This is an English language version of the article in Dossiers du BIP n° 69, (August) that has just come out. The Kursk - K141 On Saturday 12th of August 2000, at 11h30 a.m., within Russian territorial waters, the nuclear submarine K-141, was struck on the side by 8000 to 10000 ton “underwater object” and moving at the speed of approximately 10 knots. It proved not possible to save the 118 man crew. The K-141, the Kursk, 18.000 tons, was the most recent nuclear submarine in the world. On Saturday the 12th of August, the Northern Fleet, commanded by Admiral Vyacheslav Popov, was carrying on exercises in the Barents Sea. In these exercises the Kursk had a double mission, it had to launch a missile and later on to seek the Fleet and attack its main target with a torpedo. The first part of this exercise was successfully completed and the Commander of the Kursk duly notified the Fleet Command. The second phase, the torpedo attack, also had to be notified, by 18h00, at the latest. The notification not having been received, Fleet Command ordered the Kursk to specify its position and actions. The rule is that the reply should have come within four hours, but this did not happen. At 10 p.m., therefore, Admiral Popov gave orders to prepare for possible rescue operations. The shock At 11h30, on the 12th of August, according to NATO reports, two, and according to Russian ones, three1, massive shocks were registered by the hydroacoustic instruments of flagship Peter the Great. The first (1,5 bal.) corresponds to the collision, the second (3,5 bal.), 2’12” later, corresponds to the Kursk hitting the seabed.... and the third (or was it the second?...). On the 13th of August, immediately after the discovery, found floating on the surface, 330 metres away from the Kursk, were a “fragment of the fence of the deck cabin of a submarine” and one or several rescue buoys. Judging by their colours and construction, they were obviously of British make. Later on, according to different versions, the rescue-buoys and the “fragment” sunk, or else, taken away by a strong sea-current, or else still, recovered by the crew of the Peter the Great... The presence of the “fragment” of the fence of a deck cabin suggests that in the collision, the Kursk was situated above, and the other submarine (to whom belonged the deck cabin fragment) below. Another element reinforcing this thesis is that the periscope of the Kursk was in an out position, which suggests that the Kursk was immersed only at periscope depth. We otherwise know that there were at least three or four NATO submarines in the area: two U.S., one British and very probably the Norwegian spy submarine “Marjatta”. One of them, at least, was in the vicinity o the Kursk. It is very clear also, according to submarine officers, that submarine surveillance work to be effective has to be done not at a distance of 200 km (as the US are pretending) but as close as one kilometre and often much less, from the observed submarine. It is confirmed that the Kursk did not fire any torpedoes, and that the ones it carried were meant for exercises, in other words they were not real torpedoes. The Russian navy, just like any other navy, takes all the commonly used measures to avoid the risk of firing real live war torpedoes on it’s own ships! The rescue All the efforts to fix the rescue device on the wrecked submarine failed because it was twisted, the underwater currents were very powerful and also because of the bad weather. Under these conditions, all efforts, whether Russian or British were bound to fail. The British mini submarine, the LR-5, had never been used in real rescue operations. The Norwegian divers also, had only participated in submarine rescue exercises, and had only real experience in the construction and the repair of oil platforms in the North Sea. To the great displeasure of the British, their rescue submarine and its mother-ship, the HMS Norman Pioneer, were “forbidden to approach”. They had to remain at a distance of several kilometres from the scene of the disaster. Subsequently, the British were not invited to pursue their efforts and were “thanked”, while the Norwegians were invited to stay. The curious insistence by the British to be invited, must be underlined. Also must be noted the it was the Norwegian rescuers, and not the Russians who confirmed that the British with their mini sub had nothing to do and could do nothing at the crash scene. That is unless the British were prepared to risk their lives, which, obviously, they weren’t. A curious reply to a quite simple question Replying to the question why Russian military ships were unable to find the object that had given the Kursk the fatal blow, V. Navrotsky, from the Headquarters of the Russian Northern fleet, said that “it was much smaller and much more mobile than the Kursk”. He does not quite reply to the question - as if by “Russian military ships” was meant the Kursk and compares the relative sizes and speeds of the two vessels, as if there had been some kind of confrontation between them. Interview with Charles Robinson, retired submariner (Daily Telegraph, 20.8.00) “The problem is that the conditions [of pursuing Russian submarines for NATO] are very limited. The main danger is collision. Several submarines are moving around each other in a very limited space? That’s how collisions happen” The object is not only to seek information but also to verify the opponent’s capacity to respond. Interview with Vice-Admiral Anatoly Tikhonovitch Shtyrov (Krasnaya Zvezda, 22.08.00) Q. - Anatoly Tikhonovich, doesn't this story with Kursk remind you another tragedy - with the submarine K-129 back in 1968? A.T.Sh. - Not only it reminds me - I was simply struck by the similarity of the scenarios of both these tragedies. [...] Look for yourself: several days later after the disappearance in the North Pacific of our submarine a US submarine (the USS Swordfish) comes into the Japanese port of Yokosuka with a badly damaged fence of the deck cabin. They make "plastic surgery" on it virtually immediately after arrival, it returns back to its base and disappears from sight for a year and a half. [...] Its crew had to sign an undertaking to keep silent on what happened.