In the summer of 2023, the final restoration of the legendary nuclear-powered K-3 Leninsky Komsomol is underway on the territory of the Kronstadt tourist cluster "Island of Forts". By the end of the year, the boat should turn...
The nuclear-powered K-3 Leninsky Komsomol became one of the most ambitious projects of the Cold War. In terms of speed and armament, the Soviet submarine was supposed to surpass the American counterparts Nautilus and Seawolf.
Especially for the K-3 in the 1950s, a thermonuclear torpedo T-15 with a caliber of 1.5 m and a length of 23 m was designed, which, if necessary, was planned to strike back at a potential enemy - the United States. Later, due to the too large size, it was decided to abandon the Tsar torpedo. The main weapon of the Lenin Komsomol was 20 standard torpedoes of 533 mm caliber, including those with nuclear warheads.
Working on improving the speed characteristics, the designers made the first domestic nuclear-powered vessel similar in shape to the largest marine mammal, for which later sailors respectfully called it a "whale". The design, new for Soviet submarines, fully justified itself — during tests, the Soviet atomic "Whale" developed a speed of up to 30 knots (about 55 km / h) under water at full speed, while the American Nautilus could produce a maximum of 23 knots.
The firstborn of the Soviet nuclear fleet had many difficult trials. For many years in a row, the capabilities of nuclear submarines were tested on the K-3. Since the late 1950s, the boat has been on regular long-distance hikes, spent a lot of time under the ice of the Arctic Ocean. As the experience of scuba diving accumulated, the boat was repeatedly upgraded.
One of the main achievements of the crew of the Lenin Komsomol is considered to be a trip to the North Pole in July 1962. The sailors, led by commander Lev Zhiltsov, were given the task of passing under the ice to the very "top of the Earth" and surfacing there. During eight days of sailing, the boat passed 1,300 nautical miles under water and ice and surfaced three times near the North Pole.
K-3 went into combat service for almost three decades, having passed about 130 thousand during this time. miles. On October 17, 1987, she was decommissioned from the Navy.
In 1991, the boat was planned to be sent for scrap, but it was defended by sailors, historians and designers who managed to preserve the submarine at the Nerpa shipyard (located in the city of Snezhnogorsk, Murmansk region). In 2020, it became known that K-3 will be turned into a museum by the joint efforts of the Island of Forts project, the Russian Navy and the United Shipbuilding Corporation.
In the autumn of 2021, a unique engineering and transport operation was launched to transfer the Leninsky Komsomol from Snezhnogorsk to Kronstadt.
"At the first stage, the boat was moving along the route from the city Snezhnogorsk (SRZ "Nerpa") along the sea sections of the Barents and White Seas to the entrance to the White Sea-Baltic Canal. The second stage was transportation along the section of the White Sea Canal through the Onega and Ladoga Lakes, the Svir and Neva Rivers to the water area of JSC Severnaya Verf (Gulf of Finland). As a result of a special engineering and transport operation, K-3 was towed to Kronstadt," the materials of the Island of Forts project say.
At the next stage, according to the organizers of the K-3 transportation, a submarine the height of a five-story house drove through the streets of Kronstadt to the building of the Museum of Naval Glory. To clear the way for the nuclear "Whale", the city services had to temporarily dismantle more than 70 different structures (signs, lighting masts, traffic lights) and more than 800 meters of curbs.
Now K-3 is installed on the "Island of Forts" in a special indoor room. The boat is being prepared for display to the general public, restored from the outside and from the inside. Historians and veterans of the submarine fleet make sure that the submarine looks as authentic as possible. According to Igor Kurdin, captain of the first rank, member of the supervisory expert council for the creation of the Museum of Naval Glory in the Island of Forts cluster, specialists are faced with the task of recreating the situation inside the ship with precision to the smallest detail. Of particular value, says Kurdin, are the devices and interior details of the K-3 from private collections handed over to the restorers.
"The museum will be able to boast not only artifacts, it will be a modern interactive platform where naval relics will be side by side with innovative technologies. I hope that during the visit to K-3, young people will have a desire to learn more about submarines, perhaps some of them will decide to become submariners. It is important not only to preserve the memory of the boat and its crew, but also to attract young people to the underwater topic," Igor Kurdin said in an interview with TASS.
