Submariners are in trouble all over the world.
On August 6, 2013, the US Navy announced its decision to dispose of the Miami nuclear-powered submarine, which was badly damaged in a fire last year while undergoing scheduled repairs at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard.
USS Miami (SSN-755) will be the first American submarine to be lost under such ridiculous circumstances, as well as the first US Navy ship since the Civil War to die a heroic death while docked. The Yankees have something to be proud of - "Miami" died, but did not lower the flag in the face of the enemy!
As the investigation later established, the "enemy" turned out to be 24-year-old painter Casey J. Fury - being late for a date, young Herostratus set fire to rags in one of the rooms and left the workplace with a pure heart to the sound of sirens of fire brigades. Alas, he has nowhere else to rush - the ardent Romeo will spend the next 17 years in the dungeons of a federal prison.
And now - a new tragedy
On the night of August 13-14, 2013, on the thirteenth anniversary of the sinking of the Kursk nuclear submarine, a catastrophic explosion occurred in the Indian port of Mumbai (formerly Bombay) aboard INS Sindhurakshak (S63), a diesel-electric submarine of the Indian Navy belonging to the Varshavyanka family.
It is too early to talk about the causes, nature and consequences of the disaster, but some details of the tragic incident have already become known: the explosion and subsequent sinking of the submarine claimed the lives of 18 Indian sailors. As for the Sindurakshak itself, whose crippled hull is still at the berth at a depth of 10 meters, a spokesman for the Indian Navy said in an interview with the BBC that the possibility of repairing and returning the deceased boat to service was assessed as "an unlikely event."
As it became known, "Sindurakshak" just six months ago returned from Russia, where in the period from August 2010 to February 2013, underwent overhaul and deep modernization at the JSC "Center for Ship Repair" Zvezdochka ".
Within the framework of the Russian-Indian contract worth 80 million dollars, a set of works was carried out on board the submarine, aimed at improving the combat qualities and operational safety of the submarine. A total upgrade of radio-electronic equipment and a complex of weapons was carried out, "Sindurakshak" received a new sonar station USHUS (its own Indian development), a Porpoise radar, new electronic warfare equipment, a radio communication system CCS-MK-2, a complex of guided weapons Club-S (anti-ship and tactical cruise missiles - export modifications of the Kalibr family of Russian missiles). Refrigerating machines were replaced, the submarine's mechanisms underwent planned repairs and modernization - the estimated service life of the Sindurakshak was increased by 10 years, without reducing its combat capabilities.
Sindurakshak returns to southern latitudes from Severodvinsk. In the background are the felling of two "Sharks" Project 941
Behind the cheerful reports on the number of installed systems and the results of the successful modernization of the Indian submarine, there is a small military secret - such an unexpected visit of the Sindurakshak to the Zvezdochka shipyard in August 2010 was caused by nothing more than an explosion on board the submarine. Simply put, the deceased Sindurakshak has already gone through a similar situation - in February 2010, a hydrogen explosion thundered on board (the reason was a faulty battery valve). The only victim of the previous incident was a sailor from the crew of the submarine.
Brief technical reference
INS Sindhurakshak (S63) is one of 10 Indian Navy submarines built according to project 877EKM (export, capitalist, modernized). Belongs to the Varshavyanka family.
Diesel-electric boats of this family have no analogues in the world in terms of "stealth" - due to the absence of humming pumps of the reactor circuits, powerful refrigerators and rumbling turbo-gear units (steam turbines with a gearbox), the level of external noise of "Varshavyanka" (the so-called " black holes ") is lower than that of any foreign-built nuclear submarine.
By the time of its death, Sindurakshak had served 16 years - the boat was laid down in 1995 at the Admiralty Shipyards in St. Petersburg, launched in June 1997 and handed over to the customer in December of the same year.
Length - 72.6 m, width - 10 meters, draft - 7 meters.
Displacement (underwater / surface) - 2325/3076 tons;
Crew - up to 70 people;
The power plant is diesel-electric with full electric propulsion. Consists of two diesel generators, a propeller motor (5500 hp), an economic propulsion motor (190 hp) and two backup electric motors. motors with a capacity of 100 hp. Movement in a submerged position is provided by two groups of batteries, 120 cells each. There is a snorkel (a device for operating a diesel engine under water when the boat is moving at periscope depth).
Speed:
- on the surface - 10 knots.
- underwater - 17 knots
- in the submerged position (under the snorkel) - 9 knots.
The working depth of immersion is 240 meters, the maximum is 300 meters;
Autonomy - up to 45 days (with a reduced crew size);
Armament:
- six torpedo tubes of 533 mm caliber with automatic reloading and ammunition load of 18 torpedoes, mines and cruise missiles. As ammunition, the following can be used: 53-65 homing torpedoes with passive acoustic guidance, TEST 71/76 torpedoes with active target homing, DM-1 mines (up to 24 pcs.), Anti-ship missiles with a detachable warhead (supersonic stage) ZM54E1, sea-based cruise missiles ZM14E with a range of up to 300 km are elements of the Russian Club-S complex.
