The first nuclear boat. Nuclear submarines
In the book “Pioneers of the Russian Submarine Fleet” (Lavrov V.N. Publishing house “Shipbuilding”. St. Petersburg. 2013), the seventh chapter is devoted to the first Soviet nuclear submarine, its creators, the first crew and individual episodes of more than 30 years of service this nuclear submarine as part of the Navy of the USSR and Russia.
Neither this book nor a number of other sources dedicated to the pioneers of the nuclear fleet contains (or very little) materials about the creators and creators of the world's first nuclear submarines, as well as about the circumstances of the birth of the very idea of using atomic energy to ensure the movement of warships and , first of all, submarines. Only one thing is known - the idea originated in the USA. The American press called Admiral H. Rickover “the father of nuclear submarines.” For a long time, Rickover's name was always mentioned first when it came to the creation of nuclear submarines.
In the early 60s of the 20th century, a scandal erupted: American scientists Ross Gunn and Philip Hauge Abelson stated that Admiral Rickover had illegally appropriated the authorship of the idea and priority in creating the world's first nuclear submarine. This “splashed out” onto the pages of newspapers and magazines, and not only American ones. The situation was discussed in the US Congress. A special Congressional commission was created, which, having studied the history of the creation of a nuclear submarine, prepared proposals and submitted them for approval by Congress. A special resolution on priority in the creation of a nuclear submarine, adopted in July 1963, states the following:
“Dr. Ross Gunn began working with the Department of the Navy on the development of atomic energy on March 20, 1939. In June 1939, Ross Gunn submitted a report to the Bureau of Shipbuilding on the use of atomic energy for submarine propulsion.
Dr. Philip Abelson has been working since 1941 on separating uranium isotopes to create the atomic bomb. In 1944, he submitted a report to the design department on the use of atomic energy to propel ships, especially submarines, and began working with Gunn on the problem at the Naval Research Laboratory.
In 1945 and 1946, Gunn and Abelson reported to Congress about the possibility of building a nuclear submarine. The pioneering work of Gunn and Abelson led to the actual creation of the Nautilus nuclear submarine. Admiral H. Rickover, relying on the reports of Abelson and Gann, achieved the practical implementation of the first nuclear submarine. "Congress is telling the American people that Abelson and Gunn are the priority."
Thus, everything fell into place. The above quote is taken from the book by Yu.S. Kryuchkov “Submarines and their creators” (Step-info publishing house, Nikolaev, 2007
American mechanical engineer R. Gann in 1938-1939 put forward the idea of creating a nuclear engine for underwater propulsion. At the beginning of 1939, he, together with Captain 1st Rank Cooley, presented drawings of a “uranium fission chamber.”
In June 1941, R. Gann, together with F. Abelson, developed a method for separating the U235 isotope. This method was proposed to the leaders of the Manhattan Project and was successfully used in the production of explosives for the first atomic bombs. In 1944, Gunn and Abelson presented a report on the development of methods for using atomic energy to propel Navy ships. After the defeat of Japan, R. Gann was awarded the order for his participation in the development of the atomic bomb.
During World War II, the American scientist (physicist and geochemist) F. Abelson worked in the electromechanical department, which was headed by R. Gann. His scientific research was in the field of nuclear physics, biophysics, and organic chemistry. Since 1944, Abelson, together with Gann, began working on the problem of using nuclear energy to propel nuclear submarines. In 1946, Abelson presented a preliminary design of a nuclear submarine. He placed the nuclear reactor outside the pressure hull in the double-breasted space in the aft part. Abelson attached this project to a detailed report prepared the same year. The work of Abelson and Gann formed the basis for the creation of the first nuclear installation for a submarine, which was noted in the above resolution of the US Congress.
F. Abelson
American naval engineer H.G. Rickover graduated from the Naval Academy in Annapolis in 1922. During World War II, already with the rank of captain 1st rank, H. Rickover headed one of the departments of the Shipbuilding Department. In 1947, he was appointed assistant to the head of this Directorate and at the same time headed the Atomic Energy Department. Having become acquainted with Abelson's project and the works of R. Gunn, Captain 1st Rank Rickover became an active supporter of the idea of creating a nuclear submarine. In the period 1947-1949, despite the opposition of official leaders, H. Rickover, with a group of specialists he selected, developed his own design for a nuclear submarine with a pressurized water reactor. In 1950, under Rickover's direction, construction began on a prototype Mark I submarine reactor on shore. The following year, 1951, the world's first nuclear submarine, the Nautilus, was laid down with a Mark II pressurized water reactor. Thus, Rickover was directly responsible for the creation of the world's first nuclear submarine, which entered service in 1954. Subsequently, all nuclear submarines of the US Navy were built and operated under the watchful eye of Rear Admiral (since 1953) H. G. Rickover. In 1954, Rickover proposed to the leadership of the US Navy to build a large submarine with two reactors and the latest radar equipment to monitor the situation in the ocean zone. This is how the radar patrol nuclear submarine Triton appeared. Since 1957, Rickover led the development of a nuclear power plant for the George Washington class missile submarines.
