''Le Redoutable'' (S 611) was the

lead boat The lead ship, name ship, or class leader is the first of a series or class of ships all constructed according to the same general design. The term is applicable to naval ships and large civilian vessels. Large ships are very complex and may ...

of her class of

ballistic missile A ballistic missile is a type of missile that uses projectile motion to deliver warheads on a target. These weapons are guided only during relatively brief periods—most of the flight is unpowered. Short-range ballistic missiles stay within the ...

submarines A submarine (or sub) is a watercraft capable of independent operation underwater. It differs from a submersible, which has more limited underwater capability. The term is also sometimes used historically or colloquially to refer to remotely o ...

in the French ''Marine Nationale''. Commissioned on 1 December 1971, the boat was the first French SNLE (''Sous-marin Nucléaire Lanceur d'Engins'', "Device-Launching Nuclear Submarine"). The boat was initially fitted with 16 M1 MSBS (''Mer-Sol Balistique Stratégique'') submarine-launched ballistic missiles , delivering 450

kilotons TNT equivalent is a convention for expressing energy, typically used to describe the energy released in an explosion. The is a unit of energy defined by that convention to be , which is the approximate energy released in the detonation of a m ...

at . In 1974, the boat was refitted with the M2 missile, and later with the M20, each delivering a one-megatonne warhead at a range over . ''Le Redoutable'' ("formidable" or "fearsome" in French) was the only ship of the class not to be refitted with the M4 missile. ''Le Redoutable'' had a 20-year duty history, with 51 patrols of 70 days each, totalling an estimated 90,000 hours of diving and of distance, the equivalent of travelling 32 times around the Earth. The boat was decommissioned in 1991. In 2000, the boat was removed from the water and placed in a purpose-built dry dock, and over two years was made into an exhibit. This was a monumental task, the biggest portion of which was removing the nuclear reactor and replacing the midsection with an empty steel tube. In 2002, the boat opened as a

museum ship A museum ship, also called a memorial ship, is a ship that has been preserved and converted into a museum open to the public for educational or memorial purposes. Some are also used for training and recruitment purposes, mostly for the small numb ...

at the

Cité de la Mer The Cité de la Mer ("city of the sea") is a maritime museum in Cherbourg, France. The museum is in the cruise terminal of Cherbourg. This monument was built in 1933; it is one of the bigger art-deco monuments of today. History The former tr ...

naval museum in

Cherbourg-Octeville Cherbourg-Octeville () is a former commune in the Manche department in Normandy in north-western France.

, France, being now the largest

submarine A submarine (or sub) is a watercraft capable of independent operation underwater. It differs from a submersible, which has more limited underwater capability. The term is also sometimes used historically or colloquially to refer to remotely op ...

open to the public and the only nearly-complete ballistic missile submarine hull open to the public — although several museums display small portions, such as sails and/or parts of rudders from such submarines. Special dinner events for organizations aboard this boat's interior spaces are offered by

References

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* Redoutable-class submarines (1967) Ships built in France 1967 ships Cold War submarines of France Museum ships in France {{mil-memorial-stub

See also

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External links