August,12th - 12 Years Ago It Drowned

To be fair it’s necessary to note that during investigation of catastrophe with “Kursk” public prosecutor Ustinov showed to the whole world damages of the first compartment which view confirmed that explosion took place not outside, but inside the compartment. There’s logic justification for it. Firstly, we were shown what they wanted to show. Secondly, foreign observation stations fixed two explosions at the moment of catastrophe of "Kursk". It is possible that the first explosion punched strong case of the submarine. Powerful detonation of torpedo weapons load which ruined several compartments was a reason of the second explosion. Character of submarine damages makes this variant possible. This version seems to me the most convincing and plausible.

Twelve years ago Vladimir Putin answering a question of the popular American TV host Larry King: “Tell us what happened to the Russian submarine?” told with malicious smile: “It drowned”.

Nuclear submarine Kursk drowned on August 12, 2002 during doctrines in the Barents Sea. Ten years passed. They say time heals, but only not our leaders. After all true causes of catastrophe of nuclear submarine aren't made public. It means lessons aren't drawn, conclusions aren't made. Only guesses which are difficult to call even versions. Military expert Alexander Golts considers blasting of torpedo on the submarine the most convincing version. It is difficult to me to argue with talented journalist and military expert moreover of such level as Golts. As I am not an expert, I am just the former commander of torpedo department on a nuclear underwater rocket carrier of the second generation, project 667 "B" in a rank of senior lieutenant (now retired captain of the 1st rank). There were four torpedo tubes with firing systems GS-200 onboard. There were also twenty torpedoes and two nuclear ones being stored in torpedo tubes No. 1 and No. 2. All torpedoes were oxygen, MK-53 type. Torpedoes SET-53 were present when I served on the project 675. If the commander of the submarine couldn't apply ballistic missiles independently, if unblocking code from control center was required, he could at any time order torpedo tubes “Fire!” All unblocking nuclear torpedo of the weapons stock was situated directly on the submarine. Therefore relation to the torpedo weapons stock on the submarine was always quivering, for any miscalculations in operation and storage were punished. It could even lead to a military court. The commander of a group in a rank of senior lieutenant of the neighbouring submarine (whose surname I do not call for obvious reasons) was sentenced to four years of imprisonment for misuse of the nuclear weapon. But I will tell about it separately. This incident, surprisingly, still hasn’t known to the press, possibly, because of expected wild consequences.

Special trainings were systematically carried out with the staff of the military unit on the submarine for the purpose of prevention of possible emergencies with weapons stock, accident risks of torpedo weapon and arms was also studied there. Thus, no matter how many emergencies with torpedoes happened during recent years (say 50 years), these torpedoes never blew up. They are constructed in such a way that they can’t blow up out of a sudden, the more so onboard. In the way of their operation torpedoes burned in the compartments, dropped when loading, war heads could be broken in the process of their transportation, they could get stuck in torpedo tubes when firing, but never, I emphasize, they never blew up. It even happened that careless drunken sailors beat them with sledge hammers in the war heads, but they still didn’t blow up. Torpedo weapons stock could blow up only from very powerful detonation. I am talking about torpedoes with usual war heads. While torpedoes with nuclear war heads have protection against emergency situations which is very effective, it’s represented by whole four levels of protection. Nuclear weapons stock is protected so reliably that it shouldn’t blow up even from detonation. It is better not to check, of course. However all these levels of protection from unauthorized explosion can be nullified if they are all disconnected. Only a fool is capable to do it (they don’t keep fools on submarines) or it could be done by too "clever" as it happened at explosion of Chernobyl NPP. Operators of Chernobyl NPP for some unknown reason disconnected all four levels of emergency protection of the reactor. They say that they wanted to make experiment what would come of it. While such experiments on the submarine are simply inadmissible, as such experimenters can’t stay there for long. Each submariner understands - life of all crew depends on actions of one member of a team. The one who isn't capable to understand it or doesn't wish to do it is sent to the coast for professional impropriety.

Heavy nuclear rocket cruiser "Petr Veliky" was near to the submarine Kursk on August, 12th in the Barents Sea, he was there making training exercises, he was firing from mortars with battle or exercise depth charges. Submariners, in their turn, should have made a volley with exercise torpedo. Exercise torpedo is different from battle one only with the charger – it has practice heads instead of war heads. However, having shot from mortar "Petr Veliky" didn't see to a practical volley from "Kursk". It is not excluded that "Petr Veliky" really hit the aim, having in a volley from mortar hit submarine Kursk with depth bombs. It hit, so to say, the real aim, not imaginary one. Certainly, such experts as Golts can object that "Petr Veliky" fired with exercise depth bombs, therefore it couldn't make the submarine sink. But even exercise depth bombs have battle charge. It could have been evidently observed looking at firing from mortars in Amur Bay on the Navy Day in Vladivostok. Effect is simply tremendous (there’s no firing last three years and the holiday looks worse than in the previous years). To be fair it’s necessary to note that during investigation of catastrophe with “Kursk” public prosecutor Ustinov showed to the whole world damages of the first compartment which view confirmed that explosion took place not outside, but inside the compartment. There’s logic justification for it. Firstly, we were shown what they wanted to show. Secondly, foreign observation stations fixed two explosions at the moment of catastrophe of "Kursk". It is possible that the first explosion punched strong case of the submarine. Powerful detonation of torpedo weapons load which ruined several compartments was a reason of the second explosion. Character of submarine damages makes this variant possible. This version seems to me the most convincing and plausible. Such experts from the journalistic community as Golts having good knowledge of submarines and their arms can argue – exercise charges can’t make fighting ship sink. Here they are wrong as our Navy already has practice of making ships sink on the training firings. So, on April, 16, 1987 small rocket ship "Muson" sank as a result of impact of exercise cruise missile during training exercises of the Pacific Fleet. Rocket weapons load of surface-to-air missile system “OSA-M” detonated as a result of the hit. 39 people from the staff died together with the first deputy commander of the Flotilla, the captain of the 1st rank Ravil Temirkhanov. "Muson" sank on the depth of three thousand meters. The fault, as well as in case with "Kursk", was assigned to the dead officers.

...Twelve years ago Vladimir Putin answering a question of the popular American host Larry King used bad joke.

While our leaders would react to such tragedies as clowns, with malignant smiles, drawing no lesson from these pitiful events, we are doomed to inevitable and soon death. The same way, in passing they ruined once great power. We even had no time to react. It’s already not my conclusion – it’s dialectics of development of the state with middle-age mentality of its leaders.

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