Tragedy in the Barents Sea

Photo by REUTERS

In the photo: Kursk commander Gennady Lyachin

Victor LITOVKIN

Based on the results of combat training, the Kursk was considered the best in our Navy. Its commander, Captain 1st Rank Gennady Lyachin, is one of the most promising officers in the fleet. He recently returned from a successful long-distance voyage to the Mediterranean Sea, where he “worked” in the area of responsibility of NATO ships, which were never able to detect and find him. This is considered by experts to be the highest professional chic. And yet, the most serious accident on a submarine (sailors are still superstitiously wary of other definitions) testifies not only to the fact that no one is immune from chance, but also to the extremely serious problems that the Russian Armed Forces have faced in recent years. They are well known to everyone - this is the indifference of the state to the state of the army and navy, the professional development of their command staff and the morale of officers, to the supply of modern weapons, systems and means for combat support and rescue operations to the troops. According to information agencies and other OG sources, the Kursk lay down on the ground on Saturday. He was supposed to conduct training torpedo firing at the Northern Fleet training ground in the Barents Sea, received the go-ahead for this from the head of the exercises, but the escort ships did not record the launch of his torpedoes. Only a dull thud, which was heard by hydroacoustics on the aircraft-carrying cruiser Admiral Nikolai Kuznetsov. And when the submarine did not make contact within the specified period, the navy sounded the alarm and began to search for the missing submarine. The boat lay on the bottom of the Barents Sea at a depth of 107 meters, at a distance of several tens of kilometers from the shores of the Kola Peninsula and showed no signs of life. The nuclear power plant was shut down. But the submarine did not throw either an emergency buoy or a radio antenna to the surface - this meant that the hull was significantly damaged and the electric motors inside the boat were not working. An external examination confirmed these assumptions - the bow and part of the wheelhouse were crushed, as if from a powerful blow to some heavy object. There was water inside the first four compartments, including the command one. There was fear that the submarine's management had died. But the sound of a sledgehammer in the stern of the ship proved that the crew, numbering 116 people, remained alive and they continued to fight for salvation. All combat-ready ships hurried to the scene of the accident. And the Commander-in-Chief, Fleet Admiral Vladimir Kuroyedov, has already stated that the situation is very alarming and there is very little chance of saving the crew. The fact is that the main cause of the accident is still unclear. Experts are inclined to different versions: according to one, an explosion occurred in the bow of a training torpedo that did not exit the torpedo tube, or an old mine. According to another, the boat collided with some very heavy floating object. But, according to Hero of the Soviet Union, Vice Admiral Evgeniy Chernov, a torpedo explosion at depth could have caused much greater destruction than those reported. Most likely, it was someone's foreign submarine, one of the interlocutors told me. The fact that it has not yet been discovered, or that the leaders of the US and British Navy claim that their ships were not in the area of the accident, does not prove anything. In February 1992, in the depths of the same northern training ground, our Project 945A multipurpose submarine (“Sierra-2” according to the Western classification) collided with the American attack boat Baton Rouge, and its command also denied this fact until ceramic parts from the submarine’s skin were presented to it. It is possible that we will also find out whose boat collided with the Kursk in a few weeks. But it can already be argued that if the version of a collision of ships is confirmed, then this is the direct fault of the hydroacoustics of both boats, which did not hear the approaching ship, or the reason is the poor performance of the equipment. Here, too, both technical and human factors can be at the core. Experts explain non-functioning batteries by technical, but perhaps also human, reasons. It is impossible that their charging was not checked before going out on tactical exercises. But perhaps, experts cautiously suggest, that rare earth elements were stolen from them, as was already recorded on other boats, and at the decisive moment the ship was unable to switch to the electricity they had accumulated. According to some reports, the batteries were not loaded into the submarine before leaving for the exercise. If this assumption is confirmed, we can assume that one of the causes of the tragedy was malfeasance. The question is why the high-pressure cylinders, which were supposed to “push” the submarine to the surface, did not work. It is believed that most of them were also destroyed by the impact. In the meantime, the task is to save the Kursk crew. According to the Navy experts we contacted, there is hope for this. Although very fragile. People will not be able to get out through the bow torpedo tubes - they are destroyed. The last option remains. Exit to the surface through the aft escape hatch. To do this, there must be a rescue ship above the boat. A cable is lowered from it, which is fixed to the hull of the submarine. And the sailors in individual breathing apparatus, one after another, rise along this cable to the surface. Moreover, they must do this with frequent stops so that decompression of the body does not occur (blood boiling from a sharp drop in pressure). But whether the sailors will be able to do all this correctly or not is a difficult question. It all depends on their training, as well as their strength of spirit. To spend several days in the emergency box of a durable hull without light or communication with the shore, without great hopes of salvation - in order to withstand this and not break down, not panic, you must have a very strong character. You can save people using the Kolokol system. Also through the aft hatch, but rise in a dome filled with oxygen. With the same long stops. But the trouble is that you can’t fit many people into this bell at once; you’ll have to do several dives. Not everyone can wait for them. There is hope for the rescue devices that are on board the rescue ship "Mikhail Rudnitsky". True, this device can fit at most 20-25 people. And it takes him at least 5-6 hours to carry out one rescue operation. Once upon a time, the Northern Fleet had a rescue submarine “Olenek”, which could moor to a ship in distress under water and remove its crew. But the fleet did not have money to maintain it in combat-ready condition, and the unique lifesaver safely rotted at the pier. According to the experts we contacted for advice, foreign assistance to our sailors may also