Author’s Collection
In the final years of the Cold War, the Soviet Navy tasked two of its Delta class nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines, or SSBNs, to verify their capability to launch a full salvo of all of its 16 ballistic missiles at once. This was Operation Behemoth, and the results were, it has to be said, mixed.
The first attempt in 1989 ended in disaster when propellant and oxidizer leaked from one of the missiles and ignited in the launch tube; the resulting explosion destroyed the missile.