The boat can go "on the needles"
The unique K-3 submarine Leninsky Komsomol, which is the first Soviet nuclear submarine, can be disposed of before the end of this year in the town of Snezhnogorsk (Murmansk region) at the Nerpa plant. This decision was made at USC due to the lack of funds for the recovery of the submarine, as well as due to the fact that the slipway, on which the remains of the submarine are currently stored, is urgently needed for the implementation of another project. K-3 should cede its place to the Lepse floating base of Rosatomflot, the disposal of which should begin in the spring of 2014. The representative of the Russian military-industrial complex noted that he understood the importance of the submarine K-3 for stories and the memory of the domestic fleet, but the disposal of the Lepse is much more important, since the ship today holds the spent nuclear fuel that can pollute half of Europe.
Currently, at the place where the disposal of the Lepse is planned, K-3 is cut into two halves. Previously, a nuclear reactor was removed from a nuclear submarine, and then flooded in the Kara Sea. In 2003, the idea appeared to restore the boat as a museum of the submarine forces of Russia, and then tow the ship to the eternal parking in St. Petersburg. So even in 2008, at the Maritime Collegium under the Government of the Russian Federation, Malachite Design Bureau was entrusted with developing the project of the future museum, but the matter has not moved beyond the idea. Money for the implementation of this project has not been allocated so far. And the money needed considerable.
Back in 2008, calculations showed that this would require at least 400 million rubles. Taking into account the fact that the submarine has been under the open sky for a long time and has been trimmed, now it will take at least 650 million rubles to assemble it and bring it to mind, one of the USC representatives noted. At the same time, on the "Nerpa" still expect to save the boat. As the press secretary of the company, Irina Anzulatova, told the newspaper Izvestia, this would require 50 million rubles, which the company expects to find.
Anzulatova stressed that the company will do everything to find this amount. The sub can still be saved. At present, at Nerpa, a fragment of the shell is already ready, which can be put in place of the cut-out reactor compartment. All that remains is to combine, preserve and float. After that, it remains only to wait until our officials finally become wiser and realize that such historical value as the first nuclear submarine in the country cannot be destroyed.
By the way, in the USA they have kept their first nuclear submarine "Nautilus". It is currently a museum. Leninsky Komsomol is the first Russian nuclear submarine, the living history of our fleet. In the most difficult years of the Cold War - in the 1960 and 1970 - K-3 successfully solved the most difficult tasks to counter the Americans and their fleet. To create a museum from this boat means to perpetuate forever the memory of its designers, all of the sailors who served it, as well as all those who worked on the creation of the atomic fleet of our country.
К3 "Leninsky Komsomol"
In 1945, the US quite openly demonstrated to the world the destructive power of a new nuclear weapons, while they were interested in the development of means of delivery. Delivery of nuclear bombs by air, as it was during the bombardment of Japan, was fraught with a significant degree of risk. Therefore, the only sensible method of delivering nuclear cargo at that time was a submarine that could covertly and imperceptibly, without ascending, approach the enemy’s shore and deliver a decisive blow. An atomic submarine was ideally suited for this role, which during the march could never float to the surface.
The first American submarine nuclear submarine was created in an atmosphere of utmost secrecy. The decision to build the first nuclear boat was made in 1951, and already on 14 on June 1952, the laying of this boat took place, which was called “Nautilus”. At the same time, the USSR, as in the case of the atomic bomb, was in the role of a catch-up. The decree on the creation of nuclear submarines in the USSR was signed by Stalin in September 1952, when work was already under way on the construction of the first nuclear submarine across the ocean.
Soviet designers, as has happened more than once, had to go their own way, so there were difficult circumstances for the USSR as a whole and for Soviet military science in particular. In the Soviet Union, work of defense significance was always headed by people who were unknown to the general public; they did not write about the heroes of the defense industry in Soviet newspapers. The creation of the project of the first Soviet nuclear submarine was entrusted to the designer VN Peregudov.
By design, the Soviet boat was very different from the American "Nautilus". On the American submarine, the external hull lines of conventional diesel-electric submarines were almost completely repeated, the main difference was the presence of a nuclear power plant. At the same time, the Soviet K-3 submarine initially had a completely different architecture. The laying of the boat took place in Severodvinsk on September 24 of the year 1955.
The hull of the Soviet boat was created without the use of classic hull structures of diesel-electric submarines, work on it was carried out almost from scratch. The main focus of the work was on the quality of the underwater boat. Therefore, the Soviet nuclear submarine K-3 turned out to be fast Nautilus. During tests in a fully submerged state, she developed the travel speed in 28 nodes without the reactors reaching their full capacity. Initially, the boat was designed to attack coastal naval bases of a potential enemy using a very large caliber single fusion torpedo (T-15) (diameter 1,5 meter). But due to the obvious technical insolvency of this approach and the “disposability” of the boat itself, which was pointless from a military point of view and very expensive, this project was abandoned. The emphasis was placed on the use of traditional torpedo weapons with the ability to use torpedoes with nuclear warheads.
