American subs routinely lay off Soviet ports and wait for sorties, then track the vessels for practice. It's a scary business. Had a cousin in the Navy on a sub, he did a couple missions off Murmansk. Never said much about it sadly.
Just some background and other notes regarding the movie or things you wondered about. First, the Dallas did not just stumble on Red October, it was silently waiting near the entrance to the Soviet ballistic missile submarine base so that it could make note of anything coming in and out, and tail anything that might be really interesting, like a brand new Soviet ballistic missile nuclear submarine. During the Cold War, the US and NATO would very often "tail" any Soviet ballistic missile sub with their own subs that they could, both to gather info on its noise signature, and to possibly be ready to destroy that missile sub if that was needed. FYI...in the book, Ryan briefs the President himself when he comes up with his guess about Ramius' defection...and it is the President himself who assigns him to go out and contact the Red October. 20:17...exactly correct, good catch...Ramius needs the US Navy to be out there interested in what is going on, so he gets the Soviet fleet to come after him with his letter that he is defecting...and that is what gets the US into the game as he needs them to be. Nobody ever seems to get that part of it...good on you for picking it up. Yes...a submarine underwater turns and dives and climbs like an airplane in slow motion, and the crew feel every tilt of the deck. When you turn right, the boat will heel over to the right like a plane or a fast boat, and vice versa to the left. And keep in mind that this was set in the 1980s...smoking was allowed on pretty much every US and Soviet vessel...cigarettes were the most commonly used drug of the Cold War. US subs did have better air scrubbers than the Soviets, but they were made so strong and reliable that cigarette smoke was not much of an issue. It probably only added a tiny bit to cleaning the air filters. LOL In reality, there is no guarantee that a single torpedo could sink Red October...since it is so large and heavily built. The Soviet Typhoon class subs that Red October is a version of, actually had 5 separate pressure hulls joined together inside a very strong outer hull, so just one torpedo would cause a lot of damage to Red October...depending on how big the torpedo was... but would not automatically kill it. The countermeasures they release are actually canisters of chemicals that begin to release large clouds of bubbles when they come into contact with water. The bubbles confuse the sonar of a torpedo by creating a broad band noise source to mask the sound of the sub, and the clouds of bubbles actually reflect the sonar pings back to the torpedo like a solid surface, and the torpedo will often lock on the the decoy and home in on it. The torpedoes use mostly active sonar to ping and listen for their target and home in that way.
@iKvetch558: Well done! I used to serve on US Navy submarines, and you said pretty much everything I was about to add. Also: 1. The book this movie was based on was published in 1984, so the cold war was still very much in play with no hint of the coming collapse of the Soviet Union. 2. Not every sonar operator in the fleet is as good as Jonesy, but some of them are. Unreal skills!
When Clancy wrote the book, he was so accurate as far as the technology goes. To make things worse a soviet submarine went down around that same time so a lot of us wondered if this was in fact a true story. While the investigation was as to how clancy got the tech nailed so well, you couldn't help but think it might have been real. In the midst of the cold war it made a bunch of kids like me become clancy fans.
They detected them with passive sonar which is just listening. Submarine very seldom go active (pinging), usually surface ships do that because they can't hear as well.
You have just finished one of my favorite movies. The cast is just unbelievable. You realized one of the strengths of the movie is that it doesnt tell you what is happening. You figure it out at the same time as the characters do and you are constantlyh on the edge of your seat. Yes there is a huge amount of technobabble but after seeing it 10x and googling everything and seeing some really great documentaries on what living on a submarine is - it makes even more sense. Sure there are changes made for the purpose of drama, but Scott Glenn trained alongside a real sub captain to get a feel for the cadence of what kind of environment there is on a sub - it has a "real feel". (of course, w/o access to all the secret stuff) Politically speaking, it does say that they were in a transition from one leader to another and in the USSR that was always a really dangerous time - they didnt have very smooth transitions, and people usually fell from favor or worse. thanks for the fun ride.
It's funny, even knowing the plot inside out, and given the topic and storytelling of the movie evolves around the suspense of the outcome (not a movie that lives by it's great action scenes or comedic moments etc.), it's still one of those movies I can rewatch every few month easily, without it getting boring. A real classic.
I wish it was the same way for me still...it used to be...before Baldwin's shooting incident. Seen the movie maybe 200 times over the years, but have only recently been able to even start watching reactions to it.
Ramius’ wife’s death added to his hatred of the Soviet Union. She had appendicitis and the surgeon screwed up her operation and killed her. He had connections, though, so escaped punishment.
@@genghispecan I thought Ramius was Lithuanian. Nevertheless his wife was but a shackle, binding him to serve the Motherland for her uncle Podorin was a fleet admiral of the Soviet Navy.
Don't worry for watching it in November. The submarine was named after the Great October Revolution, which took place in November because they were still using the Julian calendar in Russia at the time 🙂
"War Games" from 1983 is another fun Cold War movie. '80s nerds like me who lived through that era took courage from movies like these that there was a chance the U.S. and U.S.S.R. might be able to stop short of incinerating the planet.
