K19

[Kapitan]

The first soviet nuclear submarines were now at sea, K3 had had already an accident, and the soviets were now starting to put missiles into diesel submarines for proper patrols not normal test runs.

Then began in 1959 project 658 code named Hotel by NATO, the first submarine to be nuclear powerd and carry three ballistic missiles, this would be the soviets first SSBN.

Work began in 1959 at break neck pace litteraly, no fewer than 10 men died constructing K19 alone, back up systems were never installed and the boat was never ready for sea at any time in her long career.

K19 was finaly ready for her premature sea trial's, her captain was 33 year old Captain 1st rank Nikolai Zatayev.

Zateyev was well liked by his crew, a fair but firm captain, he also was one who used to always put the pollitical officers in sticky spots, which won him favour through out the northern fleet and also high up in the admiralty.

Zatayev was not a nuclear sea captain, in his days all he ever commanded was small whiskey class diesel boats, he recieved his first command around the age of 26, which even by todays standards is young.

K19 put to sea on her maiden deployment in 1961 after being at sea for some time, the crew turned around heading back to the barnets sea via rounding iceland.

K19's goal was to pretend to be an america SSBN trying to get in close to soviet waters and to fire thier missiles, however early morning on the 4th of july problems began the nuclear reactor was heading for melt down.

Zatayev surfaced but the radio mast broken, no message could be sent or recieved via the long range radio, the only hope was to send men to coll the rector in which he did.

K19 now had a split choice head for jan myen and scuttle K19 or take a gambel and head away from certain saftey and try to locate a pack of Diesel submarines to the south, zatayev gambled.

Not long after it paid off S270 had arrived along with another submarine, men were off loaded and then rushed back home, S270 remained with K19 with her tube doors open and wepons ready to fire should anyone try and board her.

After this first tragerdy Zatayev was relieved of command, K19 was repaired and put back to sea, many of the men lived for a few days many years later more would die including in the 1990's zatayev.

The K19 was out of action for some 3 years upon returning to service she was dubbed "hiroshima".

In 1972 K19 sufferd a fire not far from the american coast, the painstaking task of towing the sub home was left to merchant vessel, again the captain was relieved.

Many more minor accidents took place untill K19 was final decommissioned and laid up in 1991, after a long and worrying career.

In 2003 the russian government annouced that K19 was to be scrapped, today very little remains of the K19, the K19 was built at a time when one up man ship was common place, and when russia despratly needed to catch americans, something they done with K19's sucsessors the yankee.

The K19 was heavily modified converted to a Hotel II she carried 6 missiles and could fire them submerged, later she was re designated as a communications submarine, some others as radar pickets, but none the less K19 served the soviet union well.

The thoughs of what happend are still hard to remove from former crew members who watched their friends die infront of them.

Question is should the soviets have done more to stop this?


K19 with some important woman during the filming of K19 the widowmaker


K19 laid up she will wait here for 12 years before being scrapped


K19 as she was back in 1961


K19 after her heavy modification


All that remains of K19 is here some where

[Oberon]

It kinda reminds me of the space race, the two nations rushing so desperately to out-do each other, and in such rushes mistakes are made by both sides. The problem with the Soviets, that I've found through reading about various Soviet sub accidents is that the level of incompetence in the higher echolons of command was pretty high. Take for example, K-219...Britanov was ordered to put a makeshift crew back onto the sub, even though she was doomed, and try to put her back to port. It would seem in some cases that the machine was worth more than the men...which is a real ass about face way of doing things but it did seem to be Soviet doctrine, at least at higher levels of command...but thankfully, at lower levels common sense prevailed.

[Kapitan]

K219 captain i heard similar thing he was orderd to put, some of the crew back on the submarine (by this time it was on its way to the bottom).

The reason for that was because the soviets were worried the americans might try to board it, they did have a naval tug called Powertan in the area and he did offer assistance several times but was told to keep miles away.

[Mike 'Red Ocktober' Hense]

great stuff Kap...great pics as well... many thx...

--Mike

[Kapitan]

I have recently come accross some pictures of the K19 when she was striken off the US coast in 1972.







