I suppose if one has to die on a submarine due to an accident, going so fast that you're still mid-sentence reading a book would be far better than a slow dive into the depths waiting for the end. Another solid video, thank you.
I'd prefer having forewarning as I'd have time to sort out my thoughts, accept my death and perhaps write out a will. I'm more scared of dying in my sleep.
@@Edax_Royeaux You'd likely want to make your will well before. Like as soon as you have assets that you want to go to specific people then you should make a will, you can always amend it in the future.
If I'm not mistaken, the Soviet sailor's body that was recovered was given a formal burial at sea with military honors and the event was videotaped. The video was given to the Russians later during the Regan administration as a gesture of friendship and respect.
@@INGR1D Thank you for your comment. As an American, I have always hoped that people of different political ideologies could first view each other as fellow human beings, deserving of compassion and respect.
Imagine if Trump did that. Now imagine the propping up if Biden did it by accident. There's a clip of a high ranking KGB officer that defected in the 80s that laid out our downfall and here we are.
If you haven’t read it before, I very highly recommend reading the book ‘Blind Man’s Bluff’. It’s one of my absolute favorites about submarine espionage during the Cold War and has chapters that cover everything from the K-129 and project Azorian to the USS Scorpion and the role of the Halibut.
And a good fallow on book “The silent war” by john p craven talks in depth about This event but you have to read between the lines so to speak since it was such a highly classified project. The book is a fantastic read .
I'm the one Army guy in a family of Navy sailors - grandpas, dad, uncles, cousins - even my son. Me? I was drafted for Vietnam. Anyway, I've been reading military data for years - sooo boring. But you're a GREAT narrator, a story teller. You turn boring military reports into mystery cliff hangers. You also have extensive "at sea" time backing you up. You are a treat to follow and at 76, I'm a tough guy to entertain. Thank you for all your impressive efforts - keep telling us the 'haps' (an Army term, you wouldn't understand).
I like how he says the Russians are super secret for some reason then goes on to talk about how America secretly builds a structure to steal Russias submarine.
Andre, you've lost another submarine? The Amur river has to be continually dredged to allow ships and subs built there to make it down river. It is the old story of "You can dredge it up or you can't take it out." Mooring stern first is called "Med moored" since it is common for ships in the Mediterranean due to lack of quay side space. You usually drop an anchor and then reverse to the quay. The tension of the anchor chain holds the stern off the quay but doesn't put undue stress on the mooring lines. I did this in Livorno Italy in the early 80s.
I would love to hear a sub-brief on Project Azorian! Even knowing what kind of advances we've made in machining and undersea exploration, the ability to go down and retrieve ever a part of K-129 is incredible to me.
USS Halibut was originally designed to carry the Regulus II strategic cruise missile. When Regulus II was eliminated, the submarine was then modified to be a dedicated intelligence gathering platform.
Well, we’re talking about the folks that were ok with losing 5% to casualties during army maneuvers. I’ll never forgot the Soviet Ukrainian Colonel telling my dad, around 1993, something like “you Americans, if you’re too afraid to have soldiers die in training, how can you expect to fight a war”. Different mindset. Same folks at Baskin Robbins: “you have THIRTY ONE flavors? How did you do this? We have white vanilla and painted dark vanilla, we call it chocolate”. Even their ice cream was faked. He and Dad traded stories and old service gear, I have his Soviet dress blouse and a couple Soviet sub service wrist watches.
The cover story given at the time was the Explorer was looking for manganese nodules, for deep sea mining as there were Soviet subs & ships in the area watching them
Project Azorian by itself is such an amazing feat of covert magnificence. Even years down the line tech from that project helpt leap forward offshore capabilities. Not to mention the produced HBM-1 ‘barge’ to house the submarine after it was taken, was later used as a covert base for the Sea Shadow.
@@Dave5843-d9m When an operation is successful overall, little attention gets paid to the errors made in the course of the event after the fact which is a pretty destructive tendancy in the longterm. Inconsequential failures for one operation can be disastrous in another operation if steps aren't taken to learn from "successful mistakes."
I'm sorry, but I can't help but laugh a little every time I hear 'Kamchatka" because some kind of mishap is bound to ensue at some point. I blame Drachinifel for that.
If you haven't done so yet, recommend you do a briefing on the USS Bonefish disaster. A battery related fire with loss of life and loss of ship. When I reported to work at NAVSEA in the SUBSAFE office in 1987, I was tasked with tracking the outstanding corrective actions from the NAVSAFCEN review.
Also my college algebra teacher was the XO onboard the Halibut at this time. He's the one that convinced me to join the navy and go subs. Unfortunately I went nuke and didn't really enjoy my service. If I had to do it over again I definitely would have been a coner - most likely a sonar tech so I would have had some idea what we were actually doing.
Those brave sailors died doing what they loved. I wish them the best wherever they are now. I think it's really respectable that you treat all submariners as humans, despite the fact that these men would have been your "adversaries" during your service. I think that's the sign of a good fella - the ability to acknowledge we're all human, and we are in many ways living the same experiences, just in different places, with difference cultures.
My reading of things even going back to WWII: Countries have political and military ambitions. Soldiers and sailors fight for their countries, but mainly just try to survive. The sea, above everything else, is ALWAYS trying to kill a sailor. Sailors in ships fight enemy ships. Once that enemy ship is down, you rescue the sailors if at all possible without risking your own. THAT is the law of the sea for sailors of all nations. After all, that could be you in the water. An interesting narrative discussion on this is in the novels 'Run Silent, Run Deep' and the follow-up 'Dust on the Sea' in which Capt Richardson continues to question the morality of his actions to end the life of Bungo Pete. No one blames him or questions his actions under the circumstances, but he continues to hate himself for breaking the sailor's code, even if it was for the sake of his service and fellow sailors.
