Five facts about the world's first nuclear submarine. "Nautilus" and others The first nuclear submarine was called
Shortly after the Christmas holidays in 1959, Admiral Ralph posted the following notice at the entrance to his office: “I, Commander, United States Atlantic Fleet, promise a case of Jack Daniels whiskey to the first submarine commander who presents proof that an enemy submarine has been exhausted by pursuit and has been forced to surface.” "
The last time I saw a K-3 on the move was in Polyarny, in Kislaya Bay in 1986. The reactor in it was already shut down.
Now she is at the Nerpa plant. They are now making it into a floating museum.
Here she is in Snezhnogorsk (Vyuzhny). Photo from 2014, last days of July.
This wasn't a joke. The admiral, as if on a hippodrome, bet on the miracle of American military thought - a nuclear submarine.
The modern submarine produced its own oxygen and was able to remain underwater throughout the entire voyage. Soviet submariners could only dream of such a ship. During a long voyage, their crews suffocated, the submarines were forced to surface, becoming easy prey for the enemy.
The winner was the crew of the submarine USS Grenadier, tail number SS-525, who pursued the Soviet submarine for about 9 hours and forced it to surface off the coast of Iceland. The commander of the US submarine, Lieutenant Commander Davis, received the promised box of whiskey from the admiral's hands. They had no idea that very soon the Soviet Union would present them with its gift.
In 1945, the United States openly demonstrated to the world the destructive power of its new weapons, and now it must have a reliable means of delivering them. By air, as was the case with Japan, it is associated with great risk, which means that the only reasonable way to deliver nuclear cargo should be a submarine, but one that could secretly, without ever surfacing, deliver a decisive blow; a nuclear submarine was ideal for this. Creating such a submarine was a daunting task at that time, even for the United States. Less than a year later, the first nuclear-powered icebreaker USS Nautilus, tail number SSN-571, was laid down at a shipyard in New London, Connecticut. The project was implemented in an atmosphere of such extreme secrecy that intelligence information about it reached Stalin’s desk only two years later. The Soviet Union again found itself in the role of catching up. In 1949, the first Soviet atomic bomb was tested, and in September 1952, Stalin signed a decree on the creation of nuclear submarines in the USSR.
Domestic designers, as happened more than once, were forced to go their own way, as circumstances were difficult for Soviet Union in general and for the Soviet military science in particular. In the USSR, defense work was always headed by people unknown to the general public, who were not written about in the newspapers. The creation of the submarine project was entrusted to the designer V. N. Peregudov. The technical design of the first nuclear submarine was approved.
Specifications nuclear submarine of project 627 “K-3”, code “Kit”:
Length - 107.4 m;
Width - 7.9 m;
Draft - 5.6 m;
Displacement - 3050 tons;
Power plant - nuclear, power 35,000 hp;
Surface speed - 15 knots;
Underwater speed - 30 knots;
Immersion depth - 300 m;
Navigation autonomy - 60 days;
Crew - 104 people;
Weapons:
Torpedo tubes 533 mm: bow - 8, stern - 2.
The idea behind the combat use of a submarine was as follows: a boat armed with a giant torpedo is towed from its home base to the dive point, from where it continues to sail underwater to a given area. Upon receiving the order, the nuclear submarine fires a torpedo, attacking enemy naval bases. During the entire autonomous voyage, the nuclear-powered vessel is not planned to surface, and no means of protection or countermeasures are provided. After completing the task, she becomes practically defenseless. Interesting fact, the first nuclear submarine was designed and built without military involvement.
The submarine's only torpedo with a thermonuclear charge had a caliber of 1550 mm and a length of 23 m. It immediately became clear to the submariners what would happen to the submarine when this super-torpedo was launched. At the moment of launch, the entire mass of water will be fired along with the torpedo, after which an even larger mass of water will fall inside the hull and will inevitably create an emergency trim. To level it, the crew will have to blow out the main ballast systems and an air bubble will be released to the surface, allowing the nuclear submarine to be immediately detected, which means its immediate destruction. In addition, specialists from the Navy General Staff found that not only in the United States, but throughout the world there are only two military bases that can be destroyed by such a torpedo. Moreover, they had no strategic significance.
The giant torpedo project was buried. Life-size mock-ups of the equipment were destroyed. Changing the design of a nuclear submarine took a whole year. Workshop No. 3 became a closed production facility. Its workers did not have the right to tell even their relatives where they worked.
In the early 50s, hundreds of kilometers from Moscow, the GULAG forces built the first nuclear power plant, the purpose of which was not production. electrical energy for the national economy - it was a prototype of a nuclear installation for a nuclear submarine. The same prisoners built a training center with two stands in a pine forest. Over the course of six months, all the fleets of the Soviet Union recruited the crew of the future nuclear submarine, long-term sailors and officers. Not only health and military training were taken into account, but also a pristine biography. Recruiters had no right to utter the word atom. But somehow, in a whisper, rumors spread where and what they were invited to. Getting to Obninsk became a dream. Everyone was dressed in civilian clothes, the military chain of command was abolished - everyone addressed each other only by first name and patronymic. The rest is strictly military order.