turn out to be useless. The design features of American mini-boats are not compatible with the escape hatches of the Kursk, and other rescue methods in the fleets of Western countries are almost similar to those currently used by sailors of the Northern Fleet. For now, we can only rely on their professional training, courage and resilience of those captured on the submarine. ...At the time of signing the newspaper, the rescue operation to rescue the sailors of the Kursk submarine missile carrier from sea captivity had not brought positive results. Only a miracle can save the boat Vladimir POKROVSKY Is it POSSIBLE to raise the boat to the surface along with the crew? Nikolai GREBTSOV, a former submarine designer who took part in the rescue and search for crashed underwater vehicles, believes that this is practically unrealistic - at least with those means that are not classified as “secret”. - The main problem here is that the boat lies on the ground - in this case it sinks into the silt and gets sucked to the bottom. In order to tear it off, an effort of tens of thousands of tons is required. A more reliable way is diving, washing the silt under the bottom, lifting on pontoons, etc. But this is a very labor-intensive job that takes a lot of effort and time. They wanted to raise the Titanic in this way, but abandoned it after it turned out that the preparatory work would take fifteen years. In the case of the Kursk, it will take much less time than fifteen years, but at least it will not be calculated in hours or even days - and the team, as I understand it, has only a few hours left. The expert emphasizes that, in principle, there may be ultra-modern and, accordingly, top-secret technologies with the help of which it is still possible to save the Kursk crew. “Unforeseen situations constantly happen at sea,” he says, “when everything is thought out, everything is calculated, everything is taken into account, and then at some point everything goes to hell.” You have to be constantly prepared for this, and as far as I understand, they are always preparing for this. And I don’t understand why not say that there are such and such methods that we will use. There is no need to reveal military secrets. But they could say that such methods exist in principle, in order to at least reassure people. But they are silent. Will we make do with our own powerlessness? Boris YUNANOV THE TRAGEDY of the nuclear-powered icebreaker “Kursk” is not an internal matter of Russia. This is an emergency on an international scale. The whole world perceived it as its own misfortune. Not so much even because of the possible environmental consequences of the disaster, but because of the obvious need to save people: in any normal society this is the highest value. Offers of help began to arrive immediately. The British Royal Navy, which has the world's richest experience in underwater rescue operations, has offered the Northern Fleet a mini-submarine capable of simultaneously carrying 16 people and a remote-controlled underwater device. US Navy - two deep-sea vehicles capable of diving to depths of up to 600 meters and evacuating 24 people at a time. Norwegians - assistance in ensuring radiation safety. Even the Israelis responded. Almost all experts agree that Western equipment is more advanced and underwater vehicles are more maneuverable: in conditions of strong underwater currents this is almost decisive. What about Moscow? It took almost two days to prepare the response message of gratitude - the fact that it was finally signed personally by the Minister of Defense was announced with pomp on TV. Another day was spent preparing the visit of the group of admirals to Brussels. All the West was waiting for was an official request for help from Russia. A Royal Navy rescue squad was waiting at the airfield in Glasgow, ready to fly out at any moment. The main arguments of the Russian side - about the incompatibility of various technical standards of life-saving equipment and technologies of the Russian and NATO navies - were listened to by the same British with bewilderment: if we undertake to help, then there is a chance. “We’ll manage on our own,” confidently declares Deputy Prime Minister Klebanov, head of the commission to investigate the causes of the accident. “We have all the necessary means,” they echo him at the main headquarters of the Navy. There is less and less time left, and Klebanov spends hours flying to the resort of Dagomys to report to the president. He, of course, sees no reason to interrupt his vacation. The content of his conversations with Klebanov, who on Monday promised the press to evacuate the crew of the Kursk, remains a sealed secret. And also this strange visit to the president by leading figures of science, including nuclear physicists: the official reason for the meeting looks insignificant and ridiculous. On Wednesday, when it became clear that it was impossible to save the sailors on their own, the command of the Russian Navy suddenly announced that they “did not refuse the offered assistance.” The figure of default has moved into a “pose.” “The pride of the Russian authorities could cost the crew of the Kursk their lives,” the British Daily Telegraph warned in response. But calls from the Western press to “think twice before rejecting Western help” were persistently ignored by Moscow. Why? Why are the country and the navy, which have more than a dozen nuclear submarine disasters behind them that have claimed several hundred lives, so self-confident? The British Guardian sees the reason in “the legacy of national pride and fear of humiliation left over from the Cold War.” Of course, there are also national security considerations: after all, Kursk is not the Mir station. And yet, still... “Acknowledging foreigners’ ability to save the boat would be tantamount to admitting technical imperfection. President Putin doesn’t want this,” writes The Guardian, immediately noting that “the Kursk disaster is a misfortune; accepting international assistance is not a reason for humiliation, but the reasonable pragmatism of a strong power.” Let us add from ourselves: the same pragmatism that we (is it not too rash?) proclaimed the alpha and omega of foreign policy. Pragmatism, in the name of which we seem to be trying to fully restore contacts with the still unloved NATO. However, it may turn out that all this is thinking in the wrong direction. Maybe Moscow doesn’t want anything else - publicity about the real causes of the accident and the real situation at Kursk? In any case, experts around the world know that shutting down reactors is not a guarantee of nuclear safety; in order to avoid an explosion, they must be constantly cooled. The whole world knows that Russia, if it conceals a radiation leak, will thereby violate the agreements on early radiation warning. The whole world remembers how much the mania for secrecy during the days of Chernobyl cost the USSR. So, is everything repeating itself? It’s good if it’s in the form of a farce...

