My repeated proposals to increase the effectiveness of deterring US aggressive aspirations have finally been heard. The Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera reported the possible presence of Russian nuclear submarines off the coast of the United States. A columnist for this newspaper, Guido Olympio, in his article “The Mystery of the Kremlin Ship Surveilling the Florida Coast” writes:
“It is clear that the large Russian rescue tug Nikolai Chiker enjoys being off the coast of Florida, especially now that the crisis in eastern Ukraine has entered its most intense phase. This Russian Navy ship performs interesting maneuvers. In mid-February, the Chicker left Gibraltar and quickly reached the Caribbean Islands. On board there are 50 people, a team of specialists in underwater work, modern equipment, a platform for a helicopter, a spacious hold in which supplies are stored, ensuring long-term autonomous navigation of the ship. "Chicker" - powerful beast, a tug whose height allows it to operate in Arctic waters. The ship took part in many complex operations, including the lifting of the Kursk submarine. Indeed, submarines are familiar shipmates: the tug provides them with support, accompanies them like a shadow. According to many experts, the tug is supporting at least two submarines that Moscow has sent to US shores. The tug also works with other spy ships. This is exactly the type of activity that has been carried out in recent weeks.”
Our information:
“Rescue tugs SB 135 of the Fotiy Krylov type, including Nikolay Chiker, were built in 1989 in Finland by order of the USSR Navy. They were supposed to be used primarily for towing large-capacity ships, that is, aircraft carriers, and carrying out rescue operations. The construction of these two ships cost the Navy $50 million.
Immediately after construction, during testing, the Fotiy Krylov type was included in the Guinness Book of Records as a vessel capable of creating the most powerful traction force when towing. The power of the power plant is 25,000 horsepower. These characteristics, as well as design features, allow it to tow ships with a displacement of up to 250 thousand tons in sea conditions of force eight at a speed of four knots. The results are still unsurpassed.
Although calling this ship just a tugboat, albeit the most powerful one in the world, is hard to come by. This is a whole rescue complex. The diving equipment installed on it allows for complex deep-sea work. It is equipped with a pressure chamber, wetsuits, underwater television cameras, means for soil erosion, underwater welding and cutting, and metal detectors.
In addition, the ship is capable of supplying fire-extinguishing liquid to ships in distress and extinguishing fires using its own installations.
The helipad supports all-weather 24-hour helicopter operations with refueling.
Fully equipped operating room and three hospital rooms.”
(Wikipedia)
After a stay near the Caribbean islands, an Italian journalist reports, the tug arrived at a square in the area of Kings Bay, the base of American nuclear submarines of the US 7th Fleet. Guido Olympio also informs that “Chicker” was not alone there: “Viktor Leonov”, a Russian reconnaissance ship:
"The appearance Russian ships coincided in time with the first phase of the crisis in Crimea. After this, the tug visited the Cape Canaveral area, then made another call to the Caribbean, and in the second week of April it again found itself off the coast of Florida. On April 15, the ship again entered the area of the cosmodrome. In time, this episode coincided with the aggravation of the situation in Ukraine, the transfer of convoys military equipment and threats."
And here is about a possible meeting with a Russian nuclear submarine:
“Yesterday morning, the Cheeker stopped south of the NASA test site, as if taking up an observation position. There are many theories about “Nicholas the Chicker” off the Florida beaches. Starting with the most obvious: performing reconnaissance missions. Other experts believe that we're talking about about a meeting with a Russian nuclear submarine. Or even about a meeting with the reconnaissance ship "Viktor Leonov", which has already long time is located in this region. Strange movements in the Caribbean Sea suggest some kind of underwater work. Finally, we may be talking about monitoring the space center at Cape Canaveral, perhaps about collecting classified information.”
Our information:
"Viktor Leonov" is a medium reconnaissance ship, one of seven Project 864 SRZKs built in Poland in 1985-1990. Initially, SSV-175, commissioned by the USSR Navy in 1988, was called “Odograph” and was part of the Black Sea Fleet. In 1995 it was transferred to the Northern Fleet and in April 2004 renamed Viktor Leonov.