Active sonar works like radar: you emit a pulse that bounces off the object, and you listen for the echo. Passive sonar is basically listening since water transmits sound much farther than air
Thought you guys might have had more awarness of navel combat if you played any games but the sonar they use is a passive listening operation. If you want an active sonar, you send out a sound or ping and when you get the sound back, you will have a precise range to target. This is a great action spy thriller. Submarines are used as a deturant in avoiding war. Submarine warfare is like a cat and mouse game. So yeah, being totally silent will tip the edge to your favor. There are a number of other war and spy films that are great to watch. This film was the first time I heard the term "scuttle" and it was pretty obvious what it meant. When many reactors watch The Expanse, it obvious who has never seen this movie because they don't know what the term meant when Lopez said the captain is going to scuttle the Donnenger. Oh and a little personal fun fact is that I have a friend that served in the Navy in the 90s and he was stationed on the USS Houston in San Diego and we got to tour the submarine back then. Pretty cool and then I noticed a shot of a sub making the breaching maneuver that the Dallas did in the movie and he said that it was this boat that performed that maneuver for the film. That was fun for me because I love this movie. Oh,and the sabotur was the cook, Loganov, who was called to bear witness to Ramius taking Putin's missile key.
I think it's funny that a lot of people say Tom Clancy wrote espionage novels, but really that was just the vehicle for his stories, particularly those around Jack Ryan. They weren't about spy craft, or military hardware, or political systems, or even good vs evil. They were about one guy who, despite being honest to a fault, can rock the political landscape of the world just by being true to his character and being in the right place at the right time through hard work and diligence. All those other things are interesting, but they are all just the setting. Jack Ryan is a Good Guy who makes mistakes sometimes, but owns them, and knows he is just as fallible as anyone else. He isn't a superhero - he's just a guy doing his best.
it wasn't coincidence that the US sub was there to see The Red October in the start - The Red October was coming out of a major shipyards that the Americans would be likely to be watching.
Because helicopters have moving parts with friction, and because they're not grounded while in flight, they can build up static electrical charges sufficient to be dangerous. So when doing winching operations you need to discharge that charge in such a way as it doesn't go through a person, usually via a line that continues below the winched person. The guy on the sub is holding a metal hook with an insulated handle connected to a cable that would be connected to the sub, the idea being to touch that to the line below the winched person and so discharge through that hook and cable. Presumably the hook might also then be used to pull the winched person in to the conning tower.
I think that Ramius increased the speed in Red Route One to not just get out of the canyons faster than the Soviet fleet thinks he could, but also to test his junior officers’ faith in him. If they revolted over the stress of that change in routine, he couldn’t rely on them to support him once things got really tough. He just didn’t expect the caterpillar drive to get sabotaged.
@@libertyresearch-iu4fy No, I said that Ramius didn’t expect that the drive would be sabotaged when they were running Red Route One. That was done by the cook. I was talking about Ramius increasing the speed of the canyon run to test his officers’ allegiance to him. If he had anticipated that the drive would have been damaged at that point, he never would have changed the speed, imo. Too many variables. He expected to get to a point closer to the US coast before faking the radiation leak and getting the crew off the sub. Jonesy on the Dallas tracking him was not in his plan. He had total faith in the caterpillar drive being completely silent. He expected to get the crew off while the Soviet fleet was in the general area so they could rescue the men, while he and his fellow defectors faked scuttling the Red October (can’t remember how he was planning to fake that, though).
I just realised something - he knew long before this what he was going to do ... I'll bet that he calculated a new course through the canyon and so he didn't have to figure it out in real time.
To clarify, When Jones is tracking the Red October, they aren't using active sonar but listening to the ambient sounds of the other sub, like propellers, cavitation, and engine noises. You correctly said that if they were using sonar to find the boat, the other boat could hear it. No tracking in secret.
Even if you had a window, if you’re more than a few hundred feet deep, it’s pitch dark, and even under ideal conditions, you can only see a couple of hundred feet.
Back in the day I ate lunch at Planet Hollywood while visiting SoCal. I looked up and the model for the Red October was hanging from the ceiling near/over our table.
One of my favorite Cold War films! I started reading Clancy’s books after seeing it in the theater. So many great actors here-not just the famous names like Sean Connery, James Earl Jones, and Alec Baldwin, but up-and-comers like Sam Neal and Courtney B. Vance. Vance was the radar guy Jonesy, and he almost steals the film, imo. He’s one of those actors who I always love to see on screen. This was the first time I noticed him in a role. A few years later, he did an excellent turn as Jim in an adaptation of Huckleberry Finn with a young Elijah Wood.
@@catch-uppackets2664 It was produced by Disney in 1993, iirc. I believe Elijah Wood was around 11 or 12-it was his first starring role. Lots of good actors in that film, too, like Jason Robards, Robbie Coltrane, and Ron Perlman as Huck’s father.
Not Tim Curry’s last role as a Russian. He played a Russian mercenary/terrorist in McHale’s Navy (the movie) and the Soviet premier in the game Red Alert 3
One item that i haven't seen in the comments - the colour scheme of combat. The US Attack sub Dallas has blue colours whole both the Soviet Typhoon Missile sub Red October and the attack sub Konevolov have red colours which makes it easier to discern while switch subs during the combat scenes at the end.