Viktor LITOVKIN There is another tragedy in the RUSSIAN navy. Our whole country and the world have been experiencing it for several days now. In the Barents Sea, the multi-purpose nuclear submarine cruiser Kursk, project 949A (Antey), or Oscar-2 according to the Western classification, lay down on the ground. This is one of the youngest and most modern submarines, which entered combat service only in 1995. Boats of this type are considered the most valuable for combating enemy aircraft carrier strike groups, since almost single-handedly they are capable of destroying almost half of the combat guard of an aircraft carrier and seriously damaging the aircraft carrier itself, disrupting its combat mission.

Another tragedy has occurred in the RUSSIAN navy. Our whole country and the world have been experiencing it for several days now.

In the Barents Sea, the multi-purpose nuclear submarine cruiser Kursk, project 949A (Antey), or Oscar-2 according to the Western classification, lay down on the ground. This is one of the youngest and most modern submarines, which entered combat service only in 1995. Boats of this type are considered the most valuable for combating enemy aircraft carrier strike groups, since almost single-handedly they are capable of destroying almost half of the combat guard of an aircraft carrier and seriously damaging the aircraft carrier itself, disrupting its combat mission.

According to information agencies and other OG sources, the Kursk lay down on the ground on Saturday. He was supposed to conduct training torpedo firing at the Northern Fleet training ground in the Barents Sea, received the go-ahead for this from the head of the exercises, but the escort ships did not record the launch of his torpedoes. Only a dull thud, which was heard by hydroacoustics on the aircraft-carrying cruiser Admiral Nikolai Kuznetsov. And when the submarine did not make contact within the specified period, the navy sounded the alarm and began to search for the missing submarine.

The boat lay on the bottom of the Barents Sea at a depth of 107 meters, at a distance of several tens of kilometers from the shores of the Kola Peninsula and showed no signs of life. The nuclear power plant was shut down. But the submarine did not throw either an emergency buoy or a radio antenna to the surface - this meant that the hull was significantly damaged and the electric motors inside the boat were not working.

An external examination confirmed these assumptions - the bow and part of the wheelhouse were crushed, as if from a powerful blow to some heavy object. There was water inside the first four compartments, including the command one. There was fear that the submarine's management had died. But the sound of a sledgehammer in the stern of the ship proved that the crew, numbering 116 people, remained alive and they continued to fight for salvation.