Vice Admiral H.G. Rickover
For his work on creating nuclear submarines, Vice Admiral H. Rickover (since 1958) was awarded a special Gold Medal in 1959, and President John Kennedy, by personal decree, left Rickover in indefinite naval service. The “father” of the nuclear submarine fleet died in 1986.
Launching of the nuclear submarine Nautilus. H. Rickover on board the Nautilus.
For more than half a century, the best design minds of all maritime powers solved a puzzling problem: how to find an engine for submarines that would work both above and under water, and, moreover, did not require air, like a diesel engine or a steam engine. And such an engine, common for the underwater and surface elements, was found. It became a nuclear reactor.
No one knew how a nuclear genie would behave, enclosed in a steel “bottle” of a durable body, compressed by the pressure of depth, but if successful, the benefits of such a solution were too great. And the Americans took a risk. In 1955, fifty-five years after the first American submarine sank, the world's first nuclear-powered ship was launched. It was named after the submarine invented by Jules Verne - the Nautilus.
The Soviet nuclear fleet began in 1952, when intelligence reported to Stalin that the Americans had begun construction of a nuclear submarine. And six years later, the Soviet nuclear submarine K-3 expanded its sides first into the White Sea, then into the Barents Sea, and then into the Atlantic Ocean. Its commander was Captain 1st Rank Leonid Osipenko, and its creator was General Designer Vladimir Nikolaevich Peregudov. In addition to the tactical number, "K-3" also had its own name, not as romantic as the Americans, but in the spirit of the times - "Leninsky Komsomol". “In essence, the Peregudov Design Bureau,” notes the historian of the Soviet submarine fleet, Rear Admiral Nikolai Mormul, “created a fundamentally new ship: from appearance to product range.
Peregudov managed to create a shape for the nuclear-powered icebreaker that was optimal for moving underwater, removing everything that interfered with its complete streamlining.”
True, the K-3 was armed only with torpedoes, and time demanded the same long-range, long-range, but also fundamentally different missile cruisers. Therefore, in 1960 - 1980, the main focus was on missile submarines. And they were not mistaken. First of all, because it was the atomicins - the nomadic underwater missile launch sites - that turned out to be the least vulnerable carriers of nuclear weapons. Whereas underground missile silos were sooner or later detected from space with an accuracy of up to a meter and immediately became targets of the first strike. Realizing this, first the American and then the Soviet Navy began to place missile silos in the durable hulls of submarines.
The nuclear-powered six-missile submarine K-19, launched in 1961, was the first Soviet atomic missile submarine. At its cradle, or rather at its stocks, stood the great academicians: Aleksandrov, Kovalev, Spassky, Korolev. The boat impressed with its unusually high underwater speed, the length of its stay under water, and the comfortable conditions for the crew.
“In NATO,” notes Nikolai Mormul, “there was interstate integration: the United States built only an ocean-going fleet, Great Britain, Belgium, and the Netherlands built anti-submarine ships, the rest specialized in ships for closed theaters of military operations. At this stage of shipbuilding, we were the leaders in many tactical and technical elements. We have put into operation comprehensively automated high-speed and deep-sea combat nuclear submarines, the largest amphibious hovercraft. We were the first to introduce large high-speed anti-submarine ships on controlled hydrofoils, gas turbine power, supersonic cruise missiles, missile and landing ekranoplanes. However, it should be noted that in the budget of the USSR Ministry of Defense the share of the Navy did not exceed 15%, in the United States of America and Great Britain it was two to three times more."
However, according to the official historiographer of the fleet M. Monakov, the combat strength of the USSR Navy by the mid-80s “consisted of 192 nuclear submarines (including 60 strategic missile submarines), 183 diesel submarines, 5 aircraft-carrying cruisers ( including 3 heavy "Kiev" type), 38 cruisers and large anti-submarine ships of the 1st rank, 68 large anti-submarine ships and destroyers, 32 patrol ships of the 2nd rank, more than 1000 ships of the near sea zone and combat boats, over 1600 combat and transport aircraft. The use of these forces was carried out to ensure strategic nuclear deterrence and the national-state interests of the country in the World Ocean."
Russia has never had such a huge and powerful fleet.
During the years of peace - this time has a more precise name: the “cold war” in the World Ocean - more submariners and submarines died in Russia than in the Russian-Japanese, World War I, civil, Soviet-Finnish wars combined. It was a real war with rams, explosions, fires, sunken ships and mass graves of dead crews. During its course, we lost 5 nuclear and 6 diesel submarines. The US Navy opposing us is 2 nuclear submarines.
