The contract to build Batfish was awarded to the Electric Boat Division of General Dynamics Corporation on 25 June 1968.[2] Her keel was laid down in its Groton, Connecticut shipyard on 9 February 1970.[3] The boat was launched on 9 October 1971, sponsored by Mrs. Mildred C. Gralla, wife of Vice Admiral Arthur R. Gralla, commander of the Military Sealift Command. The featured speaker at the ceremony was Senator Lowell P. Weicker.[4] The submarine completed her initial sea trials successfully in June 1972 under the supervision of Admiral Hyman G. Rickover.[5] She was commissioned at a ceremony in Groton on 1 September 1972 where Rear Admiral Walter L. Small was the featured speaker.[6]
Batfish was originally budgeted at $67 million in the Navy's fiscal year 1967 budget. By 1970 he estimated cost had risen to $76.5 million, both because her various subcontractors had learned just how complex these submarines were, and because of design modifications required by the Navy.[7]
The ship was 302inchesft2inchesin (ftin) long; she was a long-hull variant of the Sturgeon class which provided an extra 10feet of hull space over the earlier vessels in her class. Batfish had a beam of 31inchesft8inchesin (ftin), and a draft of 29inchesft6inchesin (ftin) when surfaced. She displaced 3,640 long tons when surfaced and 4,650 long tons when submerged.[8]
Her hull and sail were made from welded steel plates. Her bow was reserved for her spherical sonar array, and thus her torpedo tubes were mounted amidships.
She had a single propeller that was driven by two steam turbines. Steam for the turbines was produced by a Westinghouse S5W nuclear reactor. Her maximum speed was approximately 20 knots surfaced and 30 knots submerged.
Her main armament was four 21-inch torpedo tubes which accommodated Mark 48 torpedos, SUBROC and Harpoon missiles, and various mines.
Batfish had BQQ-5 sonar system which included a bow-mounted spherical-array. It also had a retractable 1,100-foot towed array, likely a TB-16.[9] [10] She had two periscopes for visual search, one smaller than the other to minimize the possibility of detection.[11]
The submarine was an early user of a number of advanced technologies. In 1976, Batfish was the first submarine to make operational use of Extremely-Low-Frequency radio communications.[12] [13] In 1980, she was the first U.S. submarine to receive Special Hull Treatment, a coating of rubberized anechoic tiles which were glued to her hull to dampen noise emissions. An electrostatically supported gyro navigator (ESGN) inertial navigation system allowed Batfish to determine her location even when navigating submerged for extended periods.[14]
She was manned by 12 officers and 95 enlisted men at the time of her launch, but her complement varied over time and was as large as 12 officers and 110 men.[15]
Batfish was the second ship of the United States Navy to be named for the batfish. The first Batfish was a successful World War II submarine.
After commissioning, Batfish was assigned to Submarine Squadron 4, which at the time was based at Naval Station Charleston at Charleston, South Carolina. She arrived there on 7 October 1972 after stops at Norfolk and the U.S. Naval Academy.[16]
From her arrival in Charleston through the late Spring of 1974, Batfish went through multiple cycles of training, evaluation, maintenance, and modification to ready her for deployment. During this period, at about 1 pm on 22 January 1973, Batfish ran hard aground at the entrance to Charleston Harbor while proceeding to sea. She was pulled free by five tugs at about 7 pm that same day.[17] Fog was reported as a possible cause of the grounding.[18] She returned to port where damage to her bottom was repaired.
