The Kursk Disaster - What is your theory?

[Kapitan_Phillips]

After reading a few threads about the ship, and reading a book on the subject, I'm interested to know what you folks think about the Kursk and what happened.

My theory is, the boat was rushed to sea when it clearly wasnt ready, and substandard ex-soviet torpedoes malfunctioned and exploded in the bow, killing everyone in the first few compartments and sealing others in the aft.



Please dont turn this into a political debate about Communism or crap like that. All I want is your views on what happened.

[STEED]

You would need to scan the wreck inside and out to get any idea on what happen. But I suspect the truth will never see the light of day, that is to say something else may have not come to light yet.

[robbo180265]

I reckon that had a NATO sub or subs been involved,Russia would be only too happy to put the evidence on display, and show the rest of the world how horrible we all are in the west.

For that reason, my vote goes to a torpedo explosion. Apparently The Kursk was trialling a new kind of torpedo, so maybe something went wrong whilst loading. A warhead going off inside(rather than outside) the sub would do a hell of a lot of damage, and maybe lead to a chain re-action in the tubes leading to the sub sinking pretty quickly.

On the other Kursk thead I posted a link to the memorial site, they talk about possible reasons on there. It's quite a good read.

[ASWnut101]

My theory? Here: A 65cm Hydrogen Peroxide powered torpedo malfunctioned in the magazine, blew up, and sunk the boat.

Hit by one British and one US torpedo. Two torps sealed its fate. A message needed to be sent to the Russians.

So far so good. That's my theory.

[bookworm_020]

Originally Posted by ASWnut101

My theory? Here: A 65cm Hydrogen Peroxide powered torpedo malfunctioned in the magazine, blew up, and sunk the boat.

That matches my theroy, HP power torpedos have a mixed history. The UK had some bad experiences with them and got rid of them.


That's my two cent's so I'll stop here.

[Enigma]

A little off topic, but I recall seeing a woman overcome by emotion at a hearing about the Kursk, and she stood up and was yelling at the military and goverment officials on the panel, and a lady walks up and injects her with something to knock her out and shut her up. I couldnt believe my eyes!

As for the Kursk, I think a cook off is most likely. I've never seen anything convincing that suggested hostile action.,.....

[SUBMAN1]

Originally Posted by ASWnut101

My theory? Here: A 65cm Hydrogen Peroxide powered torpedo malfunctioned in the magazine, blew up, and sunk the boat.

Thats the best theory too.

[SUBMAN1]

Did a torpedo sink Kursk?

With speculation rife over the causes of the Kursk disaster, Richard Scott examines what could have happened if an explosion occurred in the torpedo room
Norwegian and UK divers last week confirmed that the Russian Oscar II-class (Antyey)(T949A) submarine Kursk (K141), stranded on the floor of the Barents Sea, was completely flooded, thus ending the faint hopes that some members of the submarine's crew might be found alive.

Seismologists in Norway recorded two explosions at the time the Kursk sank on 12 August. Video pictures of the submarine, lying in 100m of water, subsequently revealed extensive damage to an area of the submarine stretching from the bow back to the fin.

Plans are now being drawn up to salvage the stricken submarine and recover the remains of the 118 crew. This may yield new evidence on the cause of the loss of the Kursk, but for the time being speculation continues. Some Russian officials have continued to insist that a collision was responsible for the sudden and massive damage, with one senior officer from Russia's Northern Fleet blaming the disaster on a UK Royal Navy nuclear submarine.

However, one highly experienced torpedo engineer discounts the collision theory. "The amount of damage depicted in the press reports was extreme," he told Jane's Defence Weekly. "With the robustness of the hull design, for a collision to cause that much damage to the Kursk is very unlikely. The Project 949A 'Oscar II' boats have a tremendous amount of equipment and weapons outside the hull that would absorb a lot of energy before the inner (pressure) hull on the Russian boat would have been hit."
A conventional weapons incident - involving a torpedo fuel fire and detonation of one or more warheads - remains the most likely explanation.

