K-19 Widowmaker

[T0J0]

K-19 Widowmaker I saw last night for the first time, I had fricken nightmares all night after the reactor scenes...
 Was the real story as gruesome as the hollywood version?


T0J0

[fd ski]

prabably more so.

Pretty good movie i though. They called the ship "Hiroshima" following that incident i believe.

[Ripsnort]

Within days eight veterans of K-19’s inaugural mission died of radiation poisoning. Fourteen more died within two years. The remaining 117 suffered varying degrees of radiation-related illness.



I'm sure Boroda will be along shortly to tell us the non-propagandized side of the story.

[Dune]

How do you tell if someone was a sailor in the Soviet Black Sea fleet?  They glow in the dark.

- old joke told to me by a friend stationed on boomers.

[flakbait]

Yup, they nicknamed the sub Hiroshima after that incident. Blind Man's Bluff has some info about it that wasn't covered in the movie (saw it in the theaters). The original eight men into the reactor compartment died before the week was out. All were burried in lead coffins to keep the radiation down. Captain Yuri Posetiev lasted three weeks before expiring. People who got too close to the aft bulkhead lasted longer, ranging from a month to two years, before passing on. Ivan Kulakov volunteered to jurry-rig the jurry-rig and rework some of the plumbing. He went back inside the reactor twice to repair the repairs, and actually lived longer than most of his shipmates; though he was crippled for life from severe steam and radiation burns. If you haven't seen the movie, K-19 was never given a complement of radiation suits. Only chemical suits were onboard; think primative Hazmat suit.

The K-19's first disaster happened in the summer of 1961. In 1969 she had an underwater fender-bender with the USS Gato that knocked out the forward sonar dome and crushed the outer torpedo tube doors. In 1972 a fire broke out and killed 26 of her crew 600 miles off Newfoundland. Another dozen survived in an aft compartment for 23 days while she limped home.




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Flakbait [Delta6]
Delta Six's Flight School
Put the P-61B in Aces High

[Boroda]

The real name of first K-19 commander was N.V. Zateyev.

The worst thing about the film is that Russians never smile there.

A drunk officer at the reactor watch is a nonsence.

Sailors showing naked butts to US chopper is a nonsence too. It's too much for political department. The whole crew must be Party members or at least in Comsomol (Young Communists).

The situation when political officer tries to arrest commander is a complete nonsence. It's simply impossible. Commander has the right to shoot the bastard immediately.

Former K-19 sailors and officers who consulted the film-makers made a communique, stating that the whole film is a fiction story, and the whole conflict was sucked out of the finger. They simply performed their duty and followed orders and regulations.

OTOH, without this conflict the film could become just a boring story full of technical details, looking like Soviet movie about constant heroism of our seamen...

In one of the first scenes in Navy HQ Ford is wearing a modern Russian sub commander pin, with Russian tricolor...

I doubt that sub crew wore everyday uniform in the sea, they usually wear more comfortable "working robes".

[Ripsnort]

Welcome to Hollywood, Boroda.

[Boroda]

Originally posted by Ripsnort
Welcome to Hollywood, Boroda.

I didn't expect anything like Das Boot, and it was better then Soviet films like "Commader of a lucky "pike-fish"".

In fact it was maybe the best thing Hollywood can make about Soviet servicemen. Stereotypes. Like in many Soviet/Russian films an American officer must be a neurotic Vietnam vet with some psychological problems...

I just tried to point at obvious nonsence, that perfectly fits into Western stereotypes about Soviet army and navy.

The honorable title of the worst movie about Soviet army pretending to be "serious and historically accurate" belongs to "Enemy at the Gates".

[Martlet]

Originally posted by Boroda

Sailors showing naked butts to US chopper is a nonsence too. It's too much for political department. The whole crew must be Party members or at least in Comsomol (Young Communists).

I'm not sure if you're saying that didn't happen on that sub, or on subs in general.   I've SEEN it myself on subs more than once.

[Boroda]

Originally posted by Martlet
I'm not sure if you're saying that didn't happen on that sub, or on subs in general.   I've SEEN it myself on subs more than once.

You mean you saw surfaced Soviet subs with crew on deck more then once from US chopper?

[Martlet]

Originally posted by Boroda
You mean you saw surfaced Soviet subs with crew on deck more then once from US chopper?

Only once was it a Soviet sub.  The other two times I've been mooned from a sub, they were both British.

[Nefarious]

My dad was on the Kitty Hawk in 84 when it ran over a Russian Viktor Class Submarine in the Sea of Japan, It caused massive damage to the Submarine and it was beleived to be carrying at least 14 Nuclear weapons. Fortunatley, the Sub managed to return to Russia I beleive. Boroda could you shed some more light on this?

I have the T-Shirt.

It is priceless, It has the "Tomcat" (the F14 mascot) leaning over the Kitty Hawk, directly below it in the water is the Viktor, Cut in two.

"We don't brake for Russian Subs"

[T0J0]

Borodo
 I didn't really pay to much attention to the stereo typing.
 My impression was they looked similar to what any other navies
 sub crew would have been like.. If anything the film portrayed
 a sense of duty to crew and country that was admirable.. If thats stereotyping then I could think of worse issues
 If that had been an American sub would the crew have gone into the reactor with chemical suits on knowing they were going to die.. That question had crossed my mind!
 I only have known one person who served on a Boomer, He wouldn't ever talk about it even when drinking large amounts of beer...
T0J0

[Boroda]

Originally posted by Nefarious
My dad was on the Kitty Hawk in 84 when it ran over a Russian Viktor Class Submarine in the Sea of Japan, It caused massive damage to the Submarine and it was beleived to be carrying at least 14 Nuclear weapons. Fortunatley, the Sub managed to return to Russia I beleive. Boroda could you shed some more light on this?

I have the T-Shirt.

It is priceless, It has the "Tomcat" (the F14 mascot) leaning over the Kitty Hawk, directly below it in the water is the Viktor, Cut in two.

"We don't brake for Russian Subs"

It happened on March, 21 1984, the boat was K-314, commander - A.M. Yevseyenko. Together with big anti-submarine vessel "Vladivostok" it was observing the maneuvers of CV battlegroup of "Kitty Hawk" and 7 other ships. Surfacing to check the situation it's stern hit the Kitty Hawk's bottom, tearing it apart for about almost 40 meters. American maneuvers were abandoned, and a CV crawled to the port, losing fuel through the hole. K-314 lost it's propeller skrew and was towed to Chazhma base.

Source: http://www.submarina.ru/sub.php?671

K-314 was indeed one of the three Viktor-1 (project 671 "Yorsh", "Ruff" in English) class subs equipped with "Vyuga" missile-torpedoes, capable of carying nuclear warheads.

Martlet, I'll talk to some former submariners, but maybe you confused Soviet sub for, hmm, French? Looks like you don't see much difference, eh?

[Martlet]

Originally posted by Boroda
Martlet, I'll talk to some former submariners, but maybe you confused Soviet sub for, hmm, French? Looks like you don't see much difference, eh?

I'll admit it's easy to confuse French subs with Russian.  Both smell horribly and are usually found well off course.