The personnel were painted as on a ship. The cadet could answer anything from strangers, except that he was a submariner. It was always forbidden to pronounce the word reactor. Even during lectures, teachers called it a crystallizer or apparatus. The cadets practiced a variety of actions to escape the release of radioactive gas and aerosols. The most significant problems were fixed by the prisoners, but the cadets also had their share. Nobody really knew what radiation was. In addition to alpha, beta and gamma radiation, there were harmful gases in the air, even household dust was activated, no one thought about it. The traditional 150 grams of alcohol was considered the main medicine. The sailors were convinced that this was how they removed the radiation picked up during the day. Everyone wanted to go sailing and were afraid of being written off even before the submarine was launched.
Lack of coordination between departments has always hindered any project in the USSR. So, two strikes are made against the crew of the first nuclear submarine and the entire submarine fleet as a whole. The Minister of Defense of the USSR, Marshal Zhukov, who, with all due respect to his land-based services in the navy, understood little, issued an order halving the wages of long-term conscripts. Practically trained specialists began to submit reports for dismissal. Of the six recruited crew of the first nuclear submarine, there was only one left who loved his job more than his well-being. With the next blow, Marshal Zhukov canceled the second crew of the nuclear submarine. With the advent of the submarine fleet, the order was established - two crews. After a multi-month campaign, the first went on vacation, and the second took up combat duty. The tasks of submarine commanders have become exponentially more complicated. They had to come up with something to find time for the crew to rest without canceling combat duty.
The first nuclear-powered ship was built by the entire country, although most of the participants in this unprecedented undertaking were unaware of their involvement in a unique project. In Moscow, they developed a new steel that allowed the boat to dive to a depth unimaginable for that time - 300 m; the reactors were manufactured in Gorky, the steam turbine units were supplied by the Leningrad Kirov Plant; The K-3 architecture was developed at TsAGI. In Obninsk, the crew trained at a special stand. A total of 350 enterprises and organizations built the miracle ship brick by brick. Its first commander was Captain 1st Rank Leonid Osipenko. If not for the secrecy regime, his name would have thundered throughout the entire Soviet Union. After all, Osipenko tested the truly first “hydrospace ship”, which could go into the ocean for three whole months with only one ascent - at the end of the trip.
And at the Severodvinsk Machine-Building Plant, the finished nuclear submarine K-3, laid down on September 24, 1954, was already waiting for its first crew. The interiors looked like works of art. Each room was painted in its own color, bright colors pleasing to the eye. One of the bulkheads is made in the form of a huge mirror, and the other is a picture of a summer meadow with birch trees. The furniture was made to special order from valuable wood and, in addition to its intended purpose, could be turned into an object to help in emergency situations. So the large table in the wardroom was transformed into an operating room if necessary.
The design of the Soviet submarine was very different from the American submarine. The USS Nautilus repeated the usual principles of diesel submarines, adding only a nuclear installation, while the Soviet K-3 submarine had a completely different architecture.
On July 1, 1958, the time came for launching. A canvas was stretched over the conning tower, hiding the forms. As you know, sailors are superstitious people, and if a bottle of champagne does not break on the side of the ship, they will remember this at critical moments during the voyage. Among the members admissions committee panic arose. The entire cigar-shaped hull of the new ship was covered with a layer of rubber. The only hard place on which a bottle can break is the small fence of the horizontal rudders. Nobody wanted to take risks and take responsibility. Then someone remembered that women are good at breaking champagne. The young employee of the Malachite Design Bureau swung her hand confidently, and everyone took a breath of relief. Thus was born the first-born of the Soviet nuclear submarine fleet.
In the evening, when the nuclear submarine entered the open sea, a strong wind arose, which gusts blew away all the carefully installed camouflage from the hull, and the submarine appeared before the eyes of the people who found themselves on the shore in its original form.
On July 3, 1958, the boat, which received the tactical number K-3, began sea trials in the White Sea. July 4, 1958 at 10:30 am for the first time in history domestic fleet Nuclear energy was used to propel the ship.
The tests were completed on December 1, 1958. During them, the power of the power plant was limited to 60% of the nominal. At the same time, a speed of 23.3 knots was achieved, which exceeded the calculated value by 3 knots. For the successful development of new technology, for the first time since the end of the Great Patriotic War, K-3 commander L.G. Osipenko was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. Currently, his name is given to the training center for training nuclear submarine crews in Obninsk.
In January 1959, the K-3 was transferred to the Navy for trial operation, which ended in 1962, after which the nuclear submarine became a “full-fledged” warship of the Northern Fleet.
During sea trials, the nuclear submarine was often visited by Academician Anatoly Petrovich Alexandrov, who considered the creation of the K-3 the main brainchild of his life (the boat was so dear to him that he bequeathed that his coffin be covered with the first K-3 Naval flag). , Civil Code of the Navy, Fleet Admiral S.G. Gorshkov. On December 17, 1965, the guest of the submariners was the first cosmonaut of the Earth, Hero of the Soviet Union, Colonel Yu.A. Gagarin.
The first nuclear-powered submarine almost immediately began exploring the Arctic region. In 1959, K-3, under the command of Captain 1st Rank L.G. Osipenko, passed under arctic ice 260 miles. On July 17, 1962, this nuclear submarine completed the transition to the North Pole, but floated to the surface.