"In a recent article in the Russian journal Military Parade, the director of Gidripribor, the Russian torpedo design bureau, commented on the fact the older generation torpedoes on Russian submarines had been replaced with modem [UGST] dual purpose, liquid mono-propellant fuelled, long-range torpedoes. In the past the Russians have also had hydrogen peroxide-fuelled torpedoes on their submarines, as well as torpedoes with high-pressure oxygen fuel and high-energy batteries.

"Each has its own problems and dangers, but years of experience with all the older systems might suggest that problems with the newer type might be the more likely."
If one accepts the veracity of the reports emanating from Russia, then the torpedoes on board Kursk were indeed the newer UGST mono-propellant fuelled weapons. Press reports state that weapon-firing exercises were in progress and so weapons handling and loading proceeding firing would have been under way.

"Normally an exercise would involve torpedoes without warheads, but an operational submarine could have any number of warshots on board and in close proximity to the handling operation." According to this same source, preliminary analysis of available evidence suggests the following sequence of events that could have led to the loss of the Kursk.
"During the handling and firing operation, a torpedo fuel, leak develops and fuel is present in the torpedo room. If so, the sailors would start to respond to the leak. But before it is cleaned up a tool or other object either impacts the fuel or causes a spark.

"The fuel ignites and causes the fuel tank to deflagrate [first explosion detected by the Norwegians] the residual fuel bums for a period of time and results in a high order detonation of one or more torpedo warheads stored in the torpedo room [the second explosion].

"The submarine is designed to resist damage from the outside - not a detonation of one or several warheads inside the vessel. This would result in the first two compartments (including the control room) being destroyed instantly with total loss of life in those areas and buoyancy and the ballast tanks adjacent to the forward part of the ship.
"This submarine would sink very quickly. Emergency surface system would have been destroyed and may prevent the aft ballast tanks from being blown to provide some buoyancy and capability to surface."

The torpedo engineer also addressed the question of the composition of the mono-propellent fuel: "In the mono-propellant fuel the nitrate ester energetic ingredient can be very unstable and have a low flashpoint and impact resistance. Stabilisers are required to prevent that type of problem. For example the Western nations have been using OTTO II fuel in torpedoes for decades, quite safely and without incident.

"An incident resulting in ignition of this fuel is very unlikely, due to the stabiliser content added to the fuel during manufacture. It is quite difficult to light off OTTO fuel due to high Hash point (this also reduces energy content and is the trade off for safety and long term stability)."

So why could the torpedo leak fuel? There are a number of possible causes.
• The nitrate ester fuel needs special '0' rings that are not susceptible to deterioration when in contact with the fuel. If standard '0' rings were used, these would deteriorate over time and cause a leak when the torpedo was being moved.
• Inexperienced torpedo handling crew moving the torpedo might hit a piece of ship's structure (like a storage chock), drop it when removing a storage restraint, or drop a tool on to a weapon fuel tank causing the leak and a spark.
• Shore-based maintainers may have improperly assembled the torpedo. This may mean the seals were not installed correctly, causing a break in a tenuous seal when the torpedo was being moved in the weapons compartment or rammed into the tube.

The resultant fire, from whatever source, would bum for a time and once ignited would be very difficult to put out. A senior official told JDW: "The crew would try to put out the fire [but] fumes might overcome personnel in the torpedo room before they are able to put on breathing gear and extinguish the fire.

The Russian warhead explosive used in this case could not take the heat of a fully developed fire for more than a few minutes before it detonated.
A second, but less likely, cause of the fire is a solid rocket motor on a VA-111 Shkval super-cavitating torpedo. Explosive squibs generally utilised to initiate and light off a rocket motor are susceptible to static electricity.

"Normal handling of these motors requires a very specific set of actions and procedures to prevent initiation. If an inexperienced sailor made a mistake during torpedo loading the rocket motor could light off in the torpedo tube or room. It would likely take place at the moment when the torpedo is almost completely in the torpedo tube and the firing cables are being hooked up.

