Project 613 Whiskey class
Ambitious German plans to build Walter-designed ocean-going submarines, such as the 1,600-ton Type XVIII, were thwarted by the unsuccessful course of the war, The Type XVIII was modified into the highly successful Type XXI "electro-boat," in which larger batteries provided a submerged speed of 17 knots, which could be maintained for 90 minutes. That innovation, and the adoption of the snorkel, yielded a potent combination that strongly influenced the postwar design of conventionally-powered submarines on both sides of the Iron Curtain.
During the five years following the end of World War II, Soviet exploitation of the Type XXI lagged significantly behind American fears. US intelligence initially foresaw in 1946 a force of 300 Soviet Type XXI equivalents by 1950. But it was not until 1949 that the first postwar Soviet submarine designs -- the Whiskey and the Zulu -- put to sea. While the Zulu was a true Type XXI, the Whiskey was a smaller, less capable, shorter range boat, designed more with an eye toward coastal defense and European littoral operations. It was not until the mid-1950s that Whiskeys were even given snorkels.
Early post-war construction focused on small submarines, the vast majority of which were Whiskey-class boats. Between 1949 and 1958 a total of 236 Whiskeys were commissioned. A shore targeting station would direct these vessels in their defense of the sea approaches to the Soviet Union. The larger Zulu-class and smaller Quebec-class submarines augmented the Whiskey-class. The thirty-two Zulu-class submarines operated further out at sea and coordinated with shore-based aircraft to provide targeting information to the shore centers. The approximately thirty Quebec-class submarines operated in the coastal waters.
During the 1950s there were efforts to convert Whiskeys into cruise missile submarines (SSGs).
As the Soviet navy's mission expanded to combating the US Navy on the open ocean. The Echo I and Whiskey Long Bin class submarines deployed with anti-ship cruise missiles to fulfill this role.
Since the early 1980s Sweden suffered from a steady bout of violations of its territorial waters by foreign submarines that have been determined to belong to the Soviet Union. The reports issued by the Swedish navy were granted but passing attention by both the Swedish public and the international media until 27 October 1981, when a Soviet Whiskey-class submarine ran aground in a restricted area of the Karlskrona archipelago in an incident generally referred to as "Whiskey on the rocks."17 While the Swedish government issued a strong formal protest, the Soviets sloughed off the intrusion as an unintentional navigational error.
