
Stricken Russian Nuke Sub Crew Prevented ‘Planetary Catastrophe’ - spking
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/stricken-russian-nuke-sub-crew-prevented-planetary-catastrophe/ar-AAE1Fn5
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SethTro
The article mentions how this sub can operate up to 6,000M underwater and
throws out this juicy bit > The craft reportedly was used to target undersea
communications and other cables.

I doubt it's more than speculation but...

I believe it's in the order of $5M + 2 weeks to fix cables breaks near the
shore and >$10M + 8 weeks to fix them in the middle of the ocean which sounded
like a lucrative opportunity for blackmail

~~~
dirtyid
Probably tap undersea cables than bust them - which a fishing trawler could do
with more deniability. Regardless, prototype Nuclear espionage sub, all
officer crew of 25, 7 of the dead were Captain 1st Rank (right under admiral),
2 recipients of the Hero of the Russian Federation. My interest is certainly
piqued.

~~~
huhtenberg
There was also a mention that the sub is of an unusual design - a set of
spheres rather than a conventional cigar shape.

~~~
tapland
I think that was based on graphics of how the interior is constructed. The sub
in question should be a cigar shape:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_submarine_Losharik](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_submarine_Losharik)

~~~
iguy
I believe the name is from a cartoon character, who is made out of balls:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1F_hX-
QjDQw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1F_hX-QjDQw)

~~~
close04
A better diagram of the sub here: [https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-
content/uploads/2019/07/Ru_Lo...](https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-
content/uploads/2019/07/Ru_Losharik_Cutaway940.jpg)

basically a series of interconnected bathyspheres with a hydrodynamic shell
over them.

~~~
petre
So basically personnel can't access the reactor and engine compartments from
the life support units, the sub has to surface. Here's a bigger version of the
same diagram with readable text:

[http://www.hisutton.com/images/Ru_Losharik_Cutaway.jpg](http://www.hisutton.com/images/Ru_Losharik_Cutaway.jpg)

Skegs, hydraulic manipulator, no weapons. It's clearly ment to tamper with
undersea cables.

~~~
iguy
Are any of these details more than speculation? I had the impression that the
best information was some not-so-clear pictures which happened to catch it on
the surface, plus the admission a few days ago that it is in fact nuclear
powered, and had a suspiciously high-ranking crew.

I agree that tampering with cables seems like the obvious reason for the
military to go super-deep. With recovering sunken things made by your
adversary a close second. And in the mid-1980s, they were much better at
titanium than at video cameras.

------
whermans
This article chases clicks by parroting hyperbole from a remembrance service
as fact.

This is not the first, nor the worst fire aboard a nuclear submarine.
Komsomolets burned and sank with both a nuclear reactor and nuclear warheads
on board. The reactor scrammed and was not damaged by the fire; the warheads'
biggest risk was leakage of radioactive material.

Losing a nuclear submarine in a fire is a potential catastrophe for the local
environment and a tragedy for the fallen crew, but hardly an event that
justified the "planetary" scale.

~~~
credit_guy
Plus one. And here’s a handy reference to the wikipedia page dedicated to the
9 sunken nuclear submarines so far

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sunken_nuclear_subma...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sunken_nuclear_submarines)

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PietdeVries
Could the fire that the crew fought with their lives indeed have damaged the
reactor (and thus have caused the "planetary catastrophe" \- I assume that is
what the article hints on)?

Or basically, was the reactor designed in such a way that a regular fire could
damage it that it would become unstable?

~~~
Tomte
And where is the planetary scale when a nuclear explosion occurs? There have
been many nuclear explosions on the Bikini Atoll etc. without planetary
catastrophes.

Not to speak of the fact that an underwater nuclear explosion would do even
less, except for a Tsunami maybe, which again is localized.

The only thing I can think of is preventing nuclear war. A rogue ballistic sub
or so. But that is not very plausible.

~~~
divbyzer0
The suggestion is the sub may have been carrying a Cobalt Bomb, a nuclear
weapon encased in cobalt to increase fallout. In the case of a water
detonation I'm guessing massive radioactive contamination that would end sea
life for a large area - perhaps even planetary.

Pure speculation to fit the "planetary catastrophe" remark.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobalt_bomb](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobalt_bomb)

[https://www.businessinsider.com/russian-media-nuclear-
torped...](https://www.businessinsider.com/russian-media-nuclear-torpedo-can-
destroy-the-us-europe-the-world-2019-1?r=US&IR=T)

~~~
flukus
I don't understand how they made the jump from "200 mega-tonne tsunami bomb"
to cobalt bomb. I'm certainly no nuclear physicist, but I thought a cobalt
bomb was purely to spread radioactivity and had effect on the strength of the
bomb. Even a nuclear bomb creating a tsunami seems quite questionable, as does
a fire setting it off.

The whole thing just seems like an odd mix of Russian propaganda, crazy
conspiracy theories and scientific misunderstanding.

~~~
arethuza
I suspect a "cobalt bomb" would be less effective in terms of explosive yield
than an equivalent normal multi stage weapon design - the neutrons from the
fusion reaction in the secondary being used to activate the cobalt rather than
into fissioning the fissile jacket of the secondary where most modern weapon
designs actually get most yield.

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RomanBob
Damn. 6000m? A nuclear sub at that depth would be unreachable by
surface/aerial ASW systems and can provide definite nuclear deterrence.

~~~
irq
Nuclear as in nuclear powered. Not as in, can launch nuclear weapons.

~~~
jacobush
Adding a nuclear weapon to a nuclear powered sub is surely not that hard. The
big news is a nuclear powered sub capable of going that deep.

~~~
SmellyGeekBoy
I thought running for a very long time without needing to surface was the
entire point of nuclear subs?

~~~
jacobush
Yes, but "normal" nuclear subs can still not go very deep without being
crushed. Thus, they can still be hunted for. But a nuclear sub which can go
thousands of meters deep in hiding mode, would change the theater of war
considerably.

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jopsen
They may have prevented a 'Planetary Catastrophe', but I find it rather likely
that they were also the cause of the situation.

History is full of stories where Russian subs are close to causing
catastrophes because of rushed production, poor maintenance, training, etc.

Reality is that they didn't have to sail around in a nuclear sub in the first
place.

