maximus otter
Recovering policeman
- Joined
- Aug 9, 2001
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OFF THE COAST OF NORWAY — There could hardly have been a more terrifying place to fight a fire than in the belly of the Losharik, a mysterious deep-diving Russian submarine.
Something, it appears, had gone terribly wrong in the battery compartment as the sub made its way through Russian waters 250 miles north of the Arctic Circle on the First of July.
A fire on any submarine may be a mariner’s worst nightmare, but a fire on the Losharik was a threat of another order altogether. The vessel is able to dive far deeper than almost any other sub, but the feats of engineering that allow it do so may have helped seal the fate of the 14 sailors killed in the disaster.
The only thing more mysterious than what exactly went wrong that day is what the sub was doing in a thousand feet of water just 60 nautical miles east of Norway in the first place.
The extraordinary incident may offer yet another clue to Russia’s military ambitions in the deep sea, and how they figure into a plan to leverage Arctic naval power to achieve its strategic goals around the globe — including the ability to choke off vital international communication channels at will.
To understand why these men may have found themselves on a submarine that can dive to perhaps 20,000 feet — more than 10 times deeper than crewed American subs are believed to operate — consider what crisscrosses the floor of the North Atlantic: endless miles of fiber-optic cables that carry a large fraction of the world’s internet traffic, including trillions of dollars in financial transactions. There are also cables linking the sonar listening devices that litter the ocean floor.
No matter where in the world a conflict might be brewing, cutting those undersea cable...might force an adversary to think twice before risking an escalation of the dispute.
Not just any submarine can do that — at least, not across nearly the entire expanse of the sea bottom. But the Losharik is not just any submarine. Its inner hull is thought to consist of a series of titanium spheres holding the control room, the bunks, the nuclear reactor and other equipment. Its name, it appears, was taken from an old Russian cartoon character, a horse assembled from small spheres:
Losharik
Russian generals, for example, speak openly of sowing chaos in the government financial system of an adversary, Professor Zysk said, and disrupting seabed cables “would certainly fit into the objective.”
A 2017 report by Policy Exchange, a research and educational institute in the United Kingdom, found that seabed cables carry 97 percent of the data in communications globally, including roughly $10 trillion in financial transactions a day. The cables are largely unprotected and easy to find. As recently as a few years ago, American military and intelligence officials reported that Russian submarines had often been operating near them.
As for the accident itself, few expressed surprise that a jewel of the Russian submarine fleet might catch fire not very far from its home base — probably in water no more than 1,000 feet deep — leaving most of its crew dead. The Russians, some experts said, seem to have a greater tolerance for risk than the West.
John Pike, director of the think tank GlobalSecurity.org, said the Losharik fire suggested that the Russian military was still contending with some longstanding issues: corrupt contractors, and problems with quality control in manufacturing, spare parts supply chains and maintenance. “I assume that every other sub in the Russian fleet has similar problems,” Mr. Pike said. “I just think the whole thing is held together with a lot of baling wire and spit.”
The best public view of the sub came a few years later, in 2015, when it surfaced during a photo shoot of a Mercedes S.U.V. by the Russian edition of “Top Gear.”
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/worl...nd-russias-secret-undersea-agenda/ar-BB12VBAD
Wikipedia entry on Losharik.
maximus otter
Something, it appears, had gone terribly wrong in the battery compartment as the sub made its way through Russian waters 250 miles north of the Arctic Circle on the First of July.
A fire on any submarine may be a mariner’s worst nightmare, but a fire on the Losharik was a threat of another order altogether. The vessel is able to dive far deeper than almost any other sub, but the feats of engineering that allow it do so may have helped seal the fate of the 14 sailors killed in the disaster.
The only thing more mysterious than what exactly went wrong that day is what the sub was doing in a thousand feet of water just 60 nautical miles east of Norway in the first place.
The extraordinary incident may offer yet another clue to Russia’s military ambitions in the deep sea, and how they figure into a plan to leverage Arctic naval power to achieve its strategic goals around the globe — including the ability to choke off vital international communication channels at will.
To understand why these men may have found themselves on a submarine that can dive to perhaps 20,000 feet — more than 10 times deeper than crewed American subs are believed to operate — consider what crisscrosses the floor of the North Atlantic: endless miles of fiber-optic cables that carry a large fraction of the world’s internet traffic, including trillions of dollars in financial transactions. There are also cables linking the sonar listening devices that litter the ocean floor.
No matter where in the world a conflict might be brewing, cutting those undersea cable...might force an adversary to think twice before risking an escalation of the dispute.
Not just any submarine can do that — at least, not across nearly the entire expanse of the sea bottom. But the Losharik is not just any submarine. Its inner hull is thought to consist of a series of titanium spheres holding the control room, the bunks, the nuclear reactor and other equipment. Its name, it appears, was taken from an old Russian cartoon character, a horse assembled from small spheres:
Losharik
Russian generals, for example, speak openly of sowing chaos in the government financial system of an adversary, Professor Zysk said, and disrupting seabed cables “would certainly fit into the objective.”
A 2017 report by Policy Exchange, a research and educational institute in the United Kingdom, found that seabed cables carry 97 percent of the data in communications globally, including roughly $10 trillion in financial transactions a day. The cables are largely unprotected and easy to find. As recently as a few years ago, American military and intelligence officials reported that Russian submarines had often been operating near them.
As for the accident itself, few expressed surprise that a jewel of the Russian submarine fleet might catch fire not very far from its home base — probably in water no more than 1,000 feet deep — leaving most of its crew dead. The Russians, some experts said, seem to have a greater tolerance for risk than the West.
John Pike, director of the think tank GlobalSecurity.org, said the Losharik fire suggested that the Russian military was still contending with some longstanding issues: corrupt contractors, and problems with quality control in manufacturing, spare parts supply chains and maintenance. “I assume that every other sub in the Russian fleet has similar problems,” Mr. Pike said. “I just think the whole thing is held together with a lot of baling wire and spit.”
The best public view of the sub came a few years later, in 2015, when it surfaced during a photo shoot of a Mercedes S.U.V. by the Russian edition of “Top Gear.”
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/worl...nd-russias-secret-undersea-agenda/ar-BB12VBAD
Wikipedia entry on Losharik.
maximus otter