I did some inspection work for a client and the other two witnesses were former submariners. One Russian and the other Royal Navy. Lovely to watch them “dancing” around each other for the duration of the contract.😊
About 1974-75, I saw the Glomar Explorer anchored off of the West side of Catalina Island. I’m not sure if this was pre or post mission to raise the K-129.
You may want to check out the fascinating and well written book, "Red Star Rogue" for a more controversial account of this tragic story. One of the claims made was that satellite photography shows a heat plume in the area indicative of the boat suffering an explosion while on the surface. Further, a sailors body was discovered on the sea bed wearing the Soviet surface coat and was evidentially on the bridge when the explosion occurred. I won't say any more, but some here may want to check out the book.
In the US NAVY, that form of mooring was known as "MED MOORING", and American surface ships generally had to do this in the port of Naples, Italy [during the Cold War], for example.
I love the K-129 saga. I think I’ve read every book I can find on it. Including the one you showed. Excellent book. There’s also a great book on The Halibut. Can’t recall the name.
Lead-Acid battery explosion is a consequence of flooding and sinking, but may not be the cuase of initial flooding leading to sinking. Meaning that in any case when sub sinks, seawater will get to battery compartment, that will cause explosion .
Given the K129 was in 16,000 ft of water and I KNOW the test depth of Halibut was nowhere even close to that, how did they get the pics? Must have had one heck of long array tethered to the "fish" cameras?
The book Blind Man's Bluff has a pretty extensive chapter about this incident. It made one pretty good point in that the nuclear missiles aboard this Golf really wouldn't have been much use to US intelligence because the designs were already well over 10 years old - with perhaps 1/3 or less of the range, accuracy, and yield of missile designs which were being mass produced and used by 1968.
When you said missile warhead that was odd, but your correction cleared things up. That most of the tube blew out would make me think the fuel went, but that's an amateur opinion.
I first heard about K-129 by reading a very fascinating book titled "Red Star Rogue". The author lays out his evidence to come to the conclusion that she was taken over by a KGB Osttsnaz (spelling?) group that had been put on board at the last minute. The KGB's reason for doing this was to make the K-129 launch a missile at Pearl Harbor from a shorter range than their own would be launched from in order to make it look like the Chinese had attacked the US. (The Soviets had sold older Golf 1s to China, but had broken off friendly relations with them and viewed them as enemies on near equal footing as the US by the late 1960's. So by framing the Chinese in an attack on the USA they hoped that their two enemies would destroy each other.) I found what he laid out rather convincing. Though I haven't looked at any of the other stuff out there about the K-129 so I'm not sure if he saw what he wanted to see, or if he was actually on to something. If it's the former, he did well enough to convince me and shame on me for not learning more about the subject. If it's the later, then that is a seriously scary thing to think about.
Yep, this plausible documentary treatment of the disaster checks a LOT of boxes as to one of the most credible possible speculative explanations and I choose to think its content is far superior to Mr Sub Brief's video presentation.
It’s a fun read but IMO the premise doesn’t make sense. Suppose the mission was successful and they frame the Chinese for nuking Pearl Harbor. Then what? An isolated strike is pointless. The Chinese would deny responsibility and make no offensive moves. The Russians and the Chinese blaming each other while neither military attempts any follow up it would make it obvious to the CIA that one of them is trying to false flag the other. Fallout testing would travel signs of a Russian warhead. The Russians, of course, would never admit it and once it becomes obvious that it wasn’t the Chinese they would make up some nonsense like it was one of our own reactors exploding or something. The Soviet Union would be viewed as a rabid pariah state, too dangerous for both the US and Chinese to allow to live any longer
Interesting mooring arrangement. Must make replenishement, personnel movements *very* time-consuming. One of the big advances with mooring alongside is that you expose the whole vessel for replenishment, to gangways, cranes etc. (Which is why cargo ships are parked alongside.)
I remember reading about another possibility that analysts at the time were considering, which was that the submarine had tried to fire it's ballistic missiles and sank. IIRC that was discounted pretty quickly!
Being a lifelong submarine enthusiast, I appreciate these interesting and informative videos. I do wonder about these Soviet subs checking in with the fleet command via radio once or twice a day. Wouldn't that enable American listening stations to triangulate their positions and thus show the US Navy where these ballistic missile subs were at any given time?
Isn't the point of ballistic missiles that your enemy should knows about them? Because if you actually use them, both sides lose so they aren't a practical weapon. "Of course, the whole point of a Doomsday Machine is lost, if you *keep* it a *secret*! Why didn't you tell the world, EH?" -Dr. Strangelove
@@Edax_Royeaux There's a difference between knowing they exist, and knowing exactly where they are though. The former makes sure your second-strike threat is recognized, the latter is going to 'disappear' all those subs your adversary found if you end up in a war with them
@@williamnixon3994 Doesn't matter if the subs eventually disappear, once they get all their missiles off (which they can do very quickly), it would only be a symbolic victory to sink them. It's not like their going to be able to return to port in the post-apocalypse to rearm with more missiles.
