Back in the early 1970s, whilst the UK and USA were introducing their first Polaris SSBNs¹ the Soviet Union started work on one of the most ambitious submarine-building projects ever to have been imagined.

After several years on the drawing board and three years under construction, the first of this new class of submarines set sail, much to the consternation of the Western world's intelligence services - as nothing quite like it had ever been seen before.

The Soviet Akula²-class submarine - codenamed 'Typhoon' by NATO forces, was at least twice as big as any submarine afloat.

Comparative sizes

When compared with it's western equivalents at the time, the Typhoon is enormous, although only a couple of metres longer than an American Ohio class SSBN, it is twice as wide and weighs half as much again.

To put this into perspective, if you were to sit a Typhoon-class submarine in the middle of the pitch of the old Wembley Stadium in London, it would not only run the full length of the pitch, it would also block the running track and ruin a few dozen rows of seats at both ends of the stadium to boot. And if you were stood on the top of the old Wembley Twin Towers, you'd actually be looking up at the submarine's periscopes.