An interesting fact is when the Americans opened the archives of the times “ cold war“It was discovered that a very short time after the launch of the first nuclear submarine “K-3”, Captain 1st Rank of the US Navy Berins sailed his submarine at the mouth of the canal leading to the port of Murmansk. He got so close to a Soviet port that he was able to observe the sea trials of a Soviet, but diesel, ballistic missile submarine. The Americans never found out about the Soviet nuclear submarine.
The K-3 nuclear submarine turned out to be excellent in all respects. In comparison with the American submarine, it looked more impressive. After passing all the required tests, the Project 627 nuclear submarine “K-3” was given the name “Leninsky Komsomol” and on July 4, 1958 it became part of the USSR Navy. Already in the summer of 1962, the crew of the Lenin Komsomol repeated the feat of the Americans, who in 1958 made a trip to the North Pole on the first US nuclear submarine USS Nautilus, and then repeated it many times on other nuclear submarines.
In June 1967, the submarine carried out tests on surfacing in ice and breaking through ice from 10 to 80 cm. There was minor damage to the wheelhouse hull and antennas. Subsequently, from July 11 to July 21, 1962, the boat completed a special Task - an Arctic voyage crossing North Pole at 00 hours 59 minutes 10 seconds Moscow time on July 17, 1962. During the historical voyage, the submarine surfaced three times in ice holes and ruins.
During his glorious battle path The submarine "Leninsky Komsomol" completed 7 combat missions, took part in the exercises of the Warsaw Pact countries "North", participated in the exercises "Ocean-85", "Atlantika-85", "North-85", six times was declared "Excellent" by order of the KSF PL". 228 crew members were awarded government orders and medals, and four of them received the honorary title Hero of the Soviet Union. Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev personally presented awards to the submariners for the Arctic campaign. The captain of the nuclear submarine Lev Zhiltsov became a Hero of the Soviet Union. The entire crew, without exception, received orders. Their names became known throughout the country.
After its exploits in the ice, the nuclear submarine Leninsky Komsomol became the modern Aurora and the subject of visits by numerous delegations. Propaganda window dressing almost completely replaced military service. The captain of the submarine was sent to study at the General Staff Academy, experienced officers were dispersed to headquarters and ministries, and sailors, instead of servicing complex military equipment, took part in all kinds of congresses and conferences. Soon he had to pay for it in full.
According to Soviet intelligence, it became known that an American submarine was secretly patrolling in the neutral waters of the Mediterranean Sea. The leadership of the USSR Navy hastily began to discuss who to send there and it turned out that there were no free warships nearby. We remembered about the K-3 nuclear submarine. The submarine was quickly equipped with a prefabricated crew. A new commander was appointed. On the third day of the submarine's voyage, the stern horizontal rudders were de-energized and the air regeneration system failed. The temperature in the compartments rose to 40 degrees. A fire started in one of the combat units, and the fire quickly spread throughout the compartments. Despite persistent rescue efforts, 39 submariners died. Based on the results of an investigation conducted by the Navy command, the crew’s actions were recognized as correct. And the crew was nominated for state awards.
But soon a commission from Moscow arrived at the Leninsky Komsomol submarine, and one of the staff officers found a lighter in the torpedo compartment. It was suggested that one of the sailors climbed in there to smoke, which was the cause of the nuclear submarine disaster. Award sheets were torn to shreds, and penalties were announced instead.
That tragedy of the Lenin Komsomol did not become part of our common memory either in 1967 or in the “era of glasnost”; they don’t really know about it today. The sailors who burned down on K-3 were erected a modest, nameless monument far from crowded places: “To the submariners who died in the ocean on 09/08/67.” And a small anchor at the foot of the slab. The boat itself lives out its life at the pier shipyard in Polyarny.
Superpower rivalry in submarine fleets was intense. The struggle was on power, size and reliability. Multi-purpose nuclear submarines have appeared carrying powerful nuclear missiles, for which there are no flight range limits. To sum up the confrontation, we can say that in some ways the US naval forces were superior to the Soviet navy, but in some ways they were inferior.
So, Soviet nuclear submarines were faster and had a greater buoyancy reserve. The records of immersion and underwater speed still remain with the USSR. About 2,000 enterprises of the former Soviet Union were involved in the production of nuclear submarines with ballistic missiles on board. During the Cold War, the USSR and the USA each threw $10 trillion into the arms race. No country could withstand such wastefulness.
The Cold War has faded into history, but the concept of defense capability has not disappeared. In the 50 years after the first-born Leninsky Komsomol, 338 nuclear submarines were built, 310 of which are still in service today. Operation of the Leninsky Komsomol nuclear submarine continued until 1991, while the submarine served on a par with other nuclear-powered ships.
After the K-3 is decommissioned, they plan to convert the submarine into a museum ship; the corresponding project has already been developed at the Malachite Design Bureau, but for unknown reasons the ship remains inactive, gradually falling into disrepair.