So far, according to the captain of the first rank, the opening of the K-3 Leninsky Komsomol museum is scheduled for the end of 2023.
Narodovolets and Soviet Whiskey
The center of the museum submarine flotilla is St. Petersburg. The museum based on the submarine D-2 (Narodovolets) was the first to appear in the Northern Capital in 1994. In total, there are three submarines in the project "D": "Decembrist", "Narodovolets" and "Krasnogvardeets", built at the Leningrad Baltic Plant and included in the Northern Military Flotilla of the USSR Navy in the early 1930s. Before the Great Patriotic War, the D-2 became famous for providing a transatlantic non-stop flight of Soviet pilot Vladimir Kokkinaki from the USSR to the USA.
In August 1941, the Narodovolets submarine as part of the Baltic Fleet participated in four combat campaigns, making 12 torpedo attacks and sending four enemy transports to the bottom.
After the end of the Great Patriotic War, the D-2 served in the Baltic for another 16 years. Then the armament was removed from it and converted into a training station for submariners. In 1989, the government decided to organize a memorial complex dedicated to the heroes of submariners, designers and shipbuilders on the basis of Narodovolets. Today, all the compartments of the submarine look exactly like during the Great Patriotic War.
Another museum submarine is moored at the berth of the Leningrad Naval Base on the embankment of Lieutenant Schmidt. S-189 (according to the NATO classification — Whiskey) is a diesel-electric submarine of Project 613. In total, 215 submarines of this type were built in the USSR, which submariners compared with Mosin rifles for reliability and reliability.
According to Nikolai Chernyshev, captain of the first rank of the reserve and director of the Submarine S-189 Museum, the main tasks of the submarine crews were torpedo strikes on enemy warships and vessels, laying mines, landing sabotage groups on the enemy coast. For 35 years as a member of the USSR Navy, S-189 participated in combat campaigns in the Atlantic and the Baltic Sea, as well as in testing new weapons at the Ladoga Lake landfills. Thanks to the submarine, thousands of sailors, petty officers, midshipmen and officers received the most valuable experience of scuba diving.
Today, the exposition on the boat continues to be replenished, attracting more and more tourists. According to statistics conducted by Captain-director Chernyshev, since the opening day (March 19, 2010), more than 130 thousand residents and guests of St. Petersburg have boarded the C-189.
Record B-413
In September 1973, the crew of the diesel-electric submarine of the Northern Fleet B-413 sailed into the Atlantic and returned to their native harbor only 392 days later. So a world record was set for swimming without changing the crew.
The record-breaking submarine of Project 641 (according to the NATO classification — Foxtrot) was laid down on June 28, 1968 at the Leningrad Admiralty Shipyards. B-413 and her classmates were built to replace the obsolete submarines of Project 613.
Today, the B-413 submarine is one of the most popular exhibits The Museum of the World Ocean in Kaliningrad. Since its opening in September 1999, the submarine has been visited by several million people. Since 2016, the boat has been consistently ranked among the top ten museums in Russia.
For inspection on the B-413, which was considered secret in the Soviet Union, seven compartments are available, including the torpedo. You can also look into the cabins of the commander and officers, the mess, the sonar cabin and the galley.
"Romeo" with a nuclear "double-barreled shotgun"
In the autumn of 2021, the Balaklava Underground Museum, located in the bowels of Mount Tavros, was replenished with a unique exhibit — the diesel-electric submarine S-49 of the 633RV project (according to the NATO classification — Romeo). The experimental submarine was nicknamed "double-barreled" for the unusual design of the bow, in which two 650 mm torpedo tubes were placed. This design is due to the fact that in those years a unique weapon was tested on the S-49 — anti-submarine solid-fuel rocket torpedoes "Waterfall" and "Wind" (developed to destroy high-speed enemy submarines).
The world's first successful launch of rocket torpedoes took place in December 1972 from a 50-meter depth. Then, with the help of the S-49, 24 more tests were carried out, the last of which was a successful launch from a 240-meter depth. The results of the work done by Soviet scientists and submariners were later used in the creation of missile systems for Project 671 boats — the fastest and most armed domestic submarines of the Cold War.
Prepared by Vasily Kuchushev
TASS thanks the St. Petersburg Club of Submariners and Navy Veterans for their help in creating the material
