On August 8, 1991, RPK CH K-407 demonstrated a full-rocket underwater launch
In a few minutes, a submarine of the Northern Fleet fired 16 ballistic missiles at the Kura test site. This is still an unsurpassed record of the Russian submarine fleet.
Let's not forget that the very first launch from under the water took place in our fleet in November 1960, when the commander of the B-67 diesel-powered missile submarine, Captain 2nd Rank Vadim Korobov, launched a ballistic missile from the depths of the White Sea. This launch proved in practice the possibility of underwater missile firing.
But the way our submarines K-140 (commander - 2nd rank captain Yuri Beketov) and K-407 (commander - 2nd rank captain Sergei Egorov) fired, no one in the world fired: first 8 missiles in one salvo, then 16.
Retired Rear Admiral Yuri Flavianovich Beketov says:
- In early October 1969, I was appointed commander of the strategic missile submarine K-140. This was the first serial submarine of Project 667A. In the future - strategic missile submarine cruiser. The submarine with a second crew on board was preparing to move to Severodvinsk for modernization, and our first crew received the K-32 submarine and began preparations to go out to sea on combat patrols. As the commander of the first K-140 crew, the squadron command was given the task:
- prepare the crew and the submarine to go out to sea on combat patrols;
- prepare the crew and the submarine to launch 8 missiles in one salvo.
The planned dates were different. The preparation for military service took about five months, and the preparation and execution of the shooting - no more than three months.
Many people have a question: why was it necessary to fire 8 ballistic missiles, and not 12 or 16? The fact is that 8 missiles were "de-ampulized" during combat duty by another crew. For this reason, their guaranteed service life was significantly reduced and, according to all rocket canons, they were to be launched within three months.
The task was simplified by the fact that the first crew of the K-140 was well trained, and in this one must pay tribute to the first commander - Captain 1st Rank (later - Vice Admiral) Anatoly Petrovich Matveev. The navigator, captain of the 3rd rank Velichko, with whom I was familiar from service on diesel missile submarines, the junior navigator Lieutenant-Commander Topchilo, the commander of the missile combat unit, Captain 2nd Rank Somkin, knew their business well.
I had to, as they say, spend days and even nights on the ship, because in addition to the main tasks assigned, I must obtain permission to independently control the submarine 667A of the project and confirm the linearity of the first crew of the K-140, that is, its ability to perform all tasks.
It was planned to start firing somewhere in the middle of December 1969, and about a month later, representatives of science and industry began to arrive at the squadron, wishing to take part in this unique test. Moreover, there were at least 100 people willing to go to sea. What to do? I could not take so many passengers on the submarine. According to the instructions, it was allowed to have an excess of the crew of no more than 10% at sea, that is, 13-14 people. Neither I nor the command of the division and squadron could decide who to take personally. All - honored people, scientists, business leaders, etc.
At one of the meetings, I proposed to conduct a medical examination of these persons, and with those recognized as suitable for medical reasons, conduct training in light diving training: the use of diving equipment for a submariner, exit from a torpedo tube and others. Everyone agreed, understanding what could happen in an emergency, because there is no such experience in launching missiles in the world. As a result, 16 people were approved to go to sea, including the general designer of the missile complex, Viktor Petrovich Makeev.
By mid-December 1969, everything was ready for going to sea and performing rocket firing. December 18 (my birthday) we go out to sea. The senior on board is the commander of the 31st division of nuclear missile submarines, Captain 1st Rank (later - Vice Admiral, Hero of the Soviet Union) Lev Alekseevich Matushkin, who wrote many pages of courage and courage in the history of our nuclear missile submarine fleet.
The chief of fire on the surface ship is the commander of the 12th submarine squadron, Rear Admiral (later Vice Admiral) Georgy Lukich Nevolin. It is difficult to overestimate his contribution to ensuring the combat readiness and combat effectiveness of our squadron. Thanks to his persistence and professionalism of a submariner, a galaxy of commanders of strategic missile submarine cruisers was brought up …
… We leave, everything is fine. The weather is good: the sea is 2-3 points, the wind is within 5-6 m / s, the visibility is full, the cloudiness is not more than 3 points, the polar night.