McTiernan also directed _Predator_ (1987), you mentioned _Die Hard_ (1988), _Last Action Hero_ (1993), and my favourite (I don't care what anyone says!) _The 13th Warrior_ (1999)!
So as others have said submarines use passive and active sonars to “see”. Passive being very sensitive microphones and active being loud sounds “pings” that travel outward hit a target and bounce back to the sensor. Basically RADAR but with sound. The reason submarines use sound for detection is because sea water at the depths submarines operate blocks most forms of electromagnetic radiation. That means no radio waves, infrared, visible light or higher frequency light. You could build a window on a submarine (the one that was lost last year at the Titanic had a window) but light just doesn’t travel far underwater. What does travel well is sound. Sound travels 4-5 times faster underwater than in air. This is why making submarines very quiet is so important. If the enemy can hear you from several thousand yards away they can shoot you before you can shoot them. Submarines also have very special and secret propeller designs because spinning a propeller to fast causes cavitation (bubble formation) which is very loud. This means they have to keep their speeds down to remain quiet. An adversary could estimate the speed a submarine could go if they got a good look at its propeller. It’s also the reason submarines rarely use their active sonars. While an active sonar can pickup anything near you and would have had no trouble picking up the Red October it does tell every other submarine in the area exactly where it is. It’s like shining a flash light in a dark forest. Sure you can see but everything else knows exactly where you are. Torpedoes on the other hand use their active sonars to track their target. Nuclear submarines have noisy systems like cooling pumps so militaries will spend billions trying to make them quiet. Diesel electric submarines are very quiet on electricity but can only operate like that for hours/days. Nuclear subs can remain under water indefinitely however.
Near the beginning they don't just "happen" to come across a US submarine. NATO hunter killer subs would hang around the routes used by Soviet missile subs after leaving port and attempt to track/shadow them, and the Soviets would attempt to shadow NATO missile subs in the same way.
One of the main duties of a political officer on Soviet ships was taking care of the crew morale, usually by reinforcing patriotism and reminding them of their duty to the Motherland. This is why Putin wants to post the orders for the crew: they’re to take part in an important operation for the glory of the Soviet Union
As said below, Ramius's wife died during a botched surgery (drunk surgeon with connections). This hurt enough, but in the book he mentions that the suppression of religion made it practically illegal for him to morn her (this is sort of carried forward into mentioning that the Bible in the beginning was hers). Did you note "Crazy Ivan" was carried forward (Firefly uses the term for a radical turn). During the thaw, they asked Russian Sub drivers about it, and there was no set maneuver. BUT, the rule was if you know the bearing of a western sub (who listens better and is quieter), point your nose at him and go full speed. Hopefully you can break contact while he tries to get out of your way. "Reuben James" was an actual ship (the third to have that name, the first was sunk by a U-Boat on Neutrality Patrol in WWII). She is one of the "Point of View" ships in Clancy's WWIII Novel "Red Storm Rising". "Deadliest Catch" had an episode where a Coast Guard Chopper had to put a rescueman on deck and lift a sailor with internal injuries off, in weather worse than this movie. It's quite scary and thrilling. Chopper blades whipping though the air (especially in the heavy conditions), set the charge on the Copter MUCH higher than a sub. The stick is designed to "ground" the shock and get both objects to the same charge. Otherwise the shock could be lethal (think socks on carpet supersized). Firefly uses the term for a radical turn). During the thaw, they asked Russian Sub drivers about it, and there was no set maneuver. BUT, the rule was if you know the bearing of a western sub (who listens better and is quieter), point your nose at him and go full speed. Ho
Hello gentlemen. Another great reaction. I first discovered this channel when you watched Vertigo and have enjoyed it immensely ever since. Not sure how you both feel about Hollywood blockbusters, but I would love a reaction to all of Mr. McTiernan’s movies. There are two primary war submarines. Missiles boats that fire several nukes from a close distance, and the much smaller hunter/killers that hunt the missile boats and each other. But both boats usually have some ability to launch nukes. Subs have two forms of acoustic detection, passive and active sonar. Active sonar emits a ping that gives you the location of other objects based on how the sound bounces off them, but broadcasts your own location very strongly. Passive sonar is just listening and most commonly pick up the noise an engine makes, or the turning of the propellor in the water. If the ship is moving fast enough the propellor can cause air bubbles which are easily picked up even passively. Countermeasures like shown in the movie are noise makers that that distract a torpedo. Modern torpedoes are still fired like WWII torpedoes, they show up where the target will be based upon the speed and direction (bearing) of the sub at the time the torpedo is fired. But modern torpedos also have sonar and can acquire a target based on.sound. Passive countermeasures (not used in movies often) use natural ocean conditions like temperature gradients to bend sound waves away from the sub.
I was signals intelligence in the Army. Back when Morse code was used. It's amazing what you can do just listening, you can tell a lot by small things. The movie "The imitation Game" goes into codebreaking. Really good movie.
During the hunt for the Bismarck, it was one such intelligence listener who picked up on a transmission that was in response to a German admiral inquiring about his son who was serving on the battleship. The reply informed him where the ship was going to dock, and the Allies were able to intercept her
Submarines and torpedoes navigate by sound. The countermeasures do not emit radiation; they emit noise. Imagine a jet aircraft launching flares to try to decoy an infrared missile. The idea is to give the missile a hotter target. It's the same principle here, but the decoy is trying to be a LOUDER target. (As you noticed, guided torpedoes CAN try to reacquire a target after they pass the decoy.)