@@Edax_Royeaux Trust me, anyone with half a brain knows that. It's why you want as much information about their location as soon as possible so that threat is neutered on the outbreak of non-nuclear war. Want to make sure those subs can't get their missiles off if their leader decides to press the big red button after declaring war
with a few exceptions, nuke subs are propelled by steam turbines going thru a double reduction gear set to the prop. We have also experimented with turbine electric drive.
@@kevincook1018 I would imagine the double reduction gears would be a potential source of noise and vibration that a generator, motor set could reduce substantially… with the benefit of being able to operate with the nuclear plant operating at a significantly reduced level while drawing power from the batteries if the mission required it…
@@hypercomms2001 You are correct that gears result in more noise than an electric motor. The gear noise is minimised by precision machining and by mounting the entire gearset on resilient mounts in the engine room. On a nuke ship the main purpose of the battery is emergency recovery in case of a reactor scram or other casualty. The battery is much smaller than a diesel ship. You wouldn't be able to go far on battery power alone. Subs have a 'secondary propulsion motor" that can move the ship at 5 knots or so in an emergency.
Loading rockets with hypergolic fuel onto submarines isn't just "dangerous" it's straight up criminally negligent recklessness. Words can scarcely describe just how stupidly dangerous it is to carry those kinds of reactants on what is already one of the most dangerous operating environments in the world. It really underlines just how desperate both sides were to "one up" each other for strategic advantage during the cold war. It's right up there with HTP fuelled torpedoes.
@@Mrmashed68 ya well you post 5 min into a video to pump the algorithm and your bound to sound a bit off... take the snark down a notch dude were all just trying to get through life.
I do have that book. Hardcover and all. Awesome book. It's amazing what we can do when we set our minds to it (not to mention almost unlimited budget, of course lol). I've always been fascinated by Project Azorian, ever since I read "The Hunt for the Red October" when a Russian character mentions the Glomar Explorer, and by then I thought, 'hey, this is fiction, right?' I was amazed when I found out it wasn't. I'm looking forward to a Sub Brief about the Hallibut and another one about Azorian. Excelent stuff, sir, keep it up!
This is covered in the book “Blind mans bluff” very thoroughly too. I am always intrigued by the differing facts presented from different sources. The cover story was heavily invested in. I even recall the manganese nodules story being aired on the UK children’s program (Blue Peter) that I used to watch at the time.
Guys. This is a fictional book. The story is just fabricated. Nothing more nothing less. The books is meant to entertain you, so you would mention it, And the author sells more books, because everyone now knows the book 😂 That's what good authors do. Right a story, make if famous. Put a little bit "conspiracy theory" into it an Viola you have 1000+ more people buying the book. Look at the history of the Russian navy and what happened to K-219 and to K-141 "Kursk" and you know exactly what REALLY happened to K-129. Typical Russian maintenance and design failures happened. Shady Russian maintenance combined with total secrecy about that shady maintenance towards the crew is happened. That's what destroyed K-129. Nothing more, nothing less. You should watch a fewer Hollywood movies. 😂
Sad to say, I worked on the government financial entries to sell Glomar Explorer for scrap. Very interesting story. I was briefed on the radiation exposure records of the crew...those missile warheads were pretty hot.
The book "red star rogue" by Kenneth sewell and clint Richmond, puts forward an intriguing hypothesis as to what they think occurred,covers project azorian in detail too,an interesting read
not sure what the point of putting the stream chat on screen is, i absolutely cannot read it . and I'm on a large 4K display. it just makes the informational slides smaller for no reason
Your wording on the slide is probably fine. It wouldn't just be the rupture of the missile body but of the warhead itself to contaminate those sailors as per the first bullet point unless one or both of the torpedoes warheads were also ruptured. There was no other sources of plutonium to give that reading.
Fantastic videos, glad I stumbled upon your channel. I was a ground pounder so having your expertise with the pictures explaining exactly what I’m looking at is invaluable. I love the mystery and it’s got me hooked. 🫡🇺🇸
An icon of the Age of Flight, Howard Hughes was the prodigal son of the 20th century. Aircraft designer and test pilot, movie producer, director, and star, inventor, millionaire playboy . . . one of the archetypes for Bruce Wayne. He is infamous for designing the Hercules (AKA "Spruce Goose"); the largest airplane built at the time; a giant seaplane. Similarly, his XF-11 reconnaissance plane, which was over budget, behind schedule, sparked so much official controversy that Hughes had to test fly it himself, a decision leading to tragedy when he stayed aloft too long, suffered an engine failure, and crashed into a Hollywood home, leaving it ablaze. Hounded by enemies in Congress and elsewhere, Hughes, injured in the crash of the XF-11, subsequently retired from the public eye, becoming the first modern meme: the recluse with tissue boxes on his feet. Think Elon Musk plus expert engineering chops. His later decline into madness was widely suspected to be a relic of the brain injury he suffered in the crash of the XF-11.
I'm not so sure as most that he ever went "mad". Hughes had first hand insight into many things related to how the government operates behind closed doors. As you said, he had enemies in government. I think he put two and two together, and knew well some of the possibilities for his own demise. If you stare into the abyss long enough, they abyss stares back into you.
I’ve always found myself drawn to anything regarding K-129 along with USS Scorpion. Unlike other maritime mysteries, most of the info regarding them isn’t unknown, just classified. The most important details are likely hidden. Who knows how much the story changes once they are known
Please adjust your overlays so that there is more efficient use of space. Your videos tend to use small element as it is. Having ~20% of the space taken up by pretty background makes chat and a lot of the text in the presentation unreadable and the photos to small to see anything. I do applaud your effort to bring this info to the public. And hope you continue to make content.