In order to increase the acoustic stealth of the boat, mechanisms with a reduced level of vibro-noise characteristics were used, the main equipment of the submarine was depreciated, and special vibration-damping coatings were used. The hull of the boat was lined with a special anti-roll-out coating, and low-noise propellers were installed on the K-3. All this had a positive effect on the visibility of the boat. When moving at an average speed at the periscope depth, the boat produced less noise than diesel-electric submarines of the 611 and 613 projects.
The design of the boat was significantly different from previous submarines not only in the power plant, but also in the hull lines. Initially, it included a number of rather dubious decisions: the submarine did not have mooring facilities (it was supposed to use a special tug to perform maneuvers at the base), did not carry any defensive armament, did not have emergency diesel generators and anchors. The crew of the boat was prepared and trained in advance, some of the future officers of the boat were involved at the project stage. Such a solution allowed to improve the living conditions of the crew and the ergonomics of workplaces. The most egregious bloopers were corrected on specially designed wooden mockups.
In the future, eyewitnesses said that the interior of the boat were like works of art. Each room was painted in its own color, while using colors of bright shades that were pleasant to the human eye. One of the bulkheads of the boat was made in the form of a picture of a summer meadow with birch trees, the other - in the form of a huge mirror. All the furniture on the boat was made by special order from precious woods and could be used in emergency situations not for its intended purpose. For example, a large table in a mess could easily be transformed into an operating room.
Subsequently, the high-quality selection and training of the crew of the boat on specially erected stands (also on the stand of the atomic power plant at the training base in Obninsk) helped the boat to begin its service. It is worth noting that the submarine came out of the factory "raw", had many problems and shortcomings. In fact, this boat could be attributed to the experienced. In this, the Soviet submarine nuclear submarine differed little from its overseas counterpart.
The boat was launched in October 1957, after 2, after the start of construction. 1 July 1958, she joined the fleet, the flag of the Navy was raised on the boat. One curious incident is connected with the launching of the ship into the water. As it is known, seamen are quite superstitious people, and if a bottle of champagne had not broken on the side of the boat, they would remember this all the time, especially at critical moments of navigation. Moreover, panic arose among the members of the admissions committee of the boat, since the entire cigar-shaped hull of the boat was covered with a layer of rubber. The only tough place was a small fence of horizontal rudders. Naturally, no one wanted to take responsibility until someone remembered that women smash champagne well. As a result, a young employee of the Malachite design office, swinging confidently, was able to smash a bottle of champagne on the side of the boat the first time, so the firstborn of the Russian nuclear submarine fleet was born.
In July, 1962, the crew of the Soviet nuclear submarine Leninsky Komsomol, repeated the achievement of the Americans, who in 1958, on their nuclear submarine USS Nautilus, made a successful voyage to the North Pole, after which they repeated it on other nuclear submarines. For the first time in the history of the Russian fleet, the boat made a long march under the ice of the Arctic Ocean, twice crossed the point of the North Pole. 17 July 1962 of the year under the command of Lev Mikhailovich Zhiltsova she surfaced near the North Pole, not far from him was hoisted the national flag of the USSR. On the basis of submariners, Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev personally met him, who presented them with awards. The entire crew of the boat was presented to the orders, and the captain of the boat Leo Zhiltsov became the Hero of the Soviet Union. The names of the submariners became known throughout the country.
However, in the history of the boat were tragic moments. 8 September 1967 of the year on the boat during combat duty in the Norwegian Sea in the I and II compartments there was a fire, resulting in the death of 39 submariners. At the same time, the crew of the K-3 managed to cope with the fire on their own, and the submarine returned home on its own. The likely cause of the fire will then be called unauthorized replacement of the gasket in the fitting of the hydraulic machine. The result was a loss of hydraulic fluid, which could not be fully collected, and later on its remnants were ignited.
Over the years of its service, the first domestic nuclear submarine managed to make 14 long hikes, including the first voyage under the ice in the Greenland and Kara seas. 15 June 1991 of the year K-3 was withdrawn from the Northern Fleet.
Performance characteristics of K-3:
Dimensions: boat length - 107,4 m; width - 7,9 m., draft - 5,6 m .;
Surface displacement - 3065 t., Scuba - 4750 t .;
Power plant - nuclear, 2 water-cooled reactor VM-A, power on shafts 35 000 hp;
Submerged speed - 30 nodes, surface - 15 nodes;
Immersion depth - 300 m .;
The autonomy of swimming - 50-60 day;
Crew - 104 person;
Armament: 8 nasal 533-mm torpedo tubes (20 torpedoes), 6 torpedoes with nuclear charges on 15 kt.
Information sources:
http://korabley.net/news/pervaja_atomnaja_podvodnaja_lodka_sovetskogo_sojuza_proekta_627_k_3_shifr_kit/2009-10-13-386
http://book.uraic.ru/elib/pl/lodki/627.htm
http://izvestia.ru/news/547540
http://ru.wikipedia.org