Some of the James Bond films also involve cooperation with the/some Soviets. In particular: From Russia with Love; The Spy Who Loved Me; The Living Daylights. In general the Bond films don't generally paint the Russians/Soviets as a whole as the baddies.
In the book, Ramius’s wife died from a botched appendectomy. The surgeon was drunk, but his political connections made him untouchable, and the “antibiotics” she received were just water.
Trivia: Magnetohydrodynamic propulsion is a real thing, but is not practical with current technology-especially for military submarines, where the drive would induce a detectable magnetic signature, negating any extra stealthiness that may have otherwise been achieved.
I care enough to comment but not enough to check. I think the guy playing the Russian chief of the boat. ( guy that carried off dead political officer) is the huge retired champion gladiator in gladiator. I believe his name is Thor.
In addition to a designated political officer which is there to ensure the "idealogical health and purity" of the crew, an undercover security agent would be assigned to the boat and would have been aware of their true orders. In this case it was the cook - the same crewmember cleaning up the cabin after the murder of the political officer.
Yes, multiple US submarines have collided with underwater mountains, including: USS San Francisco In 2005, the USS San Francisco, a Los Angeles-class nuclear submarine, collided with an uncharted seamount while traveling at full speed: The collision occurred at 2:43 GMT on January 8, 2005, about 364 nautical miles southeast of Guam The impact caused significant damage to the submarine's hull, including ruptured forward ballast tanks 98 crew members were injured, and one sailor, Machinist's Mate Second Class Joseph Allen Ashley, died from head injuries. Peace out.
While no US Missile boats are seen in the movie, if you have seen Crimson Tide (Denzel Washington/Gene Hackman) - that sub is a missile boat and not the smaller quicker attack boats.
I watched a Russia reactor watch this movie - she found the Russia dialogue to be hilarious, listening to Connery speaking Russian was apparently very funny, although she said she could figure out what he was trying to say almost all the time, though it didn't always match the English subtitles. As for the Mutually Assured Destruction - that is why even now when you heard Putin threatening to use nukes, the experts mostly don't believe it. As long as the person with the power is not insane, it isn't going to happen and if they are insane, the sane people around them would stop them because nobody wins if nuclear weapons are involved. As for the lies - only half right there, both sides lie to each other and both sides know it, but they also tell the true a lot so that you can never be positive what is a lie and what is not. That is the real skill of a diplomate - to lie convincingly, but not too much and to detect the lies told to you from the truths told to you. Although I was a student in elementary school at the time, I remember the Cuban Missile Crisis, which may be the closest that we have ever come to WW3. My father was stationed at Uplands air base, which was the main defence for Ottawa, the capital of Canada, and the base went of high alert. The level of tension during the Cold War is hard to understand without being in it. I know that with all the things that have happened since, I have never seen that level of tension since 1962 when it happened. Knowing that kind of context really makes this movie more powerful, because a situation like this would have been the same as back in '62 for everyone who was in the loop about what was happening.
OK Guy's, if you want the whole story you need to read the book. The movie was only about 60% of the book. Ramius's wife died on an operating table from a doctor who was drunk at the time and killed her. There are so many other omissions in the movie that are in the book the movie will make better sense if you read it. Nice reaction though.
I love this movie, but from the perspective of a former sonar man, and that is a guilty pleasure since the technical aspects are so bad it's good. Narratively this movie is weird. It keeps setting up tension points and then resolving each one almost immediately. I can understand why some people don't like it.
“I would like to have seen Montana”
Don’t worry, Dr. Grant, you’re going to scare a kid shitless in Montana with a fossilized claw
I came here to say that, you beat me to it.
American subs routinely lay off Soviet ports and wait for sorties, then track the vessels for practice. It's a scary business. Had a cousin in the Navy on a sub, he did a couple missions off Murmansk. Never said much about it sadly.
Just some background and other notes regarding the movie or things you wondered about.
First, the Dallas did not just stumble on Red October, it was silently waiting near the entrance to the Soviet ballistic missile submarine base so that it could make note of anything coming in and out, and tail anything that might be really interesting, like a brand new Soviet ballistic missile nuclear submarine. During the Cold War, the US and NATO would very often "tail" any Soviet ballistic missile sub with their own subs that they could, both to gather info on its noise signature, and to possibly be ready to destroy that missile sub if that was needed.
FYI...in the book, Ryan briefs the President himself when he comes up with his guess about Ramius' defection...and it is the President himself who assigns him to go out and contact the Red October.
20:17...exactly correct, good catch...Ramius needs the US Navy to be out there interested in what is going on, so he gets the Soviet fleet to come after him with his letter that he is defecting...and that is what gets the US into the game as he needs them to be. Nobody ever seems to get that part of it...good on you for picking it up.