K19 just before scrapping starts

[PeriscopeDepth]

The books an excellent read in case any of you haven't read it yet . The movie was OK, Harrison Ford definitely looked like the real captain I thought.

PD

[Kapitan]

There are some issues in the film that never happend in real life, i mean where in gods name did that destroyer come from?

And no captain unless he had a death wish would run around the boat saying "they turned themselves into heros".

The film is typical american soviet history, reminds me of U571

[GunnersMate]

Wasnt there a golf class loast off hawaii?

[Kapitan]

you mean K129 Gol class SSB it left base in 1968 in the russian far east headed for its patrol route, and wasnt seen again.



This is one of a very few colour photographs of K129, after she was lost the russians even denied thier own submarines existance, instead renaming this submarine K129 and following that they named another Delta K129 also.

Confused so am i !

[Kazuaki Shimazaki II]

Originally Posted by Oberon

It kinda reminds me of the space race, the two nations rushing so desperately to out-do each other, and in such rushes mistakes are made by both sides. The problem with the Soviets, that I've found through reading about various Soviet sub accidents is that the level of incompetence in the higher echolons of command was pretty high. Take for example, K-219...Britanov was ordered to put a makeshift crew back onto the sub, even though she was doomed, and try to put her back to port. It would seem in some cases that the machine was worth more than the men...which is a real ass about face way of doing things but it did seem to be Soviet doctrine, at least at higher levels of command...but thankfully, at lower levels common sense prevailed.

Not so good for morale. However, sometimes I see it as a sign of their paranoia and that they are behind.

Consider this coldly. The sub is EXTREMELY expensive. It is an old Yankee but if it goes down there still aren't that many replacements. The conscripts onboard are cheap to produce and there are countless replacements. Without the additional stress of handling the People of the Nation, a cold calc falls out like this.

To that you add national security considerations. Here's where the overall inferior Russian tech base costs them. Any secrets they have are easier to copy and exploit.

For example, the Soviets in the late 70s built a radar called Soyuz (or was it Istok). It is supposed to be comparable in performance and function to the APG-65. Some say that it was copied to a greater or lesser extent. But the important part of the story is that the Soviet tech base could not mass produce it and they had to revert to older systems. By the time they tried to make something of similar (Zhuk) functionality for mass rather than experimental production, it was over 10 years later and it won't have been available until at least the early 90s even if the USSR hadn't broken up, by which time the US had moved on and had the Cold War still been going on, at least halfway towards F-22s and Active Phased Array Radars - a generational leap. Certainly all the other radars would have been upgraded.

This tech superiority gives the West a confidence. If a 688 or F-18 gets compromised to the Russians, it is really bad news to be sure, but the Russians won't be able to reverse-engineer at least some of the state of the art equipment until another half-generation moves on and the Americans got something better.

The Russians don't have that confidence. The West being ahead in overall tech knows all the major tricks. If there is some minor trick worth copying they could implement it better, fast. For example, if the West wanted to copy the Zaslon phased array, they definitely can, and put a better computer on it while they were at it - improves range and tracking ability.

This raises the relative value of an average Russian military secret versus an average American military secret. This is compared to a lower value of a Russian crewman compared to his American counterpart.

Now add a feeling of paranoia that the West would crush them given a chance. If you think war is imminent every day, the relative value of secrets again goes up and the value of men goes down.

While these factors may not fully justify this attitude, it is something to consider.

[Kapitan]

K219 was one of 34 submarine's built, in total at the hight my records show as many as 91 nuclear ballistic missile submarines in service, with as many as 537 submarines in service all together at the hieght.

Hardly irreplacable.

[Konovalov]

Originally Posted by Kapitan

In this photo is that ship firing a flare and if so why?

[The Avon Lady]

Could it be that they fired a towing rope over, as they couldn't approach due to the rough conditions?

Or is there no such possibility or need for this in rough seas?

[Kapitan]

They are firing a tow rope to the submarine, a single man couldnt make the distance.

[Kapitan]

http://www.nationalgeographic.com/k19/

National geographic showing the events of the K19 through her first mission and what she is doing now.

Sadly as you saw she has been scrapped, it would have been nice to turn her into a museam.