Passengers on Russian Tour Ships
Jane Westenholz (from Greenwich, Connecticut)
Cathy Westenholz (her daughter)
Boris Andrews (Bloomington, Minnesota)
Sten Nichols (his brother-in-law)
Andre Maklov (White Bear Lake, Minnesota)
Tomas Rabovitz (Coon Rapids, Minnesota)
Nurse Edith Dubranin (Chicago)
Russian Diplomat
Nikolai Ryabinin (Ambassador to Washington)
Taiwan Nuclear Planning Group
The President of Taiwan
General Jin-chung Chou (Minister for National Defence)
Professor Liao Lee (National Taiwan University)
Chiang Yi (construction mogul, Taipei)
Commander Taiwan Marines (Head of Security, Southern Ocean)
Officers and Guests
Commander Dunning (CO)
Jo Dunning (his wife)
Lieutenant Commander Bill Baldridge (Kansas rancher and navigator)
Laura Anderson (his fiancee)
Ship’s Company
Captain Tug Mottram (Senior Commanding Officer, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute)
Bob Lander (Second in Command)
Kit Berens (Navigator)
Dick Elkins (Radio Operator)
Scientists
Professor Henry Townsend (Team Leader)
Professor Roger Deakins (Senior Oceanographer)
Dr. Kate Goodwin (MIT/Woods Hole)
Newspaper Reporter
Frederick J. Goodwin (
AUTHOR’S NOTE
She was once a familiar sight on the ocean waters surrounding the European coastline — the 240-foot-long Soviet-built Kilo Class patrol submarine. Barreling along the surface, her ESM mast raised, she was a jet black symbol of Soviet sea power.
Throughout the final ten years of the Cold War, the Kilo was deployed in all Russian waters, and sometimes far beyond. She patrolled the Baltic, the North Atlantic, the White Sea, the Barents Sea, the Mediterranean, the Black Sea, and even the Pacific, the Bering Sea, and the Sea of Japan.
At three thousand tons dived, the Kilo was by no means a big submarine — the Soviet Typhoons were twenty-one-thousand-tonners. But there was a menace about this robust diesel-electric SSK because, carefully handled, she could be as quiet as the grave.
Stealth is the watchword of all submarines. And of all the underwater warriors, the Kilo is one of the most stealthy. Unlike a big nuclear boat, she has no reactor requiring the support of numerous mechanical subsystems, which are all potential noisemakers.
The Kilo can run, unseen, beneath the surface at speeds up to seventeen knots, on electric motors powered by her huge battery. At low speeds, the soft hum of her power unit is almost indiscernible. In fact the only time the Russian Kilo is at any serious risk of detection — save by active sonar — is when she comes to periscope depth to recharge her battery.
When she executes this operation, she runs her diesel engines — a process known as “snorkeling,” or, in the Royal Navy, “snorting.” At this point she is most vulnerable to detection: she can be heard; she can be picked up on radar; the ions in her diesel exhaust can be “sniffed”; and she can even be seen. And there is little she can do about it.
Just as a car engine needs an intake of oxygen, so do the two internal combustion diesel generators in a submarine. She must have air. And she must come up to periscope depth, at least, in order to get it. A patroling Kilo, in hostile waters, will snorkel only when she must. She will snorkel only at night — to reduce the chance of being seen — and for the shortest possible time — to minimize the chance of being heard and pinpointed for attack.
Running slowly and silently, the Kilo has a range of some four hundred miles before she needs to recharge. She can travel six thousand miles “snorkeling” before she needs to refuel. It takes a crew of only fifty-two, including thirteen officers, to run her as a front-line fighting unit. She carries up to twenty-four torpedoes, as well as a small battery of short-range surface-to-air missiles. Two of the torpedoes are routinely fitted with nuclear warheads.
Today the Kilo is rarely seen on the world’s oceans. At least she is rarely seen anymore flying the Russian flag. Since the shocking demise of the Soviet Navy in the early 1990s, the Kilo has mostly been confined to moribund Russian Navy yards. There are only two Kilos in the Black Sea, two in the Baltic, six in the Northern Fleet, and some fourteen in the Pacific Fleet.
And yet this sinister little submarine still serves her country. She is now being built almost entirely for export, and no warship in all the world is more in demand. The huge income derived from the sale of the Kilo pays a lot of bills for a near-bankrupt Russian Navy and keeps a small section of the Russian fleet mobile.
The Russians, however, have demonstrated a somewhat alarming tendency: to sell the Kilo Class submarine to anyone with a large enough checkbook — they cost $300 million each.
While no one particularly minded when Poland and Romania each bought one, nor indeed when Algeria bought a couple secondhand, a few eyebrows were raised when India ordered eight Kilos. But India is not seen as a potential threat to the West.
It was Iran that caused worry. Despite a bold attempt at intervention by the Americans, the ayatollahs managed to get ahold of two Kilos, which were mysteriously delivered by the Russians. Iran immediately ordered a third, which has arrived in the Gulf port of Bandar Abbas.
This buildup, however, pales when compared to the activities of a new and deadly serious player in the international Navy buildup game. This nation built the world’s third largest fleet of warships in less than twenty years — a nation with 250,000 personnel in her Navy yards, and an unbridled ambition to join the superpowers.
This is a nation with a known capacity to operate submarines, and a known capacity to produce a sophisticated nuclear warhead small enough to fit into a torpedo.
A nation that suddenly, against the expressed wishes of the United States of America, ordered ten Russian- built Kilo Class diesel-electric submarines.
China.
