The postwar submarine's mission expanded beyond torpedo attacks on ships and other submarines. An early U.S. boat carried surface-to-surface missiles whose technological lineage still resembled wartime rockets. A submarine could approach a coast and launch from inside the defender's expected air-defense perimeter, sharply reducing warning and reaction time. This intermediate stage connects conventional attack submarines to the later strategic ballistic-missile role.
Notable Point · 1:53:22-1:54:25
Missile submarines bring launch sites inside the air-defense perimeter
Early submarine-launched missiles created a new coastal-defense problem before ballistic-missile boats became the dominant strategic image.