French Skipjack SSNs - proposal, 1963

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Well we have no thread on that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skipjack-class_submarine
Mentionned here.

Historical Documents - Office of the Historian

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Les atomes de la mer - La propulsion nucléaire française, histoire d'un outil de dissuasion

L'histoire méconnue de la propulsion nucléaire françaiseÀ l'heure de la mise en service du Suffren, premier de la classe Barracuda – la nouvelle génération de sous-marins nucléaires d'attaque (SNA) français –, l'histoire de la propulsion nucléaire française est racontée ici pour la première...
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It was part a complex game between US, UK and France: though bargaining, national nuclear deterrents versus NATO MLF. An off the shelf Polaris missile force but locked under dual key, subordinated to NATO.
The British though bargaining in Nassau is well known: they got the Polaris but "screw NATO, screw the MLF". They got control of the missiles if needed. No dual key.
The same complicated game was played with the French at the same time.
And yes, they were proposed Skipjack SSN (not 41 for freedom boomers, but SSNs) obviously with some strings attached (I have to check the details). De Gaulle appreciated the offer but hated the related strings, so "no, thanks".
Poor McMillan was really trapped between a rock (JFK and the Deans, Archeason and Rusk) and a hard place (De Gaulle and EEC). France was firing by all tubes to try and rob nuclear data from the Americans, via the Britishs. Things like ELDO and Europa were a faux nez to try and get Blue Streak technology.
The Skipjacks never materialized and it took 20 more years and MN Rubis IOC (1983) to get SSNs. A decade less to get boomers (Redoutable, 1971).

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This is a fascinating glimpse into how France developed its nuclear navy.
Is it true that a lot of know how from the US got to France anyway for submarines, missiles and warheads. After all the US Navy had a Lafayette class SSBN?
 
Sorry, yes. My point is that for many in the US France was a closer ally than Britain. So I can imagine that ways were found to help her.
But equally France must get credit for developing so much using her own people. Either way I am keen to know more.
 
uk 75 said:
Sorry, yes. My point is that for many in the US France was a closer ally than Britain. So I can imagine that ways were found to help her.
But equally France must get credit for developing so much using her own people. Either way I am keen to know more.
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Ah, sorry myself. I misunderstood your point.

And it is true that France was held in relatively good regard after the war. Not quite sure when US opinion changed (possibly Vietnam).
 
TomS said:
Ah, sorry myself. I misunderstood your point.

And it is true that France was held in relatively good regard after the war. Not quite sure when US opinion changed (possibly Vietnam).
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I'm not sure how friendly the United States was at the time. I think you'll find that the Eisenhower Administration forced Rickover to offer nuclear powerplants to all NATO fleets. The British were the only ones who bit, although the Italians were interested. I think the Dutch looked, too, and decided that SSNs were too expensive. The Canadians came very close to building a Skipjack. French policy at the time seems to have been to welcome design information and then to build by themselves. An example is Masurca, the anti-aircraft missile. The French had a Masurca program, but the drawing in a British account of Anglo-French cooperation looks nothing like the missile they built. The USN offered France Terrier, but French documents say that offer was rejected to keep the French missile industry alive (a very reasonable motive). When you look at Masurca, you see Terrier on steroids. I have heard that the powerplant of the French SSBNs was a carbon copy of ours -- and the offer of a Skipjack would have included some details of USN powerplants. This was very much not the nuclear powerplant of later French SSNs and SSBNs.

Once Eisenhower was gone, the Kennedy Administrtion was obsessed with stopping European nuclear programs -- which of course proved impossible. It killed Skybolt at least partly for that reason, and that enabled MacMillan to exert pressure successfully. I don't think that the US was ever all that warm about the French. Remember that we refused to use nuclear weapons to save Dien Bien Phu, and that we also cut off a lot of aid after Suez and in connection with Algeria. The great qeustion for both Britain and France was what to do after we opposed them on Suez in 1956.

Oh, and remember that France had a large Communist Party, so it was distrusted. We did not disclose the big ASW secret of the 1950s, Lofar, to France -- which deliberately called La Gallissoniere (the exp;erimental destroyer) a Lofar ship, meaning low frequency sonar, not what we meant by Lofar. Guess why there was never SOSUS in the Mediterranean?
 
I missed a point. It seems the french wanted a Skipjack nuclear reactor - licence and tech transfer, the usual stuff. Yet JFK aparently went a step further and proposed the sale of a complete submarine (or a few submarines). The discussions dragged on from 1961 to 1964.
 