Have you ever done anything in the “Gulf of Tonkin incident” I’d like to put in a request as it was pivotal in wotld history even if it involved surface vessels.
ALWAYS interested in any history about the Glomar Explorer! I believe it went on another mission, before it was revealed as a spy recovery ship... pity they scrapped her, IIRC...
Thanks for the incredible video as always. I have a question: how did the halibut take those photos if the wreck was 16k’ down, when the halibut could not go anywhere near that deep? Was the camera/light cable just extremely long?
Ther is a documentary film called Azorian The raising of the K 129 that is an excellent film that includes interviews with the engineers that actually designed, built and later operated the ship.
The older Gato-class USS Halibut had an interesting career, especially her 10th (and last) war patrol... ...I would suggest doing a report on the Halibut's...erm, "casualty" (in the singular sense) is way too insufficient to describe the damage she survived... ...and I'm not sure how classified magnetic anomaly detection was when you served on submarines, but that topic would be quite interesting for you to cover (especially considering what happened to the first USS Halibut!)
i dont think its suprising... maintaining a submarine i imagine is very expensive and very difficult especially without warm water ports... so it was inevitable given how a lot of soviet stuff has been rusting away
@@Fred-vy1hm As compared to the German Army? The Soviets put a lot of effort into auto-loaders and other mechanisation to get the tank crew down to three. NATO still cram four into their tanks. This is one of the many issues with passing NATO tanks to the AFU - crews that abandoned broken Soviet-era tanks are three-man, and so you’d need to add someone to do the munitions loading and retrain the existing crew.
@@sprucemaroose A ready-rack higher up in the vehicle is more likely to get hit than the carousel that sits low down. There is no perfect solution. Iterations of vehicles usually improve on issues. Look into the first Bradley IFV models, with their poorly-placed fuel tanks.
There any chance the extra personnel were on the sub performing some kind of repair or diagnostic function? Like how commercial vessels sometimes have a crew on board at sea performing maintenance or renovative work? Still favor your explanation, but it's a thought.
Now that you're on the USS Halibut I'm reminded of the "super ping" gag the US Navy pulled on the Russians by tapping their sea cable that transmitted orders to the Russian subs.
I suppose if one has to die on a submarine due to an accident, going so fast that you're still mid-sentence reading a book would be far better than a slow dive into the depths waiting for the end. Another solid video, thank you.
I'd prefer having forewarning as I'd have time to sort out my thoughts, accept my death and perhaps write out a will. I'm more scared of dying in my sleep.
@@Edax_Royeaux You'd likely want to make your will well before. Like as soon as you have assets that you want to go to specific people then you should make a will, you can always amend it in the future.
@@cheekarp2180 I already have a standard will, but it doesn't go into such detail as to who gets my vinyl records or my ship models.
@@Edax_Royeaux If you were in the military you should have one.
FOR THE ALGORITHM!!!
Needs to be seven words or more for the algorithm
FOR THE ALGORITHM!!!
FOR THE ALGORITHM!!
@@montys420- For the algorithm! One two three four
@@alexandergaus493 💯
If I'm not mistaken, the Soviet sailor's body that was recovered was given a formal burial at sea with military honors and the event was videotaped. The video was given to the Russians later during the Regan administration as a gesture of friendship and respect.
There's a project Azorian documentary that has a clip of that video.
@AdolfHitler-wo1my ok
Thank you for your comment. I wondered what happened to the human remains that were recovered, and it made me quite uncomfortable.
@@INGR1D Thank you for your comment. As an American, I have always hoped that people of different political ideologies could first view each other as fellow human beings, deserving of compassion and respect.
Imagine if Trump did that.
Now imagine the propping up if Biden did it by accident. There's a clip of a high ranking KGB officer that defected in the 80s that laid out our downfall and here we are.
Project Azorian totally deserves the limelight of it's own sub brief.
Great piece of history that deserves to be remembered.
If you haven’t read it before, I very highly recommend reading the book ‘Blind Man’s Bluff’. It’s one of my absolute favorites about submarine espionage during the Cold War and has chapters that cover everything from the K-129 and project Azorian to the USS Scorpion and the role of the Halibut.
Try "Red Star Rogue"
Excellent book.
And a good fallow on book
“The silent war” by john p craven talks in depth about
This event but you have to read between the lines so to speak since it was such a highly classified project.
The book is a fantastic read .
I'm the one Army guy in a family of Navy sailors - grandpas, dad, uncles, cousins - even my son. Me? I was drafted for Vietnam. Anyway, I've been reading military data for years - sooo boring. But you're a GREAT narrator, a story teller. You turn boring military reports into mystery cliff hangers. You also have extensive "at sea" time backing you up. You are a treat to follow and at 76, I'm a tough guy to entertain. Thank you for all your impressive efforts - keep telling us the 'haps' (an Army term, you wouldn't understand).
I like how he says the Russians are super secret for some reason then goes on to talk about how America secretly builds a structure to steal Russias submarine.
Andre, you've lost another submarine?
The Amur river has to be continually dredged to allow ships and subs built there to make it down river. It is the old story of "You can dredge it up or you can't take it out."
Mooring stern first is called "Med moored" since it is common for ships in the Mediterranean due to lack of quay side space. You usually drop an anchor and then reverse to the quay. The tension of the anchor chain holds the stern off the quay but doesn't put undue stress on the mooring lines. I did this in Livorno Italy in the early 80s.