Yes...a submarine underwater turns and dives and climbs like an airplane in slow motion, and the crew feel every tilt of the deck. When you turn right, the boat will heel over to the right like a plane or a fast boat, and vice versa to the left. And keep in mind that this was set in the 1980s...smoking was allowed on pretty much every US and Soviet vessel...cigarettes were the most commonly used drug of the Cold War. US subs did have better air scrubbers than the Soviets, but they were made so strong and reliable that cigarette smoke was not much of an issue. It probably only added a tiny bit to cleaning the air filters. LOL
In reality, there is no guarantee that a single torpedo could sink Red October...since it is so large and heavily built. The Soviet Typhoon class subs that Red October is a version of, actually had 5 separate pressure hulls joined together inside a very strong outer hull, so just one torpedo would cause a lot of damage to Red October...depending on how big the torpedo was... but would not automatically kill it.
The countermeasures they release are actually canisters of chemicals that begin to release large clouds of bubbles when they come into contact with water. The bubbles confuse the sonar of a torpedo by creating a broad band noise source to mask the sound of the sub, and the clouds of bubbles actually reflect the sonar pings back to the torpedo like a solid surface, and the torpedo will often lock on the the decoy and home in on it. The torpedoes use mostly active sonar to ping and listen for their target and home in that way.
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@iKvetch558: Well done! I used to serve on US Navy submarines, and you said pretty much everything I was about to add. Also:
1. The book this movie was based on was published in 1984, so the cold war was still very much in play with no hint of the coming collapse of the Soviet Union.
2. Not every sonar operator in the fleet is as good as Jonesy, but some of them are. Unreal skills!
Nice to see a new generation see such films. Formative for me, probably predates the two.
When Clancy wrote the book, he was so accurate as far as the technology goes. To make things worse a soviet submarine went down around that same time so a lot of us wondered if this was in fact a true story. While the investigation was as to how clancy got the tech nailed so well, you couldn't help but think it might have been real. In the midst of the cold war it made a bunch of kids like me become clancy fans.
They detected them with passive sonar which is just listening. Submarine very seldom go active (pinging), usually surface ships do that because they can't hear as well.
And American passive sonar was WAY better than the Soviets.
You have just finished one of my favorite movies. The cast is just unbelievable. You realized one of the strengths of the movie is that it doesnt tell you what is happening. You figure it out at the same time as the characters do and you are constantlyh on the edge of your seat. Yes there is a huge amount of technobabble but after seeing it 10x and googling everything and seeing some really great documentaries on what living on a submarine is - it makes even more sense. Sure there are changes made for the purpose of drama, but Scott Glenn trained alongside a real sub captain to get a feel for the cadence of what kind of environment there is on a sub - it has a "real feel". (of course, w/o access to all the secret stuff) Politically speaking, it does say that they were in a transition from one leader to another and in the USSR that was always a really dangerous time - they didnt have very smooth transitions, and people usually fell from favor or worse. thanks for the fun ride.
It's funny, even knowing the plot inside out, and given the topic and storytelling of the movie evolves around the suspense of the outcome (not a movie that lives by it's great action scenes or comedic moments etc.), it's still one of those movies I can rewatch every few month easily, without it getting boring. A real classic.
I wish it was the same way for me still...it used to be...before Baldwin's shooting incident. Seen the movie maybe 200 times over the years, but have only recently been able to even start watching reactions to it.
@@iKvetch558Unfortunately Baldwin isn't the only actor in this film with involvement in unfortunate events.
Missile Drills are practice, not actually starting a war.
Ramius’ wife’s death added to his hatred of the Soviet Union. She had appendicitis and the surgeon screwed up her operation and killed her. He had connections, though, so escaped punishment.
Fully justifiable reason for betraying one's country 🤨
@@pollyparrot9447By his reckoning, it's not his country. He's Latvian, not Russian.
@@genghispecan I thought Ramius was Lithuanian. Nevertheless his wife was but a shackle, binding him to serve the Motherland for her uncle Podorin was a fleet admiral of the Soviet Navy.
Don't worry for watching it in November. The submarine was named after the Great October Revolution, which took place in November because they were still using the Julian calendar in Russia at the time 🙂
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"War Games" from 1983 is another fun Cold War movie. '80s nerds like me who lived through that era took courage from movies like these that there was a chance the U.S. and U.S.S.R. might be able to stop short of incinerating the planet.
Active sonar works like radar: you emit a pulse that bounces off the object, and you listen for the echo. Passive sonar is basically listening since water transmits sound much farther than air
Thought you guys might have had more awarness of navel combat if you played any games but the sonar they use is a passive listening operation. If you want an active sonar, you send out a sound or ping and when you get the sound back, you will have a precise range to target. This is a great action spy thriller. Submarines are used as a deturant in avoiding war. Submarine warfare is like a cat and mouse game. So yeah, being totally silent will tip the edge to your favor. There are a number of other war and spy films that are great to watch. This film was the first time I heard the term "scuttle" and it was pretty obvious what it meant. When many reactors watch The Expanse, it obvious who has never seen this movie because they don't know what the term meant when Lopez said the captain is going to scuttle the Donnenger.
Oh and a little personal fun fact is that I have a friend that served in the Navy in the 90s and he was stationed on the USS Houston in San Diego and we got to tour the submarine back then. Pretty cool and then I noticed a shot of a sub making the breaching maneuver that the Dallas did in the movie and he said that it was this boat that performed that maneuver for the film. That was fun for me because I love this movie.
