Author: D.A. Romanov
Publisher:  Potomac Books, Washington DC
Published:  2006
Reviewer:  C.D. "Randomizer " Comars

A number of English language books dealing with Soviet and Russian submarine disasters are available but Fire at Sea is probably unique in that it does not come from the desk of a journalist looking to tell a story but rather from an engineer defending his creation.  On April 7^th 1989, Komsomolets (K-278) the sole Project 685 (NATO reporting name MIKE) surfaced in distress in the Norwegian Sea and sank a few hours later with the loss of 42 of her crew.  The official investigation largely blamed the boat’s ‘design peculiarities’ and this represents the public face of the sinking to this day.  Engineer D.A. Romanov however, presents a far different version of what happened to Komsomolets since he was one of the designers and so bares official responsibility for the loss of the boat if the design was indeed flawed.  Fire at Sea is Engineer Romanov’s defence of Project 685 refuting the official reports and placing responsibility for the accident directly in the hands of the Soviet Navy and others.

Readers expecting a taut people oriented narrative similar to Robert Moore’s A Time to Die (Kursk, K-141 disaster) or Peter Huchthausen’s Hostile Waters (the loss of K-219) should look elsewhere. Fire at Sea is highly technical and reads more like a formal accident investigation report than the telling of a very human disaster.  Persons with a marine engineering background are likely to fare better than those whose technical education lies elsewhere.  This reviewer with solid formal training in artillery and ordnance subjects found the detailed glossary and extensive endnotes quite valuable to his understanding the technicalities of some of the discussion.  Since the book is so technical it is possible that translation anomalies are present that can create difficulty for the casual reader.  One example will suffice:

Early in the crisis we learn that it is necessary to deliver LOKh into Compartment Seven where a fire has been reported.  Control panels in Compartment Seven, adjacent Compartment Six and the Attack Centre may deliver LOKh.  The implication and using regular English context is that LOKh is the Russian acronym for a fire extinguishing substance perhaps analogous to Halon or something similar.  Later though LOKh starts appearing in a different context and only by going to the glossary is it learned that LOKh is the acronym for the fire suppression system and the working fluid is Freon gas.  It appears that there is a subject-verb disagreement where ‘delivered’ should have been translated as ‘activated’ or something similar.  Translation credits go to an American Russian language specialist with an information technology background so it may be that some of the technical nuances of the original Russian were lost in translation.  Needless to say, the book’s glossary and rather extensive notes received many subsequent visits as similar, mostly minor but nonetheless irritating, irregularities cropped up in the text.  K.J. Moore, co-author of Cold War Submarines (with Norman Polmar) is credited for editing Fire at Sea but his efforts are apparently of little help to the non-technical reader.

The book is illustrated; a couple of pictures of Komsomolets in happier times and a number of photographs of portions the wreck.  Unfortunately as far as the latter goes, there is no attempt to inform the reader where they fit into D.A. Romanov’s arguments so the pictures add little to the book.  Likewise there are several schematics of various systems within the submarine but if they were to serve any effect it is lost because there are no explanations given as to what the non-technical reader is supposed to be seeing or where they fit into the discussion.

Despite the above criticisms, Fire at Sea deserves a place in the library of anybody with an interest in the Cold War at sea, the Soviet Navy or modern submarines in general.  Engineer Romanov goes straight for the jugular of the leadership of the Red Banner Northern Fleet, the Personal and Material Directorates of the Soviet Navy, the Party, the Press and Builders and others.  Using extracts from official regulations he demonstrates that Komsomolets sailed with an inadequately trained crew and even though the boat was some five-years old, it was lost on its first operational (read as ‘war’) patrol.  Poor crew training, lack of quality control at the dockyards, shortages in personnel and material and an overwhelming sense of official indifference pervade the preparations for the ill-fated patrol.  The aim of the book is to solidly refute the official version of events and the author provides considerable documentary evidence to support his claims.

Indeed, in Chapter 23, Engineer Romanov systematically attacks 10-specific aspects of the official version by quoting the original investigation and then deconstructing the party line using other official source documents that solidly contradict the Navy’s own findings.  It comes across as a fine piece of technical detective work.

Although he tends to label the official line as a ‘conspiracy’ this reviewer believes that what probably happened was that a ponderous bureaucracy closed ranks in damage control after the disaster.  Komsomolets was the only boat of its class so sacrificing the designers to camouflage the errors of others makes bureaucratic sense.  This bureaucratic tendency is a phenomenon that crosses all national borders and political systems and although Fire at Sea does not indulge in any real character development of the many persons named, some types are chillingly familiar to anybody who has served in the military, government or big business when something goes horribly wrong.

Although mired in technicalities, the underlying passion behind Engineer Romanov’s defence of his design is obvious throughout.  Fire at Sea might be a painful read for the non-submariner at times but no-pain sometimes equals no-gain and this book is certainly worth the effort.