(Wikipedia)
The appearance of the "Viktor Leonov" off the coast of America, by the way, was noted back in February.
The last major scandal surrounding the appearance of Russian nuclear submarines off the coast of the United States was in 2012, when in mid-August Western media wrote that the Russian Project 971 nuclear submarine “Shchuka-B” (according to NATO classification - “Shark”), capable of carrying long-range cruise missiles on board, allegedly remained undetected for a month in the Gulf of Mexico relatively close to the US coast, about which became known after the nuclear submarine left the area.
According to an Italian journalist, there may currently be two Russian nuclear submarines- one off the Pacific coast, the other off the Atlantic, off Cape Canaveral, where the Russian tugboat Nikolai Chiker and the reconnaissance ship Viktor Leonov were spotted. Most likely, these are not attack boats, but low-noise multi-purpose boats of Project 971 “Shchuka-B”, designed to combat enemy submarines and surface ships. They can also strike ground targets with high-precision Granat cruise missiles, which can be equipped with a nuclear charge.
Original taken from nordsky Pindos trolled
PROJECT 955 BOREY SSBN SURFACES IN LONG ISLAND STRAIT
Today's appearance of a Russian nuclear submarine a kilometer from Manhattan and the Statue of Liberty caused not only panic in the Pentagon, but breaking news releases and mortal horror that gripped all Americans without exception. Public opinion polls taken an hour after the Borei's ascent showed that frightened Americans, having felt an unpleasant chill from someone else's military presence in their home and having had time to examine the "Russian death machine" in every detail off their shores, demanded an immediate cessation of the campaign in Afghanistan, and also the curtailment of military preparations against Syria and Iran.
As it turned out, the US Navy simply missed the moment when the Borei submarine, also known as Project 955, surfaced within direct sight of the American coast. The vaunted US tracking systems did not record the movements of our submarine.
According to a representative of the Russian Ministry of Defense, the surfacing of our submarine in the immediate vicinity of New York and its entry into US territorial waters was “an absolutely ridiculous accident. The submarine’s navigational instruments failed and, in order to get its bearings, the commander of the submarine was forced to unmask himself and give the command to surface.” General base was extremely surprised when the commander attached photographs of the Statue of Liberty and strolling tourists on Manhattan Island to the radiogram reporting his location.
“We ask the Americans not to consider this a response to the regular appearance of US Navy submarines in the immediate vicinity of the borders of the territorial sea of the Russian Federation. It’s worth adding that we always record the appearance of American submarines, as well as their movements. But Americans, as it turned out, cannot always do this. And only a case helped us identify this,” the TV reporter’s interlocutor emphasized the word “case” with intonation.
Defense Department experts believe that the Americans simply do not have the ability to reliably track the movements of this class of submarines: “Although it was believed that the Americans had problems exclusively with tracking our titanium-hulled submarines (Project 945 Barracuda), it turns out that submarines with with a steel body they can easily miss,” a representative of the Russian Defense Ministry told an NTV correspondent. “We will continue to carry out combat duty off the coast of the United States, and we will not violate any international agreements.” And the incident that occurred is clean water an accident and should not be regarded as a provocation.”
The Americans' fears are understandable, and there are two reasons for this. Firstly, the surfacing of our submarine revealed gaps in the Pentagon's underwater tracking systems, which will not be so easy to eliminate. Secondly, Borei class submarines and their latest modifications can be equipped not only with Granat cruise missiles (the Americans call them SS-N-21 Sampson). Although they can easily fly not only to the shore, but also much further, to almost any large city USA. There is something to worry about. The most offensive thing for Americans is that international maritime law in such cases, Russia does not violate it and they are not able to prohibit us from conducting combat patrols. Our only hope is that we have few submarines of this class and, unfortunately, we will not be able to constantly get on the Pentagon’s nerves.