The active phase of the confrontation between the superpowers began in August 1958, when Soviet submarines entered the Mediterranean Sea for the first time. Four "eski" - medium-displacement submarines of type "C" (project 613) - moored in accordance with an agreement with the Albanian government in the Gulf of Vlora. A year later, there were already 12 of them. Submarine cruisers and fighters circled in the abyss of the World Ocean, tracking each other down. But despite the fact that no great power had such a submarine fleet as the Soviet Union, it was an unequal war. We did not have a single nuclear aircraft carrier and not a single geographically convenient base.
On the Neva and Northern Dvina, in Portsmouth and Groton, on the Volga and Amur, in Charleston and Annapolis, new submarines were born, replenishing the NATO Grand Fleet and the Great Submarine Armada of the USSR. Everything was determined by the excitement of the pursuit of the new mistress of the seas - America, who proclaimed: “Whoever owns the trident of Neptune owns the world.” The car of the third world war was started at idle speed...
The beginning of the 70s was one of the peaks in the oceanic Cold War. The US aggression in Vietnam was in full swing. Submarines of the Pacific Fleet conducted combat tracking of American aircraft carriers cruising in the South China Sea. In the Indian Ocean there was another explosive region - Bangladesh, where Soviet minesweepers neutralized Pakistani mines laid during the Indo-Pakistani military conflict. It was also hot in the Mediterranean Sea. In October, another Arab-Israeli war broke out. The Suez Canal was mined. The ships of the 5th operational squadron escorted Soviet, Bulgarian, East German cargo ships and liners according to all wartime rules, protecting them from terrorist raids, missiles, torpedoes and mines. Each time has its own military logic. And in the logic of confrontation with world maritime powers, an aggressive nuclear missile fleet was a historical inevitability for the USSR. For many years we played nuclear baseball with America, which took the title of mistress of the seas from Britain.
America opened the sad score in this match: on April 10, 1963, the nuclear submarine Thresher sank for an unknown reason at a depth of 2,800 meters in the Atlantic Ocean. Five years later, the tragedy repeated itself 450 miles southwest of the Azores: the US Navy nuclear submarine Scorpio, along with 99 sailors, remained forever at a depth of three kilometers. In 1968, the French submarine Minerve, the Israeli submarine Dakar, and our diesel missile boat K-129 sank in the Mediterranean Sea for unknown reasons. There were also nuclear torpedoes on board. Despite the depth of 4 thousand meters, the Americans managed to raise the first two compartments of this broken submarine. But instead of secret documents, they encountered problems with the burial of the remains of Soviet sailors and nuclear torpedoes lying in the bow apparatus.
We equalized the number of lost atomic submarines with the Americans at the beginning of October 1986. Then, 1,000 kilometers northeast of Bermuda, fuel exploded in the missile compartment of the submarine cruiser K-219. There was a fire. 20-year-old sailor Sergei Preminin managed to shut down both reactors, but he himself died. The superboat remained in the depths of the Atlantic.
On April 8, 1970, in the Bay of Biscay, after a fire at great depths, the first Soviet nuclear powered ship, K-8, sank, taking with it 52 lives and two nuclear reactors.
On April 7, 1989, the atomic ship K-278, better known as Komsomolets, sank in the Norwegian Sea. When the bow of the ship sank, an explosion occurred, practically destroying the hull of the boat and damaging the combat torpedoes with an atomic charge. 42 people died in this tragedy. "K-278" was a unique submarine. It was from here that the construction of the deep-sea fleet of the 21st century was supposed to begin. The titanium hull allowed it to dive and operate at a depth of a kilometer - that is, three times deeper than all other submarines in the world...
The camp of submariners was divided into two camps: some blamed the crew and high command for the misfortune, others saw the root of evil in the low quality of marine equipment and the monopoly of the Ministry of Shipbuilding Industry. This split caused a furious debate in the press, and the country finally learned that this was our third nuclear submarine that had sunk. Newspapers began vying with each other to name the names of ships and numbers of submarines that died in “peacetime” - the battleship Novorossiysk, the large anti-submarine ship Brave, the submarines S-80 and K-129, S-178. and "B-37"... And, finally, the last victim - the nuclear-powered icebreaker "Kursk".
...We did not win the Cold War, but we forced the world to reckon with the presence of our submarines and our cruisers in the Atlantic, Mediterranean, Pacific and Indian Oceans.
In the 60s, nuclear submarines firmly established themselves in the combat formations of the American, Soviet, British and French fleets. Having given the submarines a new type of engine, the designers equipped the submarines with new weapons - missiles. Now nuclear missile submarines (the Americans called them “boomers” or “citykillers”; we called them strategic submarines) began to threaten not only world shipping, but the entire world as a whole.
