Analysis of losses of nuclear submarines of the USSR Navy and the US Navy. US submarines: sinking, sinking and running aground Secrets of the Cold War

Titanium is an element of the periodic table of chemical elements D.E. Mendeleev, with atomic number 22. A light metal of a silvery hue with a density less than half that of iron and a melting point of +1660°C. Titanium is used for the manufacture of durable and high-quality things - reactor fittings, structural elements of aviation and space technology, body armor and cases of expensive watches, dental implants and special tools.
And the Soviet Union was so cool and rich that it “sculpted” submarine hulls entirely from titanium!

The unique submarine K-162 (Project 661 “Anchar”) is a record that was not reported by TASS. The underwater nuclear missile cruiser K-162 could accelerate at a depth of up to 44.85 knots (≈83 km/h). Special capabilities required special technical solutions - the K-162 hull was made entirely of titanium for the first time in the history of world shipbuilding.

Crystal Titanium Bar

Project 705K “underwater fighters” often became the target of criticism for their excessive complexity and poor choice of power plant - a reactor with a liquid metal coolant, despite its high power density, posed a mortal threat to the crew of the boat every second. Even at the base, the liquid metal reactor constantly required an external heat supply - the slightest accident on the heating main could lead to disaster. Nevertheless, the Lyras, in spite of all “probable opponents,” served honorably in the USSR Navy. Despite a number of serious accidents, not a single Lear was lost. And not a single person died in the struggle for their survival.

Another record holder is “Elusive Mike”. This is what American sailors called the Soviet experimental submarine K-278 “Komsomolets” (Project 685 “Plavnik”) with a maximum diving depth of more than 1 kilometer. The lightweight and durable titanium hull withstood monstrous water pressure - in August 1985, Komsomolets set an absolute world record for diving depth for submarines - 1027 meters! Sinking into the cold, impenetrable darkness, the K-278 became completely undetectable to enemy anti-submarine weapons. At the same time, already at a depth of 800 meters, still remaining undetectable and invulnerable, Komsomolets could use its torpedo weapons

Little merciless killers of project 705K (code "Lyra")

According to a statement published in early March, the Russian Ministry of Defense and JSC Zvyozdochka Ship Repair Center signed a contract to restore technical readiness through repairs and modernization of two nuclear submarines with titanium hulls B-239 Karp and B-276 Kostroma (formerly K -276 "Crab") of Project 945. In the future, the B-336 "Pskov" and B-534 "Nizhny Novgorod" - nuclear submarines of Project 945A - will undergo a similar modernization.

Modernization of titanium submarines should raise their combat capabilities to a new level. The boats will be equipped with a new modification of the OK-650 reactor (the unified power plant of all Russian nuclear-powered ships of the 3rd and 4th generations), the hydroacoustic complex of the submarines will be replaced, and the Caliber family of missiles will appear in the arsenal. Radio electronics will be radically updated, active noise dampers will appear, instead of the usual periscope, it is possible to install a multi-purpose mast with video cameras and laser rangefinders - the situation on the surface will be able to be observed on the monitor by everyone present in the central post, and not just the officer at the periscope eyepiece.

New technologies in a durable “Soviet-hardened” titanium case should turn the modernized “Condors” and “Barracudas” into a thunderstorm of the seas; in terms of their overall characteristics, the old nuclear-powered submarines will not be inferior to the new, fourth generation submarines.

“This decision of the Navy High Command, supported by the leadership of the Ministry of Defense, seems justified, since repairing and modernizing existing submarines, including titanium ones, is approximately two times faster than building new ones. This will require less financial costs"
- Ministry of Defense source

The representative of the Ministry of Defense emphasized that the decision to return titanium submarines to the permanent readiness forces of the Navy was made back in January, and the first stage of work on modernizing the B-239 Karp nuclear submarine will begin in the summer of 2013. It was noted that the Russian Ministry of Defense has returned to the idea of ​​restoring four titanium submarines due to the problems of saturating the Navy with new ships. First of all, this concerns delays in the construction of fourth-generation multi-purpose nuclear submarines of Project 885 Yasen.

"Carp" today. The boat was withdrawn from the Northern Fleet in 1998

Multipurpose nuclear submarine B-239 "Karp"(formerly K-239) project 945 “Barracuda” (Sierra-I according to NATO classification)

Laying - 1979, launching - 1981, commissioning - 1984;

Crew: 60 people;

Surface/underwater displacement – ​​6000/9600 tons;

Design waterline length (CSL) – 107.16 m;

Power plant: 1 OK-650A reactor, thermal power 180 MW, 4 steam generators, 2 turbogenerators, 2 battery groups, 2 diesel generators DG-300 750 hp each. with a fuel supply for 10 days, 1 main propeller, 2 trolling engines of 370 kW each, two trolling propellers.

Working diving depth – 480 meters;

Maximum diving depth – 550 meters;

Weapons:

2 torpedo tubes of 650 mm caliber, ammunition load of 12 “long” torpedoes and PLUR;
- 6 torpedo tubes of 533 mm caliber, ammunition load of 28 torpedoes, Vodopad anti-missile guided missiles and Shkval high-speed missile torpedoes;
- MANPADS for self-defense.

“Barracuda” and “Condor” are not simple ships - the titanium hull opened up absolutely amazing prospects for Soviet submariners. First of all, the high strength and low density of titanium made it possible, with the usual ratio of load items (hull mass - about 40% of the standard displacement of the submarine), to achieve almost twice as much strength. As a result, the Barracuda had a working depth 1.5-2 times greater than any of the Soviet boats of the previous generation and promising foreign analogues - it could dive into the abyss to a depth of half a kilometer, while maintaining the possibility of using torpedo weapons in the entire range working depths and speeds! The Condor dived even deeper - up to 600 meters.

For comparison, their peers, the American Los Angeles-class multipurpose submarine, rarely operated at depths greater than 250 meters. The maximum depth for an American submarine is said to be within 450 meters.
Of course, the combat capabilities of modern boats are determined not only by the speed and depth of immersion, but the magnificent combination of large working depths and high underwater speeds of the Soviet “Condors” and “Barracudas” is worthy of all praise.

Separately, it is worth mentioning reliability and durability - titanium is not subject to corrosion, the titanium cases of 30-year-old Barracudas still retain their original “shine” under a layer of rotten sound-absorbing rubber coating.
Finally, another important advantage of a titanium hull is a radical reduction in the boat’s magnetic field.

There is only one drawback - the high price and complexity of manufacturing a titanium case... but, fortunately, we no longer face such a problem. The production of titanium hulls was carried out by the Soviet industry, the superboats were built many years ago - which means you just need to change the “filling” and thank the USSR for its great heritage.

The strength of these nuclear submarines is best described by the incident off the island of Kildin, which occurred in February 1992: the Russian submarine K-276 Kostroma (the same “titanium” project 945) accidentally collided with the American submarine Baton Rouge patrolling in the Barents Sea ( USS Baton Rouge SSN-689). At that moment, when the Baton Rouge was at periscope depth, it suddenly came under the ramming attack of a pop-up Soviet submarine - the Kostroma hit its wheelhouse directly in the center of the American spy’s hull.

Damage to "Kostroma"

The ending of the tragicomedy is obvious: “Kostroma” healed its lacerated wounds and again returned to fulfilling its tasks in the ocean. “Baton Rouge” independently reached its home base, but the damage received (primarily microcracks and internal stresses that occurred in the hull) made repairing the boat impractical. Baton Rouge remained in reserve for a couple of years until it was finally decommissioned in 1995. Evil tongues claim that at the time of the collision a fire broke out on board the Baton Rouge, and there may have been casualties.

The international conflict was quickly resolved: the Americans stated that at the time of the collision, Baton Rouge was in neutral waters outside the 12-mile zone of the territorial waters of the Russian Federation. They agreed on this. And on the wheelhouse of the nuclear-powered icebreaker “Kostroma” a five-pointed star with the number “1” inscribed in it appeared - this is how submarine sailors counted their victories during the Great Patriotic War.

B-336 "Pskov" in Ara-Guba (Kola Peninsula), 2004

The consequences of a fire in the SRZ-82 dock are visible on the starboard side

Multipurpose nuclear submarine B-336 "Pskov"(formerly K-336 "Perch") project 945A "Condor" (Sierra-II according to NATO classification)
Designed to search and track submarines and surface ships of a potential enemy, and strike naval targets.

Laying - 1989, launching - 1992, commissioning - 1993.

Crew: 60 people;

Surface/underwater displacement – ​​6500/10400 tons;

Design waterline length (CSL) – 110.5 m;

Double-hull design, durable body made of titanium, consists of 6 compartments;

Power plant: 1 reactor OK-650B thermal power 190 MW, 4 steam generators, 2 turbogenerators, 2 battery groups, 2 diesel generators DG-300 750 hp each. with a fuel supply for 10 days, 1 main propeller, 2 trolling engines of 370 kW each, two trolling propellers.

Maximum speed in submerged position – 35 knots;

Working diving depth – 520 meters;

Maximum diving depth – 600 meters;

Weapons:

2 torpedo tubes of 650 mm caliber, ammunition load of 8 “long” torpedoes and PLUR;
- 4 torpedo tubes of 533 mm caliber, ammunition load of 32 torpedoes, Vodopad missile launchers and Shkval high-speed missile torpedoes;
- MANPADS for self-defense.

* all data given is valid for a submarine that has not undergone modernization

On the front of the cabin there is a star with the number “1”. The account is open.

Water and cold. Darkness.
And somewhere above there was the sound of metal.
I don’t have the strength to say: we are here, here...

Hope is gone, I'm tired of waiting.

The bottomless ocean reliably keeps its secrets. Somewhere out there, under the dark arches of the waves, lie the wreckage of thousands of ships, each of which has its own unique fate and tragic death.

In 1963, the thickness of sea water crushed the most modern American submarine "Thresher". Half a century ago, this was hard to believe - the invincible Poseidon, who drew strength from the flames of a nuclear reactor and was able to circumnavigate the globe without a single ascent, turned out to be weak as a worm before the onslaught of the merciless elements.

“We have a positive increasing angle... We are trying to blow through... 900... north” - the last message from the Thresher is unable to convey all the horror that the dying submariners experienced. Who could have imagined that a two-day test voyage accompanied by the rescue tug Skylark could end in such a disaster?

The cause of the Thrasher's death remains a mystery. The main hypothesis: when diving to the maximum depth, water entered the durable hull of the boat - the reactor was automatically shut down, and the submarine, unable to move, fell into the abyss, taking with it 129 human lives.

Rudder blade USS Tresher (SSN-593)

Unlike the Thrasher, with which sound underwater communication was maintained until the last second, the death of the Scorpion was complicated by the lack of any clear idea of ​​the coordinates of the disaster site. Unsuccessful searches continued for five months until the Yankees deciphered data from deep-sea stations of the SOSUS system (a network of hydrophone buoys of the US Navy for tracking Soviet submarines) - on the records dated May 22, 1968, a loud bang was discovered, similar to the destruction of the durable hull of a submarine. Next, using the triangulation method, the approximate location of the lost boat was restored.

Wreck of USS Scorpion (SSN-589). Visible deformations from the monstrous water pressure (30 tons/sq. meter)

The mystery of the death of the Scorpion still haunts the minds of sailors - in November 2012, the Organization of Veteran Submariners of the US Navy proposed launching a new investigation to establish the truth about the death of the American boat.

Less than 48 hours had passed since the wreckage of the American Scorpio sank to the seabed, and a new tragedy occurred in the ocean. On experimental nuclear submarine K-27 The Soviet Navy's reactor with liquid metal coolant went out of control. The nightmare unit, in whose veins molten lead was boiling, “contaminated” all the compartments with radioactive emissions, the crew received terrible doses of radiation, 9 submariners died from acute radiation sickness. Despite the severe radiation accident, Soviet sailors managed to bring the boat to the base in Gremikha.

K-27 turned into an ineffective heap of metal with positive buoyancy, emitting deadly gamma rays. The decision on the future fate of the unique ship hung in the air; finally, in 1981, it was decided to sink the damaged submarine in one of the bays on Novaya Zemlya. As a keepsake for posterity. Maybe they will find a way to safely dispose of the floating Fukushima?

But long before the “last dive” of K-27, the group of nuclear submarines at the bottom of the Atlantic was replenished submarine K-8. One of the first-born of the nuclear fleet, the third nuclear submarine in the ranks of the USSR Navy, which sank during a fire in the Bay of Biscay on April 12, 1970. For 80 hours there was a struggle for the survivability of the ship, during which time the sailors managed to shut down the reactors and evacuate part of the crew on board the approaching Bulgarian ship.

The death of K-8 and 52 submariners became the first official loss of the Soviet nuclear fleet. Currently, the wreckage of the nuclear-powered ship rests at a depth of 4,680 meters, 250 miles off the coast of Spain.

In the 1980s, the USSR Navy lost a couple more nuclear submarines in combat campaigns - the strategic missile submarine K-219 and the unique “titanium” submarine K-278 Komsomolets.

K-219 with a torn missile silo

* the project assumed a total of 16 SLBMs, but in 1973 a similar incident already occurred on the K-219 - the explosion of a liquid-propellant rocket. As a result, the “unlucky” boat remained in service, but lost launch shaft No. 15.

Three days after the rocket explosion, the heavily armed nuclear-powered submarine sank in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean at a depth of 5 kilometers. The disaster killed 8 people. It happened on October 6, 1986
Three years later, on April 7, 1989, another Soviet submarine, the K-278 Komsomolets, sank to the bottom of the Norwegian Sea. An unsurpassed ship with a titanium hull, capable of diving to depths of over 1000 meters.

K-278 "Komsomolets" at the bottom of the Norwegian Sea. The photographs were taken by the Mir deep-sea submersible.

New times have brought new problems. The orgy of the “free market”, multiplied by “limited funding”, the destruction of the fleet supply system and the mass dismissal of experienced submariners inevitably led to disaster. And she didn’t keep her waiting.

August 12, 2000 no contact Nuclear submarine K-141 "Kursk". The official cause of the tragedy is the spontaneous explosion of a “long” torpedo. Unofficial versions range from a nightmarish heresy in the style of “Submarine in Troubled Waters” from the French director Jean Michel Carré to quite plausible hypotheses about a collision with the aircraft-carrying cruiser Admiral Kuznetsov or a torpedo fired from the American submarine Toledo (the motive is unclear).