Independent international experts assure that the Americans will certainly draw conclusions that are beneficial to us: “US nuclear submarines conduct more patrols than the Russian, French, British and Chinese nuclear submarine fleets combined; they are frequent guests near your territorial waters. They really get on the nerves of Russians. Perhaps now they will act with an eye to the fact that your submariners can do a lot. Albeit “accidentally.” But here’s what’s characteristic: the pseudo-liberal Russian TV channels seem to have taken their fill of water and are unanimously silent about this obvious military success of the Russian Armed Forces. The only TV channel that was mentioned in detail in the news release was NTV, to which representatives of the Ministry of Defense gave interviews. The rest are bashfully silent. But what joy reigned upon them when the national team left Euro 2012! You begin to believe that indeed among our colleagues there are people who sincerely believe that “the worse for Russia, the better.”
Last week passed under the sign of “Pike”. And this is not a new astrological symbol at all, but a Russian Project 971 submarine, which NATO dubbed the “Shark”.
Initially, a number of media outlets reported that the Russian submarine Shchuka-B showed the inconsistency of American radars by spending, no less, almost a month in the waters of the Gulf of Mexico in close proximity to the shores of the United States of America. The American newspaper The Washington Free Beacon added fuel to the fire by publishing an article under the headline “Silent Move”, in which it told its readers that the US Navy “missed” the presence of a Russian nuclear submarine with long-range cruise missiles on board in close proximity to its shores. The American publication reports that radars noticed the submarine only at the moment when it had already turned on the speed and began to leave the area in which it was observing.
For some time, neither Russian nor American officials commented on this information in any way, and then suddenly, literally, as if from a cornucopia, official versions happened off the American coast. After some thought and searching possible options The representative of the American military department, Wendy Schneider, responded to the “presumptuous Russians.” By natural reasons Mrs. Schneider did everything to demonstrate to the world community that off the coast of the United States it was not the Russian “Pike” that was located at all, but a newspaper “duck”, which many took at face value... The Pentagon representative said that she did not understand at all what was reached The information is based on her and her boss, and in general such information simply cannot correspond to reality.
Well, really, what else could the Pentagon say about this? Did anyone really think that it would come out? official representative defense department of the most “protected” country in the world and will say that yes, they say, Russian submarines actively patrol our American shores and sometimes point their periscopes to see how the unquenchable light is burning in the windows of the White House or Leon Panetta’s personal office... Yes, if only with With such equanimity, the Pentagon allowed itself to speak, confirming the presence of Russian nuclear submarines in the immediate vicinity of the hospitable shores of the United States, then such a rustle would have arisen in the American Congress that Leon Panetta would have packed his bags tomorrow and ordered a taxi so as not to leave his place “ former job» (Pentagon buildings) on foot...
That is why Ms. Schneider expressed extreme surprise that some kind of Russian submarine, the design of which began in the mid-70s of the last century, could easily overcome the anti-submarine defense system and do its job off the coast of America for a whole month.
After Ms. Schneider’s speeches, Russian officials also had to get down to business. A representative of the Russian Ministry of Defense said that the reports coming from the American media regarding the discovery of a Russian submarine in the Gulf of Mexico cannot be called a sensation at all. Since the resumption of long-distance voyages, combat units of the Russian submarine fleet have been constantly on duty at various points in the world’s oceans. For obvious reasons, the Ministry of Defense is not going to announce the routes of such campaigns, and therefore in the news about the appearance Russian submarines There is nothing scandalous or reprehensible off the coast of any country.
From these words it is clear that the official Russian side indirectly confirms that the Shchuka-B could well have been on duty off the American coast, and if American radars detected it only at the final stage of duty, then that, as they say, is their problem.
By the way, there really can’t be any sensation in the fact that Russian submarines end up off the coast of the United States. As recently as 2009, the same Americans initially tried with enviable tenacity to prove that there were no nuclear submarines off the coast of the United States, although after a short time the Pentagon not only admitted the fact that submarines were located at a distance of about 320 km from the eastern coast of the United States, but also expressed concern about this fact. They say that Russian submarines, which have not appeared on our shores for 15 years, are now causing us concern. Immediately, words were heard about the “echo of the cold” war that the Russians continue in relation to the “most democratic” country in the world. You might think that American military submarines never go beyond their bases...
Today, too, the situation with the Russian “Pike-B” is more reminiscent of a performance in which the American side with enviable persistence shouts “I don’t believe it,” although it’s just once again speaks of the Pentagon as an organization trying to assure itself, US citizens, and, most importantly, congressmen that “everything is calm in Baghdad (that is, in Washington).”
