K-141 ''Kursk'' (russian: Атомная Подводная Лодка «Курск» (АПЛ «Курск»),
transl. , meaning "Atomic-powered submarine ''Kursk''") was an
Oscar II
Oscar II (Oscar Fredrik; 21 January 1829 – 8 December 1907) was King of Sweden from 1872 until his death in 1907 and King of Norway from 1872 to 1905.
Oscar was the son of King Oscar I and Queen Josephine. He inherited the Swedish and Norweg ...
-class nuclear-powered
cruise missile submarine
A cruise missile submarine is a submarine that carries and launches cruise missiles (SLCMs and anti-ship missiles) as its primary armament. Missiles greatly enhance a vessel's ability to attack surface combatants and strike land targets, and alt ...
of the
Russian Navy.
On 12 August 2000, K-141 ''Kursk'' was
lost when it sank in the
Barents Sea
The Barents Sea ( , also ; no, Barentshavet, ; russian: Баренцево море, Barentsevo More) is a marginal sea of the Arctic Ocean, located off the northern coasts of Norway and Russia and divided between Norwegian and Russian territo ...
, killing all 118 personnel on board.
Construction
K-141 ''Kursk'' was a Project 949A class ''Antey'' (russian: Aнтей, meaning
Antaeus
Antaeus (; Ancient Greek: Ἀνταῖος ''Antaîos'', "opponent", derived from , ''antao'' – 'I face, I oppose'), known to the Berbers as Anti, was a figure in Berber and Greek mythology. He was famed for his defeat by Heracles as part o ...
) submarine of the
Oscar class, known as the Oscar II by its
NATO reporting name
NATO reporting names are code names for military equipment from Russia, China, and historically, the Eastern Bloc (Soviet Union and other nations of the Warsaw Pact). They provide unambiguous and easily understood English words in a uniform manne ...
, and was the penultimate submarine of the Oscar II class designed and approved in the
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
. Construction began in 1990 at the
Soviet Navy military shipyards in
Severodvinsk
Severodvinsk ( rus, Северодвинск, p=sʲɪvʲɪrɐdˈvʲinsk) is a city in the north of Arkhangelsk Oblast, Russia, located in the delta of the Northern Dvina, west of Arkhangelsk, the administrative center of the oblast. As of the 2 ...
, near
Arkhangelsk
Arkhangelsk (, ; rus, Арха́нгельск, p=ɐrˈxanɡʲɪlʲsk), also known in English as Archangel and Archangelsk, is a types of inhabited localities in Russia, city and the administrative center of Arkhangelsk Oblast, Russia. It lies o ...
, in the northern
Russian SFSR
The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, Russian SFSR or RSFSR ( rus, Российская Советская Федеративная Социалистическая Республика, Rossíyskaya Sovétskaya Federatívnaya Soci ...
. During the construction of K-141, the
Soviet Union collapse
The dissolution of the Soviet Union, also negatively connoted as rus, Разва́л Сове́тского Сою́за, r=Razvál Sovétskogo Soyúza, ''Ruining of the Soviet Union''. was the process of internal disintegration within the Sov ...
d; work continued, and she became one of the first naval vessels completed after the collapse. In 1993 K-141 was named ''Kursk'' after the
Battle of Kursk
The Battle of Kursk was a major World War II Eastern Front engagement between the forces of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union near Kursk in the southwestern USSR during late summer 1943; it ultimately became the largest tank battle in history. ...
in the 50-year anniversary of this battle. K-141 was inherited by
Russia
Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...
and launched in 1994, before being commissioned by the
Russian Navy on December 30, as part of the
Russian Northern Fleet
Severnyy flot
, image = Great emblem of the Northern Fleet.svg
, image_size = 150px
, caption = Northern Fleet's great emblem
, start_date = June 1, 1733; Sov ...
.
[
''Kursk'' was assigned to the home port of ]Vidyayevo
Vidyayevo (russian: Видя́ево) is a closed rural inhabited locality in Murmansk Oblast, Russia. Despite having a rural status, it is municipally incorporated as Vidyayevo Urban Okrug, as such status is the only one allowed by the feder ...
, Murmansk Oblast
Murmansk Oblast (russian: Му́рманская о́бласть, p=ˈmurmənskəjə ˈobləsʲtʲ, r=Murmanskaya oblast, ''Murmanskaya oblast''; Kildin Sami: Мурман е̄ммьне, ''Murman jemm'ne'') is a federal subject (an oblast) of ...
.
