Hacker Cinema
Kursk
2018 · Film · 118 min
Directed by Thomas Vinterberg
Barents Sea, August 12th, 2000. During a Russian naval exercise, and after suffering a serious accident, the K-141 Kursk submarine sinks with 118 crew members on board. While the few sailors who are still alive barely manage to survive, their families push for accurate information and a British officer struggles to obtain from the Russian government a permit to attempt a rescue before it is late. But general incompetence are against all their efforts.
5 neutralfrom 5 commenters
Where to watch
No streaming data for this title.
Videos commenters linked
From YouTube links in the comments below. Most are clips and trailers; “Full” means the uploader says so.
5 comments on Hacker News
In the movie 'Kursk' there is exactly such a scene and the literal quote is 'By the book, better start praying. I'm not reli...".
At the time of K-219's sinking, I don't believe the Soviet Union had any Deep Submergence Vehicles (DSVs) capable of going that deep, but they already had the Mir class of DSV in development in Finland, and they were delivered a year later in 1987. The Mir class are supposedly strictly civilian (maybe that's true, maybe not. shrug) They also ordered two military versions of the Mir, the Konsul-class, but those weren't completed until after the fall of the Soviet Union (one in 1999, the other in 2009.)
Any of these could visit the wreck at least in principle, but recover the warheads? That probably depends on the condition of the wreck. If the warheads were thrown clear they might be easier to recover, but harder to find. If the warheads are buried in the wreck, they might be nearly impossible to recover without cutting up the wreck, for which you'd probably need more heavy duty equipment than these DSVs.
Somewhat related, the Kursk sank with nuclear weapons and was cut in half and partially raised to recover them. But that was a very shallow wreck, just 108 meters. The salvage company Russia hired for the job made a neat documentary about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQJ6IMREvz8
At the end of the movie about the Kursk, someone drops one in water accidentally and it seems the air ignites afterwards. Are these candles the same thing?
Why would the world end?
The nuclear reactor that is powering the sub is quite small, producing generally 1/10 of the energy of a nuclear plant. They are designed to withstand direct torpedo hits, and historically when for example a nuclear sub had most of its own torpedoes explode from within the sub, killing everyone inside, the power plant itself survived without damage (there exist is a good documentary about kursk accident and the salvage operation of its two nuclear plants).
Even if it did have a meltdown, it is likely to be a depth if its hitting an underwater mountain. You could explode the biggest nuclear bomb every created at the Mariana Trench and the only effect we would get at the surface would be some bubbles. Water is pretty good at not be compressible, while at the same time able to diffuse the explosion while it is traveling upwards.
The problem of a nuclear sub colliding underwater is the human lives lost because of the crash.
Reminds me of the recent Kursk movie as well...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kursk_(film)