ARMED FORCES: The Killer Whales

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Inside Siberia. Not far from where the new Trigger was being fitted out at Groton, Conn, last week, a special section of the Electric Boat Co. yard known as "Siberia" was under a tight, 24-hour guard. There, civilian sub builders and the Navy's top engineers and designers are engaged in a giant gamble. They are working, not on a U.S. version of the XXVI, but on what the Navy hopes will be an answer to Russia's super-subs: an atomic killer submarine. Longer and wider than present-day subs, she would be powered by virtually noiseless atomic engines. Fully submerged, she could cruise for 40 days off enemy sub bases, be able to walk away from surface ships. If all goes well, the Navy hopes to have a working model by 1953. The Navy is thus betting on a maybe of the future instead of trying to duplicate the known present. But, says one high-ranking subman, "with a fleet of atomic submarines, we could clean anything from the sea."

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