Soviet shipbuilders from the Central Design Bureau No. 18 (TsKB-18, current) approached the creation of Project 658, having behind them, on the one hand, experience in building the first domestic nuclear submarines (NPS) of the Leninsky Komsomol type (Project 627 and 627A, "Whale"), on the other - the first diesel-electric submarines with ballistic missiles on board.
The Project 658 boat was intended to carry out strikes with ballistic missiles with nuclear warheads on naval bases, ports, industrial and administrative centers located on the coast and deep in enemy territory.
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The chief designer of the project was the 37-year-old future academician and twice Hero of Socialist Labor, who in the late 1940s was part of a group of Soviet specialists who studied the achievements of German shipbuilders in Germany.
Work on the project began in August 1956, and already on November 12, 1960, the acceptance certificate for the lead submarine of the K-19 series was signed.
Quick solutions
The submarine of the 658th project was a double-hull type submarine (an external “strong” hull and an internal “light”), consisting of ten compartments. Hull length - 114 m, width - 9.2 m. Displacement - about 4030 tons.
Unlike the first Soviet nuclear submarines of Project 627, which had a rounded elliptical bow shape, Project 658 received pointed contours of the bow.
This decision was made to improve the seaworthiness of the K-19 on the surface. Initially, it was assumed that the launch of ballistic missiles would be carried out only on the surface.
The robust hull was divided by transverse bulkheads into ten compartments: 1st - torpedo, 2nd - battery, 3rd - central post, 4th - missile, 5th - diesel, 6th - reactor, 7th - turbine, 8th - electric motor, 9th - auxiliary mechanisms, 10th - stern.
As in the first Soviet nuclear submarines, the main power plant K-19 had a power of 35 thousand hp. and included two VM-A water-cooled reactors with a power of 70 mW with steam generators that rotated two propulsion units. In addition, the new submarine had two 450 hp “sneak” electric motors. each and two diesel generators.
With 80% of the power of both steam-producing installations of the ship in a submerged position, the maximum speed of the submarine was about 24 knots (44 km/h).
At this speed, the cruising range reached about 28 thousand miles (up to 50 thousand km). With a 100% load on the power unit, it was possible to reach a speed of about 26 knots (46 km/h). The submarine's autonomy was 50 days of continuous stay at sea without replenishing the ship's reserves of oil, fuel, provisions, fresh and distilled water.
The missile weapons consisted of three surface-launched R-13 ballistic missiles placed in vertical silos. The same liquid rockets developed by special design bureau No. 385 (SKB-385) in Zlatoust Chelyabinsk region under the leadership of designer Viktor Makeev, they stood on the first Soviet missile submarines - diesel-electric submarines of Project 629.
The limited width of the hull and the substantial dimensions of the 14-ton missiles and their launch devices made it possible to install missile silos in only one row.
Each of the three missiles was equipped with a one and a half ton nuclear warhead with a yield of 1 Mgt (about 50 times more powerful than the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki) and could deliver it at a distance of up to 600 km from the launch site with a deviation of up to 4 km.
In order to ensure fire safety the missiles were stored filled with only the oxidizer - AK-27I (a solution of nitrogen tetroxide in concentrated nitric acid), and the TG-02 fuel itself was placed in a special container, outside the durable housing and separately for each missile. It was applied to the product before launch. The launch of three missiles took 12 minutes after the boat surfaced.
The submarine's torpedo armament consisted of four bow 533-mm torpedo tubes (the ammunition load included 16 torpedoes) and two small-sized 400-mm stern tubes (6 torpedoes). The latter were intended for self-defense and firing anti-submarine torpedoes at a depth of up to 250 m; 533-mm torpedoes could be used at a depth of up to 100 m.
The need to surface to launch missiles and, therefore, automatically uncloak the submarine significantly reduced the combat stability of the missile carrier, so when modernizing the nuclear submarine under Project 658M, the installation of three SM-87-1 launchers and R-21 missiles with underwater launch was provided.
The R-21 single-stage liquid-fueled 20-ton missile could take off from under water and deliver a warhead to a range of 1,400 km with a deviation of 3 km.
Due to the conditions of the strength of the missiles and the accuracy of their impact, the launch could only be carried out in a narrow range of depths - the “launch corridor”. The R-21 missiles were launched from a depth of 40-60 m from the bottom of the missile at a boat speed of up to 2-4 knots (4-7 km/h) and sea state up to 5 points. The pre-launch preparation of the first rocket for launch took about 30 minutes. The firing time for three missiles is no more than 10 minutes.
At the same time, the impact of impulses arising during the launch of missiles led to the submarine’s ascent to 16 m, which did not allow it to be quickly brought to its original depth for the launch of the next missile. The complex of special means that keep the submarine in the required depth range is called the “possession system.”
Before the underwater launch of missiles, the K-19 silos were filled with water, and to eliminate the imbalance on the boat, special ballast tanks with a water pumping system were used.
After the missiles exited the silos, it was necessary to take about 15 cubic meters of water into the “equalization tank.”
The special navigation complex “Sigma-658” tracked the course, roll and pitch angles, calculated the speed of the boat and provided continuous calculation of current coordinates. During the pre-launch preparation of the rockets, this data was transmitted to computing devices, which took into account corrections for the rotation of the Earth and guided the rocket to a given target.