Capabilities
The Antey design represented the highest achievement of Soviet nuclear submarine technology. They are the second-largest cruise missile submarines ever built, after some ballistic missile submarines were converted to carry cruise missiles in 2007.[ It was built to defeat an entire United States aircraft carrier group. A single ]Type 65 torpedo
The Type 65 is a torpedo manufactured in the Soviet Union/Russia. It was developed for use against US Navy aircraft carrier battle groups, as well as large merchant targets such as supertankers and advanced enemy submarines. It is now typically fi ...
carried a warhead powerful enough to sink an aircraft carrier. Both missiles and torpedoes could be equipped with nuclear warheads. She was longer than the preceding Oscar I-class of submarines. The senior officers had individual staterooms and the entire crew had access to a gymnasium.
The outer hull, made of high-nickel
Nickel is a chemical element with symbol Ni and atomic number 28. It is a silvery-white lustrous metal with a slight golden tinge. Nickel is a hard and ductile transition metal. Pure nickel is chemically reactive but large pieces are slow to ...
, high-chromium
Chromium is a chemical element with the symbol Cr and atomic number 24. It is the first element in group 6. It is a steely-grey, lustrous, hard, and brittle transition metal.
Chromium metal is valued for its high corrosion resistance and hardne ...
stainless steel
Stainless steel is an alloy of iron that is resistant to rusting and corrosion. It contains at least 11% chromium and may contain elements such as carbon, other nonmetals and metals to obtain other desired properties. Stainless steel's corros ...
thick, had exceptionally good resistance to corrosion and a weak magnetic
Magnetism is the class of physical attributes that are mediated by a magnetic field, which refers to the capacity to induce attractive and repulsive phenomena in other entities. Electric currents and the magnetic moments of elementary particle ...
signature which helped prevent detection by U.S. magnetic anomaly detector
A magnetic anomaly detector (MAD) is an instrument used to detect minute variations in the Earth's magnetic field. The term refers specifically to magnetometers used by military forces to detect submarines (a mass of ferromagnetic material crea ...
(MAD) systems. There was a gap to the -thick steel pressure hull
A submarine hull has two major components, the ''light hull'' and the ''pressure hull''. The light hull (''casing'' in British usage) of a submarine is the outer non-watertight hull which provides a hydrodynamically efficient shape. The pressure ...
. She was designed to remain submerged for up to 120 days. The sail superstructure was reinforced to allow it to break through the Arctic ice.[
The submarine was armed with 24 SS-N-19/P-700 Granit cruise missiles, and eight ]torpedo tube
A torpedo tube is a cylindrical device for launching torpedoes.
There are two main types of torpedo tube: underwater tubes fitted to submarines and some surface ships, and deck-mounted units (also referred to as torpedo launchers) installed aboa ...
s in the bow: four and four . The Granit missiles with a range of , were capable of supersonic flight at altitudes over . They were designed to swarm enemy vessels and intelligently choose individual targets which terminated with a dive onto the target.[ The torpedo tubes could be used to launch either torpedoes or anti-ship missiles with a range of . Her weapons included 18 SS-N-16 "Stallion" anti-submarine missiles.][
''Kursk'' was part of Russia's Northern Fleet, which had suffered funding cutbacks throughout the 1990s. Many of its submarines were anchored and rusting in Zapadnaya Litsa Naval Base, from ]Murmansk
Murmansk (Russian: ''Мурманск'' lit. "Norwegian coast"; Finnish: ''Murmansk'', sometimes ''Muurmanski'', previously ''Muurmanni''; Norwegian: ''Norskekysten;'' Northern Sámi: ''Murmánska;'' Kildin Sámi: ''Мурман ланнҍ'') i ...
. Little work to maintain all but the most essential front-line equipment, including search and rescue equipment, had occurred. Northern Fleet sailors had gone unpaid in the mid-1990s.[
]
Deployments
During her five years of service, ''Kursk'' completed only one mission, a six-month deployment to the Mediterranean Sea
The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on the ea ...
during the summer of 1999 to monitor the United States Sixth Fleet
The Sixth Fleet is a numbered fleet of the United States Navy operating as part of United States Naval Forces Europe. The Sixth Fleet is headquartered at Naval Support Activity Naples, Italy. The officially stated mission of the Sixth Fleet in ...
responding to the Kosovo crisis
The Kosovo War was an armed conflict in Kosovo that started 28 February 1998 and lasted until 11 June 1999. It was fought by the forces of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (i.e. Serbia and Montenegro), which controlled Kosovo before the war ...