The epic with the unsuccessful operation to rescue the crew from the Kursk lying on the ground shocked the whole of Russia. We all remember the smiling face of another scoundrel with admiral’s shoulder straps smiling on TV: “The situation is under control. Contact has been established with the crew, and air supply has been provided to the emergency boat.”
Then there was an operation to raise the Kursk. The first compartment was sawn off (for what??), a letter from Captain Kolesnikov was found... was there a second page? Someday we will know the truth about those events. And, for sure, we will be very surprised at our naivety.

On August 30, 2003, another tragedy occurred, hidden in the gray twilight of naval everyday life - it sank while being towed for cutting. old nuclear submarine K-159. The reason is loss of buoyancy due to the poor technical condition of the boat. It still lies at a depth of 170 meters near the island of Kildin, on the approach to Murmansk.
The question of lifting and disposing of this radioactive pile of metal is periodically raised, but so far the matter has not moved beyond words.

In total, today the wreckage of seven nuclear submarines lies on the bottom of the World Ocean:

Two American: “Thrasher” and “Scorpio”

Five Soviet: K-8, K-27, K-219, K-278 and K-159.

However, this is not a complete list. In the history of the Russian Navy, there are a number of other incidents that were not reported by TASS, in each of which nuclear submarines were lost.

For example, on August 20, 1980, a serious accident occurred in the Philippine Sea - 14 sailors died fighting a fire on board the K-122. The crew was able to save their nuclear submarine and bring the burnt boat in tow to their home base. Unfortunately, the damage received was such that restoring the boat was deemed impractical. After 15 years of storage, K-122 was disposed of at the Zvezda Shipyard.

Another severe incident, known as the “radiation accident in Chazhma Bay,” occurred in 1985 in the Far East. During the process of recharging the reactor of the nuclear submarine K-431, the floating crane swayed on the wave and “teared out” the control grids from the submarine’s reactor. The reactor turned on and instantly reached an extreme operating mode, turning into a “dirty atomic bomb,” the so-called. "fizzy" In a bright flash, 11 officers standing nearby disappeared. According to eyewitnesses, the 12-ton reactor cover flew up a couple of hundred meters and then fell again on the boat, almost cutting it in half. The outbreak of a fire and emissions of radioactive dust finally turned the K-431 and the nearby nuclear submarine K-42 into unsuitable floating coffins. Both damaged nuclear submarines were scrapped.

When it comes to accidents on nuclear submarines, one cannot fail to mention the K-19, which received the telling nickname “Hiroshima” in the navy. The boat became a source of serious problems at least four times. The first combat campaign and the reactor accident on July 3, 1961 are especially memorable. K-19 was heroically saved, but the episode with the reactor almost cost the life of the first Soviet missile carrier.

Having read the list of dead submarines, the average person may have a vile conviction: the Russians do not know how to control ships. The accusation is serious. The Yankees lost only two nuclear submarines - Thresher and Scorpion. At the same time, the domestic fleet lost almost a dozen nuclear submarines, not counting diesel-electric submarines (the Yankees have not built diesel-electric boats since the 1950s). How to explain this paradox? The fact that the nuclear-powered ships of the USSR Navy were controlled by crooked Russian Mongols?

Something tells me that there is another explanation for the paradox. Let's try to find it together.

It is worth noting that an attempt to “blame” all failures on the difference in the number of nuclear submarines in the compositions of the USSR Navy and the US Navy is obviously useless. In total, during the existence of the nuclear submarine fleet, about 250 submarines passed through the hands of our sailors (from K-3 to the modern Borey), while the Americans had slightly fewer of them - ≈ 200 units. However, the Yankees had nuclear-powered ships earlier and were operated two to three times more intensively (just look at the operational stress coefficient of SSBNs: 0.17 - 0.24 for ours and 0.5 - 0.6 for American missile carriers). Obviously, the whole point is not the number of boats... But then what?
Much depends on the calculation method. As the old joke goes: “It doesn’t matter how you did it, the main thing is how you calculated it.” A thick trail of fatal accidents and emergencies stretches through the entire history of the nuclear fleet, regardless of the submarine’s flag.

On February 9, 2001, the US Navy multi-purpose nuclear submarine Greenville rammed the Japanese fishing schooner Ehime Maru. Nine Japanese fishermen were killed, and the US Navy submarine fled the scene without providing any assistance to those in distress.

Nonsense! - the Yankees will answer. Navigation incidents are everyday life in any fleet. In the summer of 1973, the Soviet nuclear submarine K-56 collided with the scientific vessel Akademik Berg. 27 sailors died.

But the Russians' boats sank right at the pier! Here you are:
On September 13, 1985, K-429 lay down on the ground at the pier in Krasheninnikov Bay.

So what?! - our sailors may object. The Yankees had the same case:
On May 15, 1969, the US Navy nuclear submarine Guitarro sank right next to the quay wall. The reason is simple negligence.

USS Guitarro (SSN-655) lay down to rest at the pier

The Russians will only smile sadly and tactfully hint to the Americans how the USS Dace (SSN-607) accidentally “splashed” two tons of radioactive liquid from the primary circuit into the Thames (a river in the USA), “dirting” the entire Groton naval base.

Stop!

We won't achieve anything this way. There is no point in denigrating each other and remembering ugly moments from history.
It is clear that a huge fleet of hundreds of ships serves as rich soil for various emergencies - every day there is smoke somewhere, something falls, explodes or lands on rocks.

The true indicator is major accidents that lead to the loss of ships. “Thresher”, “Scorpion”,... Are there any other cases where nuclear-powered ships of the US Navy received heavy damage during military campaigns and were forever excluded from the fleet?
Yes, such cases have happened.

USS San Francisco (SSN-711) smashed to pieces. Consequences of a collision with an underwater rock at 30 knots

In 1986, the US Navy strategic missile carrier Nathaniel Greene crashed on rocks in the Irish Sea. The damage to the hull, rudders and ballast tanks was so great that the boat had to be scrapped.

February 11, 1992. Barencevo sea. The multi-purpose nuclear submarine Baton Rouge collided with the Russian titanium Barracuda. The boats collided successfully - repairs on the B-276 took six months, and the story of the USS Baton Rouge (SSN-689) turned out to be much sadder. The collision with a Russian titanium boat led to the appearance of stresses and microcracks in the submarine’s durable hull. "Baton Rouge" hobbled to the base and soon ceased to exist.

"Baton Rouge" goes to the nails

And it is true. The domestic submarine fleet has traded reliability for exorbitant technical characteristics of boats. The design of submarines of the USSR Navy has always been distinguished by a high degree of novelty and a large number of innovative solutions. Testing of new technologies was often carried out directly in combat campaigns. The fastest (K-222), deepest (K-278), largest (project 941 “Shark”) and most secretive boat (project 945A “Condor”) were created in our country. And if there is nothing to blame “Condor” and “Akula” for, then the operation of the other “record holders” was regularly accompanied by major technical problems.

Was this the right decision: immersion depth in exchange for reliability? We have no right to answer this question. History does not know the subjunctive mood, the only thing I wanted to convey to the reader: the high accident rate on Soviet submarines is not the miscalculations of the designers or the mistakes of the crews. Often it was inevitable. A high price paid for the unique characteristics of submarines.

Project 941 strategic missile submarine

Memorial to fallen submariners, Murmansk

Basic data of the nuclear submarine of project "945"Barracuda", "Sierra" class:

Displacement: 5300 t / 7100 t.
Main dimensions:
length - 112.7 m
width - 11.2 m
draft - 8.5 m
Armament: 4 - 650 mm TA 4 - 533 mm TA
Speed: 18/35 knots.
Crew: 60 people, incl. 31 officers

Basic data of the nuclear submarine Baton Rouge (No. 689), Los Angeles type:

Displacement: 6000 t / 6527 t.
Main dimensions: length - 109.7 m
width - 10.1 m
draft - 9.89 m.
Armament: 4 - 533 mm TA, anti-ship missile "Garpoon".
Speed: more than 30 knots underwater.
Crew: 133 people.

The Russian nuclear torpedo submarine was at a combat training range near the Rybachy Peninsula, in Russian territorial waters. The submarine was commanded by Captain 2nd Rank I. Loktev. The crew of the boat passed the second course task (the so-called “L-2”) and the submarine followed at a depth of 22.8 meters. The American nuclear-powered submarine carried out reconnaissance missions and monitored its Russian “brother”, following at a depth of about 15 meters. In the process of maneuvering, the acoustics of the American boat lost contact with the Sierra, and since there were five fishing vessels in the area, the noise of the propellers of which was similar to the noise of the propellers of a nuclear submarine, the commander of the Baton Rouge decided at 20 hours 8 minutes to surface to periscope depth and figure out environment. At that moment, the Russian boat was lower than the American one and at 20:13 it also began to ascend to conduct a communication session with the shore. The fact that Russian hydroacoustics were tracking their ship was not detected, and at 20:16 a submarine collision occurred. During the collision, "Kostroma" rammed the bottom of the American "filer" with its wheelhouse. Only the low speed of the Russian boat and the shallow depth during ascent allowed the American submarine to avoid death. Traces of a collision remained on the deckhouse of the Kostroma, which made it possible to identify the violator of the territorial waters. The Pentagon was forced to admit its involvement in the incident.
Photo of Kostroma after the collision:

As a result of the collision, Kostroma damaged its wheelhouse fence and was soon repaired. There were no casualties on our side. "Baton Rouge" was completely disabled. One American sailor died.
A good thing, however, is the titanium case. At the moment, there are 4 such buildings in the Northern Fleet: Kostroma, Nizhny Novgorod, Pskov and Karp.

And here is what our leaders, our professionals, wrote about the analysis of this incident:

Reasons for the collision between the submarine SF K - 276 and the submarine "BATON ROUGE" of the US Navy

1.Objective:

Violation of Russian territorial waters by foreign submarines

Incorrect classification of submarine noise due to the alleged use of equipment for masking the acoustic field as RT noise (GNATS).

2. Disadvantages in organizing surveillance:

Poor quality analysis of information on the OI and the recorder of the 7A-1 GAK MGK-500 device (the fact of observing a collision object was not revealed - target N-14 at a minimum distance in terms of the S/P ratio in various frequency ranges)

Unjustifiably large (up to 10 min) gaps in measuring bearings to the target, which did not allow the use of methods for clarifying the distance to the target based on the VIP value

Incompetent use of active and passive means on the course of listening to stern heading angles, which led to the use of the entire time spent on this course only for the work of P/N echo direction finding, and in the ShP mode the horizon remained virtually unlistened

Weak leadership of the SAC operators on the part of the SAC commander, which led to an incomplete analysis of information and erroneous classification of the target.

3. Disadvantages in the activities of the crew "GKP-BIP-SHTURMAN":

The estimated time for clearing the horizon at courses of 160 and 310 degrees, which led to a short time spent on these courses and the creation of suboptimal conditions for the work of SAC operators;

Poor quality documentation of the situation and measured MPCs;

Lack of organization of secondary classification of goals;

The commander of the warhead-7 did not fulfill his responsibilities for issuing recommendations to the submarine commander for special maneuvering to clarify the control center in accordance with Article 59 of the RRTS-1;

The danger of a collision with a low-noise, short-range maneuvering target was not identified.
As always, our calculations GKP-BIP-SHTURMAN are to blame. And no one cared about the technical capabilities of our acoustics at that time. Of course, conclusions were drawn from the accident. But they were made not in the direction of improving the quality of our technical means of observation, but in the direction of the appearance of a bunch of different “instructions” about what is allowed and what is not allowed, so that it would be better and so that suddenly again we would not accidentally ram our “friends” into our tervodakh.


An asterisk on the wheelhouse with a “one” inside indicates one damaged enemy ship. This is how stars were painted during World War II.

Version No. 2. Collision with a foreign submarine.
Today, the Russian military considers the most likely cause of the Kursk accident to be a collision with an alien submarine of the same class or with a ship with a deep draft.

This version is supported by the words of the Commander-in-Chief of the Navy, Fleet Admiral Vladimir Kuroyedov: “Why, with our buoyancy reserve of thirty percent, and the Americans’ buoyancy reserve of twelve, is it our boats that die in an underwater collision?” I don’t know what examples of the death of our boats the Commander-in-Chief spoke about, but I know that in the history of the Navy of the USSR and the Russian Federation this can be understood as the death of the diesel missile boat “K-129” of the Pacific Fleet in 1968, the nuclear submarine “K-219” Northern Fleet, but the facts of their collisions have not been proven. Or rather, we assess their death as the cause of the collision, but the Americans have never admitted this. And here is the death of the Kursk, where again a collision with a foreign boat is still only a version, and not a proven event.

Thus, so far there is not a single reliable fact when at least one Soviet or now Russian boat died from a collision with a foreign boat. Although in general there were plenty of underwater collisions between our boats and foreign ones. This was announced by the Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation, Marshal Igor Sergeev. He is also inclined towards the collision version, citing data that over the past 30 years there have been eleven collisions between domestic and foreign boats in the combat training areas of the Northern and Pacific fleets. In ten cases these were American submarines. Based on this, the marshal is inclined to conclude that in this case, the Kursk also collided with a certain foreign submarine. But I would like to note on my own that all these collisions did not end with the destruction of the boats, but caused serious damage to them.

Therefore, I consider it advisable, before considering the version of the collision of the Kursk with a foreign boat, to return to the stories of collisions of our boats.
History of underwater collisions.

Results of underwater collisions on the hulls of our nuclear missile submarines.

In the history of the Soviet and Russian Navy, there were two dozen collisions between submarines and foreign submarines while they were submerged. Of these, 11 occurred at combat training grounds on the approaches to the main bases of the Northern and Pacific fleets, including eight in the North and three in the Pacific Ocean.

Among them in the Northern Fleet:

1. Collision in 1968 of the K-131 nuclear submarine with an unidentified US Navy nuclear submarine. The Americans, believing that our boat sank, carefully hid this fact for a long time from the public of their country, journalists and even the international organization Greenpeace;

2. Collision in 1969 between the nuclear submarine “K-19” and the nuclear submarine “Gato” of the US Navy; 3. Collision in 1970 between the K-69 nuclear submarine and an unidentified US Navy nuclear submarine;

4. Collision in 1981 between the K-211 nuclear submarine and an unidentified US Navy nuclear submarine;

5. Collision in 1983 between the K-449 nuclear submarine and an unidentified US Navy nuclear submarine;

6. Collision in 1986 between the nuclear submarine TK-12 and the nuclear submarine Splendid of the British Navy;

7. Collision in February 1992 of the K-276 nuclear submarine in our territorial waters with the Baton Rouge nuclear submarine of the US Navy;

8. Collision in March 1993 of the nuclear submarine Borisoglebsk with the nuclear submarine Grayling of the US Navy..

On the Pacific Ocean:

1. Collision in June 1970 in the combat training ground near Kamchatka of the nuclear submarine “K-108” and the nuclear submarine “Totog” of the US Navy;

2. Collision in 1974 in the same area of ​​the nuclear submarine “K-408” with the nuclear submarine “Pintado” of the US Navy;

3. Collision in 1981 in Peter the Great Bay (on the approaches to Vladivostok) of the K-324 nuclear submarine with an unidentified US Navy nuclear submarine.

