The Kursk tragedy.

Anyone who lived in Russia during the 90s would recognize the incident for what it was.

Absolutely and my intention in posting this is that I was surprised not to find any dedicated thread on the Kursk considering that it was such a huge event throughout the world. The circumstances surrounding the tragedy could have easily turned this thread into a very toxic one, but out of respect for these submariners and their families we should not digress to that level, and thankfully none of us did. I'm always a bit weary of official investigations and reports though AND the first official statement from the Russian government (if true) was no exception! Remember I live in South Africa!

Still Popov insists to this day that a collision occurred.

Yeah, and in the west most government officials would blame Putin for Novachok and Polonium and everything else they can think of... I can understand Popov wanting to blame the west for this, but that doesn't make it true either.

As I saw the scratches, saw the Memphis in Norway, remember how the things used to be back there, the accidental collision trigging the explosion suits best.

Bullshit. There are an enormous number of things in the worlds oceans for subs to collide with and collisions happen all the time and are normally not denied.

The Memphis is a tiny little single hulled 6K ton minnow... it ran aground in 1993 and had all sorts of problems.... but a collision with a 19K ton submerged Oscar II class SSN with a double hull caused the latter to sink and explode?

f we can call that way an organized shaving of Russian assets by a bunch of smartasses.

You mean thieves and murderers... when you take ownership of a factory and steal the pensions of all the workers and fire four fifths of the workers and sell off all the machinery and tooling because it is "obsolete" yet manage to make millions on the deal of selling that scrap metal... those workers that are fired and their pensions are gone wont thinking of those western "investors" as just smartasses...

GarryB wrote:The Memphis is a tiny little single hulled 6K ton minnow... it ran aground in 1993 and had all sorts of problems.... but a collision with a 19K ton submerged Oscar II class SSN with a double hull caused the latter to sink and explode?

While I am not convinced collision did happen, it is a possibility that collision with a whale, much less a 6000 ton submarine, may have sunk her. If she really had been carrying hydrogen peroxide torpedoes, then a collision may have caused the explosion. I think I may have mentioned this already:
https : // webwiser . nlm . nih . gov / substance ? substanceId = 322 & identifier = Hydrogen%20peroxide&identifierType=name&menuItemId=54&catId=63
A severe explosion hazard when highly concentrated or when pure hydrogen peroxide is exposed to: heat, mechanical impact, or detonation of a blasting cap

A severe explosion hazard when highly concentrated or when pure hydrogen peroxide is exposed to: heat, mechanical impact, or detonation of a blasting cap.

So yes, a collision is definitely possible as a cause of sinking. Granted, this is no smoking gun, but it shows the possibility shouldn't be dismissed either.

If any tiny collision carrying HTP would lead directly to explosions then their entire fleet of subs would have exploded.

HTP is used because it is a VERY STABLE way of carrying pure oxygen.

HTP looks and acts just like water... but you have to keep it away from catalysts that make it react and release its free oxygen atoms... which is not that hard to do actually.

The liquid contents of ICBMs and IRBMs and SLBMs are often much worse and contain fluids that are pure fuel and fluids that are pure acid that explode on contact with each other and burn on contact with sea water. There are the lead acid batteries used in submarines that create chlorine gas when immersed in sea water... and that is ignoring the nuclear and explosive materials in ammo as well.

A severe explosion hazard when highly concentrated or when pure hydrogen peroxide is exposed to: heat, mechanical impact, or detonation of a blasting cap.

So yes, a collision is definitely possible as a cause of sinking. Granted, this is no smoking gun, but it shows the possibility shouldn't be dismissed either.

HTP is used as fuel for torpedoes and as such it is cooled by sea water... there are no mechanical impacts or detonating blasting caps anywhere near the HTP fuel... just like fuel tanks in cars are by design not to be put in the engine compartment with blasting caps located inside them.

2000 was a time of lax safety and low morale and no money, but that hardly suggests they would be about ramming things, the Oscar is not the quietest sub on the planet so US SSNs must be really shit to blinding run in to one, its sonar equipment is actually rather good for an SSGN so I think it would have noticed other subs nearby anyway.

BTW the fuel they load into Kh-22M missiles makes HTP look like herbal tea.

pukovnik7 wrote:
While I am not convinced collision did happen, it is a possibility that collision with a whale, much less a 6000 ton submarine, may have sunk her. If she really had been carrying hydrogen peroxide torpedoes, then a collision may have caused the explosion.

The Project 949A Antey are enormous submarines with a submerged displacement of 19 400 tonnes! The outer hull consists of 8mm steel construction covered by a 80mm rubber coating. The inner pressure hull is made of 50mm high grade steel plate and a gap of between one and two meters between the two hulls. It is a solid boat.