The first Soviet nuclear-powered rocket ships were built at a plant in Severodvinsk. The lead boat of the 658th project K-19 was laid down on October 17, 1958. She was launched on April 8, 1959, and entered service a year and a half later. In 1961, the Northern Fleet was replenished with the nuclear missile carrier K-33, in 1962 - K-55 and K-40, in 1963 - K-16 and K-145, and in 1964 - K-149 and K-176 .
Thus, over the course of six years, a program was implemented to build a series of eight nuclear submarines that carried a total of 24 ballistic missiles with nuclear warheads.
First and last K-19
The service of the first domestic nuclear-powered missile ship, the K-19, began at the end of 1960. In 1961, the submarine was fully practicing combat training tasks: it made three trips to sea, traveled 5,892 miles (11 thousand km) under water, and 529 miles (980 km) above water.
On July 3, 1961, at 4:00 a.m., the starboard reactor accident occurred on the nuclear-powered ship while submerged.
K-19 surfaced and continued to move while the main turbo-gear unit on the left side was operating. As a result of the depressurization of the reactor's primary circuit, a powerful radiation background arose in all compartments.
During the struggle for the life of the submarine, 30 people received heavy doses of radiation and died (15 after a few hours, nine after a few days, six within a year).
Approaching diesel-electric submarines and surface ships managed to evacuate the crew members and tow the submarine to Zapadnaya Litsa. In post-Soviet times, the incident became widely known, memoirs of the participants in the events were published, and in 2002 the feature film “K-19” was shot with the captain of a Soviet boat in the role. In 2006, the ex-president of the USSR nominated the submarine crew to Nobel Prize world, insisting that the crew's heroic actions saved the world from terrible disaster and even possible nuclear war: If the dead sailors had not prevented the reactor explosion, the United States could have mistaken the incident for an attempt to attack its naval base in the area.
After the accident, the boat received the ominous nickname “Hiroshima” from the sailors, but after repairs it continued to serve.
The problem of cracking of primary circuit tubes on nuclear submarines was solved by replacing stainless steel with titanium.
The K-19 was considered an unlucky ship by submariners. Accidents happened to her regularly. On November 15, 1969, the nuclear-powered submarine collided in the Barents Sea with the American nuclear submarine SSN-615 Gato, which was trying to covertly track a Soviet submarine. Both ships were damaged.
On February 24, 1972, when the boat was 1,300 km northeast of the island of Newfoundland, a fire broke out on board the Hiroshima, killing 28 crew members in the 5th, 8th and 9th compartments.
At the same time, the service of other submarines of the 658th project proceeded safely. K-115 in 1963 made the transition from the Northern Fleet to the Pacific Fleet, covering 1.6 thousand miles (3 thousand km) under ice in six days. In 1968, the under-ice crossing was repeated by the K-55, already with nuclear weapons on board.
Despite their high noise level and other disadvantages, Project 658M submarines remained in service in the 1970s, patrolling the ocean in close proximity to the American coast, and ensuring minimal flight time for their missiles. This made it difficult for the United States to take measures to counter a missile strike, but at the same time made the return of nuclear-powered ships to their native shores after completing the mission very problematic.
The service of the last Project 658M nuclear submarines in the Northern Fleet continued until the end of the existence of the USSR. K-16, K-33, K-40 and K-149 were decommissioned in 1988-1990. They were in storage in Olenya Bay and Gremikha.
Last in 1991 naval ensign It was the lead submarine of the K-19 series that launched.
The first Soviet-made nuclear-powered missile ship, compared to a similar American ship of the "" type, had higher surface and underwater speeds, better combat survivability, and an increased diving depth, but was inferior to the "American" in terms of stealth and information technology characteristics. Project 658 was very significantly inferior to the US Navy ship in terms of the ship's tonnage to the mass of missile weapons. If on the George Washington for every ton of the Polaris A-1 missile there was a little more than 30 tons of submarine displacement, then on a Soviet-made boat this value increased to almost 130 tons.
Nikolai Mormul, Lev Zhiltsov, Leonid Osipenko
The first Soviet nuclear submarine. History of creation
N. Mormul
Revolution underwater
August 6 and 9, 1945 are undoubtedly turning points in human history. The appearance of atomic weapons will upend the scale of established values and change the way of thinking. We have the right to talk about the world before and after Hiroshima.
But all these changes, as well as the awareness of the revolution that has taken place, will come over the years. For now, humanity is simply shocked by the destruction of two Japanese cities and the death of thousands of civilians, which was not justified by any military considerations. It still does not realize that (as the English physicist P. Blackett would later say) the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was not so much the last military act of the Second World War as the first act of the Cold War against the Soviet Union.
“The United States is the most powerful nation today; there is no one stronger than it,” President Truman said. “With such power, we must take responsibility and lead the world.” In other words, America was determined to dictate its will to other countries, neutralizing possible contenders for world domination. The first of these contenders, of course, was the Soviet Union.