But we can say that the Pentagon is really for Lately I've pretty much lost my sense of smell. After the activity of the Soviet submarine fleet died down, American anti-submarine systems off the coast of the United States began to gradually fall asleep. And now, even if a danger sign in the form of a Russian submarine appears on the radar, many people perceive this as nothing other than another colorful dream: they say, the Russians cannot come to our shores at such a close distance - sleep on, Johnny...
But at least one more point is connected with the appearance of a Russian submarine in the Gulf of Mexico. The fact is that it would be, oddly enough, even beneficial for the Pentagon itself if a couple more Russian Pike quietly approached American shores. The benefit may be as follows: Obama announced a reduction in the military budget, and this reduction is gradually beginning to become a reality. And this, first of all, could hit directly the department of Leon Panetta, who hardly wants to lose a significant share of complementary foods from the US budget. Therefore, the Russian nuclear submarine has already literally put Mr. Panetta at a dead end. On the one hand, he needs to justify himself, as they say, before the party and the people, declaring that “there were no Russians,” and on the other hand, he needs to loudly declare that there were Russians in order to extract a couple of tens of billions of dollars from the tight-fisted Obama in the form of additional funding for anti-submarine warfare. defense, which is literally chewed through by various “Pikes” and other underwater creatures from Russia.
In general, for Russia, whether Obama gives money to Panetta or not, whether the Pentagon recognizes the fact that a Russian submarine is in close proximity to its shores or does not recognize it, is not particularly important: in any case, it is necessary to continue to systematically carry out its work, giving the opportunity for the country's submarine fleet to gain momentum. After all, as you know, we have only two allies who never let us down...
In the fall of 1983, off the coast of the United States, in the Sargasso Sea, a multi-purpose Soviet nuclear submarine"K-324". American media published photographs of a boat lying adrift, with a partially exposed propeller. Everything happened at the height of the Cold War, so the Western media raised a loud cry about the mortal danger to the “free world”. The Soviet leadership remained silent, because At that time, I had no idea what had happened to the nuclear submarine, which was on combat duty. As it turned out later, the cause of the fuss was not the surfacing of the boat near the coast of the United States, but what was wound on the submarine’s propeller...
The nuclear submarine “K-324” pr.671-RTM, called “Victor-III” in NATO, was built in Komsomolsk-on-Amur and was the seventh in the series, was part of the Northern Fleet and carried out combat service tasks off the coast of the United States. At the time being described, the American Navy was testing the latest hydro-acoustic system (HAS) “TacTAS”, and it was the American frigate “McCloy”, equipped with this device, that the nuclear submarine entered. Information about the operating parameters of this state-of-the-art equipment was invaluable to Soviet science and the fleet. And K-324 succeeded for a long time to accompany a frigate engaged in testing the GAS, but also to find out some of the performance characteristics of the towed cable antenna. Moreover, during the tracking, we were lucky enough to identify some features of the interaction of the American frigate’s hydroacoustics with its submarines and other components of the American long-range hydroacoustic detection system.
This was luck and a rare success for the boat in combat service! Work with the frigate "McCloy" could have been continued, but it suddenly stopped testing and quickly left, and therefore the nuclear-powered ship received a command to change its sailing area. But at this moment an emergency happened.
At first glance, it seemed to everyone on board that the submarine’s main turbine had failed. As the speed increased, a strong vibration began in the stern; it became impossible to stand without holding the handrails. The main turbine was stopped, the ship was moving at depth due to the propulsion electric motors - in the turbine compartment the crew began to determine the causes of the incident. However, the reason lay elsewhere; it became clear only after the ascent.
At night, after inspecting the boat on the surface, it turned out that the reason for the loss of speed was not in the turbine, but in the fact that a “cable from a fishing net” was wound around the tail of the submarine - “something wound on the tail of the boat with a tight skein was holding the actions of the ship, forced the ship’s propulsion engines to work under unusual loads, and deprived the boat of maneuverability.” It was impossible to eliminate the interference in the dark. During the day, in the sunlight, they saw that it was not the cable from the nets that was hindering the movement of the submarine. On the tail of the submarine was wound a piece of an armored cable antenna of an American towed sonar - the same top-secret newest sonar.