The Kursk was periscope up at the time of the accident traveling near the surface. It was just about to fire a dummy torpedo at Peter The Great when the tragedy occurred. If an accident with a whale caused the explosion, then one would have expected a dead whale in the vicinity. The force of the enormous second explosion would most likely have ripped the whale to pieces. Don't know if they found any dead whale or floating pieces of blubber but I doubt it?

The outer hull is thicker than 8mm... that would not be enough to support its own weight... it probably has about 50mm thick of sound absorbing rubber materials on the outside and the distance between the inner and outer hull varies and can be up to 3 or 4 metres where the Granit launch tubes are... the Granit launch tubes are located between the inner and outer hull and are over a metre wide each and are two side by side launch tubes for a total of 24 tubes.

Between the inner and outer hull there is sound deadening material too to reduce the noise from inside the sub getting outside it.

The chance of any impact causing such an explosion is practically impossible.

In comparison situations where torpedoes have started up inside the torpedo room actually has a history, and is the suspected cause of the loss of the US Stingray in the sense that it is believed it jettisoned a torpedo which moved in a huge arc and came back and destroyed the sub it was ejected from.

The outer hull is thicker than 8mm... that would not be enough to support its own weight

Yes it's 8.5mm!

The outer hull, made of high-nickel, high-chromium stainless steel 8.5 mm (0.33 in) thick, had exceptionally good resistance to corrosion and a weak magnetic signature which helped prevent detection by U.S. magnetic anomaly detector (MAD) systems.

it probably has about 50mm thick of sound absorbing rubber materials on the outside

Maybe you failed to read my sentence till the end? Here is what followed the 8mm outer hull part >>

[The outer hull is]covered by up to 80 mm (3 in) of rubber, which minimised other submarines' or surface vessels' ability to detect the submarine.

There is a huge gap between the inner and outer hull in the missile compartment but it only covers the center part of the hull. I think the figures of between one and two meters I mentioned covers the gap between the rest of the hull. I even suspect that the missile compartment is separated from the rest of the hull by armoured steel construction on the inside near the inner hull for protection?

Just out of interest - the last (and only one) submarine that sank due to a faulty HTP torpedo happened in 1955 when the Royal Navy sub HMS Sidon sank.

The figures I gave are all quoted from a source but you could be right but do you have any sources for these claims in bold?

It's outer hull construction is made of variable thickness sheets, from 8 to 18 mm.
The inner hull is made of externally ribbed 50 mm thick steel.
The void between the hulls varies from 1 to 4m.
The rubber coating thickness varies either, from 40 to 80 mm.

You can see in those photos that the outer layer isn't an unsupported balloon layer around the inner layer, there are ribbed structures and support elements behind the outer skin.

The very idea that scuffing another sub would make the sub explode is just ridiculous anyway.

It is not a Pinto.

Naturally the outer structure would be supported by the inner structure.

The theory I floated here never implied that a collision caused the explosions.

Very suspicious hole in the hull of the Kursk. No reason for it to form from the cable cutting operation and it is dented inward.

Exactly what I've been ranting about. It's pretty fking obvious to me what happened there!

The obvious problem with the hole is that it is not a complete circle.

A second problem is that modern submarine torpedoes can't punch holes through subs like that otherwise the US Navy would never have bothered to make their torpedoes that make direct contact HEAT charged.

And anyone who knows anything about HEAT charges and of course submarines, knows that when they are at depth punching a hole through them is often enough to sink them... which the Russians knew which is why in the empty cavity between the hulls they had materials and of course water to reduce the effect of an external explosion or HEAT warhead.

The problem of course is that we have seen the sound readouts for the area and there are no sounds of a torpedo launch so can we therefore assume the west has developed a brand new super technology that the Russians could only dream of.... silent torpedoes?

Equally obviously if that is where the torpedo went in... why is all the damage to the sub much further forward... in the photo where you can see the partial roundish hole you can also see a launch tube for a Granit missile... surely a torpedo hitting there would set off that rather large missile and its fuel and warhead... but no... it seems to have set off an explosion about a dozen metres further forward up the sub centred in the torpedo room....

Correct me if I am wrong but they cut out sections of the sub to lift it and that hole is behind the section cut line... which suggests it might have been manually cut to see inside the hull to work out where to cut through the hull... so the sub could be lifted safely.

So looking at the drawing above:



If you look carefully in the left image you can see the angled tubes in red of the Granit missile, and looking at the image with the hole you can see the left edge of the hole is behind the front of the top of the angled Granit tube which means X marks the spot...



So looking at where that red X is located can anyone honestly say that is the centre of the damage?

Does that make any sense at all?

When a person gets shot they don't make their first incision next to the point of entry, the damage is normally located where the penetrating weapon penetrated.... that is how penetrations work.

