Citizens, be careful !!!
Theft is the most common crime of the present time in investigative and judicial practice, the subject of which can be any property, even hidden under a multi-kilometer water column.
Do not leave documents and valuables on the seabed, use secure communication lines and never, I stress, NEVER leave unattended wreckage of sea, missile and aviation equipment. All lost missiles, sunken ships and overboard aircraft must be immediately located, evacuated or blown up on the spot.
Otherwise, all this will become the prey of the enemy.
Project "Azorian"
The fact that the CIA, together with the US naval intelligence, was hunting for the wreckage of Soviet equipment, became known back in the mid-1970s. In the open press, shocking facts appeared related to the lifting of a sunken Soviet boat with nuclear weapons on board. The story of the rise of the K-129 was presented with a great deal of pomp; it was emphasized that American naval engineers did the impossible - they raised a bulky steel structure from a depth of 5600 meters.
But why did the CIA need to raise the destroyed nose of a Soviet submarine? The answer is simple - the Yankees were interested in literally everything: from the steel grade of a solid hull to torpedoes with a nuclear warhead, ballistic missiles of the D-4 complex, encryption equipment and other secret equipment on board a strategic cruiser. Technologies from the submarine were supposed to "shed light" on the state of the Soviet military-industrial complex.
One of the most important stages of the operation to raise the Soviet boat, which received the code designation "Project Azorian", was reconnaissance of the ocean floor in the area of the sinking of the K-129, determining the location and condition of the wreckage of the sunken boat. The work should have been carried out with maximum secrecy, without the involvement of conventional oceanographic vessels - otherwise, it could attract the attention of the USSR Navy.
The reconnaissance of the site of the tragedy was carried out by the USS Halibut (SSN-587) special-purpose nuclear submarine, a former missile carrier converted into a military oceanographic ship. Instead of missile weapons, the Khalibat was equipped with side thrusters, bow and stern mushroom anchors, a diving camera, side long and short range sonars, as well as a towed automatic bathyscaphe with a video camera and a powerful searchlight for working at depths exceeding the capabilities of a strong boat hull.
USS Halibut (SSN-587)
While in a submerged position, "Khalibat" for several months surveyed the bottom of the Pacific Ocean in the area of the alleged death of K-129. Finally, in one of the footage from the bathyscaphe camera, an object resembling a rudder feather was seen. In total, "Khalibat" took several thousand pictures of the submarine lying at the bottom:
“One photo sequence shocked even Commander Moore, a man with nerves of steel,” he saw on the prints the skeleton of a Russian sailor dressed in a storm raglan, quilted pants and heavy navy boots. Thousands of tiny sea worms swarmed in the remains of the submariner"
- from the book "The blind man's buff. The unknown history of American underwater espionage"
According to the data obtained from the Khalibat submarine, it was decided to raise the bow of the K-129 with a length of 138 feet (42 meters), where the most interesting devices, mechanisms and weapons for American intelligence were located.
Further work on lifting the wreckage was carried out with the help of a specially built vessel "Glomar Explorer" - the wreckage of a Soviet boat was brought to the surface on August 12, 1974, six years after its death.
A submersible gripper, capable of lifting objects weighing up to 4250 tons from the bottom, was extended through the sliding doors in the bottom of the "Glomar Explorer"
In the case of the K-129, the leadership of the USSR made a rash mistake - the loss of the missile carrier was strictly classified, the boat and its crew were excluded from the lists of the Navy retroactively, thereby literally leaving the submarine as "ownerless property."
If the USSR had declared the tragedy, according to the accepted international maritime rules, the Yankees would not have dared to touch the announced military grave, and if they had dared, this could have provoked a major international scandal in the future. The Americans would have to return part of the stolen property, thereby helping us in uncovering the mystery of the death of the K-129.
Submarine special operations squad
It is noteworthy that the operation to search for the wreckage of the K-129 was held in official documents as "the search for a Russian ballistic missile at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean" - such operations were so common for American submariners. The famous submarine "Khalibat" regularly crawled around the training grounds of the USSR Navy and, like a real scavenger, collected the fragments of found anti-ship and ballistic missiles (engine, electronics, fuel samples), examined sunken targets for damage, dismantled the equipment they liked. Data on ballistic missiles that fell into the sea were recorded by radars of surface ships and aircraft, as well as underwater hydrophones with an accuracy of 1-2 miles.
For example, in 1967, an American submarine stole two inert mines from exercises in the Peter the Great Bay (Vladivostok), which were exposed during an inspection of the fleet by the Main Inspectorate of the Ministry of Defense. The case received a wide public response in the West - samples of stolen Soviet weapons were openly demonstrated at an exhibition in New York.