I would love to hear a sub-brief on Project Azorian! Even knowing what kind of advances we've made in machining and undersea exploration, the ability to go down and retrieve ever a part of K-129 is incredible to me.
Fascinating history, stranger than fiction.
USS Halibut was originally designed to carry the Regulus II strategic cruise missile. When Regulus II was eliminated, the submarine was then modified to be a dedicated intelligence gathering platform.
Well, we’re talking about the folks that were ok with losing 5% to casualties during army maneuvers.
I’ll never forgot the Soviet Ukrainian Colonel telling my dad, around 1993, something like “you Americans, if you’re too afraid to have soldiers die in training, how can you expect to fight a war”. Different mindset.
Same folks at Baskin Robbins: “you have THIRTY ONE flavors? How did you do this? We have white vanilla and painted dark vanilla, we call it chocolate”. Even their ice cream was faked.
He and Dad traded stories and old service gear, I have his Soviet dress blouse and a couple Soviet sub service wrist watches.
Comment for the algorithm (and curiosity): I wonder where the CIA put K-129 later. Mystery warehouse someplace?
The cover story given at the time was the Explorer was looking for manganese nodules, for deep sea mining as there were Soviet subs & ships in the area watching them
Project Azorian by itself is such an amazing feat of covert magnificence.
Even years down the line tech from that project helpt leap forward offshore capabilities.
Not to mention the produced HBM-1 ‘barge’ to house the submarine after it was taken, was later used as a covert base for the Sea Shadow.
There were also some serious errors of construction. Grab arms using a steel that went brittle at deep sea temperatures is a basic error.
@@Dave5843-d9m When an operation is successful overall, little attention gets paid to the errors made in the course of the event after the fact which is a pretty destructive tendancy in the longterm. Inconsequential failures for one operation can be disastrous in another operation if steps aren't taken to learn from "successful mistakes."
I'm sorry, but I can't help but laugh a little every time I hear 'Kamchatka" because some kind of mishap is bound to ensue at some point. I blame Drachinifel for that.
Do you see torpedo boats?
If you haven't done so yet, recommend you do a briefing on the USS Bonefish disaster. A battery related fire with loss of life and loss of ship. When I reported to work at NAVSEA in the SUBSAFE office in 1987, I was tasked with tracking the outstanding corrective actions from the NAVSAFCEN review.
Also my college algebra teacher was the XO onboard the Halibut at this time. He's the one that convinced me to join the navy and go subs. Unfortunately I went nuke and didn't really enjoy my service. If I had to do it over again I definitely would have been a coner - most likely a sonar tech so I would have had some idea what we were actually doing.
The NOVA documentary series has an episode called "Secrets of the Cold War" that also covered this recovery attempt.
Those brave sailors died doing what they loved. I wish them the best wherever they are now. I think it's really respectable that you treat all submariners as humans, despite the fact that these men would have been your "adversaries" during your service. I think that's the sign of a good fella - the ability to acknowledge we're all human, and we are in many ways living the same experiences, just in different places, with difference cultures.
My reading of things even going back to WWII: Countries have political and military ambitions. Soldiers and sailors fight for their countries, but mainly just try to survive. The sea, above everything else, is ALWAYS trying to kill a sailor. Sailors in ships fight enemy ships. Once that enemy ship is down, you rescue the sailors if at all possible without risking your own. THAT is the law of the sea for sailors of all nations. After all, that could be you in the water.
An interesting narrative discussion on this is in the novels 'Run Silent, Run Deep' and the follow-up 'Dust on the Sea' in which Capt Richardson continues to question the morality of his actions to end the life of Bungo Pete. No one blames him or questions his actions under the circumstances, but he continues to hate himself for breaking the sailor's code, even if it was for the sake of his service and fellow sailors.
I did some inspection work for a client and the other two witnesses were former submariners. One Russian and the other Royal Navy. Lovely to watch them “dancing” around each other for the duration of the contract.😊
I said it before, the Navy is fucking horrifying.
the bullet point saying plutonium contamination means that a warhead did rupture.
Excellent analysis, well done!
About 1974-75, I saw the Glomar Explorer anchored off of the West side of Catalina Island. I’m not sure if this was pre or post mission to raise the K-129.
I also saw the Glomar Explorer off of the West side of Catalina Island in August 1975. Took a couple of pictures.
10:56 The US doesn’t dock ships the way Russia does because we learned our lesson about bunching ships up together at Pearl Harbor.
You may want to check out the fascinating and well written book, "Red Star Rogue" for a more controversial account of this tragic story. One of the claims made was that satellite photography shows a heat plume in the area indicative of the boat suffering an explosion while on the surface.
Further, a sailors body was discovered on the sea bed wearing the Soviet surface coat and was evidentially on the bridge when the explosion occurred.
I won't say any more, but some here may want to check out the book.
I agree. It’s a fascinating book.
Great book. I believe it claims the extra crew on board were shadow missile techs, for lack of a better term.
I was very confused for like 30 seconds since i just watched k-219 accident last night and was like “Wait didn’t he already do this one?”
In the US NAVY, that form of mooring was known as "MED MOORING", and American surface ships generally had to do this in the port of Naples, Italy [during the Cold War], for example.
I did it back in 2012 when my ship visited Vladivostok for the V-E Day celebrations.
I love the K-129 saga. I think I’ve read every book I can find on it. Including the one you showed. Excellent book. There’s also a great book on The Halibut. Can’t recall the name.