. This was due to a lack of funds for fuel. As a result, many of her crew had spent little time at sea and were inexperienced.
Naval exercise and disaster
''Kursk'' joined the "Summer-X" exercise, the first large-scale naval exercise planned by the Russian Navy in more than a decade, on 10 August 2000. It included 30 ships including the fleet's flagship ''Pyotr Velikiy'' ("Peter the Great"), four attack submarines, and a flotilla of smaller ships. The crew had recently won a citation for its excellent performance and had been recognized as the best submarine crew in the Northern Fleet
Severnyy flot
, image = Great emblem of the Northern Fleet.svg
, image_size = 150px
, caption = Northern Fleet's great emblem
, start_date = June 1, 1733; Sov ...
. While it was on an exercise, ''Kursk'' loaded a full complement of combat weapons. It was one of the few vessels authorized to carry a combat load at all times.
Explosion
On the first day of the exercise, ''Kursk'' successfully launched a Granit missile armed with a dummy warhead.[ Two days later, on the morning of 12 August, ''Kursk'' prepared to fire ]dummy torpedo
Dummies and decoys are fake military equipment that are intended to deceive the enemy. Dummies and decoys are only one aspect of military deception.
Examples
During World War II, dummy airfields and even towns were used in England to divert ...
es at the ''Pyotr Velikiy''. These practice torpedoes had no explosive warheads and were manufactured and tested at a much lower quality standard. On 12 August 2000, at 11:28 local time (07:28 UTC), there was an explosion while preparing to fire. The Russian Navy's final report on the disaster concluded the explosion was due to the failure of one of ''Kursks hydrogen peroxide-fueled Type 65 torpedo
The Type 65 is a torpedo manufactured in the Soviet Union/Russia. It was developed for use against US Navy aircraft carrier battle groups, as well as large merchant targets such as supertankers and advanced enemy submarines. It is now typically fi ...
es. A subsequent investigation concluded that high-test peroxide
High-test peroxide (HTP) is a highly concentrated (85 to 98%) solution of hydrogen peroxide, with the remainder consisting predominantly of water. In contact with a catalyst, it decomposes into a high-temperature mixture of steam and oxygen, with n ...
(HTP), a form of highly concentrated hydrogen peroxide
Hydrogen peroxide is a chemical compound with the formula . In its pure form, it is a very pale blue liquid that is slightly more viscous than water. It is used as an oxidizer, bleaching agent, and antiseptic, usually as a dilute solution (3% ...
used as propellant for the torpedo, seeped through a faulty weld in the torpedo casing. When HTP comes into contact with a catalyst, it rapidly expands by a factor of 5000, generating vast quantities of steam and oxygen. The pressure produced by the expanding HTP ruptured the kerosene fuel tank in the torpedo and set off an explosion equal to of TNT
Trinitrotoluene (), more commonly known as TNT, more specifically 2,4,6-trinitrotoluene, and by its preferred IUPAC name 2-methyl-1,3,5-trinitrobenzene, is a chemical compound with the formula C6H2(NO2)3CH3. TNT is occasionally used as a reagen ...
. The submarine sank in relatively shallow water, bottoming at about off Severomorsk
Severomorsk (russian: Северомо́рск), known as Vayenga () until April 18, 1951, is a closed town in Murmansk Oblast, Russia. Severomorsk is the main administrative base of the Russian Northern Fleet. The town is located on the coast ...
, at . A second explosion 135 seconds after the initial event was equivalent to 3-7 tons of TNT. The explosions blew a large hole in the hull and caused the first three compartments of the submarine to collapse, killing or incapacitating all but 23 of the 118 personnel on board.
Rescue attempts
The British
British may refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies.
** Britishness, the British identity and common culture
* British English, ...
and Norwegian
Norwegian, Norwayan, or Norsk may refer to:
*Something of, from, or related to Norway, a country in northwestern Europe
*Norwegians, both a nation and an ethnic group native to Norway
*Demographics of Norway
*The Norwegian language, including the ...
navies offered assistance, but Russia initially refused all help. All 118 sailors and officers aboard ''Kursk'' died. The Russian Admiralty initially told the public that the majority of the crew died within minutes of the explosion, but on 21 August, Norwegian and Russian divers found 24 bodies in the ninth compartment, the turbine room at the stern of the boat. Captain-lieutenant Dmitri Kolesnikov wrote a note listing the names of 23 sailors who were alive in the compartment after the boat sank.
