Nautilus' near sister Seawolf went to sea with a Liquid Metal Reactor decades before the Russians did (and they got rid of the things decades before the Russians did!
) Also the Skate class (which I think you need to compare the Novembers too not the Nautilus/Seawolf class) was almost as heavily armed (I've seen Novs listed as having 8 or 10 tubes and Skates having 6 to 8 tubes. So I picked the low November number and the high Skate number.) Also just a year after the 1st Novembers entered service we had the 1st Skipjacks and four years later we had Thresher/Permit class boats (Novembers were still being built at this time, and it would be 5 years before the first Victors I were built). Yea our 1st few boats weren’t as powerful but we were building more powerful boats already, and the Thresher/Permit practically made the November an antique.