Hunt for Red October

Status
Not open for further replies.

MolaKule

Staff member
Joined
Jun 5, 2002
Messages
23,974
Location
Iowegia - USA
Some Interesting fact about Red October.

Quote:

The so-called “caterpillar drive” worked with no moving
parts, allowing a nuclear missile-armed Soviet submarine to
approach the U.S. coast undetected. As the submarine captain
(played by Connery) said, “Once the world trembled at the
sound of our rockets … now they will tremble again—at the
sound of our silence."

MHD propulsion is not fictional: real-life prototypes include
the EMS-1, a 3.0-m submarine that achieved speeds of
0.4 m/s during tests in California in 1966,2 and the ST-500,
a 3.6-m boat that reached 0.6 m/s in Japan in 1979.3 The
world’s first and so far only full-sized MHD-propelled craft,
Yamato-1, carried 10 people at speeds of up to 15 km/h during
successful sea trials in Kobe, Japan, in 1992.

In Clancy’s novel, Red October’s propulsion system was not
magnetohydrodynamic but based on a more conventional
(but also unusually quiet) “pump-jet” system
employed in the
massive Typhoon-class Soviet submarines of the 1980s. Nevertheless,
there was intense real-world suspicion during this
period that the Soviets were developing MHD-driven attack
submarines. As late as 1990, military analysts were convinced
that strange “pods” mounted on the tails of new Soviet Victor
III-class submarines were MHD thrusters [“Evidence grows
the ‘pod’ is a superconductive drive,” Navy News and Undersea
Technol. 7 (11), 1–2 (March 19, 1990)]. Attempts to photograph
these pods caused a collision with a U.S. Navy ship, the U.S.S.
Drum, in 1981 [W. C. Reed, Red November: Inside the Secret
U.S.-Soviet Submarine War (William Morrow, 2010)].


Excerpts from:

The Hunt for Red October II:
A magnetohydrodynamic boat demonstration for
introductory physics

THE PHYSICS TEACHER, Vol. 55, PP. 460-466, November 2017
 
Last edited:
Oh man, the memories. I actually did a report in the 8th grade (nerd alert!) on this magnetohydrodynamic propulsion system. However, since I referenced it's inclusion in Tom Clancy's book, my teacher marked the report down drastically because it was "fiction" and the report wasn't supposed to be. I even included other science-y journals as references, but it wasn't enough to convince her otherwise.
 
Way over my head, but I can’t suppress the visual of Sean Connery saying.......”sound of our silence”! Sorry.
 
The Hunt for Red October was a really good novel and certainly the best written by its author.
Remember reading it in the eighties.
The movie sucked.
 
Originally Posted By: OneEyeJack
A part that I really liked, working out a problem in real time when you're in the middle of it.



I recently had the opportunity to track the USS Dallas during a mutual training evolution, I was the mission commander of the P-8 tracking the Dallas. It was impossible to resist the urge to say "Way to go Dallas" I also may have instructed my acoustic operator to give me "one ping and one ping only" on one of our active buoys. I always thought it would be fun to hunt that boat, glad I had the chance to before she is decommissioned.
 
Seen that boat in Kobe. Magneto hydro drive catamaran. Static shore exhibit now only unfortunately. Looks like a Star ship Enterprise shuttle, except its real, and a bit rustier.

Yamato1_1.jpg
 
Last edited:
Then there was the European diesel-electric submarine and crew that a prominent navy rented for exercises in the early 2000's. They searched for the entire exercise period and they never found it.

I have it on good authority that nothing scares a surface mariner more than a report of a D-E submarine in the area.
 
Originally Posted By: jaj
Then there was the European diesel-electric submarine and crew that a prominent navy rented for exercises in the early 2000's. They searched for the entire exercise period and they never found it.

I have it on good authority that nothing scares a surface mariner more than a report of a D-E submarine in the area.




Believe some of those are now (retro?) fitted with fuel cells which are quiet and give them much longer (weeks?) underwater endurance, though not of course as long as a nuke boat.
 
Originally Posted By: jaj
Then there was the European diesel-electric submarine and crew that a prominent navy rented for exercises in the early 2000's. They searched for the entire exercise period and they never found it.

I have it on good authority that nothing scares a surface mariner more than a report of a D-E submarine in the area.


I vaguely remember reading about a joint exercise with a S. American navy and the DE subs came scary close to an aircraft carrier. The German subs were copied and cloned and continuously developed There was a yard down south that was building them for sale to navies. Kinda like the original Willys Jeep.
 
Con, Sonar.....CRAZY IVAN. Book was sooooooooooooooooooooo much better than the movie, the same for "It".
 
Originally Posted By: jaj
Then there was the European diesel-electric submarine and crew that a prominent navy rented for exercises in the early 2000's. They searched for the entire exercise period and they never found it.

I have it on good authority that nothing scares a surface mariner more than a report of a D-E submarine in the area.




There are lots of good DE submarines. There are lots of terrible diesel submarines. On the good list, and in no particular order Russian Kilo 636 & 636.3 German Type 212 (not the export model), Type 210 operated by the Norwegian Navy. All of those boats are exceptionally good.

On the bad list Ming, Romeo, Sango, Kilo 877. They're all either dated, or just really really loud.

All submarines can be exploited, defense of a surface asset is more of a time distance problem for a diesel boat than a stealth problem as the diesel boat has no chance of keeping up with a surface ship. A Nuke sub doesn't have that problem.

I'm more concerned about anti ship cruise missile cabable submarines in any propulsion setup, the extended standoff range from which they can fire greatly complicates the time distance problem. It's even worse when it's a nuclear powered cruise missile shooter, like an Oscar.

Any of them can run, but you can't hide. I will find you...
 
I also forgot to mention AIP diesel submarines. AIP is Air Independent Propulsion, accomplished in several different ways, google will be your friend if you're curious. They have the same issues as a diesel submarine in regards to speed, the AIP system only helps submerged endurance but once its fuel is used up a service in port is required to refuel the AIP system. DE submarines operating on AIP are not as quiet as they are on battery only as a result of extra equipment running associated with the AIP plant. It's an interesting technology but it doesn't correct the numerous issues that prevent a Diesel boat from being a true blue water submarine in the way a Nuke can be.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top