All combat-ready ships hurried to the scene of the accident. And the Commander-in-Chief, Fleet Admiral Vladimir Kuroyedov, has already stated that the situation is very alarming and there is very little chance of saving the crew.

The fact is that the main cause of the accident is still unclear. Experts are inclined to different versions: according to one, an explosion occurred in the bow of a training torpedo that did not exit the torpedo tube, or an old mine. According to another, the boat collided with some very heavy floating object. But, according to Hero of the Soviet Union, Vice Admiral Evgeniy Chernov, a torpedo explosion at depth could have caused much greater destruction than those reported.

Most likely, it was someone's foreign submarine, one of the interlocutors told me. The fact that it has not yet been discovered, or that the leaders of the US and British Navy claim that their ships were not in the area of the accident, does not prove anything. In February 1992, in the depths of the same northern training ground, our Project 945A multipurpose submarine (“Sierra-2” according to the Western classification) collided with the American attack boat Baton Rouge, and its command also denied this fact until ceramic parts from the submarine’s skin were presented to it. It is possible that we will also find out whose boat collided with the Kursk in a few weeks.

But it can already be argued that if the version of a collision of ships is confirmed, then this is the direct fault of the hydroacoustics of both boats, which did not hear the approaching ship, or the reason is the poor performance of the equipment. Here, too, both technical and human factors can be at the core.

Experts explain non-functioning batteries by technical, but perhaps also human, reasons. It is impossible that their charging was not checked before going out on tactical exercises. But perhaps, experts cautiously suggest, that rare earth elements were stolen from them, as was already recorded on other boats, and at the decisive moment the ship was unable to switch to the electricity they had accumulated. According to some reports, the batteries were not loaded into the submarine before leaving for the exercise. If this assumption is confirmed, we can assume that one of the causes of the tragedy was malfeasance. The question is why the high-pressure cylinders, which were supposed to “push” the submarine to the surface, did not work. It is believed that most of them were also destroyed by the impact.

In the meantime, the task is to save the Kursk crew. According to the Navy experts we contacted, there is hope for this. Although very fragile. People will not be able to get out through the bow torpedo tubes - they are destroyed. The last option remains. Exit to the surface through the aft escape hatch. To do this, there must be a rescue ship above the boat. A cable is lowered from it, which is fixed to the hull of the submarine. And the sailors in individual breathing apparatus, one after another, rise along this cable to the surface. Moreover, they must do this with frequent stops so that decompression of the body does not occur (blood boiling from a sharp drop in pressure).

But whether the sailors will be able to do all this correctly or not is a difficult question. It all depends on their training, as well as their strength of spirit. To spend several days in the emergency box of a durable hull without light or communication with the shore, without great hopes of salvation - in order to withstand this and not break down, not panic, you must have a very strong character.

You can save people using the Kolokol system. Also through the aft hatch, but rise in a dome filled with oxygen. With the same long stops. But the trouble is that you can’t fit many people into this bell at once; you’ll have to do several dives. Not everyone can wait for them. There is hope for the rescue devices that are on board the rescue ship "Mikhail Rudnitsky". True, this device can fit at most 20-25 people. And it takes him at least 5-6 hours to carry out one rescue operation.

Once upon a time, the Northern Fleet had a rescue submarine “Olenek”, which could moor to a ship in distress under water and remove its crew. But the fleet did not have money to maintain it in combat-ready condition, and the unique lifesaver safely rotted at the pier.

According to the experts we contacted for advice, foreign assistance to our sailors may also turn out to be useless. The design features of American mini-boats are not compatible with the escape hatches of the Kursk, and other rescue methods in the fleets of Western countries are almost similar to those currently used by sailors of the Northern Fleet. For now, we can only rely on their professional training, courage and resilience of those captured on the submarine.

...At the time of signing the newspaper, the rescue operation to rescue the sailors of the Kursk submarine missile carrier from sea captivity had not brought positive results.

Only a miracle can save the boat

Vladimir POKROVSKY

IS IT POSSIBLE to lift a boat and its crew to the surface? Nikolai GREBTSOV, a former submarine designer who took part in the rescue and search for crashed underwater vehicles, believes that this is practically unrealistic - at least with those means that are not classified as “secret”.

- The main problem here is that the boat lies on the ground - in this case it sinks into the silt and gets sucked to the bottom. In order to tear it off, an effort of tens of thousands of tons is required. A more reliable way is diving, washing the silt under the bottom, lifting on pontoons, etc. But this is a very labor-intensive job that takes a lot of effort and time. They wanted to raise the Titanic in this way, but abandoned it after it turned out that the preparatory work would take fifteen years. In the case of the Kursk, it will take much less time than fifteen years, but at least it will not be calculated in hours or even days - and the team, as I understand it, has only a few hours left.