''Kursk'' carried a potassium superoxide
Potassium superoxide is an inorganic compound with the formula KO2. It is a yellow paramagnetic solid that decomposes in moist air. It is a rare example of a stable salt of the superoxide anion. It is used as a scrubber, dehumidifier, and gen ...
cartridge of a chemical oxygen generator
A chemical oxygen generator is a device that releases oxygen via a chemical reaction. The oxygen source is usually an inorganic superoxide, chlorate, or perchlorate; ozonides are a promising group of oxygen sources. The generators are usually igni ...
; these are used to absorb carbon dioxide
Carbon dioxide (chemical formula ) is a chemical compound made up of molecules that each have one carbon atom covalently double bonded to two oxygen atoms. It is found in the gas state at room temperature. In the air, carbon dioxide is transpar ...
and chemically release oxygen during an emergency. However, the cartridge became contaminated with sea water and the resulting chemical reaction caused a flash fire which consumed the available oxygen. The investigation showed that some men temporarily survived the fire by plunging under water, as fire marks on the bulkheads indicated the water was at waist level at the time. Ultimately, the remaining crew burned to death or suffocated.
Russian President Vladimir Putin
Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin; (born 7 October 1952) is a Russian politician and former intelligence officer who holds the office of president of Russia. Putin has served continuously as president or prime minister since 1999: as prime min ...
, though immediately informed of the tragedy, was told by the navy that they had the situation under control and that rescue was imminent. He waited for five days before ending his holiday
A holiday is a day set aside by custom or by law on which normal activities, especially business or work including school, are suspended or reduced. Generally, holidays are intended to allow individuals to celebrate or commemorate an event or tra ...
at a presidential resort in Sochi
Sochi ( rus, Со́чи, p=ˈsotɕɪ, a=Ru-Сочи.ogg) is the largest resort city in Russia. The city is situated on the Sochi River, along the Black Sea in Southern Russia, with a population of 466,078 residents, up to 600,000 residents in ...
on the Black Sea. Putin was only four months into his tenure as president, and the public and media were extremely critical of his decision to remain at a seaside resort. His highly favourable ratings dropped dramatically. The president's response appeared callous and the government's actions looked incompetent. A year later he said, "I probably should have returned to Moscow, but nothing would have changed. I had the same level of communication both in Sochi and in Moscow, but from a PR point of view I could have demonstrated some special eagerness to return."
Submarine recovery
A consortium formed by the Dutch
Dutch commonly refers to:
* Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands
* Dutch people ()
* Dutch language ()
Dutch may also refer to:
Places
* Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States
* Pennsylvania Dutch Country
People E ...
companies Mammoet
Mammoet (, Dutch for Mammoth) is a privately held Dutch company specializing in engineered heavy lifting and transport of oversized and heavy objects.
History
Mammoet’s history started on 13 May 1807 in the Netherlands, when Dutch entrepr ...
and Smit International
Smit Internationale N.V. (or Smit International) is a Dutch company operating in the maritime sector. The company was founded in 1842 by Fop Smit as a towage company with only the 140 horsepower paddle steamer tug ''Kinderdijk''.
Fop's sons, ...
was awarded a contract by Russia to raise the vessel, excluding the bow. They modified the barge
Barge nowadays generally refers to a flat-bottomed inland waterway vessel which does not have its own means of mechanical propulsion. The first modern barges were pulled by tugs, but nowadays most are pushed by pusher boats, or other vessels ...
'' Giant 4'' which raised ''Kursk'' and recovered the remains of the sailors.
During salvage operations in 2001, the team first cut the bow off the hull using a tungsten carbide
Tungsten carbide (chemical formula: WC) is a chemical compound (specifically, a carbide) containing equal parts of tungsten and carbon atoms. In its most basic form, tungsten carbide is a fine gray powder, but it can be pressed and formed into ...
-studded cable. As this tool had the potential to cause sparks which could ignite remaining pockets of reactive gases, such as hydrogen, the operation was executed with care. Most of the bow was abandoned and the rest of the vessel was towed to Severomorsk and placed in a floating dry dock for analysis.
The remains of ''Kursk''s reactor compartment were towed to Sayda Bay on Russia's northern Kola Peninsula
sjd, Куэлнэгк нёа̄ррк
, image_name= Kola peninsula.png
, image_caption= Kola Peninsula as a part of Murmansk Oblast
, image_size= 300px
, image_alt=
, map_image= Murmansk in Russia.svg
, map_caption = Location of Murmansk Oblas ...
, where more than 50 reactor compartments were afloat at pier points, after a shipyard had removed all the fuel from the boat in early 2003.
