Soviet submarine Red October
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| Career (USSR) |  |
|---|---|
| Laid down: | |
| Launched: | |
| Commissioned: | December 3, 1984 (after retrofitting of caterpillar drive) |
| Decommissioned: | Approx 18 months after the events of the novel. |
| Status: | Destroyed by United States Navy after being stripped of its technology. |
| Homeport: | Nerpichya, Zapadnaya Litsa |
| General Characteristics | |
| Displacement: | 32,000 tonnes submerged |
| Length: | 198 m |
| Beam: | 26 m |
| Draft: | 12 m* |
| Propulsion: | 2 pressurized-water nuclear reactors Backup diesel engines 2 brass propellers Magnetohydrodynamic drive (movie) Hydrojet drive (book) |
| Speed: | Surfaced: 12 knots* Submerged: 27 knots (about 50 km/h)* (About half this using the new drive system. |
| Range: | Effectivly unlimited as long as the reactor core holds out. |
| Endurance: | Many months, though Soviet doctrine required missile Subs to be docked most of the time. |
| Test depth: | 400 m* |
| Complement: | 163 men/officers* |
| Armament: | 4 630 mm torpedo tubes 2 533 mm torpedo tubes |
| Aircraft carried: | None |
The Red October (Russian: Красный Октябрь, "Krasniy Oktyabr" ) is a fictitious Project 941 Typhoon-class submarine in the Tom Clancy novel The Hunt for Red October and the movie based on it. She was built with a revolutionary stealth propulsion system called a "caterpillar drive", which is described as a hydrojet system in the book. In the movie however, it is shown as being a magnetohydrodynamic drive. Captain First Rank Marko Aleksandrovich Ramius was the last commanding officer of the Red October.
In Late 1984 Ramius and his command crew took the Red October out on exercises. Once at sea Ramius murdered the political officer and then turned the ship towards the United States. Despite efforts by the Soviet Navy Red October was able to reach the USS Dallas and the United States was able to engage in a complicated rescue plan. This resulted in the Russian Navy believing the ship had been destroyed. Though her survival was discovered by a soviet attack submarine the October was able to destory it before his continued existance became known.
The crew defected and the ship was taken apart by the US Navy. Sometime between a year and eighteen months later the remains of the ship were sunk in a deep ocean trench.
Years later the truth of these events came to light when political opponents of then President John Patrick Ryan, revealed his part in the affair. By this time the Soviet Union had collapsed and the prevailing opinion in Moscow seems to have been "Well Done".
In the story, Red October is the seventh Typhoon built for the Soviet Navy; the real seventh boat, hull number TK-210, was laid down in the late 1980s, cancelled before it could have been commissioned and scrapped in 1990. None of the real Typhoon class submarines were officially named Red October.
