"Diesel Boats Forever": the great USS Grenadier Soviet ballistic missile submarines chase, May 1959. Historical Scenario.

"Diesel Boats Forever": the great USS Grenadier Soviet ballistic missile submarines chase, May 1959. Historical Scenario.

A Harpoon Commander's Edition scenario for EC2003 Battle for the GIUK Gap Battleset and the HCCW-140314 Cold War 1950-1975 Platform Database. This scenario is designed with advanced Scenario Editor and to be run with HCE 2015.008+ or later.

Image: USS Grenadier (SS-525) in 1951, after the Guppy II conversion (Guppy stands for Greater Underwater Propulsion Power Program) with the original stepped Portsmouth Sail (changed to a taller Northern Sail circa 1960), but probably previously to be fitted with a BQR-2 (circa 1953), and apparently with WFA (dome) and JT (abaft it) sonars on deck. US Navy photo, and in consequence in public domain, took from navysource.org.

This scenario is designed to be played from the Blue/US side or from the Red/Soviet side. To avoid a few spoilers you should play a few times first the Blue side, and only later play the Red side.

Well beyond the commissioning of USS Nautilus (SSN-571) in May 1954, five years later USN can count with only six nuclear attack submarines, some of them experimental. It should wait to 1975 to see the last GUPPY conversions retired (USS Tiru, SS-416), and to 1990 to see the last operational combat-capable conventional diesel-electric decommissioned (USS Blueback, SS-581).
Also, the first US nuclear ballistic missile submarine was to start her first patrol only from November 1960 (USS George Washington, SSBN-598).
Meanwhile, from 1957 was suspected the Soviet Union has in service diesel-electric ballistic missile submarines in patrol near the US coast and of other Allies in North Atlantic.
To confirm the suspects, a drill was planned, centring four wartime period diesel-electric boats modernized to GUPPY configurations. They were also equipped with the medium-frequency long-range passive sonar BQR-2 (a direct derivative of the wartime German Balkongerat, employed in Type XXI-class submarines). But were not employed specialized hunter-killer submarines equipped with the longer range BQR-4 (Installed from 1951-1953 in seven SSK GUPPY IIA, and in three Balao Fleet Snorkel conversions near 1955, reducing the number of torpedoes and torpedo tubes)-
The four boats left their homeport of Key West, Florida, in April 1959, to conduct "special antisubmarine exercises", and were deployed somewhere in the GIUK gap.
Also were secretly deployed three maritime patrol squadrons at NAS Keflavik, Iceland.
At last, after about a month of sailing and more of 18 hours of chase, on 29 May 1959 a Soviet Zulu V-class/Project VA611 diesel-electric ballistic missile submarine, was caged in the trap and forced to surface, and some photos were took. The secretive mission was a success, and as pretended was demonstrated the presence of Soviet ballistic missile submarine in Atlantic Ocean. Was also a success of the intelligence community, and of the US strategic planning and tactical execution of anti-submarine (ASW) warfare.
And one case of Jack Daniels Old No. 7 black label Tennessee sour mash whiskey was awarded to the crew of USS Grenadier and her captain Ted Davis, by Admiral Jerauld Wright, then commander-in-chief of the Atlantic Fleet, as no unit award was presented to the boat for surfacing the Soviet ballistic-missile submarine, except a medal presented by the crew to Lt. Cmdr. Davis, made out of a mayonnaise lid and pieces of an old flag.

Enrique Mas, 27 June 2016.