The figurative concept of “arms race” took on a literal meaning when it came to such precise parameters as, for example, speed underwater. The underwater speed record (still unsurpassed by anyone) was set by our submarine K-162 in 1969. “We dived,” recalls test participant Rear Admiral Nikolai Mormul, “we chose an average depth of 100 meters. We set sail. As the speed increased, everyone felt that the boat was moving with acceleration. After all, you usually notice movement under water only by the readings of the log. But here, as in an electric train, everyone was led back. We heard the noise of the water flowing around the boat. It increased along with the speed of the ship, and, when we exceeded 35 knots (65 km/h), the roar of the plane was already in our ears. According to our estimates, the noise level reached up to 100 decibels. Finally, we reached a record speed of forty-two knots! Not a single manned “underwater projectile” yet did not cut the sea strata so rapidly."
A new record was set by the Soviet submarine Komsomolets five years before its sinking. On August 5, 1984, she made a dive of 1,000 meters, unprecedented in the history of world military navigation.
In March last year, the 30th anniversary of the nuclear submarine flotilla was celebrated in the Northern Fleet village of Gadzhievo. It was here, in the remote Lapland bays, that the most complex technology in the history of civilization was mastered: nuclear-powered underwater rocket launchers. It was here, in Gadzhievo, that the first cosmonaut of the planet came to the pioneers of hydrospace. Here, on board the K-149, Yuri Gagarin honestly admitted: “Your ships are more complex than space ships!” And the god of rocketry, Sergei Korolev, who was asked to create a rocket for an underwater launch, uttered another significant phrase: “An underwater rocket is absurd. But that’s why I’ll undertake to do it.”
And he did... Korolev would have known that one day, launching from under water, boat rockets will not only cover intercontinental distances, but also launch artificial Earth satellites into space. This was first accomplished by the crew of the Gadzhievsky submarine cruiser "K-407" under the command of Captain 1st Rank Alexander Moiseev. On July 7, 1998, a new page was opened in the history of space exploration: an artificial Earth satellite was launched from the depths of the Barents Sea into low-Earth orbit by a standard ship rocket...
And a new type of engine - a single, oxygen-free and rarely (once every few years) replenished with fuel - allowed humanity to penetrate into the last hitherto inaccessible area of the planet - under the ice dome of the Arctic. In the last years of the 20th century, people started talking about the fact that nuclear submarines are an excellent trans-Arctic vehicle. The shortest route from the Western Hemisphere to the Eastern Hemisphere lies under the ice of the Northern Ocean. But if atomic ships are re-equipped into underwater tankers, bulk carriers and even cruise ships, then a new era will open in world shipping. In the meantime, the very first ship of the Russian fleet in the 21st century was the nuclear submarine Gepard. In January 2001, the St. Andrew's flag, covered with centuries-old glory, was raised on it.
HISTORY OF THE CREATION OF THE FIRST SOVIET NUCLEAR SUBMARINE
V.N. Peregudov
In 1948, future academician and three times hero of labor Anatoly Petrovich Aleksandrov organized a group with the task of developing nuclear energy for submarines. Beria closed the work so as not to be distracted from the main task - the bomb.
In 1952, Kurchatov instructed Alexandrov, as his deputy, to develop a 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 of the 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.
The development of reactors went in two directions: water-water and liquid metal. An experimental boat with a liquid metal carrier was built and showed good performance, but low reliability. The Leninsky Komsomol (K-8) type submarine was the first among the lost Soviet nuclear-powered submarines. On April 12, 1970, she sank in the Bay of Biscay as a result of a cable fire. 52 people were lost during the disaster.
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58 years ago, on January 21, 1954, the nuclear submarine Nautilus was launched. It was the first submarine with a nuclear reactor, allowing it to sail autonomously for months without rising to the surface. A new page was opening in the history of the Cold War...
The idea of using a nuclear reactor as a power plant for submarines originated in the Third Reich. Professor Heisenberg’s oxygen-free “uranium machines” (as nuclear reactors were called then) were intended primarily for the “submarine wolves” of the Kriegsmarine. However, German physicists failed to bring the work to its logical conclusion and the initiative passed to the United States, which for some time was the only country in the world that had nuclear reactors and bombs.
In the early years of the Cold War between the USSR and the USA, American strategists envisioned long-range bombers as carriers of the atomic bomb. The United States had extensive experience in the combat use of 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 diplomatic efforts, already in July 1948 the Labor government agreed to the deployment in Great Britain of 60 B-29 bombers with atomic bombs on board. After the signing of the North Atlantic Pact in April 1949, all of Western Europe was drawn into the US nuclear strategy, and the number of American bases abroad reached 3,400 by the end of the 1960s!