Almost all collisions at combat training sites were with US Navy nuclear submarines conducting reconnaissance on the approaches to our naval bases (NAB) and recording hydroacoustic noise “portraits” of our nuclear submarines according to the Operation Holystone plan. For this, their commanders were well paid.

As a rule, American nuclear submarines, to be honest, having less noise and a greater detection range by hydroacoustics, waited for our boats to leave their bases, as if in ambush. When our boats were discovered, we took up a tracking position for them at the stern heading angles of the latter, i.e. in the dead zone (shadow zone) of the hydroacoustic surveillance systems of our nuclear submarines and could not be observed by them. When performing maneuvers with our submarines that involved changing course or diving depth, even with short-term mutual hydroacoustic contact, a collision could not be avoided primarily due to a lack of time and especially information about their spatial orientation relative to each other. Thus, submarine collisions occurred in a virtually uncontrollable environment and resulted in severe damage to submarines. Let's look at a few clashes where both participants became famous.

The collision of the nuclear submarine "K-19" with the US Navy nuclear submarine "Getow".

In 1975, the American press reported that the US nuclear submarine Getou collided underwater with a Soviet submarine in the Barents Sea in November 1969. The press did not hide the fact that the Getou campaign in the Barents Sea was carried out according to the plan of the US Central Intelligence Agency.

The submarine was charged with espionage activities under a secret program. Its commander L. Burckhardt was allowed to enter the territorial waters of the USSR, approach the shore at a distance of 4 miles =, intercept and monitor Soviet submarines. If the intruding American boat was pursued by Soviet ships, military weapons were allowed to be used against them, in other words, the boat could start a war.
On November 15, 1969, the nuclear submarine K-19 of the Northern Fleet practiced tasks underwater at the combat training range

At 7:13 am there was a blow in the bow. Despite the measures taken, the bow trim increased and the boat sank. After blowing out the main ballast and giving it full speed, we managed to float safely to the surface.

There was no one around, an inspection of the hull showed that there was damage to the fairings of the bow torpedo tubes.

"Getou" was hit in the area of ​​the reactor compartment. And here an episode occurred that could lead to unpredictable consequences. The officer in charge of anti-submarine weapons on the American boat gave the order to prepare three missiles and a Sabrok missile-torpedo with a nuclear charge for firing. The surfaced and unarmed K-19, whose torpedo tubes were damaged after the collision, presented an excellent target. The Getow commander Burckhardt turned out to be more prudent; he overruled his subordinate’s decision and headed west, to leave the territorial waters of the USSR.

This is how an involuntary participant, Rear Admiral V.G. Lebedko, recalls this collision: “On the night of November 14-15, 1969, I was a senior on board the nuclear submarine missile carrier K-19.” We were at a training ground not far from the place where the White Sea merges with the Barents Sea. We were working on a planned task. Early morning. The first combat shift is preparing for breakfast. At 7.10 I order to move from a depth of 60 meters to 70. The acoustician reports: “The horizon is clear.” And three minutes later a terrible blow rocks the ship. The hatch into the bow compartment was open - a sailor with a galley kettle had just climbed in - and I saw how the entire bow of the submarine went from side to side. “Now it will fall off,” the thought flashed. The light went out, and I felt with horror how quickly the trim to the stern was increasing. With a crash and a clink, dishes fell from the set table, all loose things... I sat opposite the depth gauges. The bilge foreman stood nearby. Even with the poor emergency lighting, you could see how pale his face had become. The boat was rapidly sinking. I ordered the middle group to be blown out. Then the boat also began to fall steeply on its bow. Still, we managed to surface. I looked around the sea - there was no one around. Reported the incident to the fleet command post. They returned us to the base. There, from the pier, I looked at the bow: a gigantic dent exactly copied the outline of the hull of another boat. Then I found out that it was the American nuclear-powered icebreaker "Getow". He stayed under water without moving, which is why we didn’t hear him.

Not long ago, while working at the Central Naval Archives, I learned that our attack had left the Getow with a hole in its durable hull. The American nuclear-powered ship lay on the ground, and there was a desperate struggle for survivability. Then the submarine returned to its base. Its commander, Captain Lawrence Burchard, was awarded the highest military order. We were not punished, and thank you for that. And one more fact shook me to the core: it turns out that experts have established that if we were traveling at a speed of not 6, but 7 knots, the ramming impact would have broken the Getow in half. Apparently, something similar happened a year earlier in the Pacific Ocean 750 miles northwest of the Hawaiian Islands, when the American nuclear submarine Swordfish rammed the Soviet missile carrier K-129 while underwater, which sank at a depth of almost five kilometers . To be honest, we regretted that this did not happen with “Getow”. Maybe then the Pentagon would realize that playing “whose strong hull is stronger” is a dangerous game, and the admirals from the banks of the Potomac would stop sending their nuclear-powered ships into Russian territorial waters.”

Collision of the American nuclear submarine "Totog" with the nuclear submarine "K-108"

In June 1970, underwater off the coast of Kamchatka, the US Navy nuclear submarine Totog collided with our nuclear submarine K-108, the commander of which was then captain 1st rank Boris Bagdasaryan. Our boat surfaced to periscope depth to receive a communication session with the shore, found itself blocked from the American submarine tracking it by a layer of hydrological “sound jump” and after some time sank to its previous depth. Hydroacoustics immediately detected strong noise from the turbine of a foreign nuclear submarine on the starboard side, the bearing to it quickly changed to the bow, that is, it overtook our nuclear submarine, being nearby. A minute later there was a terrible blow to the stern end of the K-108, the trim on the bow began to quickly increase, people could not stay on their feet, the boat was rapidly falling into the depths. Only the commander of the nuclear submarine and the mechanical engineer remained in their places in the central control room, who managed to grab the emergency blowing column of the main ballast tanks (CBT) with one hand, and with the other manually opened the emergency blowing flywheel of the bow group of the TsGB. The catastrophic trim of about 40 degrees began to recede. The middle and aft groups of the Central City Hospital were sequentially blown out in an emergency, and the boat floated to the surface. But there was no one on the surface of the ocean. This is how the commander of the boat, Captain 1st Rank Boris Bagdasaryan, later spoke about the collision. I knew him when he served in the Navy Combat Training Directorate after the boat. We met often, he came several times to inspect the submarines of the Black Sea Fleet division, I was then the commander of the boat, then we were also jointly responsible for the training of submarines, when I began to serve in the combat training department of the Black Sea Fleet. So, here are his memories: “They surfaced. They cleaned the hatch. The sun is shining. The ocean is like a pond: completely calm, shining like a mirror. There is no one and nothing around. A terrible thought flashed: “I sank my brother, a submariner.” Whoever he is: one of his own or someone else’s, it’s hard to realize this. The incident was reported by radio to the shore. Then the acousticians reported the noise of the propellers of an unidentified underwater target, which was leaving at a 15-knot speed to the southeast. That means they were still alive. And it's time for us to move. He ordered: “Both guys go ahead.” Not so. The right shaft line is jammed. So on one left propeller we got to the base.”

After transmitting the established report, our nuclear submarine sank again and heard the retreating noises of the American boat.

In addition to the skill of the crew, our submarine was saved from destruction only by the fact that the blow was delivered by the wheelhouse of the American submarine to the most powerful unit of the K-108 hull: to the cast-iron mortar of the right propeller shaft, rigidly fixed in the right aft stabilizer outside the strong hull , in the permeable aft end of the boat. As a result, this powerful unit was pressed more than a meter into the light hull, the thick propeller shaft bent like a straw and jammed. In the hull of our boat there remained a two-meter fragment of the periscope of the American submarine (which was in a lowered state and covered by the conning tower fence and wave-cutting fairing), a fragment of the right blade of the Totog conning tower rudder and other structural elements located on the conning tower fence. If the blow had been struck 15-20 meters closer to the bow of the K-108, it would inevitably have sunk

As a rule, American boats do not surface after such incidents, probably keeping in mind their spy mission. Apparently, the Totog commander considered (and judging by the recording of hydroacoustic data, there were reasons for this) that the Soviet boat sank (the sea depth in this place is about 2.5 km). Just as Baghdasaryan initially believed that he had drowned his fellow American submariner, so the American commander (Captain 2nd Rank) Bill Balderston decided that his Soviet “brother-submariner” had gone down. The acousticians reported to the commander that they heard noises overboard, “similar to the sounds of corn kernels bursting while roasting.” And then silence.

Therefore, tormented by pangs of conscience, the Totog commander, Commander (Captain 2nd Rank) Bill Balderston, after returning to Pearl Harbor, resigned, became a priest, and seven years later he went crazy and died.

Retired Rear Admiral A. Shtyrov recalls this clash: “I note that in the entire history of such clashes, the American side has never officially recognized its participation in them, despite any dents and even pieces of metal stuck in the casing of our submarines. In war, including the Cold War, it is not customary to apologize for damage caused to the enemy. This was the case after another ramming of our K-108 submarine by the American boat Totog. The Americans, based on the report of the boat commander, were sure that they had sunk the Soviet boat, but the admirals from the Pentagon did not bring us any condolences or apologies.”

Years have passed. The Americans did not believe in a successful outcome of this collision for the K-108. Greenpeace added the “death” of the Soviet boat to the list of secret nuclear disasters. And in 1992, the scientific coordinator of this international organization, Joshua Handler, was in Moscow and was very interested in the accident rate in our nuclear fleet. And Rear Admiral V. Aleksin, at that time the chief navigator of the Navy, was in charge of this accident; he kept records of it. And when in the lists of dead boats he did not see the nuclear boat of the Echo-2 type, which, according to the Americans, died in June 1970 in the North Pacific Ocean, he did not believe it, he believed that the Russians were hiding this death and the reactor at the bottom from Greenpeace " Aleksin had to bring the American guest to the apartment of his former colleague in the Navy Combat Training Directorate, Boris Bagdasaryan. He showed the American a fragment of an American periscope, which was left as a trophy as a souvenir after that collision.

American journalists Sherry Sontag and Christopher Drew excellently described this and similar stories in their book “Blind Man's Bluff. The Unknown History of American Underwater Espionage,” published in New York in 1998. There are also photographs of the commanders of these boats.

Collision of the K-211 nuclear submarine with the American Sturgeon-class nuclear submarine.

In 1981, at one of the Northern Fleet's training grounds near the Kola Bay, a collision occurred between Soviet and American nuclear submarines. Then the American submarine, with its wheelhouse, rammed the stern of the Soviet newest strategic missile submarine cruiser K-211, which had just joined the Northern Fleet and was practicing elements of combat training. The American boat in the area of ​​the collision surfaced. But a few days later, a US nuclear submarine appeared in the area of ​​the English naval base of Holy Loch with pronounced damage to the wheelhouse. Our boat surfaced and arrived at the base under its own power. Here a commission consisting of specialists from the navy, industry, science and the designer was waiting for her.

The commission, having simulated the maneuver situation of two boats and examined the damage sites, found that the American boat was following our boat in its aft sectors, remaining in the acoustic shadow for it. As soon as our boat changed course, the American boat lost contact and blindly crashed its wheelhouse into the stern of the Soviet boat. She was docked, and there, upon inspection, holes were found in two aft tanks of the main ballast, damage to the right propeller blades and the horizontal stabilizer. Bolts with countersunk heads, pieces of metal and plexi from the wheelhouse of an American submarine were found in the damaged main ballast tanks. Moreover, based on individual details, the commission was able to establish that the collision occurred precisely with an American submarine of the Sturgeon class, which was later confirmed by the appearance in Holy Loch of a boat with a damaged conning tower of this particular class.

The collision of the nuclear submarine K-276 with the American nuclear submarine Baton Rouge.

Sometimes American boats received more serious damage as a result of such collisions. This happened on February 11, 1992, when in a combat training range located in our territorial waters, our nuclear submarine "K-276", later called "Kostroma", under the command of captain 2nd rank Igor Lokt, collided with the American nuclear submarine "Baton Rouge" type "Los Angeles".

In 1992, when the Cold War seemed to have already ended, the geopolitical and ideological confrontation between Russia and the United States had ceased (at least on our part), we withdrew our boats from American shores, and the plans for operations of the US Navy submarine forces remained virtually unchanged. The American nuclear boat Baton Rouge with a displacement of 6,000 tons, armed with Tomahawk missiles, was collecting intelligence information about the naval activity of the Soviet Navy in the Kola Peninsula area.

The American boat, after detecting the Soviet boat, positioned itself behind it in its aft sector, in the acoustic shadow zone, and on a parallel course crossed the border of Russian territorial waters together with our boat.

After some time, the K-276 acoustics detected some unclear noises. Commander Captain 2nd Rank twisted his elbow to allow acousticians to more accurately determine the source of the noise. The American boat missed this maneuver and lost contact. The commander of the American boat, Commander Gordon Kremer, began to rush about and began to ascend, hoping to inspect the clarity of the horizon, and maybe find a submarine there under the periscope. To clarify the situation, he thoughtlessly floated to periscope depth, thereby completely losing the ability to detect the K-276 by hydroacoustic means, and he himself found himself in the dead zone of its surveillance equipment (almost above it).

Since the time had come for the next radio communication session with the fleet command post, Igor Lokot was forced to begin ascent to periscope depth without additional clarification of the situation on the surface. At this time, at 20.16, a collision occurred. When approaching the periscope depth, the K-276 hit the American nuclear submarine with the front part of the conning tower fence into the strong hull, which caused several relatively small holes to form in it, allowing the Baton Rouge to independently reach its naval base. But her hull received internal stresses that made repairs to the boat impractical, and she was decommissioned from the US Navy, and her commander was removed from his post, which happens extremely rarely. According to unofficial data, that ram cost American submariners five lives. Our participant in this incident was already doing combat service in the ocean a year later. If the K-276 had started to ascend 7-10 seconds earlier, it would have hit the American submarine with its bow, which has a powerful hull, and would have broken its side, which would have led to the sinking of the US Navy nuclear submarine. In another case, the combat torpedoes in the K-276 torpedo tubes could have detonated, and then both nuclear boats would have died at the entrance to the Kola Bay, 10 miles from the coast, in the area through which all ships and vessels going to Murmansk pass, Severomorsk and from them.