- a set of 9K34 "Strela-3" MANPADS is used as self-defense systems.
Interior of INS Sindhurakshak Central Station (S63)
Marginal notes
Catastrophic fires and explosions in the Navy while ships are at a shipyard, in a port, close to their shores, without any interference from the enemy, are regular events and, I’m not afraid to say, inevitable. It is enough to name only three names - the Japanese battleship Mutsu, the British aircraft carrier Desher, or the Soviet BOD Otvazhny to understand the full scale of the tragedies taking place. No particular ship or class of ships is immune from such accidents.
However, the same statement is true for any field of technology - aviation, railway transport … Neither competent operation, nor timely service, nor high-quality training of personnel can guarantee 100% protection against force majeure incidents. Various automatic control and warning systems, "foolproof" - all this only reduces the likelihood of accidents and helps to localize their consequences.
As for the submarine fleet, the regular reports of accidents in the compartments of submarines are already depressing. But the dense train of emergencies and disasters in the submarine fleet has a number of logical explanations.
For example, in many modern navies, the number of submarines exceeds the number of all large surface ships combined.
Small fish are relatively cheap to build and operate, while extremely useful and efficient - that's why their number is usually in the tens. And this is not only about Russia / USSR, where, as you know, priority was always given to submariners - for example, by the number of nuclear submarines, American sailors confidently caught up with the Russians - over the past 60 years, the Yankees have riveted over 200 nuclear submarines (USSR / Russia - 250 +). Compare this armada with the number of cruisers or aircraft carriers built, and you will immediately feel the difference.
Based on the laws of the theory of probability, the probability of an emergency on submarines should be higher, and the misfortunes themselves should occur more often. Probably, this is where the reason for the nefarious opinion of submarines as "steel coffins" lies.
Probability is a ghostly and unreliable substance. Will the expected event happen? The old aphorism knows only one answer: 50 to 50. Either it happens or not, everything else is boring and useless speculation of theorists.
Therefore, another, no less important factor directly affecting the safety of the operation of ships - TECHNOLOGY.
In terms of maintenance and operation, submarines are by no means the safest class of ships: a very dense layout and accumulation of such gloomy things on board as numerous batteries, nuclear reactors and a huge number of weapons - from primitive mines to dozens of submarine-launched ballistic missiles - all this makes submarine service an extremely difficult and dangerous undertaking.
The dense layout and limited dimensions of the compartments make it difficult to access mechanisms and equipment, and the closed volume of the submarine puts the crew in front of a simple condition: any problem (fire, flooding, chlorine release from the battery) will have to be solved here and now with the available amount of funds - just like that, in at any moment, it will not work to open the upper hatch and escape by running to the upper deck. Where are you going from the submarine?
And problems on the boat often arise. The scourge of all "diesels" is poisonous and dangerous emissions from the battery.
Many submariners were killed by chlorine poisoning, or were torn apart by the terrible explosive force of hydrogen that imperceptibly penetrated into the compartments while the batteries were being recharged. Already now, before the official investigative measures were carried out on board the Sindurakshak, the assumption of an explosion of hydrogen released from the storage batteries sounds more and more clearly - that night the battery was being recharged on the boat. It is noteworthy that the first explosion at Sindurakshak was also associated with a battery malfunction.
In addition to hydrogen, there are other explosive things on boats - for example, torpedo or rocket ammunition. It is with this situation that one of the most terrible tragedies in the history of the Russian Navy is connected - the explosion of torpedoes on the B-37 submarine in 1962. 122 people became victims of the explosion (59 - the B-37 crew, 11 more - on the S-350 moored nearby, and 52 of the sailors who were at that moment on the pier).
A day after the disaster, the world media spread the message that the ammunition detonation occurred on the Sindurakshak. Now the main task is to find out if this was the root cause of the explosion that destroyed the submarine? Or did the submariners fail again? And if so, then whose fault is the flaw of Russian shipbuilders (it is scary to think about this, while all the facts indicate that this is not so) or is it all the fault of improper operation of equipment by Indian sailors …
Iranian submarine "Varshavyanka" type (Kilo-class according to NATO classification), Mediterranean Sea, 1995
"Varshavyanka" have been in service with eight countries for 30 years already - "black holes" have proven themselves from the best side and still enjoy some success in the international market of naval weapons. For example, the Chinese Navy has been operating 12 Varshavyanks (projects 877, 636 and 636M) for many years, but not a single serious accident has been noted here. Now it's up to Indian specialists. Zvezdochka's management also plans to send its own working group to the crash site.
But, whatever the conclusions of the Indian state commission, the loss of a Russian-made submarine will be a serious test for Russian-Indian relations in the field of arms delivery. No sooner had the Indians celebrated the entry into service of the frigate "Trikand" (June 29, 2013) and rejoice for the nearing completion of the epic with "Vikramaditya", followed by a new blow from an unexpected direction.
The death of Sindurakshak is undoubtedly a high-profile event on a global scale. In such cases, the main result of the work of government commissions should be the announcement of the cause of the tragedy and the development of measures to prevent the recurrence of such situations. What will the night explosion in Bombay tell about?