[...] Concerning the distance between vessels A.T.Sh. - [...] In reality - and that can be confirmed by any commander who has sailed the Atlantic, - the distance between submarines in such situations is often less than one km. Moreover, some foreign commanders consider that the best "show-off", to impress their crew and their bosses is to "dive" under the targeted submarine. This "show-off" could have cost life of the K-129 and also most probably that of the K-219 in 1986, when the US nuclear submarine USS Augusta was "fooling around" in the sea. This case is reported in the recent US documentary book In Hostile Waters by Cpt. Peter Huchthausen and officers R. Alan White and Igor Kudrin... Q. - Anatoly Tikhonovich, I expect questions of the sort "didn't our submarines, our people hear that they are being followed"? Why couldn't they step aside or prevent the collision in some way? A.T.Sh. - Imagine two aeroplanes without lights in the pilots’ cabins. They follow each other blindly. The pilots of the first plane only suspect that they are followed, but they cannot hear the other plane because of the noise their own motor is creating. In order to hear it they would have to step aside quickly and unexpectedly. How would such a manoeuvre end up? All submarine commanders (Russian or US) have to, from time to time, shift aside from their normal course, just to listen around for sounds that are normally inaudible because of the noise of their own motor. The submarine that follows, is incapable of foreseeing such a manoeuvre. The distance between the two vessels isn't that big - the speed is about 15-20 knots (30-40 km/h). There are no breaks under water. Both "the hunter" and "the target" are not turning on their hydrolocators so as not to reveal their presence. Under such conditions the collisions do occur... Q.- But how did it survive while ours sank? A.T.Sh. - Did you try to strike two Easter eggs together? If you will hit with the end of the onto the side of the other, you will break it for sure. It is the same with the submarines. The nose is much more solid than the sides. Moreover - the Kursk was struck at its most vulnerable place, between the torpedo compartment and that of the living quarters. It is important to remind here that all previous collisions between Soviet/Russian submarines and US submarines, have happened in precisely this way - by a hit on the side”[...]. On the 17th of August the US submarine, the USS Memphis, arrived in the Norwegian port of Bergen for repairs. This reminds of the USS Swordfish in 1968.... unless, this is just another trick, and is acting as a decoy to cover another submarine... Accident or an act of war? What happened is extremely serious. On the 12th of August Putin talked for about 25 minutes on the telephone with Clinton. Russian newspapers talked for several days on the danger of a Third World War. Was it an accident, or else, much more than a provocation, an act of war? In any case, it appears more and more clearly that the media-war has begun, and that we are observing a campaign to prepare the peoples’ minds for the next war - a much more important one and on a much wider front than that of Yugoslavia. The original documents, on the basis of which this article was written, have already been sent several days ago, by Internet, to the French mass-media. Some of the information contained, has started to dribble through - now that the lies, omissions and distortions, have been exploited to the full, both in emotionaly and length of time. Alexander MOUMBARIS 1. According to a United States journalist, George Szamuely (see Antiwar.com, 24 August), .... “the Russian Minister of Defence Igor Sergueyev has asserted that shortly after the Kursk went down, men on two Russian ships, had detected signs of a large underwater object in the vicinity, about the same size as the Russian submarine. Moreover, at the same time the Russians observed a signal buoy of the type Western fleets use to send emergency messages by satellite to their command bases.” 2. In 1968, concerning the same ship, the USS Swordfish, at the port of Sasebo in Japan, it was said that there was a leak of radioactive cooling water. The demonstrations that followed resulted in a warning by the then Japanese Prime minister, Eisaku Sate, to the United States has that their ships will no longer be admitted to Japanese harbours unless they answer to security standards. ---------------------- With a big thanks to our comrade Irina for the sources and the translation from Russian into English that made this article possible -- Les "Editions Democrite" publient un mensuel en francais : > "Les dossiers du BIP" avec des traductions d'articles provenant de la > presse communiste(grecque, allemande, anglaise, turque, russe, espagnole, > portugaise...)sur des evenements qui interessent des lecteurs communistes. > Editions Democrite, 52, bld Roger Salengro, 93190 LIVRY-GARGAN, FRANCE > e-mail : [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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