# Kursk - Russian nuclear sub raised



## Ex3 (Aug 30, 2008)

The scrapping of the Kursk. The bow was sawed off with a diamond rope while she sat on the bottom of the Arctic Sea. You can see the antiship missiles still in their launchers all foamed in.  And there's a nuclear power plant in that mess somewhere.

 K-141 Kursk was a Russian nuclear cruise missile submarine which was lost with all hands when it sank in the Barents Sea on August 12, 2000.  It was named after the Russian city Kursk, around which the largest tank battle in military history, the Battle of Kursk, took place in 1943.

 The Kursk sailed out to sea to perform an exercise of firing dummy torpedoes at Pyotr Velikiy, a Kirov class battlecruiser. On August 12, 2000 at 11:28 local time , the missiles were fired, but an explosion occurred soon after on Kursk . The only credible report to-date is that this was due to the failure and explosion of one of Kursks new/developmental torpedoes.

The chemical explosion blasted with the force of 100-250 kg of TNT and registered 2.2 on the Richter scale [1]. The submarine sank to a depth of 108 metres, approximately 135km (85 miles) off Severomorsk.   A second explosion 135 seconds after the initial event measured between 3.5 and 4.4 on the Richter scale, equivalent to 3-7 tons of TNT. Either this explosion or the earlier one propelled large pieces of debris far back through the submarine.

 Kursk was eventually raised from her grave by a Dutch team using the barge Giant 4, and 115 of the 118 dead were recovered and laid to rest in Russia .  Russian officials have strenuously denied claims that the sub was carrying nuclear warheads. When the boat was raised by a salvage operation in 2001 there were considerable fears moving the wreck could trigger explosions.
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## tova (Aug 30, 2008)

RIP, Godspeed, PBS....


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## Gypsy (Aug 31, 2008)

It's really such a shame the Russians wouldn't let us attempt to help rescue the men, thus condemning them to sure death.  Makes you wonder why...

RIP Sailors.


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## AWP (Aug 31, 2008)

Gypsy said:


> It's really such a shame the Russians wouldn't let us attempt to help rescue the men, thus condemning them to sure death.  Makes you wonder why...



As I get old my memory isn't what it once was, but I want to say by the time we could have brought aid to bear they were all dead. I'll do some digging though to support or refute my recollections.


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## Gypsy (Aug 31, 2008)

Freefalling said:


> As I get old my memory isn't what it once was, but I want to say by the time we could have brought aid to bear they were all dead. I'll do some digging though to support or refute my recollections.



You could be right, for some reason I thought perhaps there was still time to rescue them...I'll see if I can find any articles on that as well.


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## AWP (Aug 31, 2008)

It took the Russians about 15 hours to find the sub and once requested it took the British and Norwegians 3 days to arrive on scene. If they were "leaning forward" in anticipation of getting the call that would shave some time off of their transit. If not then it would take longer to arrive on scene.

Regardless, forensics concluded the 23 survivors of the initial blast died either from a fire or from asociated oxygen starvation around Day 3 or 4. It would be safe to assume that even if the call was made the moment the Russians knew of the sinking that little could be done to save those submariners.

It is all hypothetical given the ambiguities in the story and timeline, but I personally don't believe they could be saved.


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## Gypsy (Aug 31, 2008)

Thanks Free, I got a little sidetracked with something but meant to post it would probably have been too late...


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