Defense News
May 10, 2005 / 4:17 PM
UPI Intelligence Watch
By JOHN C.K. DALY, UPI International Correspondent


https://www.upi.com/Defense-News/2005/05/10/UPI-Intelligence-Watch/65991115756258/

WASHINGTON, May 10 (UPI) -- Former British military official Maurice Stradling, a former torpedo engineer and a key figure in the original investigation into the sinking of the Russia submarine Kursk in 2000, supports an extraordinary claim that the Kursk was torpedoed by U.S. naval vessels. An official Russian inquest concluded that the Kursk was sunk by the accidental explosion of an onboard torpedo on Aug. 14, 2000. All 118 members of crew died in the accident. Stradling, formerly a senior member of the British Defense Ministry, makes the claim in a French documentary, "The Kursk: A Submarine in Troubled Waters," commenting that "on the balance of probabilities, the Kursk was sunk by an American MK-48 torpedo." BBC editor Nick Fraser called Stradling's assertions a "pack of lies" and has refused to air the documentary, which attracted a record audience of more than 4 million when it screened on French TV. The BBC used Stradling as its major authority in its own 2001 documentary, "What Sank the Kursk?" At the time Stradling theorized that the Kursk was sunk by a malfunctioning HTP torpedo. In the French documentary Stradling said that the 2001 documentary "was a perfectly reasonable film, given the facts as we knew them then, when there seemed to be no third-party involvement." The new explanation for the Kursk's downing is based on video footage of a hole in the Kursk's starboard side and evidence that U.S. submarines were in the area at the time it was sunk. The French film shows stills of the Kursk after being salvaged, with a precise circular hole clearly bending inwards, consistent with an external attack. During the documentary a U.S. military source states that the puncture is trademark evidence of an American MK-48 torpedo, which is made to melt cleanly through steel sheet due to a mechanism at its tip that combusts copper. The film suggests the attack happened while the USS Toledo and USS Memphis submarines were shadowing the Kursk in a routine military exercise. The documentary states that the USS Toledo accidentally collided with the Kursk, at which point the Russian submarine opened its torpedo tubes, leading to an attack from the USS Memphis, which was protecting the damaged USS Toledo while it retreated.

The mark on the indent can be an indication that whatever caused the hole struck it at an angle slightly from behind possibly steering the projectile into the torpedo room. The perfectly round hole is slightly obscured in the picture by the sheet metal bend outwards from the massive internal explosion.



Projectiles are also known to deviate from a straight path once it strikes the target.

Also if you look at good quality internal drawings it does appear that the hit corresponds to where the torpedo room is situated.

During the documentary a U.S. military source states that the puncture is trademark evidence of an American MK-48 torpedo, which is made to melt cleanly through steel sheet due to a mechanism at its tip that combusts copper.

The Kursk isn't made of copper, and how could the Russians possibly miss this amazing evidence if it is so obvious to a British expert?

The perfectly round hole is slightly obscured in the picture by the sheet metal bend outwards from the massive internal explosion.

A massive internal explosion would have blown out the circle cut section because explosions take the line of least resistance and the hole going in... as long as it is not heavy frontal armour, which we agree it isn't, then the outward explosion should have been centred on where the torpedo hit... unless there was no torpedo.

Projectiles are also known to deviate from a straight path once it strikes the target.

A supersonic pointed projectile rapidly decelerated by hitting fluid, or in this case gel will tend to tumble because its rear end is fat and its front end is pointed meaning the rear is heavier than the front.

There is no part of the design of a torpedo that would make it tumble and its length would mean it would not tumble... it would break up.

The better image would be of the 5.56mm bullet whose built in weakness of the cannilure makes it shatter at specific velocities during its tumble in flesh.

Also if you look at good quality internal drawings it does appear that the hit corresponds to where the torpedo room is situated.

It was not an active homing torpedo or it would have been detected by all parties, and firing a passive homing torpedo would have put the other American sub at as much risk as the Russian sub.

Active sonar homing torpedoes go for centre of mass, passive homing torpedoes go for sound... the engine rooms at the rear of the sub.

Russia had no reason at the time to cover anything up, because the alternative is that it is their own fault. Any evidence that it could be blamed on anyone else would be seized upon at least by a few people in the government.

The only naysayers are internet trolls.

How about this:

От  tevolga
К    All    
Дата    31.10.2001 11:06:44
Рубрики Современность; Флот;    
Круглая дырка на Курске

Главком пояснил, что ее вырезали водолазы еще в прошлом году, никакого
отношения ни к возможному столкновению, ни к торпедированию не имеет. Ее
теперь заварят, что бы не было более досужих вымыслов:-)))

C уважением к сообществу.