Some torpedo and torpedo tube fragments from the bow were recovered and the rest was destroyed by explosives in 2002.
Official inquiry results
Notwithstanding the navy's oft-stated position that a collision with a foreign vessel had triggered the event, a report issued by the government attributed the disaster to a torpedo explosion caused when high-test peroxide
High-test peroxide (HTP) is a highly concentrated (85 to 98%) solution of hydrogen peroxide, with the remainder consisting predominantly of water. In contact with a catalyst, it decomposes into a high-temperature mixture of steam and oxygen, with n ...
(HTP), a form of highly concentrated hydrogen peroxide
Hydrogen peroxide is a chemical compound with the formula . In its pure form, it is a very pale blue liquid that is slightly more viscous than water. It is used as an oxidizer, bleaching agent, and antiseptic, usually as a dilute solution (3% ...
, leaked from a faulty weld in the torpedo's casing.[ The report found that the initial explosion destroyed the torpedo room compartment and killed everyone in the first compartment.] The blast entered the second and perhaps the third and fourth compartments through an air conditioning vent. All of the 36 men in the command post located in the second compartment were immediately incapacitated by the blast wave and possibly killed. The first explosion caused a fire that raised the temperature of the compartment to more than . The heat caused the warheads of between five and seven additional torpedoes to detonate, creating an explosion equivalent to 2–3 tons of TNT
TNT equivalent is a convention for expressing energy, typically used to describe the energy released in an explosion. The is a unit of energy defined by that convention to be , which is the approximate energy released in the detonation of a t ...
that measured 4.2 on the Richter magnitude scale on seismographs across Europe and was detected as far away as Alaska
Alaska ( ; russian: Аляска, Alyaska; ale, Alax̂sxax̂; ; ems, Alas'kaaq; Yup'ik: ''Alaskaq''; tli, Anáaski) is a state located in the Western United States on the northwest extremity of North America. A semi-exclave of the U.S., ...
.
Alternative explanation
Vice-Admiral Valery Ryazantsev differed with the government's official conclusion. He cited inadequate training, poor maintenance, and incomplete inspections that caused the crew to mishandle the weapon. During the examination of the wrecked sub, investigators recovered a partially burned copy of the safety instructions for loading HTP torpedoes, but the instructions were for a significantly different type of torpedo and failed to include essential steps for testing an air valve. The 7th Division, 1st Submarine Flotilla never inspected ''Kursk''s crew's qualifications and readiness to fire HTP torpedoes. ''Kursk''s crew had no experience with HTP-powered torpedoes and had not been trained in handling or firing HTP-powered torpedoes. Due to their inexperience and lack of training, compounded by incomplete inspections and oversight, and because the ''Kursk''s crew followed faulty instructions when loading the practice torpedo, Ryazantsev believes they set off a chain of events that led to the explosion.
Media
Books
* Truscott, Peter (2002), ''Kursk: Russia's Lost Pride''. Simon & Schuster UK.
* Dunmore, Spencer (2002), ''Lost Subs: From the "Hunley" to the "Kursk", the Greatest Submarines Ever Lost – And Found''. Cambridge, MA: Da Capo.
* Moore, Robert (2002), ''A Time to Die: The Untold Story of the Kursk Tragedy''. Crown Publishers NY, NY.
* Weir, Gary E. and Boyne, Walter J. (2003), ''Rising Tide: The Untold Story Of The Russian Submarines That Fought The Cold War''. Basic Books, NY, NY.
* Flynn, Ramsey (2004), ''Cry from the Deep: The Sinking of the Kursk, the Submarine Disaster That Riveted the World and Put the New Russia to the Ultimate Test''. Harper Collins.
* Rear Admiral Mian Zahir Shah (2005) ''Sea Phoenix: A True Submarine Story''.
Songs
"Travel Is Dangerous"
a song from the album '' Mr Beast'' by post-rock band Mogwai
Mogwai () are a Scottish post-rock band, formed in 1995 in Glasgow. The band consists of Stuart Braithwaite (guitar, vocals), Barry Burns (guitar, piano, synthesizer, vocals), Dominic Aitchison (bass guitar), and Martin Bulloch (drums). Mogw ...
.
*Finnish doom metal band Kypck
KYPCK ( Volapuk rendition from Russian " Курск", "Kursk" in the Western Alphabet) is a Finnish metal band. They were formed in 2007 and sing in Russian.
