Each carries a warhead packed with nearly 1,000 pounds of high explosives. The crews must avoid disturbing the Kursk's twin nuclear reactors and jostling its lethal payload of unexploded torpedoes and 22 supersonic cruise missiles, still snug in their 30-foot launching canisters. If all goes according to plan - and little has so far - a Dutch lifting barge called the Giant 4, tethered by eight anchor lines, will raise the Kursk from the seabed later this month using 26 computer-controlled hydraulic jacks in an operation that, its designers say, can be accomplished in 12 to 16 hours.īut the raising of the Kursk, one of the largest and most complex salvages ever attempted, is fraught with dangers. Now, a fleet of high-tech salvage vessels is taking over from the warships. Periodically, Russian warships on guard above the wreck have thrown live hand grenades into the water, to ward off any prying foreign submarines that may be interested in scavenging the Kursk's weapons, codes or electronics. The second explosion would have been the detonation of the remaining torpedoes aboard the submarine.For nearly 400 days since two mysterious torpedo room explosions ripped open the nuclear submarine Kursk, causing the deaths of all 118 Russian crewmen, the 505-foot vessel has been nestling into the sediments on the bottom of the Barents Sea. This probably started the gash in the hull above the torpedo section. So what happened on board the Kursk? The likely chain of events was something like this: A hydrogen peroxide leak started a fire, which in turn detonated the Type 65-76A’s 900-pound high-explosive warhead. Leakage of 50 percent peroxide onto supporting pallets under polythene sheeting led to spontaneous ignition and a fierce fire.” The Fateful Moments Combustion, though limited in area, was fierce and took some time to extinguish. National Library of Medicine (NLM), “hydrogen peroxide is not itself flammable, but can cause spontaneous combustion of flammable materials and continued support of the combustion because it liberates oxygen as it decomposes.” In one instance recorded by the NLM, “leakage from drums of 35 percent hydrogen peroxide onto a wooden pallet caused ignition of the latter when it was moved. The danger was that this chemical compound can become explosive if it comes into contact with organic compounds or a fire.Īccording to the U.S. Like many torpedoes, the Type 65-76As used hydrogen peroxide as underwater fuel. Kursk’s conning tower is visible as the submarine is towed back to Roslyakovo, Russia. Kursk was fully armed with Granit missiles and torpedoes and was to make a simulated attack on Kuznetsov. On August 15, 2000, the Kursk was involved in a major fleet exercise, along with the aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov and battlecruiser Pyotr Velikity. The Kursk was completed in 1994 and assigned to the Russian Northern Fleet. Thirteen Oscar I and Oscar II submarines were built, including K-141-also known as Kursk. A Granit could carry a 1,653-pound conventional high-explosive warhead (enough to damage a carrier) or a 500-kiloton warhead (enough to vaporize an aircraft carrier with a single hit). The missiles had a top speed of Mach 1.6, a range of 388 miles, and used the now-defunct Legenda satellite targeting system to home in on their aircraft carrier targets. Each submarine carried 24 P-700 Granit missiles, which themselves were the size of a small plane-33 feet long and weighing 15,400 pounds each. The Oscar IIs were big because they carried big missiles. The Navy Once Had a Spy Sub With Tiny Ski Legs.USS Connecticut Suffers an Underwater Collision.Q&A With a Vet Who Served on a Nuclear Attack Sub.
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