Wednesday, October 1, 2008

Nuclear Sharks

NUCLEAR SHARKS I - Final Mission 5 Videos
(Play All Videos - Youtube.com)
The History Channel Documentary



'Under way on nuclear power.' These historic words are spoken on January 17, 1955 by Hyman G. Rickover from the bridge of the world's first nuclear submarine, the USS Nautilus. The Nautilus owes her existence to Rickover, a brilliant, uncompromising Admiral in the US Navy with a totally original idea: the nuclear submarine. Without Rickover, the nuclear submarine would not have existed for at least another decade; without Rickover, the Cold War would not have escalated into a battle waged not on land, but in the silent deep.

The Soviet Union is years behind the United States in nuclear submarine development. The United States will reach the North Pole in a nuclear submarine before the Russians have even mastered their own design. But by 1960, the submarine gap between the superpowers is closing. And both sides have decided to make them the ultimate weapon of the Cold War.

The launch of Sputnik in 1957 is a wake-up call to the United States on Soviet missile technology. If Russia can put a satellite in space, everyone knows they could as easily launch a nuclear missile at the US. And so, by the late 1950s, both US and Soviet submarine strategists are determined to combine nuclear submarine technology with missile technology - the submarine to reach the enemy's back-yard, the missile to blow up the house. The world will never be the same. By the mid-1960s, American and Soviet submarines are stalking each other, a stealthy and hostile game of cat and mouse. The Navy has a complex network of undersea microphones called SOSUS, used to detect the comings and goings of Soviet submarines. New strategies; new technologies; a new kind of war.

NUCLEAR SHARKS II - Cuban Missile Crisis: Secret Submarines 5 Videos
(Play All Videos-Youtube.com)
The History Channel Documentary


On October 1, 1962 four Russian Foxtrot submarines slip silently from their northern base near Murmansk on a top secret mission. Bound for Cuba, each carries a nuclear tipped torpedo capable of blowing up an entire aircraft carrier group. If attacked, the commanders have been told to fire their nuclear arsenal.

The Foxtrots leave on a mission to set up a base in Cuba. By the time they arrive they sail into a massive American military blockade that will bring the world to the edge of nuclear war.

This is the story only touched upon in the Hollywood blockbuster film Thirteen Days. The untold story of the underwater siege, with four submarines at the front line of a nuclear standoff. It's a tale that takes you inside the heads of the Soviet submariners and their US Navy counterparts in an eyeball to eyeball confrontation.

Eric
TheSubReport.com

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Eric:
Lived through the Cuban Missile Crisis in the Pacific when we were part of Operation Dominic at Johnson Atoll.....here we were actively shooting up USAF Thor missiles with small nuke warheads for testing purposes when on the other side of the globe, we now know the nukes were on the Foxtrots.....Glads we never had to compare notes and the whole episode ended peacefully (kinda).