"Kostroma" is now part of the same 7th division as "Kursk". On the conning tower of this boat there is a red five-pointed star with the number “1” in the center. This is how our submariners counted their victories during the Great Patriotic War. Traditions among submariners are alive. Kostroma commander Vladimir Sokolov answered the question of whether his superiors swear at such symbolism: “At first, of course, they frowned, saying that the Americans are now our friends, then they seemed to get used to it, but after Kursk, who can tell me what? about this? Is it just that the number is not very large!”

Oddly enough, during that underwater incident, neither Norwegian environmentalists nor the international Greenpeace said a word about the danger of an environmental disaster threatening radioactive contamination not only on the northern shores of Russia, but throughout Scandinavia.

Russian President Boris Yeltsin then accused the United States of continuing to deploy its submarine forces in close proximity to Russian shores. To settle the scandal, the then President of America George Bush Sr. (his son, Bush Jr., is now also the American President) flew to Moscow, and, promising a large loan, managed to somehow settle the matter. But the Americans stubbornly hid this fact of their boat’s collision from the world community for several years.

Valery Aleksin, who dealt with this collision, came to the conclusion that both commanders had no desire to collide, it was not intentional. But the American commander committed a number of violations, such as entering the territorial waters of the Russian Federation and sending the ship to the combat training area, the coordinates of which were brought to the attention of all states as an extremely high-risk zone. And after he lost contact with our boat, he should have, as good maritime practice in steering a ship requires, in order to avoid a collision, not perform feverish maneuvers, but stop the progress and look around, listen to the horizon in more detail, and assess the situation.

One may get the impression that American submariners have always acted as cats chasing helpless Soviet kittens. In April 1980, when checking the cleanliness of the area before a tactical exercise in the Kamchatka region, the commander of the K-314 nuclear submarine Valery Khorovenkov, having discovered an American nuclear submarine, pursued it for 11 hours at a speed of 30 knots and a distance of 12-15 cables (2-3 km) with using the active paths of the hydroacoustic complex until it was driven under the ice of the Sea of ​​Okhotsk. The pursuit was stopped only by order of the Pacific Fleet command post. It is only necessary for everyone to clearly understand that such races without rules of underwater objects with a displacement of 5000 tons each at a speed of 55 km/h do not end well. With any misunderstood maneuver, both giants will crush each other, along with their 250 crew members, nuclear reactors and almost a hundred missiles and torpedoes. The commanders of our nuclear-powered ships are full of courage and will to win. Just don't test their patience.

After a boat collision in 1992, a former submariner from the first crew of the first nuclear submarine of the Soviet Union, retired Rear Admiral N. Mormul, wrote an article that was published in Komsomolskaya Pravda entitled “Don’t be a fool, America!” with the question in the subtitle: "Why don't we sue the US Navy?" In the article, he described this collision, concluding that “... the authorship of the clumsy maneuver belongs to the commander of the US submarine. Why shouldn’t the American side, in this case, pay the cost of repairing our damaged boat?” And then he expressed the idea “that the CIS Navy should file a claim with the International Court of Justice and its restoration should be carried out at the expense of the US Navy.” “Restoring our boat will require serious material costs. Friendship is friendship, but if you are guilty, pay... If we remain silent today, if we do not act according to the laws accepted in a civilized society, we simply will not be understood – especially abroad.”

N. Mormul then addressed a letter to the Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Navy, Fleet Admiral V. Chernavin. Got an answer. This was a report from the Chief of the Main Staff of the Navy, Admiral K. Makarov, with the resolution of the Commander-in-Chief - “I agree.” This is the report to the Commander-in-Chief, it is cited in his book “Disasters Under Water” by N. Mormul.

“To the Commander of the Navy, Admiral of the Fleet V.N. Chernavin. I am reporting: an appeal to you from Rear Admiral of the Reserve N.G. Mormul. compensation for damages at the expense of the US Navy through the International Court of Justice for the collision of our submarine with the Baton Rouge submarine in February 1992 was considered. The following has been established.

1. There are no international rules for preventing collisions between submarines while underwater. COLREG-72 ensures the safety of navigation of ships and vessels that are only on the surface, in visual or radar visibility of each other.

2. Considering that the issue of preventing submarine collisions is not regulated by international law, there are no grounds for appealing to an international court.

3. Both commanders are to blame for the collision of these submarines, as well as any other ships. It is not possible to establish the degree of guilt of each of them in this case.

4. On the occasion of this clash, a note was presented to the US government on behalf of the Russian government. The main cause of the collision was the violation of Russian territorial waters by a US Navy submarine. The American side denies the fact of violating our terrorist regulations. The issue of this incident was discussed at the 6th Congress of People's Deputies of the Russian Federation.

5. The Russian and American sides recognized the existence of the problem of preventing incidents with submarines. In May 1992, the first working meeting of representatives of the Russian Navy and the US Navy on this issue took place in Moscow, during which we proposed specific measures to prevent collisions between submarines of our countries in the Navy’s combat training grounds.

The parties agreed to continue dialogue on this issue.

Regarding the establishment of mutually recognized boundaries of territorial waters, negotiations between experts of the two countries will begin in the near future through the Russian Foreign Ministry.

Admiral of the Fleet K. Makarov.”

In 1992, after the collision of the K-276 nuclear submarine Kostroma and Baton Rouge, the Main Headquarters of the Navy prepared a draft “Agreement between the government of the Russian Federation and the government of the United States of America on the prevention of incidents with submarines underwater outside the territorial water." It included organizational, technical, navigation and international legal measures. Since the fall of 1992, negotiations have been ongoing between the headquarters of the Russian Navy and the US Navy. According to eyewitnesses, in 1995 in Washington, Russian Defense Minister Pavel Grachev and First Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Navy, Admiral Igor Kasatonov, were told: “Let this remain between us. We will not sign any agreements. You will never have questions for us about this issue again.” However, soon after this, the then Chief of Staff of the US Navy, Admiral Burda, shot himself, and NATO nuclear submarines continue to sail into the Barents Sea as if it were their own backyard, endangering the submarines of the Russian Navy, the lives of their crews and threatening environmental disasters throughout Northern Europe. So this agreement was not signed, and questions about this problem with the death of the Kursk only increased.

Collision between the US Navy nuclear submarine Grayling and the Russian Navy nuclear submarine Borisoglebsk.

To understand what happened to the Kursk, we will show another typical example of a collision between a nuclear submarine of the Russian Navy and the US Navy in 1993.

The underwater strategic missile carrier Borisoglebsk was practicing combat training tasks at a training ground 100 miles north of the area of ​​the incident described above. Having reached the northern edge of the training ground assigned to it, “Borisoglebsk” set off on a reverse course, having a speed of 4 knots. About 25 minutes later, the ship felt a strong external blow, then a grinding sound, and only after that the hydroacoustics reported detecting the noise of a foreign nuclear submarine, which increased its speed to 23 knots in order to break away from our submarine. During the investigation, it was established that the US Navy nuclear submarine Grayling was monitoring the Borisoglebsk, being at its heading angles of 155-165 degrees on the port side at a distance of about 60-70 cables (11-13 km). After changing the course of our nuclear submarine, Grayling lost it, and to restore hydroacoustic contact, it rushed to the point of its loss at a speed of 8-10 knots (15-18.5 km/h).

However, there is such a hydroacoustic phenomenon (and experienced submariners know about it): in the sector of 30-40 degrees of bow heading angles, the operation of the main noise-emitting mechanisms of the nuclear submarine (propellers, turbines, circulation pumps, autonomous turbogenerators) is shielded by the ship’s hull, and a kind of “hydroacoustic funnel” is formed. . Therefore, approaching on a collision course or almost a collision course, submarines detect each other at very short distances. Grayling's hydroacoustics detected our boat in noise direction finding mode (and this is the main observation mode on all submarines of all countries, providing the main tactical advantage of submarine forces - their stealth) at a distance of about one kilometer (about 6-8 cables). While, at a speed of relative approach of 2 cables per minute, their combat information post was assessing the conditions of divergence, the ship commander, judging by the constancy of the bearing, already realized that a collision was inevitable. However, his attempts to change course and begin to ascend due to the large inertia of the boat were unsuccessful and did not prevent a collision. But the blow hit the deck of the bow superstructure, and the Borisoglebsk escaped with minor damage. If, with such a “blind approach,” the strike would have been delivered 30-40 meters closer to the stern, in the area of ​​the missile silos where the ballistic missiles were located, then the consequences could have been the most unpredictable.

To these collisions we can add probable versions of the causes of the death of the K-129 diesel missile submarine in March 1968 from a collision with the American nuclear submarine Swordfish, and in October 1986 of the K-219 nuclear-powered strategic missile submarine from collision with the American nuclear submarine Augusta.

Rivalry in the depths of the ocean makes underwater collisions not random, but this does not mean that they occur due to malicious intent. No commander would do this. As a rule, such collisions are the result of errors in submarine control and imperfect acoustic means. They are inevitable, like collisions between surface ships and ships.

Let's return, however, to Kursk.

About one report...

The Western press, with reference to the Russian newspaper Stringer, published fragments of a top secret report on the causes of the sinking of the Kursk, compiled on behalf of Deputy Prime Minister Ilya Klebanov. The authorship of the report is beyond doubt - it is the Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces. And the degree of second-by-second detailing of the tragic events in the Barents Sea also leaves no doubt that the genuine top secret document somehow found its way into journalistic circles and was used to prepare and publish the material “The Last Ram” in the Stringer newspaper. The only thing is that the editors of the newspaper made a reservation before publication, which does not guarantee the reliability of the facts presented in the material; this is only the point of view of Russian journalists. Here are some excerpts from the published material.

According to Russian military intelligence, the main reason for the death of the K-141 was a collision with an American Sea Wolf class submarine, which translated into Russian means “Sea Wolf.” This is exactly the second submarine that, together with the Memphis, was present in the Barents Sea during our exercises. Memphis, as you know, then called at a Norwegian port for scheduled repairs and was even demonstrated to Russian television journalists. On my own behalf, I will add that “Toledo” also visited one of the British bases on the same days, but it was probably in a different area that had nothing to do with “Kursk”. Therefore, I do not rule out that these were attempts to divert the attention of the public and the press to the wrong directions.

So, nothing is yet known about the fate of the crew of the American submarine Carter, which belongs to the Sea Wolf class of submarines.

It took the newspaper's editors a long time to decide whether to publish the top secret materials they received or not? They faced a difficult choice. On one side of the scale were 118 submariners who remained at the bottom of the Barents Sea. On the other is big politics, the interests of Russia and the United States, their friendly relations, the threat of a revival of the Cold War and a new nuclear confrontation. According to the editors: “We perfectly understand the terrible choice that Putin faced immediately after the Kursk tragedy.” Either announce to the whole world the true causes of the tragedy and put the planet on the brink of war, or remain silent and make a deal, first of all with your conscience, but as a result get real benefits for Russia. We do not condemn Putin's choice. Probably everyone would have done the same in his place. We are not going to lecture the president. We decided to publish the truth because the children, wives and parents of our submariners need it. Because the whole world needs it. Because people need to know: military nuclear games are dangerous for all of us. Because we believe: the truth about the death of the Kursk will unite us stronger than any agreements at the highest level.

After the training firing, the nuclear-powered submarine "Kursk" was about to ascend. The periscope and radio antennas were raised. Everything went according to plan. Suddenly there was a grinding sound of metal in the area of ​​the bow compartment. A collision with an unknown object causes a compressed air cylinder to burst. The bow of the boat is thrown down. After 135 seconds, the submarine crashes at full speed into the bottom of the Barents Sea. The impact of a colossus weighing 18 thousand tons on the ground was terrifying. The boat's hull split in several places. The impact caused the combat torpedoes to break from their mounts on special racks and detonate. The torpedo explosion literally destroyed the front part of the pressure hull and almost all watertight bulkheads. Ten seconds after the torpedoes exploded, the boat looked like a grave.

However, in addition to the two explosions recorded by Norwegian seismologists, which NATO representatives were so obsessively repeating all this time, there was a third explosion. The Sea Wolf class submarine, seriously wounded during the ramming, slowly “crawled away” from the Kursk, throwing out emergency buoys. It took the American submarine 45 minutes and 18 seconds to move just half a mile from the accident site. Most likely, she was practically drifting. All this time, the crew of the Sea Wolf class boat desperately fought for survivability. But at that moment an explosion occurred on the American submarine. After this, traces of the “killer boat” were lost. Most likely, she reached the nearest NATO military base, where she is still hiding. The Americans demonstrated the second boat of the “Los Angeles” class (I explain on my own behalf: we are talking about the “Memphis”) to the whole world. And they even allowed VGTRK correspondent Sergei Brilyov to approach her at a safe distance. No one has seen the first boat yet.

Help for the chairman of the commission.

“The disaster occurred as a result of the detonation of part of the combat reserve in the first torpedo compartment of the boat, which resulted in extensive destruction of the pressure hull in the area of ​​the first and second compartments, a violation of the tightness of the bulkheads of the third and fourth compartments, which led to the rapid - 110-120 seconds - flooding of the boat and the death of the crew .

Analyzing the reasons that could lead to such an explosion, we can name the following as the main ones:

1. Detonation of ammunition (missiles, torpedoes mounted on specialized racks or rapid reloading devices) due to mechanical impact. For example, a product being torn off from its fastening points during a powerful dynamic impact of a ship on a hard surface at a speed of 40 km/h. Under those conditions, it could have been a collision with the bottom, caused by the loss of the boat’s buoyancy due to a control error or flooding of the bow compartments.

2. Detonation of part of the ammunition (missiles, torpedoes) due to explosive effects. This could be a direct hit to the hull of a nuclear submarine by a combat missile or torpedo in the area of ​​the first compartment, followed by the impact of a shock wave on one or more warheads mounted on racks along the side.