Shooting from an equipped position (within sight of the coastline and navigational marks). We occupied the starting point of maneuvering, plunged to periscope depth, and at a low speed began checking the course guidance system. The navigator, led by the flagship navigator of the squadron V. V. Vladimirov, began to determine the correction of the heading system for the accuracy of the firing bearing. The deviation of the rocket in the direction from the given target depends on the work of the navigators.
We finished work on the first practice tack. We return to the starting point and lay down on a combat course, bring the course guidance system back to normal for shooting. We ask the supervisor for permission to shoot. We wait. We get the go-ahead to work, keep the underwater connection with the head, dive to the starting depth, trim the boat with a zero trim. Speed 3, 5 knots. All is ready.
- Combat alert, missile attack!
The tension is growing and, apparently, the greatest is mine.
- Start prelaunch preparation!
Prelaunch preparation is in progress: pre-pressurization, the annular gaps of the rocket silos are filled with water, prelaunch pressurization, ready to open the lids of the first "four" missile silos. I give the command:
- Open the shaft covers!
The covers are open.
- Start!
They started the stopwatch. Start of the first, then with an interval of 7 seconds, the second, third and fourth missiles are launched. The launch is felt by shocks into the submarine's sturdy hull. I give the command:
- To batten down the covers of the missile silos of the first "four" and open the covers of the silos of the second "four"!
One and a half minutes are allotted for this operation. The operation is completed, I am ready to give the command to start the second "quartet" of missiles, but the submarine begins to fall behind the launch depth corridor. What to do? The emerging situation is fraught with the cancellation of the missile launch, since going beyond the limits established by the instructions for the depths of the launch corridor leads to an automatic cancellation of the launch and the return of technical equipment to its original position. I understand that an emergency situation arises: the provision of the Instruction for controlling a submarine when launching missiles states that after the launch of the first "four" missiles, the submarine has a tendency to ascend and must be made heavier, that is, take ballast. In practice, however, the opposite is true. I give the command to pump water out of the equalizing tank, but I understand that the inertia of the boat (after all, the displacement is about 10 thousand tons) is large and we will go beyond the starting depth. I order to increase the travel speed by smoothly adding up to 20 revolutions for each turbine. At the same time, I take into account that the starting speed should not exceed 4, 25 knots. Seconds pass, I look at the division commander, he gives a sign that everything is correct. The boat keeps the starting depth, we drop 10 revolutions each, command: "Start!" The last rockets are launched. The commander of the missile warhead reports: "The launch went well, no comments." I am addressing the crew on the loudspeaker. I say that for the first time in the world 8 missiles were launched in one salvo, thank you for your service. In the central post and in the compartments "Hurray!"
We float to the surface, we lay down on the course to the base. We receive gratitude from the head of the firing and the message that the battlefield has received 8 missiles, the deviation (center of the grouping of warheads) of the first and second "fours" is within normal limits …
… I was awarded the Order of the Red Banner.
Ten days before the death of the Soviet state, sixteen ballistic missiles suddenly burst from the depths of the Barents Sea, one after the other, and were carried away towards the coast. This unique sight was observed by only a few people on board a patrol ship drifting in a deserted sea … Only they knew that this day - August 8, 1991 - will go down in the history of the Soviet fleet and the Russian fleet as a whole as the day of a great military achievement …
Former Commander-in-Chief of the USSR Navy, Hero of the Soviet Union, Fleet Admiral Vladimir Nikolaevich Chernavin:
- Submarine-launched missiles were recognized as the most reliable component of strategic nuclear forces both in the USSR and in the USA. Perhaps that is why, under the guise of negotiations on the need to limit strategic arms, they began to approach strategic nuclear submarine cruisers. In any case, in recent years of the notorious "perestroika" in the USSR Ministry of Defense, voices were heard more and more often: they say, submarine missile carriers are very unreliable carriers of ballistic missiles, they say, they are capable of making no more than two or three launches, and therefore it is necessary to get rid of them in the first place. So it became necessary to demonstrate a full-rocket underwater launch. This is a very expensive and difficult business, but the honor of the weapon had to be defended, and I entrusted this mission to the crew of the nuclear missile submarine Novomoskovsk (at that time it was a numbered boat), commanded by Captain 2nd Rank Sergei Yegorov.
Captain 1st Rank Sergei Vladimirovich Egorov recalls:
- It's one thing to launch a rocket from a ground silo, looking at the launch a kilometer away from a concrete bunker. Another is to launch it like we do: from here! - Egorov tapped himself on the neck. - From the back of the neck.
Yes, if something happened to a rocket fueled with highly toxic fuel - and the crew would not be happy. The accident in missile silo No. 6 on the ill-fated atomarine K-219 ended in the death of several sailors and the ship itself. Less tragic, but with enormous environmental damage, the attempted first full-rocket salvo in 1989 ended.
- Then, - Yegorov grins sadly, - on board were over fifty people of all kinds of bosses. There are five political workers alone. After all, many went for orders. But when the boat sank to a depth and crushed the rocket, someone very quickly got over to the rescue tug. In this regard, it was easier for us: only two chiefs came out with me - Rear Admirals Salnikov and Makeev. Well, and also the general designer of the ship, Kovalev, together with the deputy general for missile weapons Velichko, which does both honor. So in the old days, engineers proved the strength of their structures: they stood under the bridge until a train passed through it … In general, there were no strangers on board.
Rear Admiral Salnikov warned Makeyev, our division commander: "If you say one word, I will expel you from the central post!" So that no one wedges into the chain of my commands. We have already worked out everything to the point of complete automatism. Any superfluous word - advice or order - could slow down the pace of the already overstrained work of the entire crew. Judge for yourself: at the salvo depth, the covers of the mines open, they stand upright and the hydrodynamic resistance of the hull immediately increases, the speed decreases; turbine operators must immediately increase the speed to maintain the specified stroke parameters. All 16 shafts are filled with water before launch, the weight of the boat increases dramatically by many tons, it begins to sink, but it must be kept exactly in the starting corridor. This means that the hold ones should blow out excess ballast in time, otherwise the boat will swing, the stern will go down, and the bow will go up, albeit not much, but with a ship length of 150 meters, the difference in depth for the rocket will have a disastrous effect and it will go away, as we say, “to cancel ". Indeed, a few seconds before the start, some of its units are turned on in an irreversible mode. And if the start is canceled, they are subject to factory replacement, and this is a lot of money.
Even in the most general terms, it is clear that a missile salvo from under the water requires super-coordinated work of the entire crew. This is more difficult than shooting in Macedonian style - with two hands, offhand. Here, the oversight of one in a hundred can cost the overall success. And that is why Egorov drove his people on simulators for more than a year, went out to sea five times to work out the main task with the crew. From scattered wills, souls, intellects, skills Yegorov weaved, created, assembled a well-oiled human mechanism, which made it possible to discharge a huge underwater rocket launcher as dashingly and reliably as firing a burst from a Kalashnikov assault rifle. This was his great commanding work, this was his feat, for which he prepared himself more ruthlessly than any other Olympian.
And the day has come … But at first they went through many checks and commissions, which, overlapping each other, meticulously studied the ship's readiness to enter an unprecedented business. The last to arrive from Moscow was Rear Admiral Yuri Fedorov, head of the combat training department of the Navy's submarine forces. He arrived with an unspoken message - "check and prevent." So he was admonished by the Acting Commander-in-Chief, who stayed in August instead of the Commander-in-Chief, who had gone on vacation, and did not want to take responsibility for the outcome of Operation Begemot, as the shooting of Novomoskovsk was called. The failure of the first attempt was too memorable. But Yuri Petrovich Fedorov, making sure that the crew was impeccably ready for the mission, gave an honest encryption to Moscow: "I checked it and I accept it." He himself, so that angry telephone messages would not get him, urgently left for another garrison.
So the way to the sea was open.
- I can imagine how worried you were …
- I do not remember. All emotions have gone somewhere in the subcortex. In my head I scrolled only the shooting scheme. We could say it was walking on the machine. Although, of course, in my fate a lot depended on the outcome of Operation Behemoth. They even held my next rank slightly. Like, by the result … And the academy shone only by the results of the shooting. And my whole life was at stake. Barents Sea map …
Half an hour before the start - a snag. Suddenly, the underwater communication with the surface ship, which recorded the results of our shooting, was lost. We hear them, but they don't. The guard is an old one, on it the receiving path was junk. The instruction forbade shooting without two-way communication. But there was so much preparation! And Rear Admiral Salnikov, the senior on board, took full responsibility: "Shoot, commander!"
I believed in my ship, I accepted it at the factory, taught it to sail, and introduced it into the line. I believed in my people, especially in the chief officer, rocket engineer and mechanic. He believed in the experience of his predecessor, Captain 1st Rank Yuri Beketov. True, he fired only eight missiles, but all came out without a hitch. I was told that even if we graduate thirteen, then this is a success. And we all jumped sixteen. Without a single glitch. As a queue was released from the machine. But the bullet is stupid. And what about multi-ton ballistic missiles? "Capricious fool"? No, the rocket is very clever, with it you only need to be smart.
Salnikov gave me shoulder straps with three big stars right at the central post. In our home base we were met with an orchestra. They brought fried pigs according to the tradition. But they didn't have time to fry it properly. We then brought them up to condition in our own galley and cut them into one hundred and thirty pieces so that each member of the crew would get it. They introduced us to the awards: me - to the Hero of the Soviet Union, the first mate - to the Order of Lenin, the mechanic - to the Red Banner …
But a week later - the State Emergency Committee, the Soviet Union was abolished, the Soviet orders too …
The author saw this historical video. The chronometer is 21 hours 9 minutes on August 6, 1991. Here, having hatched out of the water, leaving a cloud of steam on the surface of the sea, the first rocket soared up and disappeared into the polar sky, a few seconds later the second, third … fifth … eighth … twelfth … sixteenth rocket rushed after it with a howl! A cloud of steam stretched along the course of the submarine. A rolling, menacing rumble stood over the cloudy, unsociable sea. Suddenly I thought: this is how the world would look like a few minutes before the end of the world. Someone called this shooting "a dress rehearsal for a nuclear apocalypse." But no, it was a farewell salute, which was given by the great underwater armada to its doomed great power. The USSR was already plunging into the abyss of time, like the Titanic wounded by an iceberg …
PROJECT 667BDRM STRATEGIC PURPOSE ROCKET SUBMARINE CRUISER
RPK SN project 667BDRM, Dolphin class - the last Soviet submarine missile carrier of the 2nd generation, which actually began to belong to the 3rd generation. It was created at the Rubin Central Design Bureau under the leadership of the General Designer Academician SN Kovalev on the basis of a government decree of September 10, 1975. It is a further development of Project 667BDR submarines. It is a two-hull submarine with missile silos in a robust cylindrical hull with outer frames, which is divided into 11 compartments.
The outer lightweight hull of the cruiser has an anti-hydroacoustic coating. The bow rudders are placed on the wheelhouse and, when surfacing among the ice, turn to a vertical position.
The rated power of the main power plant RPK SN is 60 thousand liters. with. This is a two-shaft nuclear power plant consisting of two echelons consisting of a water-to-water nuclear reactor VM-4SG (90 MW), an OK-700A steam turbine, a TG-3000 turbine generator and a DG-460 diesel generator each. For centralized control, the submarine is equipped with an Omnibus-BDRM-type ASBU, which collects and processes information, solves the tasks of tactical maneuvering and combat use of torpedo and missile-torpedo weapons.
The D-9RM missile system (development of the D-9R complex) has 16 RSM-54 three-stage liquid ICBMs (R-29RM, 3M37). The missiles have a range of more than 8,300 km, carry MIRVs (4-10 warheads) with increased firing accuracy and increased dispersion radius.
The combat service of Project 667BDRM missile carriers may continue until 2020.
