Winston
Lorenzo von Matterhorn
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The Harrowing Tale Of The Typhoon Class Sub TK-17
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zo...an-typhoon-class-sub-that-almost-sunk-in-1991
A test missile, which had inert warheads, was loaded into one of TK-17's vertical launch tubes before the submarine headed out to sea. Once launched, it would fly thousands of miles east, impacting on Russia's missile range on the Chukotka Peninsula. The exercise was largely a display of continuity, strength, and stability to a world which had just witnessed a failed coup attempt against Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev. In reality, the Soviet Union was in a state of collapse, and by Christmas of that same year it would disintegrate in full.
Foreshadowing events to come politically for the USSR, the test launch turned into a harrowing failure. On September 27th, 1991, TK-17 moved into launch depth position and ran through its pre-firing sequence. As the launch clock clicked down towards zero, instead of the 53 foot long, 23 foot wide missile ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R-39_Rif ) boosting its way towards the ocean's surface it exploded while still cocooned inside its launch tube. The silo door that covered the missile tube was totally blown off.
The submarine shook violently and alarms rangit seemed as if the TK-17 was doomed. Such an event would be horrific for the boat's crew, but the loss of control of the vessel's twin nuclear reactors and the live nuclear weapons it carried could result in a nuclear incident of massive proportions. In essence, the loss of a Typhoon class SSBN was the sum of Soviet Navy's fears.
Grishkov acted quickly and decisively, ordering up an emergency blow of TK-17's ballast tanks, a move that would send the 574 foot long submarine porpoising to the surface.
The action was completed successfully and TK-17's crew was able visually examine the submarine's long forward-set missile farm. What they saw wasn't good. There were a series of fires raging near where the test missile had detonated.
The missile's solid fuel propellant had scattered across the submarine's upper surface. The rubber anechoic coating that helps the submarine from being detected acoustically was set alight and the fire would rapidly spread. 19 other missiles sat tightly packed in two neat lines of ten under and near the blaze.
Heat and ballistic missiles armed with nuclear warheads are a bad combination.
Once again, Captain Grishkov acted quickly and decisively, ordering a counter-intuitive maneuver for a submarine that is damaged in ways that crew couldn't fully understood at the time.
Dive! Dive! Dive!
His plan was to put the fire out in a way only a submarine can, by submerging the vessel and starving the flames of oxygen. Grishkov knew that the stricken missile's launch compartment would flood, and possibly other sections nearby, and alerted the crew to this possibility, but he had to make a decision that would save the boat from sinking, even if it meant taking on new types of damage and even possibly casualties.
The crew carried out the snap order far quicker than it could normally have been accomplished. When the boat was ordered back up to the surface again the fires were extinguished. The plan had worked and TK-17 wouldn't become the embarrassment of a crumbling empire or the cause of an international crisis and environmental catastrophe.
The stricken submarine and its crew of 160 limped back to Severodvinsk where its burnt skin and badly damaged launch tube were repaired under a shroud of secrecy. The tube would never be used again and was permanently sealed off. TK-17 would go onto serve for 13 more years before being sidelined in 2004.
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zo...an-typhoon-class-sub-that-almost-sunk-in-1991
A test missile, which had inert warheads, was loaded into one of TK-17's vertical launch tubes before the submarine headed out to sea. Once launched, it would fly thousands of miles east, impacting on Russia's missile range on the Chukotka Peninsula. The exercise was largely a display of continuity, strength, and stability to a world which had just witnessed a failed coup attempt against Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev. In reality, the Soviet Union was in a state of collapse, and by Christmas of that same year it would disintegrate in full.
Foreshadowing events to come politically for the USSR, the test launch turned into a harrowing failure. On September 27th, 1991, TK-17 moved into launch depth position and ran through its pre-firing sequence. As the launch clock clicked down towards zero, instead of the 53 foot long, 23 foot wide missile ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R-39_Rif ) boosting its way towards the ocean's surface it exploded while still cocooned inside its launch tube. The silo door that covered the missile tube was totally blown off.
The submarine shook violently and alarms rangit seemed as if the TK-17 was doomed. Such an event would be horrific for the boat's crew, but the loss of control of the vessel's twin nuclear reactors and the live nuclear weapons it carried could result in a nuclear incident of massive proportions. In essence, the loss of a Typhoon class SSBN was the sum of Soviet Navy's fears.
Grishkov acted quickly and decisively, ordering up an emergency blow of TK-17's ballast tanks, a move that would send the 574 foot long submarine porpoising to the surface.
The action was completed successfully and TK-17's crew was able visually examine the submarine's long forward-set missile farm. What they saw wasn't good. There were a series of fires raging near where the test missile had detonated.
The missile's solid fuel propellant had scattered across the submarine's upper surface. The rubber anechoic coating that helps the submarine from being detected acoustically was set alight and the fire would rapidly spread. 19 other missiles sat tightly packed in two neat lines of ten under and near the blaze.
Heat and ballistic missiles armed with nuclear warheads are a bad combination.
Once again, Captain Grishkov acted quickly and decisively, ordering a counter-intuitive maneuver for a submarine that is damaged in ways that crew couldn't fully understood at the time.
Dive! Dive! Dive!
His plan was to put the fire out in a way only a submarine can, by submerging the vessel and starving the flames of oxygen. Grishkov knew that the stricken missile's launch compartment would flood, and possibly other sections nearby, and alerted the crew to this possibility, but he had to make a decision that would save the boat from sinking, even if it meant taking on new types of damage and even possibly casualties.
The crew carried out the snap order far quicker than it could normally have been accomplished. When the boat was ordered back up to the surface again the fires were extinguished. The plan had worked and TK-17 wouldn't become the embarrassment of a crumbling empire or the cause of an international crisis and environmental catastrophe.
The stricken submarine and its crew of 160 limped back to Severodvinsk where its burnt skin and badly damaged launch tube were repaired under a shroud of secrecy. The tube would never be used again and was permanently sealed off. TK-17 would go onto serve for 13 more years before being sidelined in 2004.
