Poseidon C-3 Missile

The only one of its kind to be on public display, a Poseidon C-3 missile with all of its electronics, hydraulics and propulsion elements still intact, is on display for visitors to examine at USS Bowfin Submarine Museum & Park.

This massive cutaway mock-up weighs 12,000 pounds, is 34 feet long and is 74 inches in diameter. The C-3 strategic missile was capable of being launched from a submerged Fleet Ballistic Missile submarine. The first submarine to carry and launch a C-3 missile was USS James Madison (SSBN-627) in August of 1970. The missile was donated to the Museum by the U.S. Navy through Lockheed Missile and Space Company, which manufactured the C-3 missiles for the Navy.

The C-3 Poseidon was designed to be the new-and-improved, more powerful successor to the A-3 Polaris Missile, which is also on display at USS Bowfin Submarine Museum & Park. The C-3 was larger and more than twice the weight of the A-3. Outfitted with multiple independently-targetable re-entry vehicle (MIRV) warheads, the C-3 was twice as accurate and had twice the explosive power of the A-3. Considering these factors, experts believe it to be eight times as deadly as the A-3.

The Poseidon missile program, with an estimated production cost of $2 billion, was announced by President Lyndon B. Johnson on January 18, 1965. Despite the new missile’s connection to the Polaris missiles, Johnson chose to give it the new name "Poseidon," named after the Greek mythological god of the sea.