However, over time, the American military and politicians came to understand that the presence of strategic aviation in foreign territories is associated with the risk of changing the political situation in a particular country, therefore The fleet was increasingly seen as the carrier of atomic weapons in a future war. This trend was finally strengthened after the convincing tests of atomic bombs at Bikini Atoll.
In 1948, American designers completed the development of a nuclear power plant project and began designing and building an experimental reactor. Thus, there were all the prerequisites for creating a fleet of nuclear submarines, which not only had to carry nuclear weapons, but also have a nuclear reactor as a power plant.
Construction of the first such boat, named after the fantastic submarine invented by Jules Verne, the Nautilus and designated SSN-571, began on June 14, 1952 in the presence of US President Harry Truman at the shipyard in Groton.
On January 21, 1954, in the presence of US President Eisenhower, the Nautilus was launched, and eight months later, on September 30, 1954, it was accepted into service with the US Navy. On January 17, 1955, the Nautilus began sea trials in the open ocean, and its first commander, Eugene Wilkinson, broadcast in clear text: “We are going under atomic propulsion.”
Apart from the completely new Mark-2 power plant, the boat had a conventional design. With a Nautilus displacement of about 4,000 tons, the two-shaft nuclear power plant with a total power of 9,860 kilowatts provided a speed of more than 20 knots. Submerged cruising range was 25 thousand miles with a consumption of 450 grams of U235 per month. Thus, the duration of the voyage depended only on the proper operation of air regeneration means, food supplies and the endurance of the personnel.
At the same time, however, the specific gravity of the nuclear installation turned out to be very large, because of this, it was not possible to install some of the weapons and equipment provided for by the project on Nautilus. The main reason for the weight was biological protection, which includes lead, steel and other materials (about 740 tons). As a result, all the weapons of the Nautilus were 6 bow torpedo tubes with an ammunition load of 24 torpedoes.
As with any new business, it was not without problems. Even during the construction of the Nautilus, and specifically during testing of the power plant, a rupture occurred in the secondary circuit pipeline, through which saturated steam with a temperature of about 220 ° C and under a pressure of 18 atmospheres came from the steam generator to the turbine. Fortunately, it was not the main, but an auxiliary steam line.
The cause of the accident, as established during the investigation, was a manufacturing defect: instead of pipes made of high-quality carbon steel grade A-106, pipes made of the less durable material A-53 were included in the steam pipeline. The accident caused American designers to question the feasibility of using welded pipes in submarine pressure systems. Elimination of the consequences of the accident and the replacement of already installed welded pipes with seamless ones delayed the completion of the construction of the Nautilus for several months.
After the boat entered service, rumors began to circulate in the media that Nautilus personnel had received serious doses of radiation due to deficiencies in the bioprotection design. It was reported that the naval command had to quickly carry out a partial replacement of the crew, and dock the submarine to make the necessary changes to the protection design. How accurate this information is is still unknown.
On May 4, 1958, a fire occurred in the turbine compartment of the Nautilus, traveling submerged from Panama to San Francisco. The fire of oil-soaked port turbine insulation was determined to have started several days before the fire, but its signs were ignored.
The slight smell of smoke was mistaken for the smell of fresh paint. The fire was discovered only when it became impossible for personnel to remain in the compartment due to smoke. There was so much smoke in the compartment that the submariners wearing smoke masks could not find its source.
Without finding out the reasons for the appearance of smoke, the ship's commander gave the order to stop the turbine, float to periscope depth and try to ventilate the compartment through a snorkel. However, these measures did not help, and the boat was forced to surface. Increased ventilation of the compartment through an open hatch with the help of an auxiliary diesel generator finally brought results. The amount of smoke in the compartment decreased, and the crew managed to find the location of the fire.
Two sailors in smoke masks (there were only four such masks on the boat) using knives and pliers began to tear off the smoldering insulation from the turbine body. A column of flame about a meter high emerged from under a torn piece of insulation. Foam fire extinguishers were used. The flames were extinguished and work to remove the insulation continued. People had to be changed every 10-15 minutes, as the acrid smoke penetrated even into the masks. Only four hours later, all the insulation from the turbine was removed and the fire was extinguished.
After the boat arrived in San Francisco, its commander implemented a number of measures aimed at improving the fire safety of the ship. In particular, the old insulation was removed from the second turbine. All submarine personnel were provided with self-contained breathing apparatus.
In May 1958, while preparing the Nautilus for a trip to the North Pole by boat, a water leak occurred in the main condenser of the steam turbine unit. Sea water seeping into the condensate-feeding system could cause salinization of the secondary circuit and lead to failure of the entire power system of the ship.
Repeated attempts to find the location of the leak were unsuccessful, and the submarine commander made an original decision. After the Nautilus arrived in Seattle, sailors in civilian clothes—preparations for the voyage were kept strictly secret—bought all the proprietary fluid from automobile stores to be poured into car radiators to stop leaks.
