Kursk (K-141)

Kursk (K-141) History

In the 1980s, East and West fought a high-tech showdown. As the United States built up its armed forces, the Communist Soviet Union could not keep up and eventually disintegrated in 1991, leaving the United States as the only superpower in the world. A huge amount of Russian military equipment was mothballed, and more than 100 submarines and warships - including search and rescue equipment - were decommissioned and rotting in ports on the Kola Peninsula, home to Russia's Northern Fleet. Some front-line equipment was retained and maintained along with the soldiers and sailors needed for their respective operations, but most Russian troops were left unemployed and unpaid.

Many go home and do what they can to support themselves and their families.

Despite the loss of all these powers within the Russian government, the military somehow raised 1 billion rubles for the "949A Antey" project and built the K-141 "Kursk" - the largest in the world attack submarine. It would be one of the most important and feared anti-ship weapons ever built.

The Kursk was built at the Severodvinsk dock, launched and put into service in 1994. The hull is 30 feet longer than previous Oscar I-class submarines, which are approximately 505 feet in length. Equipped with advanced electronics, it is more maneuverable than the Oscar 1 ship, while still being quieter - surprise is the ultimate goal of hunter-killers. It is twice as long as a large airliner - so long that the extra space allows all senior officials to have their own private rooms. She is so large that unprecedented upgrades have been added to the ship, such as a sauna, solarium and swimming pool.

That's not all - there is also an aquarium and an aviary. The Russian Navy believes that these supplements are a good idea for crew morale due to low wages and long hours at sea.

Kursk built a 2-inch "twin hull" consisting of an inner pressure hull and an outer hydrodynamic hull - the latter made of concentrated nickel and chrome grade stainless steel approximately 8.5mm thick. The spacing between the hulls provides additional buoyancy, and for the mental health of the crew, the designers say the hull design improves their survivability against American torpedoes. There is a tiny magnetic signal on the hull that helps avoid detection by U.S. submarines through the Magnetic Anomaly Detection (MAD) system.

The inner shell was divided into nine impermeable compartments, which some believed kept her from sinking. In order to break through the Arctic ice, the sail structure has been strengthened. She can keep enough supplies on board to stay underwater for 120 days at a time.

Her armament is impressive, with 24 P-700 Granit supersonic cruise missiles (each with a range of 550 km) and large 650 mm 65K torpedo tubes capable of launching torpedoes and anti-ship missiles. Kursk also has 4 x 533mm torpedo tubes for SS-N-16 Stallion anti-ship missiles with a range of 50 km.

Her power plant consists of 2 OK-650b pressurized water nuclear reactors of 120,700 shaft horsepower, which in turn drive 2 steam turbines that each provide 49,600 horsepower to 2 shafts equipped with 2 7-blade propellers . The large ship dives slowly and maneuvers unhurriedly, but its underwater speed is about 30 knots, enough to keep up with the pace of American aircraft carriers.

Even in the mid-1990s the sailors of the Northern Fleet were still unpaid, but by 1999 things had changed. The Kursk performed a reconnaissance mission in the Mediterranean and tracked the U.S. Navy's Sixth Fleet during the Kosovo War. In August 2000, the Russian Navy conducted a naval exercise in the Bering Sea, involving more than 30 warships and three nuclear submarines.

To oversee the exercise, the U.S. Navy sent two submarines -- the USS Memphis and the USS Toledo -- and a number of surface ships, while Norwegian and American aircraft were on alert.

Like the belated "Beauty of the Ball", the pride of the Russian fleet - the Kursk - took part in the exercise on the 10th, and the training began with a massive shelling of various surface ship weapons. Submerged, Kursk successfully launched its most advanced cruise missile - the Granit - with a dummy warhead.

On 12 August, she was ordered to withdraw from the main fleet so that her largest 650mm torpedo (again with a dummy warhead) could be tested on the retired Kirov-class battlecruiser Pyotr Velikiy. Admiral Popov radioed a torpedo at Kursk at 9 a.m. from his flagship Peter the Great heavy guided missile cruiser, and Kursk confirmed the signal the last time anyone heard of the submarine. Something seemed to go wrong, and no one heard from her for two days despite her orders to stay in radio contact.

At 11:28 a.m. that day, the USS Memphis, which monitors the fleet, intercepted two underwater explosions.

