Russia’s Nuclear Alfa-Class Submarines Had ‘Liquid-Metal Reactors’ That Could Hit 40 Knots and No US Navy Sub Could Ever Catch Them

Russia’s Nuclear Alfa-Class Submarines Had ‘Liquid-Metal Reactors’ That Could Hit 40 Knots and No US Navy Sub Could Ever Catch Them

The CIA detected an Alfa exceeding 40 knots in March 1979, and specialist sources place the class between 40 and 43. Only the one-off Soviet K-222 has ever recorded a higher submerged speed. The cost was noise: at high power, machinery vibration, hull flow and propeller cavitation produced an enormous acoustic signature.