Poster Vintage "Rubis" class (refit) French submarine

The Rubis Class is a class of six Nuclear Attack Submarines designed in the late 1970s and launched in the early 1980s. They are still in service today. Their mission: submarine warfare, escorting convoys (SSBN, aircraft carriers, etc.) and electronic intelligence.

Successors of the classic Agosta-type submarines, the Rubis are the smallest nuclear submersibles in the world, thanks to a particularly compact boiler room. Proof of French know-how, both in design and maintenance, they are still in active service even though the top-of-the-line will soon be approaching 40 years.

These submarines, nearly 74 meters long and 2,400 tonnes, carry 68 crew members for missions sometimes longer than three months. They are equipped with wire-guided F17 torpedoes, mines and EXOCET SM39 missiles. The S.N.A. Rubies can also deploy commando teams as close as possible to the coast.

Six units were manufactured: the Rubis, the Saphir (decommissioned in 2019), the Casabianca, the Emeraude (infamous for its serious accident in 1994), the Amethyste (which establishes a more hydrodynamic hull shape), and the Perle (currently under repair following a serious fire in June 2020). They will be gradually replaced in this decade by the "Suffren" types, the SNA-NGs which outclass them in every way.

This poster was produced using Procreate and iPad Pro in 2020