The Russians launched a rescue mini-sub, but due to previous cuts by the Russian Navy, the ship is so old that few people know how to operate it. Consequently, the mission to scout the Kursk subsequently failed. On August 16, Russian divers spotted the Kursk at the bottom of the Barents Sea 350 feet deep, not far from the Russian military base in Murmansk. Divers said they heard a faint knock but were unable to open the outer or inner hatch due to a lack of proper tools and experience.

The Kursks seem doomed.

In true Soviet fashion, the Russian military wiped out the disaster, but the news leaked to the Russian public, causing their people to fill their churches, praying for their safe recovery. A week later, the Russian government rejected offers of aid from the British and Norwegian governments, and all hope of a rescue was dashed a week later.

Eventually, due to pressure from the Kursk family, British and Norwegian divers were allowed to try to get into the submarine. Drivers worked seven hours to open the hatch and found the interior flooded.

They then inspected the Kursk from bow to stern and found the double hull was torn open with a hole more than 200 feet long. It is now found that the crew and observers on board either drowned or suffocated within hours of the accident.

Grieving families demand explanations that the Russian Navy believes an American submarine following the Kursk collided with it and caused it to sink. The U.S. Navy has denied the allegations, but the Russian Navy has insisted on placing the blame on its underfunded military complex. The collision ended when Britain's Black Nest Institute proved that two underwater explosions were actually recorded as the Russian submarine sank. The Russian military insists the sound came from a collision with a U.S. submarine, but data provided by Blacknest shows the collision made a different sound than an underwater explosion.

The two explosions were recorded 135 seconds apart - 2.2 seconds for the first and 4.4 seconds on the Richter scale for the second.

Western experts believe that the explosion was caused by the malfunction of a 650mm hydrogen peroxide-fueled supercavitating torpedo on the Kursk. They suspect HTP, a concentrated hydrogen peroxide used as a torpedo propellant, is the culprit.

Some of the HTP may seep from rusted areas of the torpedo casing, causing an explosion. HTP is a cheap fuel that the Russians use as torpedo fuel to save costs due to a lack of funds to support the Russian Navy.

A British submarine also went missing in 1955, when a torpedo loaded with HTP exploded, sinking the submarine and killing 13 of its crew.

The Russians did not have sea salvage equipment capable of salvaging sunken submarines and delayed hiring Western companies with such expertise and equipment. This need for Western aid exposes and humiliates the Russian government how limited they are in the face of a naval disaster like Kursk. In 2001, two Dutch companies - Mammoet and Smit International - signed a contract to lift the Kursk on a Giant 4 barge. The barge was towed over the wreck, but progress was slow due to regional storms.

As weather conditions improved, 26 steel cables were attached from the barge to the 18,000-ton vessel below, and the wreck of the Kursk was lifted from the seabed. After surfacing, the submarine was strapped to the bottom of the Giant 4 for transport to a dry dock near Murmansk, Russia, to investigate the cause of the sinking.

The Northern Fleet, escorted by four tugboats, a hydrographic survey vessel and the cruiser Pyotr Veliky, brought the Giant 4 back to the Murmansk port complex in Kursk. After the port was completed, the Russian navy and salvage workers said the Kursk's reactor had been shut down safely and there was no danger. Work continued as the Navy removed the sailor's remains for burial and removed the ship's 22 Granite supersonic cruise missiles.

Severed before the body was lifted, the arch was never raised due to funding constraints and was destroyed by explosives in 2002.

The official investigation found that the first explosion detonated between five and seven torpedoes and set off a series of internal explosions that destroyed a 200-foot front hole, measured by geoseismographs, as far south as England. A secondary explosion fatally damaged the Kursk.

The Russian government has denied claims that the submarine's Granite cruise missiles carry nuclear warheads. The official conclusion is that a defective torpedo sank the Kursk. The wreckage of the Kursk reactor cabin was transported to Saida Bay on the Kola Peninsula in northern Russia.

The reactor chamber there was drained of fuel in early 2003, and the ship was dismantled.

After the first explosion, 23 crew members entered the ninth cabin aft - one of them was Lieutenant Dmitry Kolesnikov. Rescuers found a note to his wife on his body, which mentioned the men's final hours. The Russian military read sad personal notes in the media to the Russian nation.

Soon condolences and donations poured in for the family from around the world.

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