Awesome, thank you!
Lead-Acid battery explosion is a consequence of flooding and sinking, but may not be the cuase of initial flooding leading to sinking. Meaning that in any case when sub sinks, seawater will get to battery compartment, that will cause explosion .
Great as usual.I found the switmming fish disctracting though...Thank you david
nice touch, who doesn't like aquarium immersion .. :)
Love your channel! Favorite obviously being the sub briefs!
Would love a brief on the Halibut!
Given the K129 was in 16,000 ft of water and I KNOW the test depth of Halibut was nowhere even close to that, how did they get the pics? Must have had one heck of long array tethered to the "fish" cameras?
The "fish" is towed from a long tether housed in the submarine that can be retracted.
The book Blind Man's Bluff has a pretty extensive chapter about this incident. It made one pretty good point in that the nuclear missiles aboard this Golf really wouldn't have been much use to US intelligence because the designs were already well over 10 years old - with perhaps 1/3 or less of the range, accuracy, and yield of missile designs which were being mass produced and used by 1968.
When you said missile warhead that was odd, but your correction cleared things up. That most of the tube blew out would make me think the fuel went, but that's an amateur opinion.
*Very yes please* on the Project Azorian sub brief. I'd love to hear your take on that absolute madness!
US Navy: We only recovered the first 40 feet of the ship. Oh, and here's the ships bell from the conning tower.
I first heard about K-129 by reading a very fascinating book titled "Red Star Rogue". The author lays out his evidence to come to the conclusion that she was taken over by a KGB Osttsnaz (spelling?) group that had been put on board at the last minute. The KGB's reason for doing this was to make the K-129 launch a missile at Pearl Harbor from a shorter range than their own would be launched from in order to make it look like the Chinese had attacked the US. (The Soviets had sold older Golf 1s to China, but had broken off friendly relations with them and viewed them as enemies on near equal footing as the US by the late 1960's. So by framing the Chinese in an attack on the USA they hoped that their two enemies would destroy each other.) I found what he laid out rather convincing. Though I haven't looked at any of the other stuff out there about the K-129 so I'm not sure if he saw what he wanted to see, or if he was actually on to something. If it's the former, he did well enough to convince me and shame on me for not learning more about the subject. If it's the later, then that is a seriously scary thing to think about.
Yep, this plausible documentary treatment of the disaster checks a LOT of boxes as to one of the most credible possible speculative explanations and I choose to think its content is far superior to Mr Sub Brief's video presentation.
It’s a fun read but IMO the premise doesn’t make sense. Suppose the mission was successful and they frame the Chinese for nuking Pearl Harbor. Then what? An isolated strike is pointless. The Chinese would deny responsibility and make no offensive moves. The Russians and the Chinese blaming each other while neither military attempts any follow up it would make it obvious to the CIA that one of them is trying to false flag the other. Fallout testing would travel signs of a Russian warhead. The Russians, of course, would never admit it and once it becomes obvious that it wasn’t the Chinese they would make up some nonsense like it was one of our own reactors exploding or something. The Soviet Union would be viewed as a rabid pariah state, too dangerous for both the US and Chinese to allow to live any longer
Great work Sub Brief. Fantastic video.
Much appreciated!
@@SubBrief loved you video too on Australian Collins Class submarines
Interesting mooring arrangement. Must make replenishement, personnel movements *very* time-consuming.
One of the big advances with mooring alongside is that you expose the whole vessel for replenishment, to gangways, cranes etc.
(Which is why cargo ships are parked alongside.)
I remember reading about another possibility that analysts at the time were considering, which was that the submarine had tried to fire it's ballistic missiles and sank. IIRC that was discounted pretty quickly!
Being a lifelong submarine enthusiast, I appreciate these interesting and informative videos.
I do wonder about these Soviet subs checking in with the fleet command via radio once or twice a day. Wouldn't that enable American listening stations to triangulate their positions and thus show the US Navy where these ballistic missile subs were at any given time?
Isn't the point of ballistic missiles that your enemy should knows about them? Because if you actually use them, both sides lose so they aren't a practical weapon. "Of course, the whole point of a Doomsday Machine is lost, if you *keep* it a *secret*! Why didn't you tell the world, EH?" -Dr. Strangelove
@@Edax_Royeaux There's a difference between knowing they exist, and knowing exactly where they are though. The former makes sure your second-strike threat is recognized, the latter is going to 'disappear' all those subs your adversary found if you end up in a war with them
@@williamnixon3994 Doesn't matter if the subs eventually disappear, once they get all their missiles off (which they can do very quickly), it would only be a symbolic victory to sink them. It's not like their going to be able to return to port in the post-apocalypse to rearm with more missiles.
@@Edax_Royeaux Trust me, anyone with half a brain knows that. It's why you want as much information about their location as soon as possible so that threat is neutered on the outbreak of non-nuclear war. Want to make sure those subs can't get their missiles off if their leader decides to press the big red button after declaring war
Awsome going all the way back to Golf...crazy N. Korea is still able to use in some capacity as a threat so many years later. 👍content
1600 rpm. Lol. I bet it’s half that. At least for diesel electric.
2:10: With Nuclear Submarines today, does the turbine drive the propellor directly, or does it drive an electric motor?
I believe it was the same principal with diesel electric sub. For silent mode
with a few exceptions, nuke subs are propelled by steam turbines going thru a double reduction gear set to the prop. We have also experimented with turbine electric drive.
