USS BATON ROUGE SSN 661

• USS Baton Rouge (SSN-689) was a Los Angeles-class nuclear-powered attack submarine in the United States Navy, not SSN-661 (which is the USS Gato). USS Baton Rouge served from 1977 to 1995. • Named after Baton Rouge, Louisiana, she was the first ship in the U.S. Navy to bear the name of the city. • Commissioned on 25 June 1977, after being launched on 26 April 1975 at Newport News Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company in Virginia. • Cold War service: Baton Rouge was deployed on several missions in the Atlantic and Mediterranean, conducting intelligence-gathering, surveillance, and tracking of Soviet submarines. • Involved in a submarine collision: On 11 February 1992, USS Baton Rouge collided with the Russian Sierra-class submarine K-276 Kostroma near Kildin Island off the coast of Murmansk in Russian territorial waters. Both submarines survived and returned to port. • First known post-Cold War submarine collision: The 1992 collision was one of the first publicly acknowledged submarine incidents between the US and Russia after the end of the Cold War. • Quieting upgrades: USS Baton Rouge was among the early Los Angeles-class submarines to receive acoustic quieting upgrades, making her harder to detect. • Early decommissioning: She was decommissioned early on 13 January 1995, as a result of post-Cold War defense budget cuts and the cost of refueling her nuclear reactor. • Recycling: After decommissioning, Baton Rouge entered the Nuclear-Powered Ship and Submarine Recycling Program at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, and by 30 September 1997, she ceased to exist as a naval vessel. • Cultural note: The name Baton Rouge has not been reused on any subsequent US Navy ship as of 2024, making her unique in naval history.