[citation needed] The project was highly innovative in order to meet demanding requirements: sufficient speed to successfully pursue any ship; the ability to avoid anti-submarine weapons and to ensure success in underwater combat; low detectability, in particular to airborne MAD arrays, and also especially to active sonars; minimal displacement; and minimal crew complement.

A special titanium alloy hull would be used to create a small, low drag, 1,500 ton, six compartment[2] vessel capable of very high speeds (in excess of 40 knots (46 mph; 74 km/h)) and deep diving.

[citation needed] A prototype of a similar design, the Project 661 or K-162 (since 1978 K-222) cruise missile submarine (referred to by NATO as the Papa class), was built at the SEVMASH shipyard in Severodvinsk and completed in 1972.

The creation of the high-speed Spearfish torpedo by the Royal Navy was also a response to the threat posed by the reported capabilities of submarines of the Project 705.

Production started in 1964 as Project 705 with construction at both the Admiralty yard, Leningrad and at Sevmashpredpriyatiye (SEVMASH — Northern Machine-building Enterprise), Severodvinsk.

[2] Project 705 boats were intended to be experimental platforms themselves, to test all innovations and rectify their faults, that would afterwards found a new generation of submarines.

While such a solution could potentially decrease service times and increase reliability, it is still more expensive, and the idea of single-use reactors was unpopular in the 1970s.

Furthermore, Project 705 does not have a modular design that would allow quick replacement of reactors, so such maintenance would take at least as long as refueling a normal submarine.

American intelligence services became aware of the use of titanium alloys in the construction by retrieving metal shavings that fell from a truck as it left the St. Petersburg ship yard.

The third compartment had reinforced spherical bulkheads that could withstand the pressure at the test depth and offered additional protection to the crew in case of attack.

Reducing test depth and thinning the pressure hull would make up for increases in weight of the reactor, sonar system, and transverse bulkheads.

[1][2] The common myth that the Alfas could dive to 1,000 metres (3,300 ft) or deeper is rooted in Western intelligence estimates made during the Cold War.

While such automation is common on aircraft, other military ships and submarines have multiple, separate teams performing these tasks.

Due to these systems, the combat shift of Alfa submarines consisted only of eight officers stationed in the control room.

As a result, the high pressure could reach the sensitive instrument and broke through it, pouring Polonium-contaminated aerosols into the inhabited part of the reactor compartment.

However, the Soviet government still made good use of them, by exaggerating the planned number of vessels,[citation needed] which were assumed to allow naval superiority to be gained by shadowing major ship groups and destroying them in case of war.

The Alfas were intended to be only the first of a new generation of light, fast submarines, and before their decommissioning, there was already a family of derivative designs, including Project 705D, armed with long-range 650 mm torpedoes, and the Project 705A ballistic missile variant that was intended be able to defend herself successfully against attack submarines, therefore not needing patrolled bastions.

However, the main thrust of Russian/Soviet SSN development was instead focused toward the larger, quieter boats that eventually became the Akula-class submarine.

[citation needed] The technologies and solutions developed, tested, and perfected on Alfas formed the foundation for future designs.

[citation needed] Project Sapphire was a covert United States military operation to retrieve 1,278 pounds (580 kg) of very highly enriched uranium fuel intended for the Alfa-class submarines from a warehouse at the Ulba Metallurgical Plant outside Ust-Kamenogorsk in far eastern Kazakhstan, where it was stored with little protection after the fall of the Soviet Union.

[11] The material, known as uranium oxide-beryllium, was produced by the Ulba plant in the form of ceramic fuel rods for use by the submarines.

Eventually a second C-5 arrived, and the two planes carried the uranium to Dover, from where it was transported to Oak Ridge to be blended down for reactor fuel.

[12] France's Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives designed and donated special equipment for a dedicated dry-dock (SD-10) in Gremikha, which was used to remove and store the reactors until they could be dismantled.