3. Detonation of one of the warheads with an embedded charge equivalent to 200 - 300 grams of TNT.

4. Detonation of free hydrogen on board the nuclear submarine due to leakage from the batteries, fire and, as a consequence, detonation of part of the ammunition load. The records of hydroacoustic devices available to specialists of the Russian Navy indicate that three explosions were recorded in the area where the Kursk nuclear submarine sank. The first at 7.30 am on August 12, low power - up to 300 grams of explosives (explosive) in TNT equivalent. The second after 145 seconds of high power - up to 1700 kg of explosives in TNT equivalent. The third - after 45 minutes 18 seconds of low power - up to 400 grams of explosives in TNT equivalent. The first and second explosions are identified with the location of the detection of the Kursk nuclear submarine with a circular probable deviation of 150 meters. The third was recorded approximately 700 - 1000 meters from the point where the Kursk nuclear submarine is located.

Also, acoustic instruments recorded a strong noise between the first and second explosions, which can be identified as the noise of water penetrating into a durable hull.

All of the above allows us to conclude that the version about the destruction of the Kursk nuclear submarine by a military product, a hydrogen explosion, or a mine-explosive method does not seem to have sufficient evidence at the moment. Since in this case the time interval between the first two explosions is inexplicable. Available data indicate that the likely cause of the detonation of the ammunition in the first torpedo compartment could have been the collision of the Kursk nuclear submarine with the bottom of the Barents Sea, which followed the first explosion on August 12. At the bottom, the trace of a 120-meter-long boat is clearly visible. The complete absence of attempts by the crew over the next 135 seconds to use any means or means of emergency signaling indicates that control of the boat was lost in the first 10-20 seconds after the start of the disaster. This could only happen as a result of the rapid flooding (burnout) of the second command compartment, consisting of four levels with a total volume of up to 500 cubic meters.

It is unlikely that such a large-scale destruction of a nuclear submarine by a low-power explosion that was recorded. According to the Rubin Central Design Bureau, where the boat was designed, the strength of its hull and survivability reserve make it possible to maintain control of ships of this type if one of the compartments is hit by a guided weapon with a power of up to 500 kilograms of TNT. It is more correct to consider this explosion not as the cause of the death of the Kursk nuclear missile launcher, but as one of the signs of a developing catastrophe. According to the designers, such an explosion could have been caused by a mechanical failure of one of the high-pressure cylinders located between the light and durable hulls in the area of ​​the bulkhead between the first and second compartments. In this case, the version of the collision of the Kursk nuclear submarine with an underwater object becomes the most likely.

The US and UK deny any involvement in the disaster.

Russian warplanes pursued a foreign submarine on August 17 in the Barents Sea in the area of ​​Northern Fleet exercises. This was confirmed by Russian Defense Minister Igor Sergeev on December 6. The day before, the same fact was reported by the recently retired Norwegian Admiral Einar Skorgen. At the same time, he did not exclude the possibility of a collision between the Russian submarine Kursk and an American submarine. The admiral also confirmed the fact that the US Navy submarine Memphis visited one of the Norwegian ports at the end of August.

Commenting on the statements of the Norwegian admiral, Marshal Sergeev said that the special commission had completed its work and must draw conclusions. At the same time, according to the Russian minister, Skorgen’s message will be added to the commission’s documents and will undergo “the most in-depth analysis.”

Meanwhile, the United States continues to deny the possible involvement of an American submarine in the death of the Kursk submarine in the Barents Sea.
As RIA Novosti learned from informed sources in the Russian military delegation in Brussels, Pentagon chief William Cohen told Russian Defense Minister Igor Sergeev that the American submarine could not have been involved in a possible collision with the Kursk.

On December 14, the head of the British parliamentary delegation, Bruce George, who was on a visit to Moscow, said that the British submarine was “in no way” involved in the tragedy that happened with the Kursk nuclear submarine. He said that most British submarines were currently at the naval base in Gibraltar, where they were undergoing routine inspection. This is a planned event, noted B. George, and these inspections are not related to the incident that occurred in the Barents Sea. In addition, B. George, according to his own words, made the non-involvement of British submarines in the death of the Kursk on the basis of a secret report that was presented by the country's military leadership to British parliamentarians.

On May 31, 2001, the naval attache of the British Embassy in Moscow, Captain 1st Rank Simon Lister, again categorically denied information previously disseminated by the Russian media that the cause of the death of the Kursk could have been a collision with a British submarine. In particular, we were talking about the nuclear submarine Splendid. Lister recalled that it was with the participation of the nuclear submarine Splendid and the Russian submarine Vologda that training of military rescuers of the two countries will be held at the British naval submarine base Faslane next Sunday.

Explosion of torpedoes as a result of a collision.

Military columnist for Novaya Gazeta Valery Aleksin came up with his version; the newspaper’s editors described him as “an experienced submariner and a specialist in the investigation of maritime accidents and disasters.”

I have known Valery Ivanovich for a long time, from the time when I was the commander of the boat, and he was the deputy chief navigator of the Navy. We both graduated from the Pacific School, only he was a navigator and several years earlier than me, and I was a mine and torpedo specialist. Both became submariners, but he on nuclear boats, and I on diesel ones. Then our career paths crossed several times, when he was the chief navigator of the Navy, and I was the deputy head of the combat training department of the Black Sea Fleet. We contacted him on one of the sensitive issues, which is the accident rate in the fleet. He conducted an analysis of it for the Navy, participated in all proceedings related to accidents of ships and submarines, especially with collisions and disasters. And I supervised the analysis and accounting of accident rates at the Black Sea Fleet.

Valery Ivanovich himself presented his participation in the investigations this way: “Being a submariner and a professional investigator, figuratively speaking, for particularly dangerous maritime incidents and crimes, over the last 25 years of my service in the Navy (before my retirement in 1998), I personally participated in the investigation of the causes of about 70 accidents and disasters with ships of the USSR Navy (RF), the Ministry of Marine, the Ministry of Fisheries, other allied and federal maritime departments of our country and the Navy of NATO countries. In addition, I analyzed the causes of about a thousand accidents at sea from collections of their descriptions, which were published annually in the Soviet Navy alone since 1931. They continue to be published today."

I once had to participate as deputy chairman of the commission investigating the collision of the nuclear submarine K-53 in the Mediterranean Sea with our Soviet cargo ship. And then, having arrived in Moscow with the act, work directly with Aleksin to clarify a number of issues and wording of this document for the report to the Commander-in-Chief of the Navy. I regret that this wonderful man, the admiral, died suddenly from a serious illness in September 2001.

Most likely, the Kursk was rammed by a foreign submarine.

Over the past month, up to a dozen different versions of the causes of the Kursk disaster have been mentioned in the media. Now there are only one or two left. Although the government commission and the Main Military Prosecutor's Office still adheres to the three previously accepted versions. And in the media, greater preference is given to one version that the main cause of the death of the ship was the explosion of torpedo ammunition located in the bow torpedo tubes, and possibly on the racks of the first torpedo compartment. But on the question of what led to the catastrophic explosion, there are two versions. One of them: an explosion in the torpedo tube of the engine of a faulty practical torpedo during training torpedo firing, which led to the entry of water into the first compartment, a short circuit of electrical networks, loss of control of the ship and its emergency dive with increasing trim on the bow until it collided with the ground. But over the twenty years of operation of nuclear submarines of projects 949 (there were two of them, and both of them have already been decommissioned) and 949A (together with the Kursk there were eleven of them in the Russian Navy), during about a thousand torpedo firings, there was not a single similar case with practical torpedoes.

And another version of the root cause is the external impact on the hull of the Kursk in its bow. Moreover, for this it is not at all necessary to have a mass of external influence close to the mass of the Kursk. Dynamic force and one to two thousand tons are enough to crush the drives and the front cover of the torpedo tube (TA) and cause the detonation of the warhead of a combat torpedo in it. The author observed this with his own eyes (in the absence of a torpedo in the apparatus and the speed of relative approach of the two objects was about 0.5 m/sec). The rods of the TA nose caps, up to 10 cm thick, made of forged alloy steel, are bent and tied into knots, like willow twigs.

What happened to Kursk?

Further events are described based on the stereotype of performing similar combat exercises and tactics of multi-purpose submarines, developed over decades. Having occupied the area assigned to him and made a report about this and about the readiness to carry out torpedo firing, the commander carried out additional reconnaissance of the area, reaching its southern edge. Then the boat turned back on a course to the north-west and surfaced to a periscope depth of 19 meters to conduct radio and electronic reconnaissance of the “enemy’s” surface forces. At the same time, in addition to the periscope, she had raised retractable devices for conducting such reconnaissance, communication antennas, a radar station to ensure the safety of navigation in covert operating modes and, possibly, a PVP shaft (replenishing high-pressure air under water), since the boat was in its third day was at sea and by this time had made many ascents and dives. To improve controllability at periscope depth with sea state 3, additional ballast was taken into the surge tank and a speed of about 8 knots was assigned. At noon on August 12, the “enemy” OBC maneuvered approximately 30 miles (55 km) northwest of the area where the Kursk was located.

From the same direction, a foreign nuclear submarine, which had been following it for two days, was heading towards our boat on a counter course, having lost hydroacoustic contact with it due to these maneuvers and was in a hurry to restore it. Ten, twenty minutes passed, and the Kursk was still not found. And then the commander of the nuclear submarine decided to surface to clarify the situation at periscope depth (after all, the Kursk, according to his assumptions, could also be on the surface). Submariners all over the world pass through depths dangerous from a ramming strike (from 50 m to periscope depth), at a speed of about 12 knots.

On the approach to the periscope depth (for them - 14-15 meters), the nuclear submarine unexpectedly hit the lower valance of the bow from an acute heading angle into the upper area of ​​the starboard side of the Kursk bow, where the torpedo tube (TA) loaded with a USET combat torpedo was located -80. Of the six TAs of our boat, only two carried practical torpedoes, the remaining four vehicles were equipped with combat torpedoes: two USET-80 and two 65-76, because the Kursk is a ship of constant combat readiness. In addition, another 18 combat torpedoes with standard ammunition were on the racks of the first compartment.

A submarine collision is not a collision between two cars that remain mangled in place. Both underwater objects, one weighing almost 24 thousand tons - "Kursk", the other - 6900 tons (Los Angeles-class nuclear submarine) or 4500 tons - "Splendid", continue to move at the same speed (in this case, the relative speed of oncoming traffic 5.5 m/sec), destroying and tearing everything in its path, including its hulls. And since the nuclear submarines of the US and British Navy, according to the technological tradition, are built single-hull with a hull thickness of 35-45 mm, and ours are double-hulled, where the thickness of the outer light hull is only 5 mm, then, other things being equal, it is our boats that suffer the most damage. Just a second after the first contact of the starboard TA with the combat USET-80 was crushed by half its length. This caused the detonation and explosion of the torpedo warhead, where the main energy went along the path of least resistance - towards the rear cover of the torpedo, which was torn out by the explosion, and a stream of water poured into the compartment through a hole more than half a meter in diameter, filling it and causing short circuits in the electrical networks. The trim on the bow began to quickly increase. Perhaps the commander of the Kursk, in order to withdraw it, managed to give the command to increase the speed and shift the bow rudders to ascent. But there was no time to do all this. Short circuits in the electrical networks triggered the emergency protection of both reactors, the boat lost speed and control, and with increasing trim it sank faster and faster, until about a minute later the bow hit the bottom of the sea.

Further, instantly passing a one and a half meter layer of silt, the huge nuclear submarine, by inertia, plowed its nose part into the rocky base of the Barents Sea bottom until it crushed the front covers of other torpedo tubes, where there were combat torpedoes with the TNT equivalent of their warheads of about two tons, which exploded, leading to a disaster ship. It is possible that the stacked torpedoes also detonated, as evidenced by a huge hole in the durable hull of the Kursk (designed for a pressure of 60 atmospheres) with an area of ​​6 square meters above the first compartment. According to seismic station records, this happened two and a half minutes after the first explosion. At the same time, the inter-compartment bulkheads in the second, third and fourth, and possibly the fifth compartments were broken, since they were designed for a pressure of only 10 atmospheres. In these two and a half minutes, up to 78-90 crew members died.

From a strong impact on the ground at a trim of about 30 degrees in the aft compartments, the main mechanisms of the main power plant of the Kursk were torn from the foundations: turbines, turbogenerators, reversible converters, etc., and with them the propeller shafts, which depressurized the stern tube seals and intercompartment bearings and seals. Water gushed through these leaks at a depth of 108 meters, which caused short circuits and fires in the aft compartments, which was confirmed by Norwegian divers who looked into the ninth compartment. Thus, within a short time, the personnel of the aft compartments also died.

Where is the Kursk killer?

Where did the Kursk offender go? By the time of the catastrophic explosion in the first compartment of our boat, that is, two and a half minutes after the first contact, it, having ripped open the starboard side of the Kursk, was also lying on the ground about 700 meters aft from our submarine. The damage she received was determined by the first explosion of USET-80 and mechanical damage to her hull and outboard fittings, received during the contact movement of both boats relative to each other in the first 15-20 seconds.

Apparently, she received a hole in the fairing of the hydroacoustic complex (SAC), damage to the bow antennas of the SAC (noise direction finding and distance measurement modes), holes in the internal bow tanks of the main ballast, bow (cabinet, if the US Navy nuclear submarine) and the right stern horizontal rudders and stabilizers. It is even possible that its first compartment was flooded and people died in it. But its main vital mechanisms remained intact or received minor damage. Having created a backpressure in the first compartment of about 11 atmospheres, repaired within a day the mechanisms necessary to ensure movement and control of the submarine at depth, and emergency started the nuclear reactor from the battery (that’s why it’s installed on the nuclear submarine), the foreign submarine was able to surface to a depth of 40- 50 meters, give a low speed and so, hobbling, take your feet away from the scene of the incident.

A pair of Il-38 anti-submarine aircraft (crew commanders Lieutenant Colonels Dergunov and Dovzhenko) scrambled into the air and deployed radio-acoustic buoys and discovered a foreign boat heading west at a speed of 5 knots. This is the speed of a lazy or tired cyclist, and it is completely uncharacteristic of nuclear submarines, which travel under water twice as fast. Why did the submarine drag so slowly from the Barents Sea to the Norwegian Sea?

At this time, on August 13, two coastal-based Orion anti-submarine aircraft flew to the accident area unscheduled. Apparently, they provided cover for the start of the boat’s movement to the nearest NATO naval base. Or, if she was unable to move, they would immediately report this to their command.