In the spring of 1976, a special operation "Blue Sun" was carried out - a group of military divers examined the crash site of the Tu-95M, which crashed off the coast of Sakhalin. That time, the submarine returned with rich trophies: among the wreckage of the bomber, two "red heads" (nuclear warheads) were found.
“In those years, American submarines, one might say, grazed even in the Peter the Great Gulf. It got to the point that they photographed our naval parades and beauties on the Vladivostok beach with a periscope."
- former deputy. Chief of Intelligence of the Pacific Fleet Rear Admiral A. Shtyrov
In October 1971, "Khalibat" was sent to the Sea of Okhotsk with the next task of "detecting the wreckage of ballistic missiles." This time it was necessary to find at the bottom a secret communication cable connecting the base of strategic missile carriers in Krasheninnikov Bay (Kamchatka Island) with the command centers of the USSR Navy on the continent. A year later, "Khalibat" returned to the territorial waters of the Soviet Union and installed on the found submarine cable "Kokon" - an autonomous reconnaissance container with a radioisotope RTG in the form of an energy source.
"Cocoon". Its technical parameters: weight - 7 tons, length - 5 meters, diameter - 1200 mm, the number of monitored cable channels - up to 60.
Thanks to the "gold mine", many secrets of the Soviet submariners' service were revealed: information on combat patrols by SSBNs - the schedule, number and type of boats, patrol routes, as well as information on the results of testing missile weapons at the Kura test site.
The intelligence system worked like clockwork - "Khalibat" regularly, once every few months, came to the "point" to remove and replace cassettes with recorded information. For the convenience of work, the hull of the boat was equipped with special "skis" so that it could softly lay down on the ground next to the cable, without endangering the lives of working divers (during one of the previous trips, an incident occurred - the crew did not keep the Halibat at a given depth, and the boat began to surface abruptly, dragging people chained to the boat with air hoses).
During the campaigns "Khalibat" was covered by two multipurpose submarines - the first directly ensured the safety of the scout, the second diverted the Soviet anti-submarine forces to itself.
Built in the 1950s, the low-speed Halibat could no longer meet the needs of naval intelligence, in 1975 it was replaced by the SeaWolf (SSN-575), and later - the newest boats for special operations “Brocade” (USS Parche SSN -683) and "Richard Russell" (USS Richard B. Russell SSSN-687) based on nuclear-powered multipurpose submarines of the "Stejen" type.
PLA special forces USS Parche (SSN-683) off the coast of Hawaii
The underwater vehicle mounted on the hull is clearly visible, as well as an additional radio equipment compartment behind the wheelhouse
In addition to the converted nuclear-powered ships, the Navy's special-purpose search squad included the Trieste II deep-sea bathyscaphe and several mini-submarines.
In 1980, Brocade installed reconnaissance cocoons on cables in the Barents and White Seas. The situation was extremely successful. The only thing that the Yankees did not know was that their nefarious plans were known in advance to Soviet intelligence thanks to an NSA employee, traitor Robert Pelton. Recently, the KGB has been playing a radio game with the NSA, transmitting blatant disinformation over submarine communication cables.
The end of all this comedy came in 1982 - while working with a container in the Sea of Okhotsk, SeaWolf inadvertently maneuvered and leaned all its weight on an underwater cable. The divers of the USSR Navy immediately arrived at the scene - looking at the accumulation of diving and oceanographic vessels on satellite images, the Yankees were very surprised - how quickly the Soviets found the place of laying the "cocoon"!
"Cocoon" was dismantled and taken to one of the military research institutes of the USSR. Former NSA officer Robert Pelton was exposed in 1985 and sentenced to three life sentences.
Another "cocoon" raised from the bottom of the Barents Sea was at one time displayed in the KGB museum.
The story had a limited continuation in 1994, when, according to unverified rumors, US Navy officer Daniel King handed over to the Russian embassy a disk with data on wiretapping of the USSR Navy's submarine communication cables. In 2001, King was released from the courtroom for lack of corpus delicti.
USS Parche (SSN-683). Last time at sea
Nuclear submarines "R. Russell "and" Brocade "were excluded from the fleet and scrapped in 1994 and 2004, respectively.
On this, the chronicle of operations "Bindweed" and "Acetone" on listening to submarine cables can be considered finished.
Boat with "aspen" waist
In February 2005, the US Navy accepted the multipurpose nuclear submarine USS Jimmy Carter (SSN-23) - the third and last ship of the SeaWolf type *
Not a single American submarine has been built for so long (more than 5 years from the moment of laying) and not a single submarine in the world has cost so much - an exorbitant price was paid for "Carter" - $ 3.2 billion in prices 10 years ago !
The audience attending the ceremony immediately noticed that something was wrong with the boat. The lengthening of the hull is unusual - the Carter is almost 30 meters longer than its sisters-thorns!