After reporting the incident to fleet headquarters, the command ordered the antenna to be preserved at all costs and delivered to the base. It was not easy to do this - the boat was unable to move, and diving was also associated with danger. In addition, after surfacing, the nuclear submarine was discovered by US Navy patrol aircraft, and surface ships were not long in coming. The destroyers Peterson and Nicolson (Spruance class) arrived at the site of the submarine's ascent with the opposite task - by any means necessary to prevent the Russians from obtaining the secret antenna.
It later turned out that a 400-meter piece of cable antenna was hanging behind the stern of the boat. In addition, even antenna receivers were preserved on it, although some were partially destroyed, but one was completely preserved. It was a find!
The rescue ship Aldan was urgently sent to help K-324, but before its arrival the crew had to preserve at any cost, and if they could not save, then destroy the most valuable find.
For almost 10 days, high-speed US destroyers pursued the Soviet boat, which could move extremely slowly with the help of electric rowing motors. American destroyers repeatedly crossed the submarine's course and passed in close proximity. Towards the end of the protracted pursuit, the actions of the destroyers became especially dangerous and a decision was made to prepare the nuclear submarine for an explosion. K-324 was already ready to fall into the abyss at 5000 m and take all the secrets with it, but then Aldan came to the rescue and began towing the nuclear submarine to Cuba. The situation has calmed down, but American destroyers continued escorting all the way to Cuba.
After arriving in Cuba, the boat's damage was repaired and it returned to its home base. The valuable “catch” was immediately transferred for research.
The Russian multipurpose nuclear submarine Project 971 Shchuka-B (according to NATO reporting name – Akula), armed with cruise missiles, patrolled the waters off the US coast in the Gulf of Mexico for several weeks, remaining undetected. This information was disseminated by an American online publication in mid-August with reference to unnamed American officials. Underscoring the weakness of the US anti-submarine system, it is also reported that the submarine's presence near US territorial waters was only noticed after the boat had already left the area, causing serious concern among US officials. The correspondent of “Our Version” decided to recall the history of the confrontation between submarines.
So far, information about the presence of a Russian submarine near American shores has not been officially confirmed by either party, and it is possible that due to special secrecy, the information will not be available for a long time. But, according to experts, the success of Russian submariners is beneficial to both sides. Russia clearly demonstrates the unfading military power, and also questions the deployment of a missile defense system in Europe. For the US military, this incident is beneficial because it could influence plans to reduce America's defense spending by $487 billion over the next 10 years. The inability of the US Navy to track the Russian submarine indicates shortcomings in the work of American anti-submarine systems, the funding of which has just been cut.
It should be noted that this is not the first time that Russian warships have scared the American military. In 2009, two Pike were spotted off the US coast. And as the head of the analytical department of the Institute of Political and Military Analysis, Alexander Khramchikhin, told Our Version, being in neutral waters near the territory of other states is a common element of submariner combat training. No provocations are planned on long trips. The fact that the boat was discovered is very bad; in fact, it was a failure of the mission. There are American boats near Russian shores, and the fact that the Russian Navy has not been able to uncover a single one recently speaks volumes about the fact that the Americans are acting more professionally.
It should be noted that submarines were considered one of the most effective weapons in the Cold War. By spying on each other, submarine fleets created incredible psychological pressure, not allowing the enemy to feel safe even at their own berths. The scale of underwater warfare is impressive: over 30 years, there have been about 25 collisions between American and Soviet (then Russian) submarines only underwater, and this in the vast oceans of the World.
As a rule, incidents occurred during large exercises where submarines carried out combat launches. In addition, submarines conducted active reconnaissance activities on the approaches to enemy naval bases. The submarines solved many operational tasks: they monitored the movements of enemy submarines in the World Ocean, and were sent to collect information along the entire perimeter maritime border enemy.
Often, submarines boldly entered foreign territorial waters and even closed bays and water areas of naval bases in order to intercept information from coastal radars and telecommunications. In addition, they secretly collected fragments of military equipment and connected to communication lines. Moreover, the details of many operations carried out even several decades ago continue to be kept classified as “secret” even today.