@@kevincook1018 I would imagine the double reduction gears would be a potential source of noise and vibration that a generator, motor set could reduce substantially… with the benefit of being able to operate with the nuclear plant operating at a significantly reduced level while drawing power from the batteries if the mission required it…
@@hypercomms2001 You are correct that gears result in more noise than an electric motor. The gear noise is minimised by precision machining and by mounting the entire gearset on resilient mounts in the engine room. On a nuke ship the main purpose of the battery is emergency recovery in case of a reactor scram or other casualty. The battery is much smaller than a diesel ship. You wouldn't be able to go far on battery power alone. Subs have a 'secondary propulsion motor" that can move the ship at 5 knots or so in an emergency.
Loading rockets with hypergolic fuel onto submarines isn't just "dangerous" it's straight up criminally negligent recklessness. Words can scarcely describe just how stupidly dangerous it is to carry those kinds of reactants on what is already one of the most dangerous operating environments in the world.
It really underlines just how desperate both sides were to "one up" each other for strategic advantage during the cold war.
It's right up there with HTP fuelled torpedoes.
Even if they don't explode, hypergolic fuels are horrifically toxic - not what you want in an enclosed space that you're living in for months.
The whole concept of MAD is criminally negligent recklessness so I’m not sure it really matters
Definitely interested in an "Azorian" follow-up doc!
A book I enjoyed about this boat was Josh Dean's 'The Taking of K-129'
You mean the one he talked about several times and had on screen in the video?
@@Mrmashed68 ya well you post 5 min into a video to pump the algorithm and your bound to sound a bit off... take the snark down a notch dude were all just trying to get through life.
@@Adept893 No, seriously dude... how about watching the video before commenting and repeating the very same thing that was in the video?
I do have that book. Hardcover and all. Awesome book. It's amazing what we can do when we set our minds to it (not to mention almost unlimited budget, of course lol). I've always been fascinated by Project Azorian, ever since I read "The Hunt for the Red October" when a Russian character mentions the Glomar Explorer, and by then I thought, 'hey, this is fiction, right?' I was amazed when I found out it wasn't. I'm looking forward to a Sub Brief about the Hallibut and another one about Azorian. Excelent stuff, sir, keep it up!
This is covered in the book “Blind mans bluff” very thoroughly too. I am always intrigued by the differing facts presented from different sources.
The cover story was heavily invested in. I even recall the manganese nodules story being aired on the UK children’s program (Blue Peter) that I used to watch at the time.
"Red Star Rogue" explains EXACTLY what happened to K-129
Guys. This is a fictional book.
The story is just fabricated. Nothing more nothing less.
The books is meant to entertain you, so you would mention it, And the author sells more books, because everyone now knows the book 😂
That's what good authors do.
Right a story, make if famous. Put a little bit "conspiracy theory" into it an Viola you have 1000+ more people buying the book.
Look at the history of the Russian navy and what happened to K-219 and to K-141 "Kursk" and you know exactly what REALLY happened to K-129.
Typical Russian maintenance and design failures happened.
Shady Russian maintenance combined with total secrecy about that shady maintenance towards the crew is happened.
That's what destroyed K-129.
Nothing more, nothing less.
You should watch a fewer Hollywood movies. 😂
LIKED, COMMENTED, A WE'RE AT COMBAT DEPTH! LETS GO!
I have seen a lot where they think it was an attempted unauthorized launch and the missile had a tamper protection
Greetings from Sweden!
Active duty Army Paratrooper.
You,Sir, just got yourself a new subscriber!
that must be kind of satisfying when a cold war adversary pops his tin can.
Scuttlebutt has that someone was trying to launch a missle and that another person stopped it from happening
Sad to say, I worked on the government financial entries to sell Glomar Explorer for scrap. Very interesting story. I was briefed on the radiation exposure records of the crew...those missile warheads were pretty hot.
Interesting that diesel-electric subs in the late 50's/early 60s were using the exact same propulsion scheme as a Toyota Prius.
More like diesel-electric locomotive in scale though.
Please do a sub brief on the ship that picked up K-129!
I think a Subbrief about the recovery of that sub would be great. Thx.
The book "red star rogue" by Kenneth sewell and clint Richmond, puts forward an intriguing hypothesis as to what they think occurred,covers project azorian in detail too,an interesting read
Listening to documentary information about submarine disasters pokes my thalassophobia so much.
Commenting for the algo
Floating drydocks do not draw very much water.
The company that Howard Hughes started (Hughes Aviation) was notable as being the only non-profit defense contractor.
Kinda missing the historical point of warfare tbh
I remember reading a Soviet sailor was discovered by the halibut ROV in full wet gear was laying a few yards from the wreck on the sea floor?
not sure what the point of putting the stream chat on screen is, i absolutely cannot read it . and I'm on a large 4K display. it just makes the informational slides smaller for no reason
Great story! To bad the claw broke that would have been a huge coup. I wonder where the torpedos went?
Your wording on the slide is probably fine. It wouldn't just be the rupture of the missile body but of the warhead itself to contaminate those sailors as per the first bullet point unless one or both of the torpedoes warheads were also ruptured. There was no other sources of plutonium to give that reading.