Technicians point out significant gaps in this version. The most important of them is the lack of an answer to the question of where the object that collided with the Kursk went. The second participant in the incident could only be a US or British submarine. However, the American Los Angeles-class boat “Memphis” mentioned in this regard is three times inferior to the “Kursk” in displacement (6900 tons versus 23,800). British submarines are even smaller. Under these conditions, the absence of a second participant in the collision at the bottom reduces the reliability of the first version. Mentions of foreign buoys in the area where the Kursk sank are not convincing. Most likely, these were not emergency devices, but communication devices, the purpose of which was to surface, “shoot” a message via satellite to your headquarters and drown. The explosions recorded by the Americans, about which they are now gradually leaking information to their media, were a very real reason for sending encryption to the center. At the same time, there are unclear aspects in the behavior of both foreign boats and the official authorities of the respective states that do not allow us to completely abandon the version of the collision.

The reaction of politicians or secret diplomacy.

After the Russian side announced the Kursk tragedy, the heads of many states expressed condolences to Vladimir Putin in connection with the death of the submariners. Presumably, the Russian president had a conversation about this with Bill Clinton. Its contents will not soon become public knowledge. It can be assumed that Putin insisted on the involvement of the American submarine in the disaster, and Klintoy behaved cautiously, not being informed enough to refute this fact during the conversation. In addition, such a recognition could be interpreted almost as the beginning of the third world war. It is possible that Putin tried to take advantage of a certain indecision and confusion of the American president to negate the pressure on Russia on certain political issues (for example, the war in Chechnya), etc.

Almost a year after the sinking of the Kursk, I came across the film script “Tarantula Bite”. Its author is Danat Lipkovsky. This film script depicts a telephone conversation on a “hotline” that took place between the presidents of two countries – the “Zulus” and the “Indians”. This conversation took place on the second day after the death of the nuclear-powered icebreaker Odintsovo along with its crew. The nuclear-powered ship belonged to the Zulus. This is how the author of the film script described this conversation:

Mr. President, hello!

Hello! Would you consider me rude or too hasty if I started by answering a question you haven't asked me yet? Please believe: this is in our common interests!

I am listening really carefully.

THIS is our doing! I would like to immediately note: I personally have nothing to do with this, I very much regret what happened, and I offer you my sincere condolences. As you know, I am a former sailor. I bare my head and mourn with the families of the dead submariners...

You and I know well that, unfortunately, sometimes we learn about some of the actions of our military after the fact, which was the case in this case.

For my part, I promise you to think about possible and mutually acceptable measures and forms of compensation. Naturally, taking into account my currently limited capabilities, due to my upcoming departure from my post.

I appreciate your frankness. But, of course, as you understand, this cannot in the least extend to the assessment of the systematic aggressive, irresponsible, and, therefore, extremely dangerous actions of YOUR military. You know that this topic has been the subject of our previous negotiations more than once. I would not like you and I to again witness any adequate actions of OUR military, which, as you rightly noted, we, presidents, sometimes learn about after the fact.

I note with satisfaction that your and my understanding of the essence of the issues raised almost completely coincides. I will immediately give the necessary instructions to the relevant officials to speed up and strengthen contacts during the ongoing negotiations.

Taking this opportunity, I would like to emphasize that it is advisable to consider these issues not in isolation, but in the more general context of the problems of our relations.

One more small note. Mr. President! I believe you understand that it is not in our MUTUAL interests to make certain aspects of what happened public. Especially considering the backstory we both know.

It’s difficult for me to object to you, Mr. President, but we have no power over the media. In any case, obviously, the priority should be mutual measures to eliminate the consequences and prevent a recurrence of what happened.

I completely agree with you, and will do everything in my power in this direction. Thank you for your attention and understanding.

All the best. I hope that we will find mutual understanding with your receiver.

Here is an example of a conversation between two presidents of some non-existent states that took place according to an unfilmed film script. Only the country of the “Zulus” is somewhat reminiscent of Russia; the name of its lost nuclear-powered ship, “Odintsovo,” is painfully familiar.

Be that as it may, on September 6, during a face-to-face meeting between the presidents of Russia and the United States, Clinton abandoned the Democrats' main trump card in the US presidential elections - the missile defense program, which theoretically can be associated with the threat of the Russian side disclosing information about the “American trace” in tragedy "Kursk".

I do not rule out that a situation arose between the leaders of two states - the United States and Russia - similar to the one that once existed after the collision in February 1992 of American and Russian submarines in the Barents Sea. It's time to remember the telephone conversation between Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev on October 3, 1986. This was a conversation immediately after the K-219 surfaced, after which it sank, and according to the version, an emergency situation occurred on it after a collision with the American nuclear submarine Augusta. Bill Clinton now called Vladimir Putin in exactly the same way on August 13, 2000.

Russian analysts are inclined to connect the sudden visit to Moscow by CIA chief Tenet immediately after the news of the disaster in the Barents Sea with the upcoming presidential elections in the United States and the existence of “three equal versions” of the submarine’s death. It is possible that the publication of one of them will take place immediately after the elections in the United States, when it becomes clear whether the Democrats, represented by Al Gore, remain in power or will be replaced by the Republicans, personified by George W. Bush. If it becomes known that the cause of the death of the Kursk was an American submarine, as the Versiya newspaper, for example, has already written about, then this could seriously affect the civil situation in the United States. If released as official and reliable before the presidential election, this version could have a serious negative impact on the chances of electing a representative of the Democratic Party. Whether this silence will become an additional trump card in the hands of Vladimir Putin in relations with the States depends, in turn, on whether his election bet will be justified. It is unlikely that Bush Number Two would have refused the temptation to “hang all the dogs” on a competitor. It is in his interests, if elected, to leave this situation in the dark “democratic” past in order to work with a clean slate.

On the other hand, until now such incidents have remained without proper assessment and punishment of the “guilty” country. The quick reaction of the American leadership and the vesting of the intelligence chief with the powers of a parliamentarian indicates that the chances of the American side recognizing the fact of the collision are not so small. Moreover, at such depths and at such a distance from the coast where the last Kursk exercises took place, the technical ability to conceal the presence of a damaged unknown boat is probably very small.

Geopolitics requires taking advantage of everything, without especially taking into account moral and emotional criteria. We should probably “forgive” the culprit boat, if one is discovered, and those who sent it on a long voyage to our increasingly less protected shores. But forgive only after the culprits fulfill certain conditions. It is possible that one of them was carried out almost immediately after this conversation between the two presidents and the visit of the CIA chief to Moscow: Bill Clinton announced his refusal to sign the law on the beginning of the deployment of the US national missile defense system, which Russia so actively opposed this year. Isn't this strange? It is not unreasonable to assume that during the telephone conversation that followed a few days after the disaster between the American and Russian presidents, a kind of political deal was concluded. Almost no one knows the content of the 25-minute conversation, but the rather easy refusal that quickly followed, as if in passing, from the deployment of national missile defense leaves no doubt that this initiative was discussed with the Russian side. In any other conditions, the American administration would have demanded compensation from Moscow for such a military-political step - this is quite obvious. And there were still compensations - the lives of 118 submariners, non-disclosure on the Russian side of the true circumstances of the tragedy and possible unpredictable consequences for the world as a whole.

We can say with complete confidence how the American administration would behave if a similar situation, exactly the opposite, occurred off the coast of its country. The American president would never have taken responsibility for the deaths of 118 of his sailors if the Russians were to blame.

To confirm the alibi of the US Navy in the Kursk disaster, they showed the whole world the intact and unharmed American submarine Memphis, which entered one of the NATO naval bases in Norway. And for a month, not a word about where and in what condition are the newest American nuclear submarine Toledo and the English Splendid, which also monitored our submarines during Northern Fleet exercises.

During the anniversary UN General Assembly, US Presidential Adviser on National Security Affairs Samuel Berger presented his Russian counterpart Sergei Ivanov with a letter from the new Chief of Staff of the US Navy, Admiral Vernon Clark, addressed to the Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Navy, Vladimir Kuroyedov, and another message from US Secretary of Defense William Cohen for the minister Russian Defense Ministry Igor Sergeev, which “expresses the opinion that there were explosions on board the submarine,” and emphasizes the non-involvement of American submarines or surface vessels in this accident.

What is surprising is the passivity of our highest bodies of legislative and executive power (including the Ministry of Foreign Affairs), which did not even try to gain access to inspect those three NATO nuclear submarines that were near the Kursk on August 12 - the Memphis and Toledo nuclear submarines of the US Navy. and the nuclear submarine Splendid of the British Navy.

And, what is most interesting, the Pentagon seems to be playing along with the Russian official version, if only by refusing to provide its submarines for external inspection. Then high officials in the Russian Ministry of Defense give instructions to attach to the criminal case about the death of the Kursk the words of retired Norwegian admiral Einar Skorgen from his newspaper interview, namely: with the American submarine Memphis, which was in the Norwegian port of Bergen in August, “there was something is wrong."

It would be very good if Vladimir Putin, the leadership of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation, the chairman of the government commission investigating this disaster Ilya Klebanov, the Russian Defense Minister Igor Sergeev and the Commander-in-Chief of the Navy Vladimir Kuroyedov appealed to their colleagues in the United States and Great Britain with a request to show them in the coming week our specialists have two nuclear submarines: Toledo and Splendid. The damage they receive cannot be quickly repaired. And if they are in good working order and unharmed, then friendship and trust between our countries will be further strengthened.

The version of the collision is strengthened by the entry of the American boat Memphis into the Norwegian port of Bergen. It turned out roughly the same as after the disappearance of our K-129 submarine at the Pacific Fleet in March 1968, when a few days later an American submarine arrived at the Japanese port of Yokosuka with damage to its conning tower and retractable devices.

A representative of the US Department of the Navy said that the call of the American submarine Memphis on August 17 at the Norwegian port of Bergen was planned two months ago. According to him, there is “nothing unusual” in the submarine’s entry into this port. The representative also pointed out that information about the operational activities of the US submarine fleet is not disclosed - only the fact that submarines entered a particular port is confirmed. The spokesman said that to his knowledge, no repairs had been made to the submarine in the port of Bergen.

The Norwegian military claims that Memphis is replenishing its supplies, and the crew is resting on the shore. The Norwegian side claims that the submarine was not damaged, and its visit was planned.

The second nuclear submarine of the US Navy, Toledo, also of the Los Angeles type, visited the British naval base after the Kursk disaster. According to British Navy spokesman Jim Jenkin, the Toledo's visit was planned long before the Kursk incident. The British officer emphasized that “the American submarine had no defects.”

On August 25, 2000, the head of the US Navy, Richard Danzig, told Russian journalists that American submarines had nothing to do with the Kursk accident. Answering the question about where the US submarines were at the time of the Kursk disaster, he indicated that “we received data about the accident from a fairly large distance.”

On October 30, information appeared in the press that US Navy submarines were not involved in the Kursk tragedy. While insisting on this, the US Navy at the same time opposes the idea of ​​​​inspecting them by international experts. As a spokesman for the Department of the Navy said, the United States rejects the possibility of conducting an inspection even with the participation of independent specialists from third countries. In September, Russian Defense Minister Igor Sergeev approached Pentagon chief William Cohen with a request to allow Russian experts to inspect the hulls of US submarines and was refused. Speaking at a hearing in the State Duma, Deputy Chairman of the Russian State Duma Committee on Defense Alexei Arbatov said that after the American authorities refused to allow Russian Navy specialists to inspect the Memphis and Toledo submarines, the version of a collision between one of them and the Kursk became the main one. There is a long chain of events that cannot be coincidences and confirm this version.

As the Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Navy V. Kuroyedov said the day before, he is 80% sure that the cause of the death of the Kursk was a collision with a foreign submarine. In the United States, these words did not go unnoticed, since only American and British submarines were operating in the area of ​​the accident. “We are aware of this statement,” said a representative of the US Navy, “However, we are forced to repeat what President Bill Clinton, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and other high-ranking officials have repeatedly said and assured the Russian side of - not a single US surface ship and not a single the submarine was not involved in the incident." In any case, according to informed sources, the final decision on the possibility of inspecting submarines by foreign representatives remains not with the military, but with the political leadership of the United States. Let us recall that a week ago Kuroyedov spoke about the version of the collision. Then he said that the cause of the accident of the Kursk nuclear submarine “was 80% a collision with another submarine.” Kuroyedov also promised to collect all the evidence in 1.5-2 months and announce who did it. According to the commander-in-chief, the evidence “lies not only at the bottom of the sea.”

The Commander-in-Chief of the Navy also stated that there are facts that indirectly confirm his version: on November 3, 2000, the nuclear-powered missile cruiser Peter the Great discovered a foreign submarine in the Barents Sea (in an area that is now closed). According to Kuroyedov, it is unclear what this submarine “is doing in a closed area, in the area where the Kursk was lost.” The Commander-in-Chief did not rule out that the purpose of finding a foreign submarine in this area is an attempt to hide evidence that may testify in favor of his version.

Meanwhile, Leon Firth, assistant to US Vice President Al Gore for national security, again categorically stated that “not a single American vessel was involved in the tragic incident” with the Russian submarine. After a public speech at the US State Department, Firth once again recalled that the American government had already spoken “absolutely clearly” about this more than once. At the same time, he refused to say why the United States did not agree to an international inspection of the hulls of American submarines located in the same area as the Kursk at the time of the accident, citing the fact that this was “too sensitive an issue” for public comment. Al Gore's assistant did not even say whether the US administration itself had discussed the possibility of allowing foreign inspectors to access the boats.

In Washington, an expert at the local Carnegie Endowment for World Peace, Anatol Lieven, who some time ago spoke out in favor of allowing Russian observers and Western journalists into American submarines, noted that if the parties in such a dispute had changed roles, then “the US government and press were quite rightly demanding I wish there were full explanations and evidence from Moscow.”

However, even if the version of the collision is proven at a government commission, the Americans will still not allow Russian experts to inspect their submarines.

Earlier, official Washington provided Moscow with information about the circumstances of the Kursk nuclear submarine disaster, obtained using acoustic instruments. I already spoke about this when considering the version of the explosion in the first compartment.

What can you add here? Of course, the American military is right that the issue of inspection of their boats is within the competence of the President of America, and not the Secretary of Defense.

And did the Russian Ministry of Defense really not understand this when preparing a letter to resolve this issue at the level of defense ministers? Surely they understood, but they were afraid to tell the Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation that they should ask to prepare such a letter on behalf of the President of Russia to the President of America.