But one of the episodes of confrontation involving a submarine, which literally brought the world to the brink of war, received wide publicity. In October 1962, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, four Soviet B-59 Project 641 diesel-electric submarines (NATO classification Foxtrot), loaded with nuclear-tipped torpedoes, patrolled off the coast of Cuba. On October 27, a group of 11 US Navy destroyers, led by the aircraft carrier USS Randolph, surrounded one of the boats. The submarine was fired upon by an American plane; according to the Soviet side, depth charges were also used against the submarine. The captain of the Soviet submarine panicked, decided that the war had already begun, and gave the command to prepare to launch a retaliatory atomic torpedo at American ships. The chief of staff of the 69th submarine brigade of the Northern Fleet, Vasily Arkhipov, who was the senior on board, convinced the commander not to do this, but to surface and wait for instructions from Moscow.
There were several tragicomic cases in the history of the Soviet Navy, one of which occurred with the Soviet medium torpedo diesel-electric submarine of Project 613 (according to NATO classification - Whiskey-I) on the night of October 27-28, 1981.
The submariners, making a routine training voyage in the Baltic Sea, lost their course and found themselves deep inside Swedish territory. Meanwhile, the “Swedish Komsomolets” - as the boat was later ironically nicknamed in the Baltic Fleet - did not plan to enter Swedish territorial waters. But a whole chain of circumstances happened that led to a major international scandal. First, due to damage to the fishing nets, the antenna of the Deka navigation system began to produce incorrect information. The boat's navigator failed to notice in time that the submarine had been moving on the wrong course for several days. As a result, the boat, which should have been hundreds of miles from the Scandinavian coast, landed on the rocks of the coastal sandbank of Bsela at the southeastern tip of Sweden, near the island of Turumsher, 2 kilometers from the secret NATO military base in Sweden. The peculiarity of the situation is that in order to reach the scene of the incident, the ship had to pass through several narrow artificial straits that were difficult to navigate. Moreover, by a strange coincidence, the time of the incident coincided with the testing of a new model of torpedoes at this base.
Another no less incidental incident occurred on February 29, 1996. During a NATO exercise, the K-448 Tambov submarine suddenly surfaced near a detachment of alliance ships. It turned out that one of her crew members needed urgent medical attention due to peritonitis that developed after surgery to remove the appendix. It is noteworthy that a Russian submarine monitored the exercises and even allegedly sank several ships. Despite this, the enemy entered into a situation - the sick submariner was taken to the British destroyer Glasgow, and from there he was sent by helicopter to the hospital.
By the way, the CIA’s most complex and successful operation is still considered the top-secret Ivy Bells project, which involved collecting information from Soviet underwater cable communication lines. This operation was carried out with the active use of submarines. It started in 1970. Then the CIA showed increased interest in information about the results of the launches of our intercontinental ballistic missiles, which hit targets at the Kamchatka training ground. The Khalibat submarine secretly entered Soviet territorial waters and hovered over the underwater cable that connected the city of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, located near the island of Karpinsky, the Kura missile range and the Krashenikovo submarine base with the mainland. Four deep-sea divers installed special equipment, and the submarine filmed top secret information for several days.
Further, the process of collecting information was improved. A stationary device, created on instructions from the CIA, was installed on the cable. This device, which received the characteristic name “Cocoon,” was capable of removing information from a cable without opening its outer casing.
This spy equipment embodied the latest achievements in radio-electronic technology of that time. By appearance it was a cylindrical container, in the tail part of which there was a nuclear power source that supplied electricity to the onboard radio-electronic systems. The electronic spy worked for a long time in autonomous mode and transmitted the accumulated information to the submarine entering the area.
Thus, the Americans stole classified information for a decade. It is still not known for certain how the wiretapping was discovered. According to one version, the device was discovered by repairmen who were looking for a broken cable accidentally touched by a fishing anchor, according to another - Soviet intelligence officers received information from their agent working on this project at the CIA.
According to experts, nuclear submarines did not stop entering combat service even after the collapse Soviet Union, although significantly reduced.