The expert emphasizes that, in principle, there may be ultra-modern and, accordingly, top-secret technologies with the help of which it is still possible to save the Kursk crew.

“Unforeseen situations constantly happen at sea,” he says, “when everything is thought out, everything is calculated, everything is taken into account, and then at some point everything goes to hell.” You have to be constantly prepared for this, and as far as I understand, they are always preparing for this. And I don’t understand why not say that there are such and such methods that we will use. There is no need to reveal military secrets. But they could say that such methods exist in principle, in order to at least reassure people. But they are silent.

Will we make do with our own powerlessness?

Boris YUNANOV

The TRAGEDY of the nuclear-powered icebreaker "Kursk" is not an internal matter of Russia. This is an emergency on an international scale. The whole world perceived it as its own misfortune. Not so much even because of the possible environmental consequences of the disaster, but because of the obvious need to save people: in any normal society this is the highest value.

Offers of help began to arrive immediately. The British Royal Navy, which has the world's richest experience in underwater rescue operations, has offered the Northern Fleet a mini-submarine capable of simultaneously carrying 16 people and a remote-controlled underwater device. US Navy - two deep-sea vehicles capable of diving to depths of up to 600 meters and evacuating 24 people at a time. Norwegians - assistance in ensuring radiation safety. Even the Israelis responded.

Almost all experts agree that Western equipment is more advanced and underwater vehicles are more maneuverable: in conditions of strong underwater currents this is almost decisive.

What about Moscow? It took almost two days to prepare the response message of gratitude - the fact that it was finally signed personally by the Minister of Defense was announced with pomp on TV. Another day was spent preparing the visit of the group of admirals to Brussels.

All the West was waiting for was an official request for help from Russia. A Royal Navy rescue squad was waiting at the airfield in Glasgow, ready to fly out at any moment.

The main arguments of the Russian side - about the incompatibility of various technical standards of life-saving equipment and technologies of the Russian and NATO navies - were listened to by the same British with bewilderment: if we undertake to help, then there is a chance.

“We’ll manage on our own,” confidently declares Deputy Prime Minister Klebanov, head of the commission to investigate the causes of the accident. “We have all the necessary means,” they echo him at the main headquarters of the Navy. There is less and less time left, and Klebanov spends hours flying to the resort of Dagomys to report to the president. He, of course, sees no reason to interrupt his vacation. The content of his conversations with Klebanov, who on Monday promised the press to evacuate the crew of the Kursk, remains a sealed secret. And also this strange visit to the president by leading figures of science, including nuclear physicists: the official reason for the meeting looks insignificant and ridiculous.

On Wednesday, when it became clear that it was impossible to save the sailors on their own, the command of the Russian Navy suddenly announced that they “did not refuse the offered assistance.” The figure of default has moved into a “pose.” “The pride of the Russian authorities could cost the crew of the Kursk their lives,” the British Daily Telegraph warned in response. But calls from the Western press to “think twice before rejecting Western help” were persistently ignored by Moscow.

Why? Why are the country and the navy, which have more than a dozen nuclear submarine disasters behind them that have claimed several hundred lives, so self-confident?

The British Guardian sees the reason in “the legacy of national pride and fear of humiliation left over from the Cold War.” Of course, there are also national security considerations: after all, Kursk is not the Mir station. And yet, still... “Acknowledging foreigners’ ability to save the boat would be tantamount to admitting technical imperfection. President Putin doesn’t want this,” writes The Guardian, immediately noting that “the Kursk disaster is a misfortune; accepting international assistance is not a reason for humiliation, but the reasonable pragmatism of a strong power.”

Let us add from ourselves: the same pragmatism that we (is it not too rash?) proclaimed the alpha and omega of foreign policy. Pragmatism, in the name of which we seem to be trying to fully restore contacts with the still unloved NATO.

However, it may turn out that all this is thinking in the wrong direction. Maybe Moscow doesn’t want anything else - publicity about the real causes of the accident and the real situation at Kursk? In any case, experts around the world know that shutting down reactors is not a guarantee of nuclear safety; in order to avoid an explosion, they must be constantly cooled. The whole world knows that Russia, if it conceals a radiation leak, will thereby violate the agreements on early radiation warning. The whole world remembers how much the mania for secrecy during the days of Chernobyl cost the USSR. So, is everything repeating itself? It’s good if it’s in the form of a farce...

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