high reserve buoyancy, and were divided into eight watertight compartments:

1. the forward torpedo room
2. living accommodations for officers and chiefs and the forward batteries
3. the missile control room and batteries
4. the control room
5. crew berthing and batteries
6. the forward engine room containing the diesels and generators
7. the aft engine room with the electric motors
8. the aft torpedo room.

Initial plans called for 35 submarines of this class. In fact only 16 were actually built, two - including the lead sub by the Baltic Shipyard, St. Petersburg

Leningrad

Leningrad is the former name of Saint Petersburg, Russia.Leningrad may also refer to:- Places :* Leningrad Oblast, a federal subject of Russia, around Saint Petersburg* Leningrad, Tajikistan, capital of Muminobod district in Khatlon Province...

 and the rest by the Krasnoye Sormovo Shipyard in Nizhniy Novgorod. They were commissioned between 1963 and 1968, and served through the 1980s. The last one was decommissioned in 1994.

The Juliett was built due to expected delays in the continued production of the nuclear-powered Project 629 Echo I class submarines

Echo class submarine

The Echo class submarines were nuclear cruise missile submarines of the Soviet Navy built during the 1960s. Their Soviet designation was Project 659 class for the first five vessels, and Project 675 for the following twenty-nine...

 and 675 Echo II class submarines

Echo class submarine

The Echo class submarines were nuclear cruise missile submarines of the Soviet Navy built during the 1960s. Their Soviet designation was Project 659 class for the first five vessels, and Project 675 for the following twenty-nine...

, with six and eight missile launchers, respectively. The Juliette was actually designed after the Echos.

Units

Juliett' class — significant dates

#	Shipyard	Laid down	Launched	Commissioned	Status
K-156	St. Petersburg	November 16, 1960	July 31, 1962	December 10, 1963	Decommissioned September 1991 for scrapping<
K-85	St. Petersburg	October 25, 1961	January 31, 1964	December 30, 1964	Decommissioned for scrapping
K-70	Nizhniy Novgorod	August 25, 1962	February 6, 1964	December 31, 1964	Decommissioned in 1994 for scrapping
K-24	Nizhniy Novgorod	October 15, 1961	December 15, 1962	October 31, 1965	Decommissioned in 1994, sold to Germany as maritime museum exhibit
K-68	Nizhniy Novgorod	January 25, 1962	April 30, 1963	December 28, 1965	Decommissioned in 1990 for scrapping
K-77 Soviet submarine K-77 K-77 was a "Project 651" cruise missile submarine of the Soviet Navy. Her keel was laid down in the Krasnoye Sormovo shipyard in Gorky on 31 January 1963...	Nizhniy Novgorod	January 31, 1963	March 11, 1965	October 31, 1965	Decommissioned in April 1992 and sold as museum exhibit in U.S.
K-81	Nizhniy Novgorod	November 20, 1963	August 7, 1964	December 14, 1965	Decommissioned in 1994 for scrapping
K-63	Nizhniy Novgorod	March 25, 1962	July 26, 1963	June 12, 1966	Decommissioned in September 1991 for scrapping
K-58	Nizhniy Novgorod	July 15, 1963	February 2, 1966	September 23, 1966	Decommissioned 1990 for scrapping
K-73	Nizhniy Novgorod	August 1, 1964	May 31, 1966	December 15, 1966	Decommissioned in 1990 for scrapping
K-67	Nizhniy Novgorod	January 31, 1965	October 29, 1966	September 30, 1967	Decommissioned in 1994 for scrapping
K-78	Nizhniy Novgorod	July 25, 1965	March 30, 1967	November 1, 1967	Decommissioned in September 1991 for scrapping
K-203	Nizhniy Novgorod	December 23, 1965	June 30, 1967	December 2, 1967	Decommissioned in September 1992 for scrapping
K-304	Nizhniy Novgorod	August 6, 1966	November 24, 1967	August 21, 1968	Decommissioned in September 1991 for scrapping
K-318	Nizhniy Novgorod	March 29, 1967	March 29, 1968	September 29, 1968	Decommissioned in 1994 for scrapping
K-120	Nizhniy Novgorod	March 25, 1967	July 11, 1968	December 26, 1968	Decommissioned in April 1991 for scrapping

In the movies

The Juliett unit K-77 at the maritime museum in Providence, Rhode Island, was slightly stage modified and used to act as the Hotel II SSBN K-19 in the National Geographic movie "K-19 Widowmaker" starring Harrison Ford.