"A static discharge or a stray voltage in the firing cable results in rocket motor firing and the flame and exhaust would be back into the torpedo room.
"And would most certainly instantly kill all personnel in the area, if not the entire compartment, and initiate fires in other torpedoes and fuel, possible fuel tanks."

Until the submarine can be accessed without restriction, all causes and explanations remain speculative. As, and if, real data is made available the above explanations may by modified, reinforced or dismissed outright.

Richard Scott is JDW's Naval Editor

[VizlaN]

Originally Posted by ASWnut101

My theory? Here: A 65cm Hydrogen Peroxide powered torpedo malfunctioned in the magazine, blew up, and sunk the boat.

Indeed. Can't realy comprehend wich idiot that authorized the use of it. Been working with Hydrogen Peroxide for several years in a lab, it's a VERY unstable explosive! Confined, everything over 5 grams will selfdetonate over it's own weight if the substance has suffered polution. ( Polution as in fine grains of dust or moister from the air )

[seawolf34]

I saw a program on one of the documentary channels on sky a while ago which went into great detail about what happened onboard the Kursk. A flaw in the torpedos they were carrying caused an explosion which caused the disaster.

Got no idea if all that's true of course, could all be a cover up but I certainly remember alot of detail was shown in the program. They talked about how the inital explosion and fireball didn't just kill the men in the torpedo room but even crew members as far back as the control room were either rendered unconcious or killed. If I remember correctly the reason they explained as to why the fireball from the explosion so easily traveled back through the compartments was down to something like how the air conditioning system worked on the sub, or something like that.

One thing I remember being talked about was evidence that the inner torpedo hatch wasn't properly closed and secured when the torpedo explosion occured, if it was, the initial explosion and it's effects `might` (that's my words, I can't remember exactly what was said as I watched this program a while ago!) not of been so dramatic further away from the torpedo room & if the crew in the con hadn't been either knocked out or killed outright then who knows if they could of managed to get the sub to the surface.

It was a very interesting documentary, keep an eye out for it on national geographic channel, it's bound to be repeated.

[Kazuaki Shimazaki II]

Originally Posted by Kapitan_Phillips

My theory is, the boat was rushed to sea when it clearly wasnt ready, and substandard ex-soviet torpedoes malfunctioned and exploded in the bow, killing everyone in the first few compartments and sealing others in the aft.

Actually, the Kursk had been around for awhile. The problem was w/ the torpedo. The Russians needed the long range capability for their 65cms, so they could not go for a battery design. Don't know why they didn't try for Otto-fuel type monopropellant, but Soviet naval designers are a wierd mix of innovative and conservative.

But honestly I won't put it past the Americans to have done what the conspiracy theorists said (collide and shoot torps to cover their escape, thus INDUCING the accident).

[baggygreen]

well then, where did the damaged US sub go?

It'd have to be repaired somewhere, and isnt pretty much every US naval base able to be seen by civilians - not to mention any aircraft flyovers etc...

[Kazuaki Shimazaki II]

Originally Posted by baggygreen

well then, where did the damaged US sub go?

It'd have to be repaired somewhere, and isnt pretty much every US naval base able to be seen by civilians - not to mention any aircraft flyovers etc...

As I understand it, the US came as clean as possible about the Memphis, but the situation with Toledo is less certain. A submarine is mostly submerged and damage can easily be concealed if it is underwater. If the submarine managed to limp from a collision all the way to back to a port, it is in no immediate danger of sinking. IF there was a collision, my move as the USN would have been to just keep the collided sub mostly submerged until there's a chance to quietly move it into a drydock when interest dies down.

[baggygreen]

Alas, there you go - i've never even heard of any incident with the toledo - which helps to push your point.

it would be nice to know for sure, wouldnt it.

Edit - nice avatar, btw