For more than half a century, the best design minds of all maritime powers have been solving a puzzling problem: how to find an engine for submarines that would work both above water and under water, and besides, it did not require air, like a diesel or a steam engine. And such an engine, the same for the underwater surface element, was found….
It became - a nuclear reactor
No one knew how a nuclear genie would behave, enclosed in a steel "bottle" of a strong case, squeezed by a depth press, but if successful, the benefit of such a solution was too great. And the Americans took a chance. In 1955, fifty-five years after the first submersion of the first American submarine, the world's first nuclear powered ship was launched. It was named after the submarine invented by Jules Verne - "Nautilus".
The Soviet atomic fleet began in 1952, when intelligence reported to Stalin that the Americans had begun building a nuclear submarine. And six years later, the Soviet atomarina "K-3" extended its sides first the White Sea, then the Barents, and then the Atlantic Ocean. Its commander was Captain 1st Rank Leonid Osipenko, and its creator was General Designer Vladimir Nikolaevich Peregudov. In addition to the tactical number, "K-3" had its own name, not as romantic as that of the Americans, but in the spirit of the times - "Lenin Komsomol". “In fact, the Peregudov Design Bureau,” notes Rear Admiral Nikolai Mormul, a historian of the Soviet submarine fleet, “has created a fundamentally new ship: from appearance to product range.
Peregudov managed to create the shape of the nuclear-powered ship, optimal for movement under water, removing everything that interfered with its full streamlining."
True, the K-3 was armed with only torpedoes, and time required the same long-range, long-range, but also fundamentally different missile cruisers. Therefore, in the 1960s - 1980s, the main stake was placed on missile submarines. And they were not mistaken. First of all, because it was the atomarines - nomadic submarine missile launchers - that turned out to be the least vulnerable carriers of nuclear weapons. Whereas underground missile silos sooner or later were spotted from space with an accuracy of a meter and immediately became the targets of the first strike. Realizing this, first the American and then the Soviet Navy began to place missile silos in the strong hulls of submarines.
The nuclear six-rocket submarine K-19, launched in 1961, was the first Soviet atomic missile. At its cradle, or rather the stocks, stood the great academicians: Alexandrov, Kovalev, Spassky, Korolev. The boat was striking and unusually high underwater speed, and the duration of stay under water, and comfortable conditions for the crew.
“NATO,” notes Nikolai Mormul, “had interstate integration: the United States built only the ocean-going fleet, Great Britain, Belgium, the Netherlands - anti-submarine ships, the rest specialized in ships for closed theaters of military operations. At this stage of shipbuilding, we were in the lead in many tactical and technical elements. We have commissioned comprehensively automated high-speed and deep-sea combat nuclear submarines, the largest amphibious hovercraft. We were the first to introduce large high-speed anti-submarine ships on guided hydrofoils, gas turbine power engineering, supersonic cruise missiles, missile and landing craft ekranoplanes. It should be noted, however, that the share of the Navy in the budget of the USSR Ministry of Defense did not exceed 15%, in the United States of America and Great Britain it was two to three times greater.
Nevertheless, according to the official historiographer of the fleet M. Monakov, the combat strength of the USSR Navy by the mid-1980s “consisted of 192 nuclear-powered submarines (including 60 strategic missile submarines), 183 diesel submarines, 5 aircraft-carrying cruisers (including 3 heavy types "Kiev"), 38 cruisers and large anti-submarine ships of the 1st rank, 68 large anti-submarine ships and destroyers, 32 patrol ships of the 2nd rank, more than 1000 ships of the near sea zone and combat boats, over 1600 combat and transport aircraft. The use of these forces was carried out to ensure strategic nuclear deterrence and national-state interests of the country in the World Ocean."
Russia has never had such a huge and powerful fleet.
In the years of peace - this time has a more accurate name: the "cold war" in the World Ocean - more submariners and submarines died in Russia than in the Russian-Japanese, World War I, civil, Soviet-Finnish wars combined. It was a real war with battering rams, explosions, fires, sunken ships and mass graves of dead crews. In its course, we lost 5 nuclear and 6 diesel submarines. Opposing us US Navy - 2 nuclear submarines.
The active phase of the confrontation between the superpowers began in August 1958, when Soviet submarines first entered the Mediterranean Sea. Four "Eski" - submarines of medium displacement type "C" (project 613) - moored by agreement with the Albanian government in the Gulf of Vlora. A year later, there were already 12 of them. Submarine cruisers and fighters circled in the depths of the oceans, tracking each other. But despite the fact that no great power had such a submarine fleet as the Soviet Union, it was an unequal war. We did not have a single nuclear aircraft carrier and not a single geographically convenient base.
On the Neva and the Northern Dvina, in Portsmouth and Groton, on the Volga and Amur, in Charleston and Annapolis, new submarines were born, replenishing the NATO United Grand Fleet and the USSR Great Submarine Armada. Everything was determined by the excitement of the pursuit of the new ruler of the seas - America, which proclaimed: "Whoever owns the trident of Neptune owns the world." The car of the third world was launched at idle speed …
The beginning of the 70s was one of the peaks in the oceanic "cold war". The US aggression in Vietnam was in full swing. Submarines of the Pacific Fleet conducted combat tracking of American aircraft carriers cruising in the South China Sea. In the Indian Ocean, there was another explosive region - Bangladesh, where Soviet minesweepers defused Pakistani mines that had been exposed during the Indo-Pakistani military conflict. It was hot in the Mediterranean too. In October, another Arab-Israeli war broke out. The Suez Canal was mined. The ships of the 5th operational squadron escorted Soviet, Bulgarian, East German dry cargo ships and liners in accordance with all wartime rules, covering them from terrorist attacks, missiles, torpedoes and mines. Each time has its own military logic. And in the logic of confrontation with the world sea powers, an aggressive nuclear missile fleet was a historical inevitability for the USSR. Over the years we have played nuclear baseball with America, which has taken the title of ruler of the seas from Britain.