The statements of some publicists that our specialists were never allowed on the submarines of these fleets (so as not to create a precedent) are completely unfounded. Thus, in November 1991, the Commander-in-Chief of the USSR Navy, Fleet Admiral Vladimir Chernavin, and the naval officers accompanying him visited the Baton Rouge nuclear submarine of the US Navy at its base (by choice, it was not prepared for the inspection). True, after this visit, the next year she managed to collide with our nuclear submarine in the same Barents Sea.

Submariners' opinions.

This version is adhered to by old experienced submariners - admirals E. Baltin (former commander of the Black Sea Fleet), V. Popov (commander of the Northern Fleet).

Admiral Eduard Baltin, as he himself said, has every reason to do so, knowing the tactics of American submarines when tracking our boats in the Pacific Fleet, when he was the commander of the submarine flotilla in Kamchatka and then the first deputy commander of the Pacific Fleet.

Former submariner, deputy commander of the Baltic Fleet, Vice Admiral Vladimir Valuev (currently appointed commander of this fleet, my former classmate at the Naval Academy), is also inclined to believe that the Kursk collided with some “underwater object.” As a result of the collision, the light hull of the Russian submarine was damaged, and there followed an explosion of high-pressure air cylinders (in my opinion, on the Kursk they contained air under a pressure of 600 atmospheres, on my boat it was 400 atm.), located in the space between the light and durable boat hulls. As a result of this explosion, the pressure hull depressurized and sea water entered the bow compartments. On my own behalf, I would add that the trim immediately appeared on the bow, the commander probably managed to give the command to shift the rudders for ascent, increased the speed, but the trim did not move away, the boat hit the ground with its bow. According to Valuev, the sea water that got into the first compartment entered into a chemical reaction with the oxidizer of the torpedo fuel, which provoked an explosion and detonation of the warheads of the stacked torpedoes. “The foreign boat that collided with the Kursk was traveling at high speed, was not damaged to the same extent as the Kursk, and was able to leave the scene,” Valuev said. In his opinion, those responsible for the collision “naturally do not see the point of taking responsibility, because it is enormous both morally and materially, and the damage is measured in astronomical figures.”

The coordinator of the deputy group, who was part of the state commission to study the circumstances of the sinking of the Kursk nuclear submarine, Vice Admiral Valery Dorogin, said on February 15 at a press conference in the State Duma that the most likely cause of the sinking of the submarine was a collision with a foreign submarine.

At the same time, he stated that there were “a lot of indirect signs” in favor of his assumption. In particular, he noted, there is evidence that shortly after the accident of the Kursk nuclear submarine in the Barents Sea, a foreign submarine “went at a very slow speed from the area of ​​our exercises.” In addition, according to Valery Dorogin, the sudden decommissioning of one of the British submarines this year, despite the fact that it was the 12th in line for disposal, also evokes certain thoughts.

At the same time, Valery Dorogin did not deny that the state commission is still considering three main versions of the death of the Kursk nuclear submarine: a collision with a foreign submarine, an explosion of its own torpedo on board and a collision with a wartime mine.

Vladimir Dorogin assessed the work of the state commission headed by Deputy Prime Minister Ilya Klebanov as very professional.

This version was advocated by retired Rear Admiral A. Shtyrov, former commander of a Pacific Fleet diesel boat; by a strange coincidence, his boat “S-141” had the same number as “K-141”. Then he was deputy head of the intelligence department of the Pacific Fleet, and then completed his service as deputy head of the naval department of the headquarters of the troops in the southwestern direction.

I was well acquainted with Anatoly Tikhonovich Shtyrov. This is truly a submariner with a capital letter. This is how he commented on the death of the Kursk, which was described in his article “The tragedy of the submarine cruiser Kursk” by Nikolai Cherkashin, also a former submariner and now a famous marine painter.

“The story with the Kursk is reminiscent, even striking, in its similarity to the scenario with the death of another submarine K-129 in 1968. The similarity of the versions put into circulation... What happens: a few days after our submarine disappeared without a trace in the North Pacific Ocean, the attacking American boat Swordfish enters the Japanese port of Yokosuka. Her wheelhouse fence is badly dented. She is quickly given a facelift, after which she returns to her base and disappears from our sight for a year and a half. More serious repairs took that long. And immediately the Pentagon’s version, replicated by all media: an explosion occurred on a Soviet boat. In all likelihood, a battery explosion.

Today everything is the same: on the ground there is a defeated Kursk with a very characteristic hole - clearly of external origin. Just like on the K-129, the periscope and other retractable devices are raised. Just like the Swordfish, the American Atomorina, one of those that was in the area of ​​the Northern Fleet exercises, urgently requested to enter the nearest Norwegian port. Just as in 1968, the Pentagon spoke about an internal explosion on board the K-129, and today its experts launched the painfully familiar version of an internal explosion on board Kursk.” Such “Versions of Independent Experts” are a long-standing and well-tested weapon in the information war, in the war for people’s minds and their mood. It is beneficial to NATO admirals: you blew up there yourself, sort it out yourself and don’t drag us into this wet business.

The fact that the Americans officially confirmed that two of their nuclear boats and one English one were near the area of ​​the Northern Fleet exercises and were 200 miles away from the site of the Kursk sinking - they turned this down - is for simpletons. At such a distance, they simply would not be able to do what they came for - conduct technical and, above all, hydroacoustic reconnaissance, as well as “herd” our submarine cruisers at a distance of a torpedo shot. In fact, and this fact will be confirmed by any commander who sailed in the Atlantic, the distance between the tracked and tracking boat under water is sometimes less than a kilometer. At the same time, some American commanders consider it the highest chic to dive under a boat. This chic could cost the life of the K-129, and in all likelihood, the K-219 in 1986, when the US submarine Augusta “frolic” next to the Soviet missile carrier in the Sargasso Sea.

Opinion of Rear Admiral A. Shtyrov: “It is clear that after the attention of the whole world was riveted in the agony of the Russian boat, confessing to the guilty party of one’s own, albeit unintentional, guilt is a very bold step. It’s easier to refuse, just as they disowned “K-129” at one time.

Although the behavior of the American side is very alarming. For example, Clinton's unscheduled 25-minute telephone conversation with Putin. It is unlikely that the American president spent the entire 25 minutes expressing sympathy for the Russian president. For some reason, suddenly on August 17, on the fifth day of the disaster, CIA Director George Tenet flew to Moscow incognito - on a private plane. For what? Agree on the version of the underwater incident? I don’t rule it out... And the shifting eyes and completely confused look of US Defense Secretary William Cohen, who made a statement on television? Did you notice his phrase: “This is a tragedy not only for Russian submariners, but for all professionals in the world?”

On the eve of a government commission meeting.

On November 3, the heavy nuclear-powered missile cruiser Pyotr Veliky discovered a foreign submarine in the area where the Kursk sank with its onboard hydroacoustic means.

The cruiser recorded its presence in the area for a long time. No active measures were taken to oust the foreign submarine from the disaster area - the submarine left it on its own. Speaking about the discovery of a foreign submarine, Navy Commander-in-Chief Vladimir Kuroyedov did not rule out that “the purpose of the presence of a foreign submarine in this area is an attempt to hide evidence that may support the version that the Kursk was lost as a result of a collision with a foreign submarine.”

Klebanov said that the government commission to investigate the boat incident, which will meet again on November 8, is now studying the new materials received. He also added that all the previously stated three versions of the Kursk accident remain in force. However, according to Klebanov, if at a meeting of the commission to investigate the causes of the death of the Kursk, irrefutable evidence in favor of the version of the collision is presented, the government commission will work on this version.

This is how we can summarize the various materials published before the commission meeting on November 8, 2000.

“This afternoon, the government commission to investigate the causes of the Kursk nuclear submarine accident should report its conclusion. The head of the commission, Deputy Prime Minister Ilya Klebanov, said earlier in the context of discussing the fact that there are different versions of the death of the boat: “there will only be one version left, and it will be 100 percent.”

In our opinion, such “one version” can only be the version about

A collision of the Kursk with an unknown underwater object, in other words, with another submarine. This, as we reported earlier, is evidenced by forensic examination data, although our sources noted that experts are still not 100 percent, but 80 percent sure of the collision. But this is a lot for an expert opinion.

The main difficulty that prevents us from unambiguously assessing the causes of the accident as a collision is the absence of the wreckage of a foreign submarine at the scene (the fact that the “other” boat could only be foreign is clear, and there are no other versions). However, their absence or difficulty in detecting them does not surprise experts due to the nature of the accident and the likely nature of the debris itself. The fact that they were not found does not mean that there was no accident, but only means the absence of material evidence, evidence - if there is expert evidence.

And so, on November 8, after a meeting of the government commission, its chairman I. Klebanov said that the version of the collision received serious video confirmation: an internal dent was discovered in the area of ​​\u200b\u200bcompartments 1-2, and sliding stripes were clearly visible on the hull of the boat, as if the nuclear submarine had collided with any object. Ilya Klebanov ruled out the possibility that such a strike could have been caused by a surface object.

This “video confirmation” was received after work was carried out by the Mir deep-sea vehicles on board the research vessel Akademik Mstislav Keldysh, after divers from the Regalia examined the hull of the boat itself,

The research vessel "Akademik Mstislav Keldysh", assigned to Kaliningrad, after the sinking of the nuclear submarine "Kursk", worked in the area of ​​the sinking of the "Kursk". Deep-sea scientists made 10 dives to the submarine’s hull using Mir submersibles. Then, having examined more than 4 thousand meters of the seabed, specialists discovered and lifted aboard the Keldysh fragments of the light hull of the submarine, and carried out detailed surveys of the Mirami.

On Sunday, November 19, the chairman of the state commission, I. Klebanov, took part in Vladimir Pozner’s original program on ORT.

He stated that at the time of the Kursk nuclear submarine disaster, on August 12, there were two American and one British submarines in the area of ​​the Russian fleet exercises.

According to I. Klebanov, this information was “confirmed by both the Americans and the British.” At the same time, Klebanov did not comment on the versions of some media that the Kursk was lost as a result of a collision with one of the submarines of NATO countries. “I, as the chairman of the government commission, have never named and will not name the causes of the disaster until it is fully investigated,” he emphasized. At the same time, answering the presenter’s question, Klebanov said that to all requests from the Russian Foreign Ministry to the Pentagon and the Royal Navy of Great Britain regarding the involvement of the submarines of these countries in the collision with the Kursk, “we have not received a response. Instead, after some time, we received a seismological picture of the development of the disaster, which we already knew.”

As the Deputy Prime Minister asserted, the SOS signals on the day of the sinking of the Kursk nuclear submarine on August 12 “clearly did not come from a Russian submarine.”
According to Klebanov, as soon as he arrived in the area of ​​the sinking of the Russian submarine, he was given printouts of all the noises recorded by the Russian military since the accident on the Kursk. Klebanov said that he listened to the noise generated by some device inside the underwater object. “No Russian submarine has such a device,” he said. Klebanov indirectly confirmed that this signal could have been sent from a submarine that did not belong to the Russian Navy.

“That is why the government commission to investigate the causes of the death of the Kursk has many indirect signs of a collision between the Kursk and a foreign underwater object,” said the chairman of the commission.

Some thoughts on this version.

The version of the Kursk colliding with another submarine was heard in the comments of the Russian Navy leadership from the very beginning. Then - how it was cut off. Or someone cut it.

I will say for myself that it also spread through the channels of the operational service of the navy: from the evening of August 12 to the morning of August 13, there was a rumor that something terrible had happened in the North with a nuclear submarine. The soul-chilling rumor spread in whispers that she sank, and that the main reason was a collision with an American submarine, which lay next to the Kursk, five cables away. They said that an emergency buoy had been discovered in the area, similar in color to the buoy of an American submarine. But the buoy could not be raised; it seemed to have sunk. And the underwater object, which was not far from the Kursk, disappeared somewhere. These were the first rumors, cautious, whispered to each other, and they, as a rule, are the most reliable. The general designer of the Rubin Central Design Bureau, Igor Spassky, summing up the results of the divers’ work on lifting the dead submariners on November 10, 2000, mentioned that a magnetic anomaly was observed in the area of ​​the disaster for several days. That is, some kind of mass (possibly a submarine) lay on the bottom not far from the Kursk. “However, this was not documented,” he added.

Well, then we all used only official information. Moreover, everyone had their own version. Just like, for example, the commander of the Northern Fleet had it. He openly said on television that he “would like to look into the eyes of the person who organized all this.” He made it clear to everyone that he was in favor of the version of the collision with the American boat. No less convincingly demonstrated on television was the episode when the Commander-in-Chief of the Navy, Fleet Admiral V. Kuroyedov, while on the Norwegian platform Regalia, looked at the video recording of the underwater filming of the Kursk hull. The viewing was commented on by the head of the Russian divers, Rear Admiral Gennady Verich. At a certain moment, he showed the Commander-in-Chief a dent on the body, and said involuntarily: “This is where, Comrade Commander-in-Chief, there was a blow.” At the same time, the Commander-in-Chief replied that he was sure of this.

On August 15 (the day after the world learned about the tragedy), Ekho Moskvy, citing an anonymous source in the American administration, reported: “During the incident with the Russian nuclear submarine Kursk, near which there were two submarines The US Navy, the acoustics of one of them recorded the sound of an explosion on Saturday.” If there were two boats nearby, one of them was involved in a collision, then the acoustics of the second boat could and should actually hear the sound of an explosion from this collision. The acoustics of the American boat that took part in the collision could not hear such an explosion; they were participants in this explosion, and at that moment they had no time to listen to the sound of the explosion. These are just my thoughts as a former submariner and boat commander.

Let's return to the message from Echo of Moscow. Half an hour after this anonymous message, an “official response” came from the US Navy: “At the moment when the Russian submarine Kursk sank in the Barents Sea, it was being monitored by the American electronic intelligence warship Loyal.” He was located about 400 km from the Kursk and “could not have been involved” in the incident with the Russian submarine. Navy representatives refused to clarify whether the American electronic intelligence ship was able to obtain any information about the Kursk, and whether there were any other ships flying the American flag in the area at the time of the incident.”

By the evening of the same day, the Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Navy V. Kuroyedov for the first time announced information about a possible collision between Kursk and an American submarine. In response, the United States organizes a leak of information about two explosions on the Kursk and puts forward a version with tests of a new rocket-powered torpedo, which allegedly caused the tragedy. The first explosion is from a new torpedo, and then 135 seconds later a second explosion from detonated torpedoes in the first compartment. There was no talk of a third explosion 45 minutes 18 seconds later. And it would not be logical to talk about it if it no longer belonged to Kursk. By this time, the president and the leadership of the Russian Ministry of Defense were already one hundred percent sure that the Kursk had collided with another submarine. Defense Minister Igor Sergeev spoke about the third explosion in his interview with ORT. And he used information both from the General Staff of the Navy and from the Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces.

