59 
constructed a considerable number of small modernized submarines, 
while maintaining basically the submarine fleet of prewar construction. 
However, starting with the end of the 1940’s, a new series of sub- 
marines improved in quality, were built. The diesel-powered W-class 
submarine was originally produced as an attack submarine armed with 
torpedoes and equipped with deck-mounted guns but these were later 
removed. Close to 200 units were built altogether; many were trans- 
ferred to other countries but most, although aging, still remain in 
commission in the Soviet Navy. As is the case with all Soviet torpedo 
submarines, the W-class is capable of minelaying. Through various 
types of changes a true family of classes has emerged from the 
W-class. Apart from various conning tower shapes (of which there 
are at least five), the most important modifications of the W-class 
were in 1956 or 1957, when the first submarine of that class was 
converted into a guided-missile submarine. An erectable cylindrical 
housing for a guided missile was installed on the upper deck, and 
the new class received the NATO designation of W single-cylinder 
class. *# 
The Z-class diesel powered submarine, of which a few dozen units 
were built, was originally built as an oceangoing long-range torpedo 
attack submarine. Although several modifications of this class became 
known, the most important was a conversion to ballistic missile sub- 
marines known as the Z-5 class. It was undoubtedly a modified Z-class 
submarine from which the first surface launching of a ballistic missile 
occurred in September 1955. Somewhat later, between 1956 and 1957 
several units, each carrying a pair of surface-launched Sark ballistic 
missiles with a range of 300-350 nautical miles, were produced.* 
Starting in 1954 a few dozen diesel powered, closed-cycle propulsion 
system submarines, Q-class (Project 615) were built. This small 
(around 700 tons displacement) short-range submarine was intended 
primarily for antisubmarine warfare and carries four bow-mounted 
torpedo tubes. The closed-cycle propulsion system, at least during 
the first 3 to 4 years of operation, was less than satisfactory and 
dangerous to operate. 
Soviet submarine development during the post-World War II period, 
and especially since the mid-1950’s, seems to testify to an acute 
awareness, even a conviction, that the balance between surface ships 
and submarines in favor of the latter.*® 
Construction of nuclear-powered submarines began in the late 
1950’s. As the era of battleships was replaced by the era of aircraft 
carriers during World War II, the fateful decision of the mid-1950’s 
emphasized the submarine-aviation nature of the main naval striking 
forces in a future nuclear war. It should be stressed, that at the 
time the Soviets rejected using attack aircraft carriers as the main 
striking force, the Navy had neither a single carrier in commission 
nor any experience on how to build or operate them. The economic 
“Siegfried Breyer, Die Sowjetischen u-Boote der ““W’’—Klassals Typfamilie (The Soviet Sub- 
marines of the W-Class as a Family of Classes), Soldat und Technik, Nov. 1, 1971, pp. 10-15. 
Tt. Com. Robert D. Wells, USN, The Soviet Submarine Force, “U.S. Naval Institute 
Proceedings”, August 1971, and S. Breyer, Neue kriegs der Sowjet-Flotte (New and Modernized 
Warship Classes of the Soviet Navy) Soldat und Technik, Nov. 11, 1970, pp. 628-635. 
46For an interesting discussion of this problem, see Paul Cohen, ““The Erosion of Surface Naval 
Power,” Foreign Affairs, January 1971, pp. 330--341. 