Immediately after the end of the war, Stalin made a lot of efforts to create a socialist camp in Eastern Europe. This worries the United States so much that Truman decides to use the atomic bomb in Europe in the event of “extraordinary circumstances.” Voices are increasingly being heard in the press and in military circles demanding that a preventive war be launched against the USSR while the possession of atomic weapons is a US monopoly. In 1953, the American administration officially accepted new course, known as power politics and the "massive retaliation" strategy.
US nuclear strategy in the post-war years
At first, long-range bombers were thought of as carriers of the atomic bomb. The USA has a lot of experience combat use This type of weapon, American strategic aviation had a reputation as the most powerful in the world, and finally, US territory was considered largely invulnerable to an enemy retaliatory strike.
However, the use of aircraft required their basing in close proximity to the borders of the USSR. As a result of the efforts made by American diplomats, already in July 1948 the Labor government agreed to station 60 B-29 bombers with atomic bombs on board in Great Britain. After the signing of the North Atlantic Pact in April 1949, all Western Europe became embroiled in the US nuclear strategy, and the number of American bases abroad reached 3,400 by the end of the 60s.
But gradually there is a growing understanding among the American military and politicians that the presence of aviation on foreign territory is in one way or another associated with the risk of changing the political situation in a particular country. Therefore, the navy is increasingly seen as a partner in the use of atomic weapons in a future war. This trend is finally strengthening after the convincing tests of atomic bombs at Bikini Atoll. The naval forces - at that time the US superiority in this type of troops was decisive - have since been entrusted with the implementation of the largest strategic objectives. They are already capable of directly influencing the course of the war.
It is important to emphasize here that the power of the American fleet was directed primarily against the shore - Pentagon strategists did not consider the Soviet navy as a rival.
Fundamental changes in views on the role and place of the Navy in war and on the significance of ocean theaters of military operations occurred in the second half of the 50s. Considering the balance of power in the international arena and limited opportunities Soviet fleet, the Americans are pushing into the background the traditional problem of protecting ocean communications. In 1957, based on the report of the special commission “Poseidon”, this issue was classified as secondary. From now on, for the American military, the oceans became only vast launching pads for launching nuclear weapons carriers. At sea, wherever they are, Americans feel at home.
Increased development of aviation and navy to the detriment of ground forces can be clearly seen in the distribution of appropriations. From 1955 to 1959, 60% of funds for the purchase of new weapons were allocated to aviation, about 30% to the navy and marines, and only about 10% to the army.
The “massive retaliation” strategy developed in the United States is being transformed within NATO into the “sword and shield” strategy. The role of the “sword” is given to strategic aviation and US strike aircraft carriers, the “shield” is the armed forces of the North Atlantic Treaty countries deployed in Europe. It was assumed that the bloc's armed forces would use nuclear weapons regardless of whether the enemy would take such a measure. In relation to the Soviet Union, the conduct of military operations without the use of an atomic bomb was practically excluded.
This military policy remained important until the early 60s. Only the Kennedy administration undertook a partial revision of the strategic line, having been able to correctly assess the changes that had occurred in the balance of power on the world stage.
The main reason for these changes was the growth of the military power of the USSR. This is not the place to talk about at what cost it was achieved; however, there is no doubt that economic development the country was sacrificed to this political choice. The purpose of the book is to tell about one of the decisive episodes in the struggle between the USSR and the USA for military superiority and about the people whose dedication made it possible to restore balance, regardless of any hardships.
But first, let’s see what the USSR could oppose to the military power of the United States.
Before the war, the USSR had one of the most powerful submarine fleets - 218 boats. Their superiority was especially impressive in the Baltic Sea - 75 Soviet submarines against five German ones. In the first months of the war, Soviet submarines were subjected to massive attacks by the German fleet and aircraft, and some of them were trapped in the Gulf of Finland by minefields. The submarine fleet suffered heavy losses in the Black Sea and in the North. As a result, the picture in 1945 was dismal, especially compared to the increasingly powerful US Navy.
“During the Second World War, after the treacherous Japanese attack on the US naval base at Pearl Harbor (Hawaii Islands), the construction time for submarines in the United States was reduced by almost half. The duration of construction of one diesel submarine by the Americans was six to seven months. By the end of the war, the United States of America had 236 diesel-electric submarines in service.
During the Second World War, Japan built 114 submarines, by the time of surrender it consisted of 162 submarines, 130 units were destroyed...
Great Britain lost 80 submarines during World War II.
In Germany, during the six years of World War II, 1,160 submarines operated, of which it lost 651 submarines as a result of combat operations, and 98 units were scuttled by the crews during the surrender of Germany.
During the Second World War, the Germans monthly launched and commissioned an average of 25 submarines into the Navy, and in four months of 1945 - 35 units.
During the Second World War, submarines of the warring countries sank 5,000 ships and ships with a total displacement of 20,000,000 tons.”
Stalin knew very well that several dozen German submarines almost brought Great Britain to its knees, sinking about 2,700 ships. Modern battleships, such as the Bismarck and the Repulse, lost the battle to the modest submarines. That is why, after the creation of the atomic bomb in the USSR, priority was given to the massive construction of submarines to neutralize the maritime threat. According to some sources, Stalin's original plan called for the construction of 1,200 boats.
