© A S☫heil presentation; First published 12 March 2025; Updated 13 March 2025


1. Table of Contents

2. Introduction

3. Background

4. First On The Spot Field Guidance

5. Specs

6. Conclusion


The possession of nuclear powered strategic submarines is only the privilege of the Big Five superpowers.
While nuclear weapons can be acquired by less advanced nations, the elite club of SSBN powers is still inaccessible to the dozens of minor nuclear powers.
So how did North Korea managed to find the entry ticket into this club, while Israel, Taiwan and Pakistan are still struggling?

Project Blossom (پروژه شکوفه)

Project Shokoofe or Project Gol is a joint Iranian-Israeli cooperation to develop long-range missiles that was canceled with the end of the Pahlavi dynasty. The name of this project was taken from the name of one of the Israeli missiles Perah, which is a Hebrew word for blossom.

Among the military projects that were jointly underway between Iran and Israel, Project Shokoofe (Project Gol) was considered one of the most important. This project was mainly focused on developing the useful range of a new version of the Gabriel anti-ship weapons and missiles and their use in the range (150 to 200 km). In this regard, on July 18, 1977, Iranian Deputy Defense Minister Hassan Toofanian met with Israeli Minister of War Moshe Dayan during a visit to Israel. The meeting discussed Iran's interest in developing the Shokoofeh project, which would eventually include a missile-carrying submarine, and Iran expressed concern about the development of missile technology in India and Pakistan. Within a year of this meeting, Iran allocated $280 million from its oil sales to the project. To support the project, a group of Iranian specialists began building a series of missile assembly facilities near Sirjan, in southern Iran, and established a missile testing center near Rafsanjan.

|1|[web.archive.org]|2|[archive.is]

After the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Iran's ambition to launch astronauts into space, deploy SSBNs, etc, were not abandoned, but only delayed by the Imposed War.

Thus the first Russian Kilo class submarine with a beam of Beam 9.9 m was commissioned on 21 November 1992 as IRIS Tareq at the naval base in Bandar Abbas.

In May 2012, Iran announced that it had relaunched Tareq after an overhaul in which some 18'000 components, including radar-evading cover, engine parts, propellers and radars were replaced. In the ceremony to rejoin the service, Admiral Habibollah Sayyari said the Russians did not provide Iran with any "instructions on submarine's details and structure", adding that his men had to figure out everything themselves.

This refit work that saw the submarine being cut open into two was instrumental for Iran's naval engineers to reverse engineer all the Russian technologies, pawing the way for an indigenous future SSN.

Leading to the first unofficial disclosure of the Bandar Abbas class nuclear submarine.

|1|[web.archive.org]|2|[archive.ph]|3|[archive.ph] ▲ Youtube video of first unofficial disclosure of the Bandar Abbas class nuclear submarine.

Images circulated online of the Bandar Abbas class Ballistic Missile Nuclear Submarine have then hinted at 14 SLBMs.

|1|[web.archive.org]|2|[archive.ph]|3|[archive.ph] ▲ First unofficial disclosure of the Bandar Abbas class Ballistic Missile Nuclear Submarine.

Iran is known to have started the development of miniaturized nuclear reactors. It is intended to provide the electric power for its 10'000-ton-class strategic submarines (SSBN) program disclosed in 2012. |1|[web.archive.org]|2|[archive.is]

President of State Affairs Kim Jong Un inspects major shipyards to learn about warship building and advance strategic policy for epochal development of shipbuilding industry

He also learned about the building of a nuclear-powered strategic guided missile submarine, which is being pushed forward according to the decisions of the Eighth Congress of the WPK.
　His field guidance at the major shipyards is a significant event heralding a new phase of bolstering up the Juche-based naval forces.

www.kcna.kp (2025.03.08.)

|1|[web.archive.org]|2|[archive.is]|3|[archive.is]|1|[web.archive.org]|2|[archive.is] ▲ Kim Jong Un also learned about the building of a nuclear-powered strategic guided missile submarine (2025.03.08.).

|1|[i.imgur.com]
|2|[archive.is]|3|[archive.is] ▲ North Korean Submarines 2025.


One can expect that the official and mediatic launching ceremony to be attended by Kim Jong Un and held at the Sinpo South Shipyard could take place by the fall of this year.

As time is running out, with over 7'998 Starlink DEW WMD already orbiting the LEO out of 42'000 planned and that will make ICBMs obsolete by 2027!

|1|[i.imgur.com]|2|[archive.is]|3|[archive.is] ▲ Read my lips and trust me bro.