Would you have a reference for the offer of a Skipjack and the discussions about it? I must admit skepticism, but I would believe the JFK offer more if it was an attempt to reorient the French away from building nuclear weapons. The Kennedy Administration was hot on eliminating Allied nuclear forces, but it was so inept that it ended up giving the British Polaris. On the other hand, the Administration might have been trying to court de Gaulle (yes, an impossible dream). There may have been some sort of fantasy that we could convince the French to leave Algeria gracefully, or even to get involved with us in Indochina. Washington does breed fantasies like that.
 
fishpond said:
Would you have a reference for the offer of a Skipjack and the discussions about it? I must admit skepticism, but I would believe the JFK offer more if it was an attempt to reorient the French away from building nuclear weapons. The Kennedy Administration was hot on eliminating Allied nuclear forces, but it was so inept that it ended up giving the British Polaris. On the other hand, the Administration might have been trying to court de Gaulle (yes, an impossible dream). There may have been some sort of fantasy that we could convince the French to leave Algeria gracefully, or even to get involved with us in Indochina. Washington does breed fantasies like that.
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Sorry, I had failed to read the item from Foreign Relations of the US. You have to note the reference to the Congressional committee involved. I suspect that it would almost certainly have blocked the sale, allowing the Administration to look good to the French while denying them everything (the Committee would doubtless have been influenced heavily by Admiral Rickover). It would also be wrong to think of a Skipjack as a hunter-killer, because it was not particularly quiet and it lacked the new sonar embodied in the Threshers. I can imagine McNamara and the idiots at State thinking that selling a submarine would be no big deal, and the Navy killing the deal at the Committee -- which was very powerful. I don't think that McNamara had the slightest idea of how sensitive nuclear submarine technology was. It is easy to forget that the Administration did not control Congressional action. Thet idea that everything was up to the President and his Cabinet would be reinforced by going to Foreign Relations of the US and to Kennedy Library papers. The situation in a European country would be quite different.
 
fishpond said:
Sorry, I had failed to read the item from Foreign Relations of the US. You have to note the reference to the Congressional committee involved. I suspect that it would almost certainly have blocked the sale, allowing the Administration to look good to the French while denying them everything (the Committee would doubtless have been influenced heavily by Admiral Rickover). It would also be wrong to think of a Skipjack as a hunter-killer, because it was not particularly quiet and it lacked the new sonar embodied in the Threshers. I can imagine McNamara and the idiots at State thinking that selling a submarine would be no big deal, and the Navy killing the deal at the Committee -- which was very powerful. I don't think that McNamara had the slightest idea of how sensitive nuclear submarine technology was. It is easy to forget that the Administration did not control Congressional action. Thet idea that everything was up to the President and his Cabinet would be reinforced by going to Foreign Relations of the US and to Kennedy Library papers. The situation in a European country would be quite different.
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While not particularly quiet, Skipjacks could act like an interceptor, or a police car waiting in ambush if you will.

Sit at low power where they're relatively quiet and listen, then go to high power and charge in faster than the ASW escorts can react to get shots on whatever high value targets there happen to be.

It was a well practiced thing, I was told.
 
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Scott Kenny said:
While not particularly quiet, Skipjacks could act like an interceptor, or a police car waiting in ambush if you will.

Sit at low power where they're relatively quiet and listen, then go to high power and charge in faster than the ASW escorts can react to get shots on whatever high value targets there happen to be.

It was a well practiced thing, I was told.
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Wasn't it that tactic in particular that influenced the development of the RUR-5 ASROC? Use a rocket to drop a 10kt nuke on a rapidly accelerating submarine and stop the attack in its tracks
 
SSgtC said:
Wasn't it that tactic in particular that influenced the development of the RUR-5 ASROC? Use a rocket to drop a 10kt nuke on a rapidly accelerating submarine and stop the attack in its tracks
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Entirely possible.

Had a senior in the Navy on my first boat that had been assigned to a Skipjack, they did a lot of games.
 
If I may, my understanding was that the Honeywell RUR-5 ASROC and Lockheed Martin RUM-139 VL-ASROC was and is fired from surface ships. The Goodyear UUM-44 SUBROC was the weapon fired from submarines. It was to be replaced by the Boeing UUM-125 Sea Lance, which was cancelled before it entered service.

The Soviet and Russian equivalent of the SUBROC would be the RPK-2 Vyuga, RPK-6 Vodopad and RPK-7 Veter.
 
Both the UUM-125 for submarines and RUM-125 for surface ships were planned, each with a nuclear "A" variant with a W89 nuclear depth charge, and a conventional "B" variant carrying the Mark 50 torpedo instead.

RPK-6 can also be launched from former Soviet surface combatants fitted with 533mm torpedo tubes.
 

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