Oh,and the sabotur was the cook, Loganov, who was called to bear witness to Ramius taking Putin's missile key.
I think it's funny that a lot of people say Tom Clancy wrote espionage novels, but really that was just the vehicle for his stories, particularly those around Jack Ryan. They weren't about spy craft, or military hardware, or political systems, or even good vs evil. They were about one guy who, despite being honest to a fault, can rock the political landscape of the world just by being true to his character and being in the right place at the right time through hard work and diligence. All those other things are interesting, but they are all just the setting. Jack Ryan is a Good Guy who makes mistakes sometimes, but owns them, and knows he is just as fallible as anyone else. He isn't a superhero - he's just a guy doing his best.
it wasn't coincidence that the US sub was there to see The Red October in the start - The Red October was coming out of a major shipyards that the Americans would be likely to be watching.
Because helicopters have moving parts with friction, and because they're not grounded while in flight, they can build up static electrical charges sufficient to be dangerous. So when doing winching operations you need to discharge that charge in such a way as it doesn't go through a person, usually via a line that continues below the winched person. The guy on the sub is holding a metal hook with an insulated handle connected to a cable that would be connected to the sub, the idea being to touch that to the line below the winched person and so discharge through that hook and cable. Presumably the hook might also then be used to pull the winched person in to the conning tower.
I think that Ramius increased the speed in Red Route One to not just get out of the canyons faster than the Soviet fleet thinks he could, but also to test his junior officers’ faith in him. If they revolted over the stress of that change in routine, he couldn’t rely on them to support him once things got really tough. He just didn’t expect the caterpillar drive to get sabotaged.
I believe Ramius sabotaged the caterpillar drive himself as part of the plan to get the men off the sub.
@@libertyresearch-iu4fy The second time, yes, but not when they were running Red Route One. That was done by the GRU agent/cook.
@@kathyastrom1315 You said he didn't expect it. You are contradicting yourself.
@@libertyresearch-iu4fy No, I said that Ramius didn’t expect that the drive would be sabotaged when they were running Red Route One. That was done by the cook. I was talking about Ramius increasing the speed of the canyon run to test his officers’ allegiance to him. If he had anticipated that the drive would have been damaged at that point, he never would have changed the speed, imo. Too many variables.
He expected to get to a point closer to the US coast before faking the radiation leak and getting the crew off the sub. Jonesy on the Dallas tracking him was not in his plan. He had total faith in the caterpillar drive being completely silent. He expected to get the crew off while the Soviet fleet was in the general area so they could rescue the men, while he and his fellow defectors faked scuttling the Red October (can’t remember how he was planning to fake that, though).
I just realised something - he knew long before this what he was going to do ... I'll bet that he calculated a new course through the canyon and so he didn't have to figure it out in real time.
The coutermeasures create noise leading the torpedoes off target as the torpedoes are guided by sound.
To clarify, When Jones is tracking the Red October, they aren't using active sonar but listening to the ambient sounds of the other sub, like propellers, cavitation, and engine noises. You correctly said that if they were using sonar to find the boat, the other boat could hear it. No tracking in secret.
Even if you had a window, if you’re more than a few hundred feet deep, it’s pitch dark, and even under ideal conditions, you can only see a couple of hundred feet.
Back in the day I ate lunch at Planet Hollywood while visiting SoCal. I looked up and the model for the Red October was hanging from the ceiling near/over our table.
One of my favorite Cold War films! I started reading Clancy’s books after seeing it in the theater. So many great actors here-not just the famous names like Sean Connery, James Earl Jones, and Alec Baldwin, but up-and-comers like Sam Neal and Courtney B. Vance. Vance was the radar guy Jonesy, and he almost steals the film, imo. He’s one of those actors who I always love to see on screen. This was the first time I noticed him in a role. A few years later, he did an excellent turn as Jim in an adaptation of Huckleberry Finn with a young Elijah Wood.
I am not aware of that film but you certainly have my attention with that! One of my favorite books
@@catch-uppackets2664 It was produced by Disney in 1993, iirc. I believe Elijah Wood was around 11 or 12-it was his first starring role. Lots of good actors in that film, too, like Jason Robards, Robbie Coltrane, and Ron Perlman as Huck’s father.
Not Tim Curry’s last role as a Russian. He played a Russian mercenary/terrorist in McHale’s Navy (the movie) and the Soviet premier in the game Red Alert 3
One item that i haven't seen in the comments - the colour scheme of combat. The US Attack sub Dallas has blue colours whole both the Soviet Typhoon Missile sub Red October and the attack sub Konevolov have red colours which makes it easier to discern while switch subs during the combat scenes at the end.
McTiernan also directed _Predator_ (1987), you mentioned _Die Hard_ (1988), _Last Action Hero_ (1993), and my favourite (I don't care what anyone says!) _The 13th Warrior_ (1999)!
So as others have said submarines use passive and active sonars to “see”. Passive being very sensitive microphones and active being loud sounds “pings” that travel outward hit a target and bounce back to the sensor. Basically RADAR but with sound.
The reason submarines use sound for detection is because sea water at the depths submarines operate blocks most forms of electromagnetic radiation. That means no radio waves, infrared, visible light or higher frequency light.
