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Career
Builder:	Electric Boat Company, Groton, Connecticut [1]
Laid down:	1 July 1949 [1]
Launched:	2 March 1951 [1]
Commissioned:	10 November 1951 [1]
Struck:	1 October 1973 [1]
Fate:	Sold for scrap, 21 March 1974 [1]
General characteristics
Class and type:	Barracuda-class diesel-electric hunter-killer submarine
Displacement:	765 tons (777 t) surfaced 1,160 tons (1179 t) submerged
Length:	196 ft 1 in (59.8 m) overall [1]
Beam:	24 ft 7 in (7.5 m) [1]
Draft:	14 ft 5 in (4.4 m) mean[1]
Propulsion:	3 × General Motors diesel engines, total 1050 bhp (0.8 MW) 2 × General Electric electric motors two screws [1]
Speed:	13 knots (24 km/h) surfaced 8.5 knots (16 km/h) submerged [1]
Test depth:	400 ft (120 m) [1]
Complement:	37 officers and men [1]
Armament:	4 × 21 in (533 mm) torpedo tubes

USS Barracuda (SSK-1), the lead ship of her class, was the second ship of the United States Navy to be named for the barracuda, a voracious, pike-like fish. Her keel was laid down on 1 July 1949 by the Electric Boat Division of General Dynamics Corporation in Groton, Connecticut. She was launched on 2 March 1951 as K-1 sponsored by Mrs. Willis Manning Thomas, and commissioned on 10 November 1951 with Lieutenant Commander F. A. Andrews in command.

The three SSK boats, Barracuda (SSK-1), Bass (SSK-2), and Bonita (SSK-3), were built around the large BQR-4 bow-mounted sonar array as part of Project Kayo, which experimented the use of passive acoustics with low-frequency, bow sonar arrays. When the boat was rigged for silent running, these arrays gave greatly-improved convergence zone detection ranges against snorkeling submarines. The SSKs themselves were limited in their anti-submarine warfare abilities by their low speed and their need to snorkel periodically, but the advances in sonar technology they pioneered were invaluable to later nuclear-powered submarines.

Barracuda joined Submarine Development Group 2 with her home port at New London, Connecticut. She cruised along the Atlantic coast of the United States and Canada, in the Caribbean Sea, and made a voyage to Greenock and Rothesay, Scotland, in June 1955. On 16 December 1956 her name was changed from K-1 to Barracuda (SSK-1). During intervals between and after these cruises, Barracuda operated along the eastern seaboard carrying out training and experimental exercises.

Barracuda was redesignated SST-3 on 3 July 1959 and decommissioned on 15 August 1959. She was scrapped between 8 April and 8 July 1974 near Charleston, South Carolina, possibly at the Braswell Shipyards.

See USS Barracuda for other ships of the same name.

1. ^ ^{a b c d e f g h i j k l m} Bauer, K. Jack & Roberts, Stephen S. (1991), Register of Ships of the U.S. Navy, 1775-1990: Major Combatants, Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, ISBN 0-313-26202-0

This article includes text from the public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships.