How did the battleship Novorossiysk die? What happened to the Kursk submarine? What is the mystery behind the disappearance of K-129? How did our submariners break through to the shores of the United States? Where was the fastest and deepest submarine tested? Where did the debris of ballistic missiles disappear from the seabed? At what depth did the Komsomolets sink? Is it true that there is an underground submarine base in Crimea?
The sea keeps its secrets securely. But even more sea secrets are hidden in the archives of the special services.
Feodosia experiment
Until now, there are legends about the mysterious "Philadelphia Experiment" - an instantaneous movement in space of the destroyer "Eldridge", which happened on October 28, 1943 during secret government experiments to create an "invisible" ship.
But all the horror stories about the sailors who have grown together with the deck of the Eldridge pale in comparison to the frightening legends associated with the cruiser Admiral Nakhimov. A Soviet ghost ship, forever stuck on the border of the real and the otherworldly worlds.
"Admiral Nakhimov" is the only ship of the Soviet fleet, whose documents (logbooks, etc.) were removed from the Central Naval Archives by the USSR State Security Committee. The reasons are unknown.
Most of the photographs and negatives disappeared along with the documents. Any materials on "Nakhimov" were immediately confiscated from the sailors by the Special Department of the Black Sea Fleet.
The disappearance of the documents was preceded by a number of other suspicious events: the new cruiser was expelled from the Navy only 7 years after it entered service. According to the recollections of eyewitnesses, before the decommissioning, a full range of decontamination work was carried out on board the "Nakhimov". The wooden deck was ripped off, the hull was thoroughly "scrubbed" and then covered with red lead.
… They say that on a dark December night in 1960, the cruiser was dragged in tow to Sevastopol and placed in one of the cordoned-off docks at Sevmorzavod. What they saw shocked everyone: the keel of the ship was broken, the skin in the underwater part of the hull underwent significant deformations. By all indications, the cruiser hull was subjected to a powerful hydrodynamic shock.
After that, an urgent decontamination of the ship was carried out. In February 1961, the flag was lowered on "Nakhimov", and in July of the same year the cruiser was shot as a target during the exercises of the Black Sea Fleet. However, it was not possible to sink it - what was left of the "Nakhimov" was towed to the shore and cut into metal.
The ship disappeared, but its secret still haunts the minds of sailors and historians.
On December 4, 1960, off the coast of Crimea, a seismic shock with a force of 3-4 points was recorded with an epicenter under water five miles from Cape Meganom, at a depth of 500 meters.
- Hydrometeorological service of the Black Sea Fleet.
“I am surprised at this fuss with the Nakhimov, because everyone has known for a long time that a T-5 nuclear torpedo was detonated under it.
- the opinion of a retired submariner, an article in the newspaper "Meridian-Sevastopol" dated 07.04.2010.
The T-5 / 53-58 torpedo is an unguided tactical ammunition of 533 mm caliber, equipped with an SSC with a capacity of 3 kilotons (six times weaker than the bomb that fell on Hiroshima). The torpedo was adopted by the USSR Navy in 1958 and was intended for operations in naval combat. Despite its modest power, the underwater explosion was an order of magnitude more destructive than an air explosion of similar power. As a result, the defeat of enemy ships (heavy damage in the underwater part of the hull) was ensured within a radius of 700 meters from the point of detonation of the torpedo.
Is it really really a cloudy winter day in 1960 in the sea not far from Feodosia a cyclopean column of water soared upward, scattering the ships standing on the surface to the sides?
Underwater nuclear explosion at Bikini Atoll. Power 23 kt
There are also more prosaic explanations for the mystery of the "Feodosia experiment".
The premature decommissioning of the cruiser "Admiral Nakhimov" was a common event for that time. It was a morally obsolete artillery cruiser, which, objectively, was inferior even to foreign counterparts of the war years. Comrade Khrushchev had a short conversation with such rubbish: for scrapping / for reserve / re-equipment into a stand for testing new weapons. At the same time, the newest missile cruisers and nuclear submarines were laid down at the shipyards of the Soviet Union, which were to replace the old cruisers on ocean communications.
The logic of conducting nuclear tests off the coast of Crimea is not entirely clear. The T-5 torpedo was successfully tested on Novaya Zemlya in 1957 - the sailors learned everything they wanted to know. Why was it necessary to carry out such a high-profile provocative operation at the very borders of NATO? On the other hand, it happened in the midst of the Cold War, when nuclear tests were raging every month. It cannot be ruled out that the Soviet military-political leadership needed to conduct a nuclear test in the Black Sea. About times, about morals!
One-type cruiser "Mikhail Kutuzov"
The deaf curtain of secrecy surrounding the Admiral Nakhimov is largely associated with the period of his service in 1955-58, when the experimental KSS Quiver missile system with KS-1 Kometa anti-ship cruise missiles was installed on the cruiser instead of the main battery. "(Option for ship-based). This circumstance alone can explain the lack of high-quality photographic materials dedicated to the cruiser "Nakhimov".
Due to the imminent obsolescence of the KSS complex, the topic of development did not receive, and already in 1958 the launcher was dismantled from the ship.
An insoluble paradox. Experimental models of missile weapons were installed on many ships of the USSR Navy - just remember the same type cruiser "Dzerzhinsky" with the M-2 "Volkhov-M" air defense missile system installed at the stern. But the documents were confiscated only from the cruiser "Admiral Nakhimov".
Finally, what were the measures to decontaminate the ship before decommissioning?
History knows no answer. The secret of "Admiral Nakhimov" is still buried in the archives of the special services.
Sea chameleons
For the second day already, the aggressive American aircraft carrier is on the same course and exactly repeats all the maneuvers of the Soviet trawler.
- TASS report.
The "knights" from the Special Department were not only engaged in the seizure of ship documents and mail transcription. Some of the operatives had to meet face to face with the "probable enemy."
For example, in the Caspian Sea, the 17th separate brigade of border patrol ships (17th OBRPSKR) included two radio intelligence ships, operatively subordinate to the Second Main Directorate of the KGB of the USSR. The ships were used to collect intelligence on Iranian territory.
In a similar way, small anti-submarine ships of the 4th OBRPSKR from Liepaja (Latvia) were used, periodically taking on board the radio-technical intelligence groups of the 8th Main Directorate of the KGB and entering positions in the Baltic straits, imitating the presence at the patrol positions of the MPK from Baltiysk and Warnemünde, occupied by the usual anti-submarine patrol.
Often reconnaissance posts were set up directly on the ships of the civilian fleet. On orders from “above,” the captain allocated a cabin and provided food for the “comrades in civilian clothes,” who locked themselves in their quarters along with reconnaissance equipment and studied something intensely throughout the voyage.
Soviet whaler chases the "whale"
The GRU went even further. In the interests of military intelligence, a number of trawlers, whalers and sea tugs were secretly converted. * The equipment was placed in such a way that the scout did not have external differences from civilian vessels of similar design.
The ships converted in this way went out into the ocean, if possible adhering to the usual routes of the merchant fleet. And only when there were a few miles to the "target", the "trawler" abruptly changed course and unceremoniously took a place in the order of the aircraft carrier group of the US Navy. Thus, he could accompany the Yankee ships for several days, and then transfer the watch to another "trawler" or "communication vessel".
The circuit worked like a clock.
The Yankees could in no way prevent the "trawlers" from approaching their squadrons. In this case, international maritime law was entirely on our side - the action took place in neutral waters, and the "trawler" could be wherever he liked. It is useless to break away from it at a 30-knot speed - in a few hours another GRU "whaler" will appear right along the course. The Yankees knew that they would only "kill" the resource of their engines.
It was strictly forbidden to use weapons against the little scout. The most that the Americans could do was to simulate an attack by stunning the crew of the "trawler" with the roar of aircraft engines. After some time, this game tired everyone, and the Yankees ceased to pay attention to the "pelvis" going in the wake of the aircraft carrier.
But in vain! In the event of an escalation of the international situation and the outbreak of hostilities, the "trawler" managed to transmit the current coordinates of the AUG, its composition and the scheme for constructing an order for warships of the USSR Navy.
Hyperboloids of Admiral Gorshkov
… One of the winter days in 1980, night, berth No. 12 in the Northern Bay of Sevastopol. Around - a four-meter concrete fence and a live wire. Searchlights, guard. Something strange is going on.
Dry cargo ship "Dixon" is at the berth. But why were all these unprecedented security measures taken? What secret cargo can be hidden in the holds of an ordinary timber truck?
Ordinary? No! In the womb of the "peaceful Soviet transport" there are 400 compressed air cylinders, three jet engines from the Tu-154 aircraft, 35-megawatt power generators and high-power refrigeration units. But the main secret is hidden in the superstructure - a strange device with a copper mirror polished to a shine on a beryllium lining, through the capillaries of which 400 liters of alcohol are pumped per minute. Cooling system! There are computer blocks nearby (Soviet microcircuits are the largest microcircuits in the world!) - the supercomputer monitors the state of the mirror surface with an accuracy of one micron. If distortion is detected, 48 compensating "cams" are activated, immediately setting the required surface curvature.
The crew of the strange ship is the Navy and six KGB officers.
The nondisclosure subscription expired in 1992, and now we can safely talk about it. In 1980, the USSR tested a combat laser mounted on a mobile offshore platform. The project received the code "Aydar".
The installation was mounted on board a civilian timber carrier, converted into an experimental stand on pr. 05961. In order not to disturb our western "friends" once again, the experimental ship retained its former name - "Dixon".
The first shooting was carried out in the summer of 1980 at a target located on the shore. Unlike sci-fi films, no one saw the laser beam and colorful explosions - only a sensor mounted on the target recorded a sharp temperature jump. The laser efficiency was only 5%. The increased humidity near the sea surface neutralized all the advantages of laser weapons.
The duration of the shot was 0.9 seconds, preparation for the shot took a day.
Like the American SDI (Star Wars) program, the Soviet project Aidar turned out to be a beautiful but completely useless toy. It will take years to improve the designs of laser installations and energy sources capable of accumulating and instantly issuing a pulse of colossal power.
Test vessel 90 (OS-90), it is also a laser combat platform "Foros"
Nevertheless, the work on the "Aydar" project has created a huge reserve in the field of laser technology and the creation of combat "hyperboloids". In 1984, a similar installation "Akvilon" was mounted on board the landing ship SDK-20 (project "Foros").
Due to the extremely high costs and the lack of any real return, work on the topic of Soviet naval combat lasers was phased out in 1985.
These are the "white spots" that cover the pages of the Russian fleet. Will we ever know the whole truth? Future will tell!