You could build a window on a submarine (the one that was lost last year at the Titanic had a window) but light just doesn’t travel far underwater.
What does travel well is sound. Sound travels 4-5 times faster underwater than in air. This is why making submarines very quiet is so important. If the enemy can hear you from several thousand yards away they can shoot you before you can shoot them. Submarines also have very special and secret propeller designs because spinning a propeller to fast causes cavitation (bubble formation) which is very loud. This means they have to keep their speeds down to remain quiet. An adversary could estimate the speed a submarine could go if they got a good look at its propeller.
It’s also the reason submarines rarely use their active sonars. While an active sonar can pickup anything near you and would have had no trouble picking up the Red October it does tell every other submarine in the area exactly where it is. It’s like shining a flash light in a dark forest. Sure you can see but everything else knows exactly where you are.
Torpedoes on the other hand use their active sonars to track their target.
Nuclear submarines have noisy systems like cooling pumps so militaries will spend billions trying to make them quiet. Diesel electric submarines are very quiet on electricity but can only operate like that for hours/days. Nuclear subs can remain under water indefinitely however.
In the book, Clancy provides more information about the death of Ramius' wife, which gives us a better understanding of his motivation . . .
Near the beginning they don't just "happen" to come across a US submarine. NATO hunter killer subs would hang around the routes used by Soviet missile subs after leaving port and attempt to track/shadow them, and the Soviets would attempt to shadow NATO missile subs in the same way.
If you know you're enemy is lying, and they don't know that you know, then you should let them continue to think you don't know they're lying.
One of the main duties of a political officer on Soviet ships was taking care of the crew morale, usually by reinforcing patriotism and reminding them of their duty to the Motherland. This is why Putin wants to post the orders for the crew: they’re to take part in an important operation for the glory of the Soviet Union
As said below, Ramius's wife died during a botched surgery (drunk surgeon with connections). This hurt enough, but in the book he mentions that the suppression of religion made it practically illegal for him to morn her (this is sort of carried forward into mentioning that the Bible in the beginning was hers).
Did you note "Crazy Ivan" was carried forward (Firefly uses the term for a radical turn). During the thaw, they asked Russian Sub drivers about it, and there was no set maneuver. BUT, the rule was if you know the bearing of a western sub (who listens better and is quieter), point your nose at him and go full speed. Hopefully you can break contact while he tries to get out of your way.
"Reuben James" was an actual ship (the third to have that name, the first was sunk by a U-Boat on Neutrality Patrol in WWII). She is one of the "Point of View" ships in Clancy's WWIII Novel "Red Storm Rising".
"Deadliest Catch" had an episode where a Coast Guard Chopper had to put a rescueman on deck and lift a sailor with internal injuries off, in weather worse than this movie. It's quite scary and thrilling.
Chopper blades whipping though the air (especially in the heavy conditions), set the charge on the Copter MUCH higher than a sub. The stick is designed to "ground" the shock and get both objects to the same charge. Otherwise the shock could be lethal (think socks on carpet supersized).
Firefly uses the term for a radical turn). During the thaw, they asked Russian Sub drivers about it, and there was no set maneuver. BUT, the rule was if you know the bearing of a western sub (who listens better and is quieter), point your nose at him and go full speed. Ho
Hello gentlemen. Another great reaction. I first discovered this channel when you watched Vertigo and have enjoyed it immensely ever since. Not sure how you both feel about Hollywood blockbusters, but I would love a reaction to all of Mr. McTiernan’s movies.
There are two primary war submarines. Missiles boats that fire several nukes from a close distance, and the much smaller hunter/killers that hunt the missile boats and each other. But both boats usually have some ability to launch nukes.
Subs have two forms of acoustic detection, passive and active sonar. Active sonar emits a ping that gives you the location of other objects based on how the sound bounces off them, but broadcasts your own location very strongly. Passive sonar is just listening and most commonly pick up the noise an engine makes, or the turning of the propellor in the water. If the ship is moving fast enough the propellor can cause air bubbles which are easily picked up even passively.
Countermeasures like shown in the movie are noise makers that that distract a torpedo. Modern torpedoes are still fired like WWII torpedoes, they show up where the target will be based upon the speed and direction (bearing) of the sub at the time the torpedo is fired. But modern torpedos also have sonar and can acquire a target based on.sound.
Passive countermeasures (not used in movies often) use natural ocean conditions like temperature gradients to bend sound waves away from the sub.
I was signals intelligence in the Army. Back when Morse code was used. It's amazing what you can do just listening, you can tell a lot by small things. The movie "The imitation Game" goes into codebreaking. Really good movie.
During the hunt for the Bismarck, it was one such intelligence listener who picked up on a transmission that was in response to a German admiral inquiring about his son who was serving on the battleship. The reply informed him where the ship was going to dock, and the Allies were able to intercept her
Submarines and torpedoes navigate by sound. The countermeasures do not emit radiation; they emit noise. Imagine a jet aircraft launching flares to try to decoy an infrared missile. The idea is to give the missile a hotter target. It's the same principle here, but the decoy is trying to be a LOUDER target. (As you noticed, guided torpedoes CAN try to reacquire a target after they pass the decoy.)
