Submarine News: What the Undersea Beat Covers and Why

Submarine news covers any reported development involving boats that operate underwater: new classes entering service, procurement and budget decisions, patrol activity that governments choose to disclose, and incidents that surface in official statements. As of this writing, no dated fleet movements or procurement announcements are attached to this roundup; what follows is a guide to the beat itself, built on the documented record of what submarines are and how their story is reported. The subject is older, and broader, than most readers assume. According to Wikipedia's entry on submarines, the first submersible of whose construction reliable information exists was built in 1620 by the Dutch inventor Cornelis Drebbel. The United States Navy commissioned USS Nautilus (SSN-571), its first nuclear-powered submarine, in 1954, and USS George Washington (SSBN-598), its first ballistic missile submarine, in 1959. Those two dates frame most of the submarine news written since.

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