Immediately after the Kursk disaster, the reconnaissance activity of NATO naval ships sharply declined. This is not typical for their actions in such situations, which usually try to collect as much detailed information as possible under these conditions. Instead, NATO ships were withdrawn from the exercise area and pulled back to bases in Norway. On the second day after the Kursk accident, the United States offered to transfer its rescue equipment to the accident area. Despite the Russian side's evasion of the US Navy's participation in the rescue operation, the Americans transferred a group of submarine specialists and equipment from the Norfolk base (USA) to the UK and from there to Norway. In fact, immediately after the Kursk nuclear submarine disaster, American submarines left the exercise area, but from that moment on, the receipt of any information about one of the submarines operating in this area ceased. The Los Angeles project boat is being deployed to a Norwegian base, where the crew is being replaced. The location of the second Sea Wolf class submarine cannot yet be determined. There has been no information about her since the start of the search operation.

Calculations show that the strength characteristics, as well as the design features of some types of US nuclear submarines, allow options in which, in the event of a collision on a collision course with a large angle of attack to the axis of the affected boat, the damage received during such impacts does not lead to catastrophic consequences for the ramming boat. In the case of the nuclear submarine "Kursk", a situation is possible in which the ramming nuclear submarine, which actually punctured the hull of the "Kursk" at the junction of the first and second compartments, was "pryed" by it and pushed to the surface, which gave the crew time to effectively organize the fight for survivability, which appeared at the same time as a “cargo” for the damaged Kursk boat, accelerating the flooding of the damaged compartments and increasing the immersion angle.

Regarding the version of the collision of the Kursk nuclear submarine with a foreign submarine, Igor Spassky, general designer of the Rubin Central Design Bureau, stated that “theoretically, we found on the models a position in which a foreign boat lands on our bow.” But there is no practical confirmation of this version yet, he emphasized. Currently, various options for the development of the situation at Kursk are being modeled.

Boats of the Sea Wolf class are considered more modern than the Los Angeles class. Their production began at the height of the Cold War, after which the expensive project was discontinued.

All boats of this class, after exhausting their service life, were converted into training simulators. All but one. The Jimmy Carter boat of this class was modernized and transferred to NATO forces. A new nuclear reactor was installed on the Carter, making the boat quieter and more secretive. The body was reinforced with ceramics and plastic, which increased the depth of immersion. Navigation equipment was replaced with more modern ones. The last boat of the Sea Wolf class, the Carter, was used exclusively for reconnaissance operations, as it was not equipped with a vertical launch system for missiles with nuclear warheads. The main overall characteristics of the submarine: total displacement 9137 tons, length 107.6 meters, width 12.9 meters, draft 10.9 meters. The boat in its original version, when it was a missile boat and had 12 Tomahawk missiles on board, had a crew of 133 people, including 12 officers.

Further, under the heading “Political Games,” the newspaper writes: “We will not reproduce the entire stream of lies that came from our and American generals. Only a diplomatic squabble between the United States and Russia makes sense. The day after Russia publicly acknowledged the Kursk disaster, Great Britain, Norway and the United States offered assistance in rescuing the crew of the boat. The British did this twice, and each time their Defense Minister Geoff Hoon accompanied his proposal with comments. In the first case: “As for the version about the collision of the Kursk with a foreign submarine, it was definitely not a British submarine.” And in the second: “There were no British Navy submarines in the disaster area during this period. Therefore, they could not be involved in the collision with the Kursk if such a collision caused the accident.” NATO headquarters already knew that Russia knew about the collision of the Kursk with a US submarine.

On August 16, Russian Defense Minister Igor Sergeev appeared on television and directly announced the ramming of the Kursk. On the same day, US Secretary of Defense William Cohen sent a letter to Sergeev. Observers regarded this fact as another US offer of assistance. In fact, since Sergeev’s speech on television, not a single offer of help has been received from either the Pentagon or the United States. Throughout the day on August 16, there were reports of negotiations and consultations between the British and Russian military. Most likely, the confusion that initially arose due to the official assignment of “Carter” to NATO was eliminated. The day ended with an official appeal from the Russian Foreign Ministry to Great Britain and Norway for help.

On August 17, Putin officially thanked British Prime Minister Tony Blair for his assistance in the Barents Sea. Even the head of Israel, Ehud Barak, received gratitude. The Russian President did not say a word to the United States or President Clinton. On the same day, Deputy Chief of Staff of the Russian Navy, Vice Admiral Alexander Pobozhiy, held talks in Brussels with a representative of the NATO High Command in the Atlantic at the headquarters of the North Atlantic Alliance. At the end of the meeting, it was stated that “full mutual understanding” had been reached. Does this not indicate that the nationality of the “killer boat” has been finally established?

The next day, Pentagon spokesman Rear Admiral Craig Quigley made a very strange statement: “No conclusions should be drawn from the Kursk accident regarding the state of readiness of the Russian Navy. Such “macro conclusions” should not be drawn from this or any other accident. Accidents like this can happen for a variety of reasons with different IUDs around the world. Our concern now is to try to rescue the crew members on board the submarine."

There are at least two oddities in this statement. Firstly, why is the Pentagon concerned about maintaining the reputation of the Russian fleet? And secondly, American specialists were not allowed to the Kursk and had nothing to do with rescuing the crew. Strange, however, this statement seemed only to uninitiated observers. The result of Rear Admiral Craig Quigley's speech was that the Western press, as if on orders, changed its tone in covering the Kursk tragedy. Before this, foreign publications were full of materials about “the demise of the Navy and Putin’s dreams of reviving Russia’s maritime glory.” Afterwards, Western publications “teared” the story, and the human motive of the tragedy began to predominate.

The changes in the views and positions of some high-ranking Russian officials over time are interesting, especially according to the version of the collision. The Commander-in-Chief of the Navy gravitates most towards this version. On December 1, 2000, he announced that he knew the reasons for the death of the Kursk. Kuroyedov is already almost one hundred percent confident in the version of the Kursk’s collision with a foreign submarine. In addition, Kuroyedov believes that he has all the necessary facts, but he does not yet have enough evidence in favor of this version.” Kuroyedov also promised to collect all the evidence in 1.5-2 months and announce who did it. According to the commander-in-chief, the evidence “lies not only at the bottom of the sea.”

The Commander-in-Chief of the Navy also stated that there are facts that indirectly confirm his version: on November 3, the nuclear-powered missile cruiser Peter the Great discovered a foreign submarine in the Barents Sea (in an area that is now closed). According to Kuroyedov, it is unclear what this submarine “is doing in a closed area, in the area where the Kursk was lost.” The Commander-in-Chief did not rule out that the purpose of finding a foreign submarine in this area is an attempt to hide evidence that may testify in favor of his version.

Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Government Ilya Klebanov does not share Kuroyedov’s point of view. “I respect Kuroyedov’s point of view, but the commission will settle on one of the versions only if it has 100 percent confidence,” explained the chairman of the state commission.

An argument was given in favor of this version that not far away (according to some unofficial data, about 50 meters from the Kursk, Russian rescuers found on the ground an object similar to part of the conning tower fence installed on US and British submarines... But this argument was not received later Thus, on October 13, 2000, Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation Ilya Klebanov, speaking at a press conference after a meeting at the Rubin Central Design Bureau, said that in the area of ​​​​the sinking of the Kursk submarine, no objects were found that could serve as material evidence of that , that the cause of the nuclear-powered ship disaster was a collision with an unknown object.

Some time ago, Deputy Chief of the General Staff Valery Manilov reported that the Russian military managed to raise to the surface an object that could well be part of a foreign submarine. According to an anonymous representative of the Main Staff of the Russian Navy, leaked in the press, in particular in Gazeta. Ru", this item and the "Kursk" are under constant guard by the ships of the Northern Fleet, so that "no one would be tempted to take possession of it or any part of the apparatus or equipment of the nuclear-powered ship."

It is difficult now to judge whether anything was discovered at the scene of the disaster and whether anything was recovered that would give grounds for the credibility of the version of the collision.

After the Pentagon refused to provide independent experts with the Memphis submarine to examine its hull for dents and other external damage, this version becomes irrefutable. All four of its links cannot be broken. Link one: in the area where the Kursk sank, there have already been collisions with foreign boats. Second: at the time of the death of the Kursk in the combat training grounds of the Northern Fleet, i.e. There were three foreign boats around the Kursk. Third: immediately after the death of the Kursk, one of the boats that observed its actions went to the nearest port for repairs. And finally, the fourth link: the NATO authorities refused to objectively record the integrity of the Memphis hull, depriving it of an alibi once and for all. Are there too many coincidences for all these events to line up in one logical chain? A columnist for the Segodnya newspaper wrote: “The entry of the American nuclear submarine Memphis into the Norwegian port of Bergen is the most vulnerable moment in the US counterarguments. Even if this approach, as alleged, was planned in advance, it would be wiser to cancel it, so as not to attract suspicion. Otherwise, the version of the collision remains valid. It could have been refuted by some commission that would have been allowed to inspect the Memphis... The American nuclear submarine Toledo, which was also located near the Kursk, was not presented - it is located at the British naval base of Faslane.”

It is characteristic that many Americans, not inclined to trust official reports from the Pentagon, launched their own search for the killer boat. The Internet created its own independent commissions to investigate the circumstances of the death of the Kursk. On the fortieth day after the tragedy, the editorial office of Rossiyskaya Gazeta received a fax from the USA: “Look for a boat with characteristic damage at the British Navy base at Rinns Point, located in Scotland. Its harbor, surrounded by rocks, allows for hidden entry of submarines in an underwater position...”
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Collision of the nuclear submarine K-276 (SF) with the nuclear submarine Baton Rouge (US Navy) on February 11, 1992.

Basic data of the nuclear submarine of project "945"Barracuda", "Sierra" class:

Displacement: 5300 t / 7100 t.
Main dimensions:
length - 112.7 m
width - 11.2 m
draft - 8.5 m
Armament: 4 - 650 mm TA 4 - 533 mm TA
Speed: 18/35 knots.
Crew: 60 people, incl. 31 officers

Basic data of the nuclear submarine Baton Rouge (No. 689), Los Angeles type:

Displacement: 6000 t / 6527 t.
Main dimensions: length - 109.7 m
width - 10.1 m
draft - 9.89 m.
Armament: 4 - 533 mm TA, anti-ship missile "Garpoon".
Speed: more than 30 knots underwater.
Crew: 133 people.

The Russian nuclear torpedo submarine was at a combat training range near the Rybachy Peninsula, in Russian territorial waters. The submarine was commanded by Captain 2nd Rank I. Loktev. The crew of the boat passed the second course task (the so-called “L-2”) and the submarine followed at a depth of 22.8 meters. The American nuclear-powered submarine carried out reconnaissance missions and monitored its Russian “brother”, following at a depth of about 15 meters. In the process of maneuvering, the acoustics of the American boat lost contact with the Sierra, and since there were five fishing vessels in the area, the noise of the propellers of which was similar to the noise of the propellers of a nuclear submarine, the commander of the Baton Rouge decided at 20 hours 8 minutes to surface to periscope depth and figure out environment. At that moment, the Russian boat was lower than the American one and at 20:13 it also began to ascend to conduct a communication session with the shore. The fact that Russian hydroacoustics were tracking their ship was not detected, and at 20:16 a submarine collision occurred. During the collision, "Kostroma" rammed the bottom of the American "filer" with its wheelhouse. Only the low speed of the Russian boat and the shallow depth during ascent allowed the American submarine to avoid death. Traces of a collision remained on the deckhouse of the Kostroma, which made it possible to identify the violator of the territorial waters. The Pentagon was forced to admit its involvement in the incident.
Photo of Kostroma after the collision:

As a result of the collision, Kostroma damaged its wheelhouse fence and was soon repaired. There were no casualties on our side. "Baton Rouge" was completely disabled. One American sailor died.
A good thing, however, is the titanium case. At the moment, there are 4 such buildings in the Northern Fleet: Kostroma, Nizhny Novgorod, Pskov and Karp.

And here is what our leaders, our professionals, wrote about the analysis of this incident:

Reasons for the collision between the submarine SF K - 276 and the submarine "BATON ROUGE" of the US Navy

1.Objective:

Violation of Russian territorial waters by foreign submarines

Incorrect classification of submarine noise due to the alleged use of equipment for masking the acoustic field as RT noise (GNATS).

2. Disadvantages in organizing surveillance:

Poor quality analysis of information on the OI and the recorder of the 7A-1 GAK MGK-500 device (the fact of observing a collision object was not revealed - target N-14 at a minimum distance in terms of the S/P ratio in various frequency ranges)

Unjustifiably large (up to 10 min) gaps in measuring bearings to the target, which did not allow the use of methods for clarifying the distance to the target based on the VIP value

Incompetent use of active and passive means on the course of listening to stern heading angles, which led to the use of the entire time spent on this course only for the work of P/N echo direction finding, and in the ShP mode the horizon remained virtually unlistened

Weak leadership of the SAC operators on the part of the SAC commander, which led to an incomplete analysis of information and erroneous classification of the target.

3. Disadvantages in the activities of the crew "GKP-BIP-SHTURMAN":

The estimated time for clearing the horizon at courses of 160 and 310 degrees, which led to a short time spent on these courses and the creation of suboptimal conditions for the work of SAC operators;

Poor quality documentation of the situation and measured MPCs;

Lack of organization of secondary classification of goals;

The commander of the warhead-7 did not fulfill his responsibilities for issuing recommendations to the submarine commander for special maneuvering to clarify the control center in accordance with Article 59 of the RRTS-1;

The danger of a collision with a low-noise, short-range maneuvering target was not identified.
As always, our calculations GKP-BIP-SHTURMAN are to blame. And no one cared about the technical capabilities of our acoustics at that time. Of course, conclusions were drawn from the accident. But they were made not in the direction of improving the quality of our technical means of observation, but in the direction of the appearance of a bunch of different “instructions” about what is allowed and what is not allowed, so that it would be better and so that suddenly again we would not accidentally ram our “friends” into our tervodakh.


An asterisk on the wheelhouse with a “one” inside indicates one damaged enemy ship. This is how stars were painted during World War II.