   From: tevolga; To: All; Date: 31.10.2001 11:06:44; Rubrics: Modernity, Fleet

   Subject: Round hole on Kursk

   Commander-in-chief /of the Navy/ clarified that hole was cut by divers early as in previous year /2000/, no any relation is possible to hypothetical collision or to torpedo attack. The hole will be welded now to limit more of myths :-)))

   With respect to the community.

Or perhaps:

Александр _Покровский, 11 август 2012 в 09:24
В "Рубине" мне сказали насчет того отверстия: был технологический разрез.

   Alexander Pokrovsky, 11 August, 2012 at 09:24

   In "Rubin" (=Rubin Design Bureau, operator of the Raising operation of Kursk) I was told about this hole: was technological incision

Another issue is this:



And how about this...



Download and view this powerpoint... look at the damage a Mk-48 torpedo does hitting a Frigate... now assuming this weapon hits the torpedo room of an Oscar class SSGN with 30 odd 533mm torpedoes and missiles all packed close together... next to tubes of 7 ton Granit supersonic anti ship missiles packed in a double layer metal tube underwater... if you detonated all those warheads together with that warhead the explosion would be directed by the surrounding water... which does not compress well, down the submarine through the air that does compress well with explosions. The detonation would have travelled through the sub and killed everyone and the entire nose of the sub would have been blown off and scattered around the sea floor... instead the nose was still attached and pushed into the sand and had to be cut off to raise the sub.

In the above photo you can see the same "tank" apparent in the photo I posted which appears to be outside of the inner hull.  
Given the vast amount of missing structure, there is no "ruling out" of anything.   If the penetrating torpedo entered at an angle
with the tip slanted towards the front of Kursk, as is consistent with the dent, then the explosion would not have to produce
damage along the normal to the side of the sub.   The inner hull was penetrated where it has been cut off by the cable slicing
operation during the raising operation.

Basically the evidence was partially destroyed during the salvage.   If Soviet torpedoes were so unsafe by the late 1980s, you
would expect there to be many incidents after 1990 when there was no super secrecy.   That the only incident is so absolutely
catastrophic smells.  Even if it is a possibility, any detail that raises questions cannot be filtered out.   The insane arrogance
of western deciders is vastly more plausible as a the explanation compared to basically anything else.   They "put Russia in its place"
after Russia dared interfere with their gang rape of Serbia in 1999.   The Kursk was involved in this "interference".  The
foaming at the mouth by a Republican senator in the last day about throwing nuclear bombs on Russia to "save Ukraine"
shows you what nutjobs are in western governments.  

I also find it funny how the "evidence" trotted out by western sources that the Kursk was case of an onboard torpedo explosion
is total BS.  The acoustic wave form they are trotting out can be easily interpreted as the signature of an external torpedo
producing the first spike on impact and a second maximum from the explosion.  

There was also a coordinated propaganda campaign in association with the sinking of the Kursk.  So we have two smelly aspects:

1) The August timing when Putin and other officials would be likely to be on vacation.

2) The use of Putin being on vacation and not rushing back to Moscow to posture like a western politician, to smear Putin
as "not caring" and being "incompetent".   The usual western ignorance about what is considered normal in Russia.

This was a transparent attempt to frame Putin in a box to act like Yeltsin and obey his NATzO masters.  The clowns thought
that Putin would cower and obey, instead he routed out the oligarch parasites Brezeovsky and Khodorkovsky.  After that
it was gloves off in NATzO's anti-Putin hysteria.

Just too many details about this case point to NATzO action and not any sort of accident.

GarryB wrote:

The Kursk isn't made of copper, and how could the Russians possibly miss this amazing evidence if it is so obvious to a British expert?

The combusting copper is from the torpedo's warhead...

Another issue is this:

From a forensic point of view the above photograph was taken when all the substantial debris from the front part of the submarine was already removed and therefor has no real value in any evidence.

Her are some images of what the Kursk looked like at the start of the cleanup that is far more revealing >>

I did mention the first official response from the Russian government but did not mention what they actually said. The response was typical of any government in that situation - they lied. >>

The first official announcement of the accident was made by the Russians on Monday, 14 August. They told the media that Kursk had had "minor technical difficulties" on Sunday. They stated that the submarine had "descended to the ocean floor", that they had established contact with the crew and were pumping air and power to the boat, and that "everyone on board is alive."

I personally was relieved that the sub's crew was "still alive" - only to learn a few days later of the full extend of the catastrophe!

The truth is they told a blatant lie. It was clearly an attempted coverup. Whatever conspiracy theories are floating out there - it was started by the Russian government. Too many things don't add up. The machinery used to cut the Kursk free from two meters of mud could not have caused that hole. They basically hacked it from the top to the bottom with something that could not have caused the precision of that hole.

@GaryB
The secondary blast did follow the path of least resistance. They found that the inner pressure door leading to the torpedo room was left open. If the door was closed most of the crew could have survived the blast.