Some of the James Bond films also involve cooperation with the/some Soviets. In particular: From Russia with Love; The Spy Who Loved Me; The Living Daylights. In general the Bond films don't generally paint the Russians/Soviets as a whole as the baddies.
The switch from Russian to English happened on the word “Armageddon,” which is the same in both languages
In the book, Ramius’s wife died from a botched appendectomy. The surgeon was drunk, but his political connections made him untouchable, and the “antibiotics” she received were just water.
Trivia: Magnetohydrodynamic propulsion is a real thing, but is not practical with current technology-especially for military submarines, where the drive would induce a detectable magnetic signature, negating any extra stealthiness that may have otherwise been achieved.
I think this and ion drives are the long term future of transportation, once there is a revolution in voltage per weight technology.
13:30. Where you gonna put the window? Next to the sunroof? lol
Next to the Flyscreen Door.🤣
I care enough to comment but not enough to check. I think the guy playing the Russian chief of the boat. ( guy that carried off dead political officer) is the huge retired champion gladiator in gladiator. I believe his name is Thor.
The cook/KGB spy was played by the same guy who played Quintus in Gladiator.
In addition to a designated political officer which is there to ensure the "idealogical health and purity" of the crew, an undercover security agent would be assigned to the boat and would have been aware of their true orders. In this case it was the cook - the same crewmember cleaning up the cabin after the murder of the political officer.
Yes, multiple US submarines have collided with underwater mountains, including:
USS San Francisco
In 2005, the USS San Francisco, a Los Angeles-class nuclear submarine, collided with an uncharted seamount while traveling at full speed:
The collision occurred at 2:43 GMT on January 8, 2005, about 364 nautical miles southeast of Guam
The impact caused significant damage to the submarine's hull, including ruptured forward ballast tanks
98 crew members were injured, and one sailor, Machinist's Mate Second Class Joseph Allen Ashley, died from head injuries. Peace out.
the movies based on Clancy books is a good bunch of movies to react to.
A good film for you to watch next would be “The Sum of all Fears”. Would fit well with Hunt for Red October.
The counter-measures just made lots of noise. The torpedos were acoustic and/or sonar homing.
The bubble clouds also interfere with the torpedo’s active sonar, kinda like an underwater smoke screen.
While no US Missile boats are seen in the movie, if you have seen Crimson Tide (Denzel Washington/Gene Hackman) - that sub is a missile boat and not the smaller quicker attack boats.
Landlubbers ;-) Irony that Putin is the political officer. Something like this did happen, a Baltic Fleet Soviet surface warship went rogue in 1975.
A 1990 production, and one of the Russian characters killed was named Putin ...
I watched a Russia reactor watch this movie - she found the Russia dialogue to be hilarious, listening to Connery speaking Russian was apparently very funny, although she said she could figure out what he was trying to say almost all the time, though it didn't always match the English subtitles.
As for the Mutually Assured Destruction - that is why even now when you heard Putin threatening to use nukes, the experts mostly don't believe it. As long as the person with the power is not insane, it isn't going to happen and if they are insane, the sane people around them would stop them because nobody wins if nuclear weapons are involved.
As for the lies - only half right there, both sides lie to each other and both sides know it, but they also tell the true a lot so that you can never be positive what is a lie and what is not. That is the real skill of a diplomate - to lie convincingly, but not too much and to detect the lies told to you from the truths told to you.
Although I was a student in elementary school at the time, I remember the Cuban Missile Crisis, which may be the closest that we have ever come to WW3. My father was stationed at Uplands air base, which was the main defence for Ottawa, the capital of Canada, and the base went of high alert. The level of tension during the Cold War is hard to understand without being in it. I know that with all the things that have happened since, I have never seen that level of tension since 1962 when it happened. Knowing that kind of context really makes this movie more powerful, because a situation like this would have been the same as back in '62 for everyone who was in the loop about what was happening.
this kind of thing did happen in the cold war, not as far as i know with a submarine but more than one Russian aircraft defected
OK Guy's, if you want the whole story you need to read the book. The movie was only about 60% of the book. Ramius's wife died on an operating table from a doctor who was drunk at the time and killed her. There are so many other omissions in the movie that are in the book the movie will make better sense if you read it. Nice reaction though.
In the book, his wife died during surgery because the surgeon was drunk.
That moment when you're reminded that many adults today didn't grow up in the cold war... #AmOld 🥺
😉
Funny no one recognises Stellan Skarsgård aka Tupolev. Best known now in the MCU (Dr Erik Selvig) or in the Star Wars universe (Andor)...
Missel DRILLS not bombing 🙉
I love this movie, but from the perspective of a former sonar man, and that is a guilty pleasure since the technical aspects are so bad it's good.
Narratively this movie is weird. It keeps setting up tension points and then resolving each one almost immediately. I can understand why some people don't like it.
your evolving theories as the movie went on were funny AF! But I sure am glad you kids are not in charge of anything important.
you should checkout the book
one ping only please
Consider checking out “Crimson Tide,” a great sub movie. Thx!
while this is a great submarine movie there is one that is better Das Boot a German film about a WW2 submarine
Good reaction but you guys talk through to much important dialog
Chekhovs submarine... Hehehe, good one
Nuclear Wessels Kapitan! 🤣