Fantastic videos, glad I stumbled upon your channel. I was a ground pounder so having your expertise with the pictures explaining exactly what I’m looking at is invaluable. I love the mystery and it’s got me hooked. 🫡🇺🇸
An icon of the Age of Flight, Howard Hughes was the prodigal son of the 20th century. Aircraft designer and test pilot, movie producer, director, and star, inventor, millionaire playboy . . . one of the archetypes for Bruce Wayne. He is infamous for designing the Hercules (AKA "Spruce Goose"); the largest airplane built at the time; a giant seaplane. Similarly, his XF-11 reconnaissance plane, which was over budget, behind schedule, sparked so much official controversy that Hughes had to test fly it himself, a decision leading to tragedy when he stayed aloft too long, suffered an engine failure, and crashed into a Hollywood home, leaving it ablaze.
Hounded by enemies in Congress and elsewhere, Hughes, injured in the crash of the XF-11, subsequently retired from the public eye, becoming the first modern meme: the recluse with tissue boxes on his feet.
Think Elon Musk plus expert engineering chops. His later decline into madness was widely suspected to be a relic of the brain injury he suffered in the crash of the XF-11.
I'm not so sure as most that he ever went "mad".
Hughes had first hand insight into many things related to how the government operates behind closed doors. As you said, he had enemies in government. I think he put two and two together, and knew well some of the possibilities for his own demise.
If you stare into the abyss long enough, they abyss stares back into you.
@@slartybarfastb3648 Is that why postal workers go postal? They stare into the abyss?
@@Edax_Royeaux As a son of a postal retiree, and former USPS "casual" worker I can say yes. The postal service is definitely the abyss.
You had me at KoA shipyard!
I’ve always found myself drawn to anything regarding K-129 along with USS Scorpion. Unlike other maritime mysteries, most of the info regarding them isn’t unknown, just classified. The most important details are likely hidden. Who knows how much the story changes once they are known
Please adjust your overlays so that there is more efficient use of space. Your videos tend to use small element as it is. Having ~20% of the space taken up by pretty background makes chat and a lot of the text in the presentation unreadable and the photos to small to see anything. I do applaud your effort to bring this info to the public. And hope you continue to make content.
Please write the sub brief about this incident. Great program!
We were driving by San Francisco Bay my dad pointed out the Explorer as it was sitting there proud in the mothball Fleet next to all the warships
It's nice when you see something in your feed that you KNOW will be GOOD.🙏
Yes, thanks
That documentary on Amazon is pretty amazing. Highly recommended!
It really is!
This video reminds me a bit of what MentourPilot does with airplane acidents.
Yes
If you haven’t, I would love to see the follow up to this.
Have you ever done anything in the “Gulf of Tonkin incident” I’d like to put in a request as it was pivotal in wotld history even if it involved surface vessels.
ALWAYS interested in any history about the Glomar Explorer! I believe it went on another mission, before it was revealed as a spy recovery ship... pity they scrapped her, IIRC...
Keep the excelent work man!!
Thanks, will do!
I've been on a "Golf" submarine, surprised to see the top of the three diesel engines are almost even with the lower deck.
Finally! Project Azorian
Thanks for the incredible video as always. I have a question: how did the halibut take those photos if the wreck was 16k’ down, when the halibut could not go anywhere near that deep? Was the camera/light cable just extremely long?
it was a tethered ROV.
We called it, (mooring stern to..) a Med moor.
Did it all the time in... you guessed it! In the Med.
You really ought to read the book, K129.
Ther is a documentary film called Azorian The raising of the K 129 that is an excellent film that includes interviews with the engineers that actually designed, built and later operated the ship.
Great story. Did they bring the wreck to land, or did they examine it on the boat?
The older Gato-class USS Halibut had an interesting career, especially her 10th (and last) war patrol...
...I would suggest doing a report on the Halibut's...erm, "casualty" (in the singular sense) is way too insufficient to describe the damage she survived...
...and I'm not sure how classified magnetic anomaly detection was when you served on submarines, but that topic would be quite interesting for you to cover (especially considering what happened to the first USS Halibut!)
The Navy hat DOESNT make you look more qualified. Lol
A stand of drill pipe is 3 joints screwed together each joint averages 30'+ each stand is 90' plus
While the US did tragically lose 2 subs early in the age of nuclear subs, it boggles my mind that the soviets/russians lost so many so recently.
i dont think its suprising... maintaining a submarine i imagine is very expensive and very difficult especially without warm water ports... so it was inevitable given how a lot of soviet stuff has been rusting away
Still more survivable than being a member of a tank crew in the Russian army.
@@Fred-vy1hm As compared to the German Army?
The Soviets put a lot of effort into auto-loaders and other mechanisation to get the tank crew down to three. NATO still cram four into their tanks. This is one of the many issues with passing NATO tanks to the AFU - crews that abandoned broken Soviet-era tanks are three-man, and so you’d need to add someone to do the munitions loading and retrain the existing crew.
@@boggisthecat and then they put the ammo under the three crew members.
@@sprucemaroose
A ready-rack higher up in the vehicle is more likely to get hit than the carousel that sits low down. There is no perfect solution. Iterations of vehicles usually improve on issues. Look into the first Bradley IFV models, with their poorly-placed fuel tanks.
There any chance the extra personnel were on the sub performing some kind of repair or diagnostic function? Like how commercial vessels sometimes have a crew on board at sea performing maintenance or renovative work? Still favor your explanation, but it's a thought.
there were techs on the boat due to previous issues and fixes were being done during the deployment
Nuclear testing sensors or Pacific SOSUS?
Now that you're on the USS Halibut I'm reminded of the "super ping" gag the US Navy pulled on the Russians by tapping their sea cable that transmitted orders to the Russian subs.
It’s not Galimar, it’s Gloma.
GLOMAR...but, yeah.