USS Jimmy Carter (SSN-23)
The length of the ship revealed its main secret - the Carter was not a simple SeaWolfe-class submarine fighter. This is a multi-purpose oceanographic complex Multi-Mission Platform (MMP), created on the basis of a conventional submarine. The decision to convert the Carter into a special-purpose boat was made too late - the hull had already been laid down at the GE Electric Boat shipyard. It was necessary to make changes to the finished design - this explains the two-year delay in adoption and the extremely high cost of the boat.
An additional hourglass-shaped section is welded in the middle of the robust case. Thanks to this arrangement, a solid "cavity" was formed between the outer skin and the solid hull for the Ocean Interface complex - deep-sea bathyscaphes, mini-submarines, automatic underwater vehicles for reconnaissance, search and disposal of mines, etc. tasks. There is also an airlock for combat swimmers and various diving equipment. There is a space for placing inflatable boats, ammunition and ammunition for "fur seals" or a transport container for bulky "samples" of enemy weapons, picked up from the seabed by the careful hands of divers.
Exactly so - now "SeaWolf" has taken the honorable place of "sea scavengers", instead of the decommissioned "Parche" and "R. Russell."
How MMP works
As for the use of the boat in combat as a multipurpose submarine, the Americans only smile with restraint and repeat the learned mantra:
“The additional compartment did not affect the combat capabilities of the boat. "Jimmy Carter" has retained all the combat potential of submarines of the "Sea Wolf"
How much is there! It is known that the predecessor of "Carter" - "Parche" - after adding a similar 30-meter section, ceased to maintain depth, regularly falling down. Surely Carter also has some problems with balancing and maneuverability.
Additional section, bow thrusters, aft for shallow water work, revamped command center … in a nutshell, "Jimmy Carter"
However, one should not be mistaken about the weakness of the "Carter" either - the combat capabilities of its sisters-thorns - "Sea Wolf" and "Connecticut" - were so great that they were immediately recorded in the submarines of the then new, fourth generation. Even after 20 years, the SeaWolves remain the most powerful and most advanced multipurpose submarines in the world. The speed and depth of immersion are at the level of the best Russian submarines (a powerful S6W reactor and a strong hull made of HY100 steel).
The noise floor is quieter than the Ohio: equipment depreciation, active vibration reduction systems of the power plant and British-designed jet propellers have all played a role in increasing the secrecy of the Sea Wolves.
Detection systems? What is the cost of 600 Sea Wolfe hydrophones alone! Or a multifunctional mast with video cameras, thermal imagers and a laser rangefinder - now everyone at the central post can observe the situation on the surface. Finally, a standard spherical sonar and a set of towed antennas to prevent an attack from the "dead zone" of the stern rotor.
Armament? Like a real hitman, SeaWolf is equipped with a silenced weapon - eight 660 mm torpedo tubes that use the principle of self-firing torpedoes (as opposed to the compressed air blowing used on all other boats). Ammunition - 50 cruise missiles "Harpoon", "Tomahawk" or torpedoes Mk.48.
It is also possible to load up to 100 sea mines instead of part of the missile and torpedo weapons.
SeaWolf-class boat central post
It may not sound patriotic, but SeaWolfe is perfect. The best of modern projects of multipurpose submarines, which has absorbed all the advantages of other types of boats. He has no weak points. One SeaWolfe is worth an entire fleet - both literally and figuratively.
Precisely because of their high cost and excess capacity, the US Navy abandoned the further construction of the SeaWolves, limiting the series to three submarines. The preference was given in favor of cheaper "Virginias" - primitive replicas of the real "Sea Wolf".
The special purpose boat "Jimmy Carter" combines all the listed features of "SeaWolves", mb. excluding submerged speed, maneuverability and working depth. This is the most dangerous underwater enemy, moreover, he knows how to deftly steal everything that lies on the seabed (as an option, everything that is in the water column). In such conditions, all projects to place containers with ballistic missiles, arsenals, and other strategic systems on the seabed become deliberately senseless - Carter will steal them the very next day.
The shelling of sea or ground targets, the landing of special forces sabotage groups, making passages in minefields, stealing any valuable items from the bottom, reconnaissance, reconnaissance, transportation of secret cargo - all this with the highest level of secrecy. According to Rear Admiral John Davis, the capabilities of the Jimmy Carter will open the way for the Navy to the future.
Torpedo compartment "Carter"
From the point of view of the Russian Navy, the emergence of a new threat in the form of the special-purpose submarine Carter is a reason to think seriously about ensuring the safety of the underwater infrastructure and to take measures to prevent new Russian technologies from falling into the hands of American specialists during missile tests. ("Bulava" and Co.).
At the same time, the demonstrated capabilities of "Carter" allow us to hope that domestic shipbuilding engineers of CDB MT "Rubin" realized the need for such equipment in the navy and have plans to create similar submarines based on existing or new projects.
