The contract to build Batfish was awarded to the Electric Boat Division of General Dynamics Corporation on 25 June 1968.

By 1970 he estimated cost had risen to $76.5 million, both because her various subcontractors had learned just how complex these submarines were, and because of design modifications required by the Navy.

[16] From her arrival in Charleston through the late Spring of 1974, Batfish went through multiple cycles of training, evaluation, maintenance, and modification to ready her for deployment.

During this period, at about 1 pm on 22 January 1973, Batfish ran hard aground at the entrance to Charleston Harbor while proceeding to sea.

Some of the details of this remarkable patrol were declassified in June 1999,[25] and a press conference highlighting the mission was held on 1 March 2001 as part of a program to honor the centennial of the U.S. submarine force.

[26] Batfish was dispatched from Charleston because U.S. spy satellites and CIA-sponsored Norwegian intelligence activities suggested that a Soviet Navy Yankee I-class ballistic missile submarine was about to leave her base on the Kola Peninsula.

On 17 March 1978, Batfish detected this submarine in the Norwegian Sea some 200 nautical miles (370 km) above the Arctic Circle.

Batfish remained in contact with the missile submarine for the next 44 days over 8,870 nautical miles, only breaking off in the Norwegian Sea as the Soviet ship returned to base.

[27] The Soviets remained unaware that their submarines were being followed until U.S. Navy Chief Warrant Officer John Anthony Walker reported the incident to them while he was spying in the 1980s.

Ironically, the leak of Batfish's success in tracking the Soviet missile submarine may have contributed to the end of the Cold War.

The realization that its submarine-launched missiles were vulnerable, and were not a reliable second-strike force is thought by some to have influenced Soviet unwillingness to compete with the United States.

The boat underwent continual maintenance to keep her running, and she had short periods of upkeep and restricted availability throughout her service life.

Vice Admiral Roger F. Bacon, Commander of the Submarine Force, U.S. Atlantic Fleet, publicly criticized the shipyard's work as 14 months late and $6 million over budget.

[32] She was decommissioned on 17 March 1999 at the Pearl Harbor Submarine Base and stricken from the Naval Vessel Register the same day.

[3] Her scrapping via the Nuclear-Powered Ship and Submarine Recycling Program at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Bremerton, Washington, was completed on 22 November 2002.