The boat was sent on her first operational deployment in 1974. Much of Batfish's service history was classified at the time, but it clearly involved shadowing Soviet ballistic missile submarines, and intelligence gathering near the Soviet's Arctic coast. Contemporary reporting on her activities was sparse. Nonetheless, the following activities can be documented:
| Late Spring 1974 | End of June 1974 | ASW in Eastern Atlantic | Portland, England | |
| July 1974 | Fleet exercise off Jacksonville, FL | |||
| August 1974 | October 1974 | NATO exercise "Northern Merger" | ||
| 23 July 1975 | Special Operations in the Atlantic | |||
| 26 August 1975 | ASW operations with 6th Fleet | Taranto, Italy | ||
| September 1975 | NATO exercise "Deep Express" | La Maddalena, Italy | ||
| November 1975 | NATO exercise "Devil Foil" | La Spezia, Italy | ||
| November 1975 | NATO exercise "Dogfish" | La Maddalena, Italy | ||
| December 1975 | January 1976 | Special Operations | Naples, Italy | |
| October 1976 | NATO exercise "Teamwork '76"[19] | |||
| 2 March 1978 | 17 May 1978 | Operation Evening Star (see below) | ||
| 14 November 1978 | 9 December 1978 | Fleet exercise "Gulfex '79"[20] | Tampa, Cape Canaveral, Florida | |
| October 1979 | Fleet exercise "Linear Chair" | |||
| July 1986 | Fleet exercise "Advance Phase III"[21] | |||
| February 1992 | August 1992 | Operation Maritime Monitor in Mediterranean | ||
| 22 March 1995 | July 1995 | Theodore Roosevelt Carrier Battle Group in support of operations in the Balkans |
On 2 March 1978, Batfish left Charleston captained by Commander (later Rear Admiral) Thomas Evans. Like most of the boat's deployments, details of "Operation Evening Star" were classified. Some of the details of this remarkable patrol were declassified in June 1999,[23] and a press conference highlighting the mission was held on 1 March 2001 as part of a program to honor the centennial of the U.S. submarine force.[24]
Batfish was dispatched from Charleston because U.S. spy satellites and CIA-sponsored Norwegian intelligence activities suggested that a Soviet Navy Yankee I-class ballistic missile submarine was about to leave her base on the Kola Peninsula. On 17 March 1978, Batfish detected this submarine in the Norwegian Sea some 200nmi above the Arctic Circle. Batfish began trailing the boat, collecting valuable information on how Soviet submarines operated. On 19 March, after 350 miles and 51 hours of trailing her target, Batfish lost contact during a storm. A P-3 Orion patrol plane sent from Reykjavik refound the Soviet sub, and Batfish was able to once again slip in behind her on 21 March. Batfish remained in contact with the missile submarine for the next 44 days over 8,870 nautical miles, only breaking off in the Norwegian Sea as the Soviet ship returned to base.
On 17 May 1978, after 77 days submerged, Batfish surfaced off Charleston to return to her home port. Commander Evans was awarded the Legion of Merit for this mission.[25]
The Soviets remained unaware that their submarines were being followed until U.S. Navy Chief Warrant Officer John Anthony Walker reported the incident to them while he was spying in the 1980s. Walker pleaded guilty to espionage in 1985. Ironically, the leak of Batfish's success in tracking the Soviet missile submarine may have contributed to the end of the Cold War. The realization that its submarine-launched missiles were vulnerable, and were not a reliable second-strike force is thought by some to have influenced Soviet unwillingness to compete with the United States.[26] In 1985, Secretary of the Navy John Lehman declared that U.S. submarines would attack Soviet missile submarines "in the first five minutes of the war", a statement given credibility by Batfish's success in Operation Evening Star.
The boat underwent continual maintenance to keep her running, and she had short periods of upkeep and restricted availability throughout her service life. During her 27 years of commissioned service, she spent over three years undergoing two major overhauls.
Batfish underwent a 15-month overhaul at Portsmouth, Virginia beginning in March 1979.[27] This work was estimated at $36.7 million.[28]
The submarine began an extensive overhaul in January 1988 at the Charleston Naval Shipyard. She did not leave the yard for sea trials until December 5, 1990. Vice Admiral Roger F. Bacon, Commander of the Submarine Force, U.S. Atlantic Fleet, publicly criticized the shipyard's work as 14 months late and $6 million over budget. The overhaul cost $127.5 million.[29]
Batfish changed to "in commission, in reserve" status, pending scrapping, on 2 November 1998.[30] She was decommissioned on 17 March 1999 at the Pearl Harbor Submarine Base and stricken from the Naval Vessel Register the same day. Her scrapping via the Nuclear-Powered Ship and Submarine Recycling Program at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Bremerton, Washington, was completed on 22 November 2002.
Batfish and her crew earned a variety of honors and awards during her service including:[31]