History
The band's vocalist Erkki Seppänen speaks fluent Russian after his years ...
is claimed to have cross-references both to the Battle Of Kursk
The Battle of Kursk was a major World War II Eastern Front engagement between the forces of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union near Kursk in the southwestern USSR during late summer 1943; it ultimately became the largest tank battle in history. ...
and the submarine named after the city.
*"Капитан Колесников" (Captain Kolesnikov) song by a Russian rock band DDT
*"Icy blackness (Kursk)", a heavy metal song by Armageddon Rev. 16:16 from the album "Sundown on Humanity"
*"The Kursk" is a song by Matt Elliott (musician)
Matt Elliott is an English guitarist and singer-songwriter, originally from Bristol, England and now based in France, who plays dark folk music. He also produced and recorded electronic music under the name The Third Eye Foundation.
Biography
...
from his album "Drinking Songs"
Sequoya's "Barren the Sea"
a folk song about the tragedy
"Angel 141 (Russian: Ангел 141)"
is a song by ">MATORYfrom the album "DOOM" (2019)
"K-141 Kursk"
is a song by heavy metal band Wolf
The wolf (''Canis lupus''; : wolves), also known as the gray wolf or grey wolf, is a large canine native to Eurasia and North America. More than thirty subspecies of ''Canis lupus'' have been recognized, and gray wolves, as popularly u ...
from their album Legions of Bastards
''Legions of Bastards'' is the sixth full studio album by Swedish heavy metal band Wolf
The wolf (''Canis lupus''; : wolves), also known as the gray wolf or grey wolf, is a large canine native to Eurasia and North America. More than t ...
Theatre
* ''The Kursk'' – play about the trapped survivors, By Sasha Janowicz.
* ''Kursk
Kursk ( rus, Курск, p=ˈkursk) is a city and the administrative center of Kursk Oblast, Russia, located at the confluence of the Kur, Tuskar, and Seym rivers. The area around Kursk was the site of a turning point in the Soviet–German stru ...
'' – a play by playwright Bryony Lavery
Bryony Lavery (born 1947) is a British dramatist, known for her successful and award-winning 1998 play '' Frozen''. In addition to her work in theatre, she has also written for television and radio. She has written books including the biography ...
from the British point of view.
Movies
* ''Kursk
Kursk ( rus, Курск, p=ˈkursk) is a city and the administrative center of Kursk Oblast, Russia, located at the confluence of the Kur, Tuskar, and Seym rivers. The area around Kursk was the site of a turning point in the Soviet–German stru ...
'' (also known as "The Command", and "Kursk: The Last Mission"). - The film from 2018 follows the 2000 K-141 Kursk submarine disaster and the governmental negligence that followed. By Thomas Vinterberg
Thomas Vinterberg (; born 19 May 1969) is a Danish film director who, along with Lars von Trier, co-founded the Dogme 95 movement in filmmaking, which established rules for simplifying movie production. He is best known for the films ''The Celeb ...
.
See also
* 2008 Russian submarine accident
* List of Russian military accidents
This is a list of Russian military accidents that befell the Russian Armed Forces after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. Accidents have variously been attributed to cutbacks in spending on equipment, the lack of maintenance of hardware, and ...
* List of sunken nuclear submarines
Nine nuclear submarines have sunk, either by accident or scuttling. The Soviet Navy has lost five (one of which sank twice), the Russian Navy two, and the United States Navy (USN) two.
Three were lost with all hands - the two from the United Sta ...
* Major submarine incidents since 2000
This article describes major accidents and incidents involving submarines and submersibles since 2000.
2000s 2000 ''Kursk'' explosion
In August 2000, the Russian Oscar II-class submarine sank in the Barents Sea when a leak of high-test ...
* Submarines destroyed by hot-running torpedoes: , and possibly and
* Igor Spasskiy – The designer of the Oscar II class
References
External links
Project 949 Granit / Oscar I Project 949A Antey / Oscar II
BBC: ''Kursk'' mistakes haunt Russia
*
''Kursk'' on the wrecksite, chart and position
''Kursk'' memorial website
Risks and hazards during the recovery of the ''Kursk''
A detailed timeline of the recovery operations
''Raising the Kursk'', 31-minute technical documentary video
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kursk (K-141)
Lost submarines of Russia
Maritime incidents in 2000
Oscar-class submarines
Ships built in Russia
Ships of the Russian Northern Fleet
Shipwrecks in the Barents Sea
Submarine accidents caused by torpedoes
Sunken nuclear submarines
1994 ships
Ships sunk by non-combat internal explosions
Warships lost with all hands
Nuclear submarines of the Russian Navy