The limitations of diesel-electric submarines were already apparent. Intelligence reported: the Americans are creating a nuclear-powered submarine, the appearance of which would change the strategic picture future war. It is difficult to say at what point Stalin finally made the decision to begin building a nuclear submarine fleet. It is only known that at the end of 1952, a man was summoned to the Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR Vyacheslav Aleksandrovich Malyshev, whose name remained a secret to the public twenty years after his death.
Archimedes' Law
Before proceeding with the main story, it seems necessary to explain, at least schematically, what a submarine is and how it functions. Imagine a huge steel cigar, more than 100 m long and about 10 m in diameter, sealed with spherical caps at the ends. This rugged submarine hull houses reactors, turbines, electrical equipment, weapons, weapons, electronics, living quarters and various systems, ensuring the life of people and mechanisms. The durable hull can withstand hundreds of thousands of tons of seawater pressure when immersed to depths. It is covered with a lightweight hull, giving a streamlined shape to the submarine. Main ballast tanks are formed in such a hull, thanks to which the submarine’s buoyancy reserve is created. Filling these tanks with sea water, the boat submerges, displacing (blowing) water from them with high-pressure compressed air, and the submarine floats to the surface.
In 1944, the head of the Manhattan Project (American atomic program), General Leslie Groves, created a small working group to explore the possibilities of "non-destructive use" of nuclear energy.
Thus, work began on the creation of nuclear power plants for ships. Due to the independence of atomic power plant from atmospheric air, the submarine fleet became a priority area of its application. The use of such installations on submarines made it possible to radically increase autonomy and stealth - because now the submarine did not need to surface to recharge its batteries.
Theoretical studies have shown the practical feasibility of building a nuclear ship propulsion system. Their results were presented to Congress in a special report in 1951, after which legislators allocated the necessary funds. This allowed the fleet to sign contracts with Electric Boat, Westinghouse Electric and Combusting Engineering to develop a design for a submarine and a nuclear reactor for it. For the latter, we chose a circuit with pressurized water cooling (PWR) - as further experience has shown, it is the safest and easiest to operate. The ground reactor prototype was designated S1W, and the prototype intended for installation on a submarine was designated S2W. The letter "S" meant that the reactor was intended for a submarine (reactors for aircraft carriers are designated by the letter "A", and for cruisers - "C"), and the "W" indicated the development company Westinghouse.
The design and construction of the submarine was carried out very quickly. Already on June 14, 1952, at the Electric Boat shipyard in Groton (Connecticut), in the presence of US President Harry Truman, the laying of the first nuclear submarine took place, and on January 21, 1954, the boat was launched. Mamie Eisenhower, the wife of US President Dwight Eisenhower, became the ship's godmother. The boat, named Nautilus and hull number SSN-571, was officially accepted into the fleet on January 30, 1954. But she remained at the shipyard berth for another three months, since a number of important works were not completed. On December 30, the reactor was launched. On January 17, 1955, the Nautilus finally left the pier. The submarine's commander, Commander Eugene P. Wilkinson, transmitted the historic signal: "I'm going under nuclear propulsion."
DESIGN FEATURES
For its time, the Nautilus had significant dimensions: according to the design, its underwater displacement reached 3.5 thousand tons, and its length was 98.7 m. It surpassed the latest American diesel-electric submarines of the Teng type in displacement by 50%, and in length by 15.2 m. The outlines of the Nautilus hull were based on the German project XXI (during the Second World War). The large diameter of the hull (8.5 m) made it possible to organize three decks along most of the length of the hull and create fairly comfortable conditions for the crew, which consisted of 12 officers and 90 petty officers and sailors. The officers were accommodated in cabins (although only the commander was in a single room). Each of the rank and file had a personal bed (on diesel-electric submarines, as a rule, the number of beds was less than the number of crew, taking into account the fact that some of the personnel were constantly on watch). The officer's wardroom could accommodate all officers at the same time. In the wardroom of ordinary personnel, 36 people could eat at the same time, and as a cinema hall it could accommodate up to 50 people. The Nautilus's armament consisted of six bow torpedo tubes with an ammunition load of 26 torpedoes. The initial project envisaged arming the boat with Regulus cruise missiles (launched from the surface), but due to a significant increase in the mass of the reactor’s biological protection, this had to be abandoned. The main means of illuminating the situation were two hydroacoustic stations - the passive AN/BQR-4A (with a large cylindrical antenna in the bow of the boat) and the active AN/SQS-4.
POWER POINT
The Nautilus used a single-reactor, two-shaft main power plant. The S2W reactor vessel weighed about 35 tons, had the shape of a cylinder with a spherical lid and a hemispherical bottom. Its height was 3 m, diameter 2.7 m. The reactor vessel was mounted in a vertical position on the base of the water protection tank, which in turn was mounted on the foundation in the hold of the reactor compartment. Together with water and composite protection, the height of the reactor was about 6 m and the diameter was 4.6 m. The reactor core was cylindrical in shape with a diameter of about 1 m. The total weight of the reactor load was about 100 kg. The steam produced by cooling the reactor powered two steam turbines. For emergencies and coastal maneuvering, the submarine had two diesel generators.
