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The '''Benjamin Franklin'' class' of submarine was an evolutionary development from the ''James Madison'' class of fleet ballistic missile submarine. Having quieter machinery and other improvements, they are considered a separate class. A subset of this class is the re-engineered 640 class starting with the USS George C Marshall (SSBN 654). Together with
the ''George Washington'',
the ''Ethan Allen'',
the ''Lafayette'', and
the ''James Madison''
classes, they comprised the "41 for Freedom."
The ''Franklin'' class submarines were built with the Polaris A-3, and later converted to carry the Poseidon C-3. During the late 1970s and early 1980s, select units were further modified to carry Trident-I (C-4) missiles.
In the early 1990s, to make room for the ''Ohio''-class ballistic missile submarines within the limits set by SALT II, the missile tubes of
''Kamehameha'' and
''James K. Polk''
were disabled. Those boats were redesignated special operations attack submarines and given SSN hull classification symbols. USS Kamehameha was decommissioned on 2 April, 2002, the last ship of the entire class to be decommissioned.

Contents

Boats

Boats

(Boats marked with '
★ ' indicate C-4 conversions.)

★ (SSBN-640) USS ''Benjamin Franklin'' '
★ '

★ (SSBN-641) USS ''Simon Bolivar'' '
★ '

★ (SSBN/SSN-642) USS ''Kamehameha''

★ (SSBN-643) USS ''George Bancroft'' '
★ '

★ (SSBN-644) USS ''Lewis and Clark''

★ (SSBN/SSN-645) USS ''James K. Polk''

★ (SSBN-654) USS ''George C. Marshall''

★ (SSBN-655) USS ''Henry L. Stimson'' '
★ '

★ (SSBN-656) USS ''George W. Carver''

★ (SSBN-657) USS ''Francis Scott Key'' '
★ '

★ (SSBN-658) USS ''Mariano G. Vallejo'' '
★ '

★ (SSBN-659) USS ''Will Rogers''