YANKEE Submarine Firing Cruise Missile, by Edward L. Cooper, 1985. The Soviets converted a YANKEE-Class nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine into a cruise missile attack submarine in 1985 as the test platform for the large, long-range, nuclear-tipped SS-NX-24 cruise missile. The experimental SS-NX-24, like the US Tomahawk cruise missile, was developed for launch from submarines.