SERVICE HISTORY
The very first tests of the nuclear submarine Nautilus yielded stunning results: the submerged submarine covered the distance between the submarine fleet bases of New London and San Juan in 90 hours.
During this time, the Nautilus covered 1,381 nautical miles (2,559 km) at an average speed of 15.3 knots. Diesel-electric submarines at that time were capable of traveling under water at most 200 miles at a speed of 4-5 knots.
On subsequent voyages, the Nautilus demonstrated an average ground speed close to the maximum - an indicator that previously submariners could only dream of. The submarine turned out to be capable of outrunning the anti-submarine torpedoes then in service with the US Navy! The maneuverability of the submarine also turned out to be excellent.
However, tests also showed significant shortcomings of the boat, first of all - high level noise Its main cause was not the power plant, but the vibration of the ship's structure, caused by disturbances in the flow of water behind the wheelhouse fence. If the frequency of these vibrations exceeded 180 per minute, there was a real threat of serious damage to the structure of the boat. High noise significantly reduced the combat value of the Nautilus: at speeds above 4 knots, the effectiveness of the sonars became zero - the boat simply “jammed” them with its own noise. If the speed exceeded 15 knots, the shift located in the central post had to shout to hear each other. Later, the submarine was subjected to modifications that somewhat alleviated the noise problem. But throughout its 35-year service, the Nautilus remained essentially an experimental ship, and not a combat unit,
TO THE NORTH POLE
The exceptional capabilities of the nuclear power plant made it possible to achieve the ambitious goal of reaching the North Pole underwater. However, the first attempt, made in August 1957, was unsuccessful. Having entered the pack ice, the Nautilus tried to surface at the point where the echometer showed an ice hole, but ran into a drifting ice floe, seriously damaging the only periscope. The boat had to return. A year later, a second attempt was made, which turned out to be successful - on August 3, 1958, the Nautilus sailed under the North Pole. This event occurred during the submarine’s trans-Arctic voyage from Pearl Harbor (Hawaii) to London, confirming the possibility of maneuvering nuclear submarines between the Pacific and Atlantic oceans through the Arctic. Since conventional means of navigation in circumpolar waters are of little use, the Nautilus was equipped with the North American N6A-1 inertial navigation system, a shipborne version of the system used on the Navajo intercontinental cruise missiles. The entire voyage under the ice took four days (96 hours), during which the boat covered 1,590 miles, surfacing northeast of Greenland.
Nautilus became the first submarine to reach the North Pole underwater. The first boat to surface at the North Pole was another American nuclear submarine, the Skate. After returning from the Nautilus voyage, he visited New York. And if many submarines visited the North Pole after him, then not a single nuclear submarine ever entered the New York port.
FURTHER SERVICE
The Nautilus spent most of its active service as part of the 10th Submarine Squadron, based in New London. The submarine participated in providing combat training to the US Atlantic Fleet and the naval forces of its NATO allies. Participation in maneuvers in conditions close to combat conditions sometimes led to very dangerous incidents. The most dangerous of these took place on November 10, 1966, when the Nautilus, maneuvering at periscope depth, collided with the anti-submarine aircraft carrier Essex (CVS-9). The aircraft carrier received a hole, but remained afloat. The submarine seriously damaged the wheelhouse, but did not lose momentum and was able to get to the base. During its service on the Nautilus, the reactor core was recharged three times: in 1957, 1959, and 1967. In total, the boat traveled more than 490 thousand miles. The intensity of its exploitation in initial period service was much higher. If in the first two years the submarine covered 62.5 thousand miles (of which more than 36 thousand were submerged), and in the next two - more than 91 thousand, then from 1959 to 1967 (eight years) it covered 174 .5 thousand miles, and for 12 years from 1967 to 1979 - 162.3 thousand. On March 3, 1980, Nautilus was withdrawn from service. It was supposed to be disposed of, but soon they decided to preserve the first American nuclear submarine as a museum. After appropriate preparation and cutting from the reactor compartment body, the Nautilus was opened to visitors on April 11, 1986. The boat, which has National Landmark status, is located in Groton.
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HISTORY OF THE CREATION OF THE FIRST SOVIET NUCLEAR SUBMARINE
V.N. Peregudov
In 1948, the future academician and three times hero of labor Anatoly Petrovich Aleksandrov organized a group with instructions to develop nuclear energy for PL. Beria closed the work so as not to be distracted from the main task - the bomb.
In 1952, Kurchatov entrusted Alexandrov, as his deputy, with the development nuclear reactor for ships. 15 options were developed.
Engineer-captain 1st rank Vladimir Nikolaevich Peregudov was appointed chief designer of the first Soviet nuclear submarines.
For a long time, the issue of reliability of steam generators (Design Bureau of Genrikh Hasanov) was on the agenda. They were designed with some overheating and gave an efficiency advantage over the American ones, and therefore a gain in power. But the survivability of the first steam generators was extremely low. The steam generators began to leak after only 800 hours of operation. The scientists were demanded to switch to the American scheme, but they defended their principles, including from the then commander Northern Fleet Admiral Chabanenko.
Military, D.F. Ustinov and all doubters were convinced by carrying out the necessary modifications (replacing the metal). Steam generators began to operate for tens of thousands of hours.
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