Half of this liquid (about 80 liters) was poured into the condenser, after which the problem of condenser salinization did not arise either in Seattle or later during the trip. Probably the leak was in the space between the double tube plates of the condenser and stopped after filling this space with a self-hardening mixture.
On November 10, 1966, during NATO naval exercises in the North Atlantic, the Nautilus, which was launching a periscope attack on the American aircraft carrier Essex (displacement 33 thousand tons), collided with it. As a result of the collision, the aircraft carrier received an underwater hole, and the fencing of the retractable devices on the boat was destroyed. Accompanied by the destroyer, the Nautilus traveled under its own power at a speed of about 10 knots to the naval base in New London, America, covering a distance of about 360 miles.
On July 22, 1958, the Nautilus, under the command of William Andersen, set sail from Pearl Harbor with the goal of reaching the North Pole. It all started when, at the end of 1956, the Chief of Naval Staff, Admiral Burke, received a letter from Senator Jackson. The senator was interested in the possibility of nuclear submarines operating under the pack ice of the Arctic.
This letter was the first sign that forced the command of the American fleet to seriously think about organizing a trip to the North Pole. True, some American admirals considered the idea reckless and were categorically against it. Despite this, the commander of the submarine forces of the Atlantic Fleet considered the polar campaign a decided matter.
Anderson began to prepare for the upcoming campaign with triple zeal. The Nautilus was equipped with special equipment that made it possible to determine the state of the ice, and a new compass MK-19, which, unlike conventional magnetic compasses, operated at high latitudes. Just before the trip, Anderson obtained the latest maps and directions to the depths of the Arctic and even made an air flight, the route of which coincided with the planned route of the Nautilus.
On August 19, 1957, the Nautilus headed for the area between Greenland and Spitsbergen. The first test run of the submarine under the pack ice was unsuccessful. When the echo gauge recorded zero ice thickness, the boat tried to surface. Instead of the expected ice hole, the Nautilus encountered a drifting ice floe. The boat's collision with it severely damaged its only periscope, and the commander of the Nautilus decided to return back to the edge of the packs.
The mangled periscope was repaired on the field. Anderson was quite skeptical about how stainless steel welders worked - even in ideal factory conditions, such welding required a lot of experience. However, the crack that had formed in the periscope was repaired, and the device began to operate again.
The second attempt to reach the pole did not bring results either.. A couple of hours after the Nautilus crossed the 86th parallel, both gyrocompasses failed. Anderson decided not to tempt fate and gave the order to turn - in high latitudes, even a slight deviation from the correct course could be fatal and lead the ship to a foreign shore.
At the end of October 1957, Anderson gave a short report at the White House, which he dedicated to his recent trip under the Arctic ice. The report was listened to with indifference, and William was disappointed. The stronger the desire of the Nautilus commander to go to the Pole again.
While contemplating this voyage, Anderson prepared a letter to the White House in which he convincingly argued that crossing the pole would become a reality as early as next year. The presidential administration made it clear that the Nautilus commander could count on support. The Pentagon also became interested in the idea. Soon after this, Admiral Burke reported the impending campaign to the president himself, who reacted to Anderson's plans with great enthusiasm.
The operation had to be carried out in an atmosphere of strict secrecy - the command was afraid of another failure. Only a small group of people in the government knew about the details of the campaign. To hide the true reason for installing additional navigation equipment on the Nautilus, it was announced that the ship would participate in joint training maneuvers along with the Skate and Halfbeak boats.
On June 9, 1958, the Nautilus set off on its second polar voyage.. When Seattle was far behind, Anderson ordered the submarine's number to be painted over the wheelhouse fence to maintain incognito. On the fourth day of the journey, the Nautilus approached the Aleutian Islands.
Knowing that they would have to go further in shallow water, the ship’s commander ordered the ascent. The Nautilus maneuvered in this area for a long time - looking for a convenient gap in the chain of islands to get to the north. Finally, navigator Jenkins discovered a sufficiently deep passage between the islands. Having overcome the first obstacle, the submarine entered the Bering Sea.
Now the Nautilus had to slip through the narrow and ice-covered Bering Strait. The route west of St. Lawrence Island was completely covered by pack ice. The draft of some icebergs exceeded ten meters. They could easily crush the Nautilus, pinning the submarine to the bottom. Despite the fact that a significant part of the path had been covered, Anderson gave the order to follow the opposite course.
The commander of the Nautilus did not despair - perhaps the eastern passage through the strait would be more welcoming to rare guests. The boat emerged from the Siberian ice and headed south from St. Lawrence Island, intending to sail into deep waters past Alaska. The next few days of the voyage passed without incident, and on the morning of June 17, the submarine reached the Chukchi Sea.