America opened a sad score in this match: on April 10, 1963, the nuclear submarine Thresher for an unknown reason sank at a depth of 2,800 meters in the Atlantic Ocean. Five years later, the tragedy repeated itself 450 miles southwest of the Azores: the US Navy's nuclear submarine Scorpion, along with 99 sailors, remained forever at a depth of three kilometers. In 1968, the French submarine Minerv, the Israeli submarine Dakar, and our diesel missile boat K-129 sank in the Mediterranean Sea for unknown reasons. It also carried nuclear torpedoes. Despite the depth of 4 thousand meters, the Americans managed to lift the first two compartments of this broken submarine. But instead of secret documents, we got problems with the burial of the remains of Soviet sailors and atomic torpedoes lying in the bow devices.
We equalized the lost atomarines with the Americans in early October 1986. Then, 1,000 kilometers northeast of Bermuda, fuel exploded in the missile compartment of the K-219 submarine. A fire broke out. 20-year-old sailor Sergei Preminin managed to shut down both reactors, but died himself. The superboat remained deep in the Atlantic.
On April 8, 1970, in the Bay of Biscay, after a fire at a great depth, the first Soviet atomic "K-8" sank, taking with it 52 lives and two nuclear reactors.
On April 7, 1989, the K-278 atomarina, better known as the Komsomolets, sank in the Norwegian Sea. When the bow of the vessel was submerged, an explosion occurred, practically destroying the hull of the boat and damaging the combat torpedoes with an atomic charge. In this tragedy, 42 people died. The K-278 was a unique submarine. It was with her that it was supposed to begin the construction of the deep-sea fleet of the XXI century. The titanium hull allowed her to dive and operate at a depth of a kilometer - that is, three times deeper than all other submarines in the world …
The submariners' camp was divided into two camps: some blamed the crew and the high command for the misfortune, others saw the root of evil in the low quality of naval equipment and the monopoly of the Ministry of the Industry. This split caused fierce controversy in the press, and the country finally learned that this is our third sunken nuclear submarine. Newspapers began vying with each other to name the names of ships and numbers of submarines that died in "peacetime" - battleship "Novorossiysk", large anti-submarine ship "Otvazhny", submarines "S-80" and "K-129", "S-178" and "B-37" … And, finally, the last victim - the nuclear-powered ship "Kursk".
… We did not win the Cold War, but we forced the world to reckon with the presence of our submarines and our cruisers in the Atlantic, Mediterranean Sea, Pacific and Indian Oceans.
In the 60s, nuclear submarines firmly established themselves in the battle formations of the American, Soviet, British and French fleets. Having given the submarines a new type of engine, the designers equipped the submarines with new weapons - missiles. Now nuclear-powered missile submarines (the Americans called them "boomers" or "citykillers", we - strategic submarines) began to threaten not only world shipping, but the whole world as a whole.
The figurative concept of "arms race" took on a literal meaning when it came to such precise parameters as, for example, submerged speed. Our submarine K-162 set the record for underwater speed (still not surpassed by anyone) in 1969. “We submerged,” recalls the test participant Rear Admiral Nikolai Mormul, “we chose an average depth of 100 meters. They set in motion. As the revs increased, everyone felt that the boat was moving with acceleration. After all, you usually notice movement under water only according to the readings of the lag. And here, like in a train, they took everyone back. We heard the sound of water flowing around the boat. It increased with the speed of the ship, and when we crossed 35 knots (65 km / h), the drone of the plane was already in our ears. According to our estimates, the noise level reached up to 100 decibels. Finally, we reached the record - forty-two-knot speed! Not a single manned "underwater shell" has cut the sea thickness so rapidly."
The new record was set by the Soviet submarine Komsomolets five years before its sinking. On August 5, 1984, she made an unprecedented dive in the history of world naval navigation to 1,000 meters.
In March last year, the 30th anniversary of the nuclear-powered submarine flotilla was celebrated in the Severflot settlement of Gadzhievo. It was here, in the deaf Lapland bays, that the most difficult technology in the history of civilization was mastered: nuclear-powered underwater rocket launchers. It was here, in Gadzhievo, that the first cosmonaut of the planet came to the pioneers of hydrospace. Here, on board K-149, Yuri Gagarin honestly admitted: "Your ships are more complicated than space ships!" And the god of rocketry, Sergei Korolev, who was offered to create a rocket for an underwater launch, said another significant phrase: “A rocket under water is absurd. But that's why I will undertake to do it."
And he did … Korolyov would have known that one day, having launched from under the water, boat rockets would not only cover intercontinental distances, but also launch artificial earth satellites into space. For the first time this was carried out by the crew of the Gadzhiev submarine cruiser "K-407" under the command of Captain 1st Rank Alexander Moiseev. On July 7, 1998, a new page was opened in the history of space exploration: an artificial Earth satellite was launched from the depths of the Barents Sea into a near-earth orbit by a regular ship rocket …
And also a new type of engine - a single, oxygen-free and rarely (once every few years) replenished with fuel - allowed humanity to penetrate into the last region of the planet unattainable hitherto - under the ice dome of the Arctic. In the last years of the 20th century, people started talking about the fact that nuclear submarines are an excellent transarctic vehicle. The shortest route from the Western Hemisphere to the Eastern is under the ice of the northern ocean. But if the atomarines are converted into underwater tankers, bulk carriers and even cruise liners, then a new era will open in world shipping. In the meantime, the nuclear submarine Gepard became the very first ship of the Russian fleet in the 21st century. In January 2001, the St. Andrew's flag, covered with centuries-old glory, was raised on it.