And then Anderson’s rosy expectations collapsed. The first alarming signal was the appearance of an ice floe nineteen meters thick, which went straight towards the submarine ship. A collision with it was avoided, but the instrument recorders warned: there was an even more serious obstacle in the boat’s path.
Pressed close to the very bottom, the Nautilus slipped under a huge ice floe at a distance of only one and a half meters from it. It was possible to avoid death only by a miracle. When the recorder pen finally went up, indicating that the boat missed the ice floe, Anderson realized: the operation was a complete failure...
The captain sent his ship to Pearl Harbor. There was still hope that at the end of summer the ice boundary would move to deeper areas, and it would be possible to make another attempt to get closer to the pole. But who will give permission for it after so many failures?
The reaction of the highest US military department was immediate - Anderson was summoned to Washington for an explanation. The commander of the Nautilus carried on well, showing perseverance. His report to senior Pentagon officers expressed his firm confidence that the next, July, campaign would undoubtedly be crowned with success. And he was given another chance.
Anderson immediately took action. To monitor the ice conditions, he sent his navigator Jenks to Alaska. A legend was created for Jenks, according to which he was a Pentagon officer with special powers. Arriving in Alaska, Jenks took into the air almost the entire patrol aircraft, which carried out daily observations in the area of the future route of the Nautilus. In mid-July, Anderson, still in Pearl Harbor, received the long-awaited news from his navigator: ice conditions had become favorable for the transpolar crossing, the main thing was not to miss the moment.
On July 22, a nuclear submarine with obliterated numbers left Pearl Harbor. The Nautilus was moving at top speed. On the night of July 27, Anderson took the ship into the Bering Sea. Two days later, having traveled a 2,900-mile journey from Pearl Harbor, the Nautilus was already cutting through the waters of the Chukchi Sea.
On August 1, the submarine sank under the Arctic pack ice, which in some places went into the water to a depth of twenty meters. Navigating the Nautilus under them was not easy. Anderson himself was on watch almost all the time. The ship's crew was excited about the upcoming event, which they wanted to celebrate properly. Some, for example, proposed to describe twenty-five small circles around the pole. Then the Nautilus could enter the Guinness Book of Records as the ship that was the first in the history of navigation to make 25 trips around the world in one voyage.
Anderson rightly believed that such maneuvers were out of the question - the likelihood of going off course was too great. The commander of the Nautilus was worried about completely different problems. To cross the pole as accurately as possible, Anderson did not take his eyes off the indicators of the electronic navigation devices. On August 3, at twenty-three hours and fifteen minutes, the goal of the campaign - the North Geographic Pole of the Earth - was achieved.
Without staying in the area of the pole longer than required to collect statistical information on the state of ice and sea water, Anderson sent the submarine into the Greenland Sea. The Nautilus was to arrive in the Reykjavik area, where a secret meeting was to take place. The helicopter, which was waiting for the submarine at the rendezvous point, removed only one person from the submarine - Commander Anderson.
Fifteen minutes later, the helicopter landed in Keflavik next to a transport plane ready to depart. When the plane's wheels touched the landing path of the airfield in Washington, a car sent from the White House was already waiting for Anderson - the president wanted to see the commander of the Nautilus. After the report on the operation, Anderson was again returned aboard the boat, which by this time managed to reach Portland. Six days later, the Nautilus and its commander entered New York with honor. A military parade was organized in their honor...
On March 3, 1980, Nautilus was retired from the fleet after 25 years of service and declared a National Historic Landmark. Plans were drawn up to convert the submarine into a museum for public display. Upon completion of decontamination and a large amount of preparatory work, on July 6, 1985, the Nautilus was towed to Groton (Connecticut). Here at the US Submarine Museum, the world's first nuclear submarine is open to the public.
Since the first nuclear submarine, the American Nautilus, 98.75 m long, launched in 1954, a lot of water has passed under the bridge. And to date, the creators of submarines, like aircraft manufacturers, have already counted 4 generations of submarines.
Their improvement went from generation to generation. The first generation (late 40s - early 60s of the XX century) - the childhood of nuclear-powered ships; At this time, ideas about the appearance were being formed and their capabilities were being clarified. The second generation (60s - mid-70s) was marked by the massive construction of Soviet and American nuclear submarines (NPS) and the deployment of the Cold War underwater front throughout the oceans. The third generation (until the beginning of the 90s) was a silent war for supremacy in the ocean. Now, at the beginning of the 21st century, nuclear submarines of the fourth generation are competing in absentia with each other.
To write about all types of nuclear submarines would result in a separate solid volume. Therefore, here we will list only individual record achievements of some submarines.
Already in the spring of 1946, employees of the US Navy research laboratory Gunn and Abelson proposed equipping a captured German submarine of the XXVI series with an APP with a reactor cooled by a potassium-sodium alloy.
In 1949, construction of a ground-based prototype of a ship reactor began in the United States. And in September 1954, as already mentioned, the world's first nuclear submarine SSN-571 (Nautilus, Project EB-251A), equipped with an experimental installation of the S-2W type, came into operation.
The first nuclear submarine "Nautilus"
In January 1959, the first domestic nuclear submarine of Project 627 was commissioned by the USSR Navy.
The submariners of the opposing fleets tried their best to outdo each other. At first, the advantage was on the side of potential opponents of the USSR.
So, on August 3, 1958, the same Nautilus, under the command of William Anderson, reached the North Pole under the ice, thereby fulfilling the dream of Jules Verne. True, in his novel he forced Captain Nemo to surface at the South Pole, but we now know that this is impossible - submarines do not swim under continents.
In 1955-1959, the first series of Skate-type nuclear torpedo submarines (project EB-253A) was built in the United States. At first, they were supposed to be equipped with compact fast neutron reactors with helium cooling. However, the “father” of the American nuclear fleet, X. Rickover, put reliability above all else, and the Skates received pressurized water reactors.
A prominent role in solving the problems of controllability and propulsion of nuclear-powered ships was played by the high-speed experimental submarine Albacore, built in the USA in 1953, which had a “whale-shaped” hull shape, close to optimal for underwater travel. True, it had a diesel-electric power plant, but it also provided the opportunity to test new propellers, high-speed controls and other experimental developments. By the way, it was this boat, which accelerated underwater to 33 knots, that for a long time held the speed record.
The solutions developed at Albacore were then used to create a series of high-speed torpedo submarines of the US Navy "Skipjack" class (project EB-269A), and then nuclear submarines carrying ballistic missiles "George Washington" (project EB-278A ).
"George Washington" could, in case of urgent need, launch all missiles with solid fuel engines within 15 minutes. Moreover, unlike liquid rockets, this did not require pre-filling the annular gap of the mines with sea water.
A special place among the first American nuclear submarines is occupied by the anti-submarine Tallybi (project EB-270A), commissioned in 1960. A full electric propulsion scheme was implemented on the submarine; for the first time, a hydroacoustic complex with a spherical bow antenna of increased size and a new arrangement of torpedo tubes were used for a nuclear submarine: closer to the middle of the length of the submarine’s hull and at an angle to the direction of its movement. The new equipment made it possible to effectively use such a new product as the SUBROK rocket torpedo, launched from under water and delivering a nuclear depth charge or anti-submarine torpedo to a range of up to 55-60 km.
American submarine Albacore "Tullibi" remained the only one of its kind, but many of the technical means and solutions used and tested on it were used on serial nuclear submarines of the "Thresher" type (Project 188).
Special-purpose nuclear submarines also appeared in the 60s. To solve reconnaissance tasks, the Helibat was re-equipped, and at the same time the Triton radar patrol nuclear submarine (project EB-260A) was built in the United States. By the way, the latter is also notable for the fact that of all the American nuclear submarines it was the only one that had two reactors.
The first generation of Soviet multi-purpose nuclear submarines of projects 627, 627A, having good speed qualities, were significantly inferior in stealth to American nuclear submarines of that period, since their propellers “made noise throughout the entire ocean.” And our designers had to work a lot to eliminate this shortcoming.
The second generation of Soviet strategic forces is usually counted with the commissioning of strategic missile submarines (Project 667A).
In the 70s, the United States implemented a program to re-equip the Lafayette-class nuclear submarine with the new Poseidon S-3 missile system, the main feature of which was the appearance of multiple warheads on ballistic missiles of the submarine fleet.
Soviet specialists responded to this by creating the D-9 naval intercontinental ballistic missile system, which was installed on Project 667B (Murena) and 667BD (Murena-M) submarines. Since 1976, the first submarine missile carriers of Project 667BDR, also armed with naval missiles with multiple warheads, appeared in the USSR Navy.
Missile carrier Murena-M In addition, we created “fighter boats” of projects 705, 705K. In the early 80s, one of these boats set a kind of record: for 22 hours it pursued a potential enemy submarine, and all attempts by the commander of that boat to throw the pursuer off the tail were unsuccessful. The pursuit was stopped only by order from the shore.
But the main thing in the confrontation between the shipbuilders of the two superpowers was the “battle for decibels.” By deploying stationary underwater surveillance systems, as well as using effective hydroacoustic stations with flexible, extended towed antennas on submarines, the Americans detected our submarines long before they reached their starting position.
This continued until we created third-generation submarines with low-noise propellers. At the same time, both countries began to create a new generation of strategic systems - Trident (USA) and Typhoon (USSR), which ended with the commissioning in 1981 of the lead missile carriers of the Ohio and Akula types, which are worth mentioning talk in more detail, since they claim to be the largest submarines.
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