If you read the novel, it, of course, goes deeper and explains more. For instance: - Natalia Ramius, the wife of Captain Ramius, died in the novel due to her Soviet doctor being drunk and messing up a medication that, along with some other easily correctable mistakes, killed her. That was one reason Ramius decided to defect. - One common saying among Soviet workers was, "As long as they pretend to pay me, I will pretend to work." This ambivalence led a mailman to carelessly flick a piece of mail toward its intended mail chute. It missed, landing on the floor. The Soviet mailman didn't notice; if he had, he most likely wouldn't have even cared. That piece of mail, the letter we saw at the beginning from Ramius to Padorin announcing Ramius' intention to defect, was, therefore, a day late. Had it arrived "on time," the Red October might not have survived. - Jones' rank was a Sonarman Third Class. After his success in locating the Red October, Captain Mancuso promoted him on the spot with these words: "Jonesey, you just made Sonarman First Class." These are just a few of many. The book is a really good read if you have the time.
The tidbit that comes along later is the hulk of Red October, after being thoroughly examined and all its secrets ferreted out, was towed back out to the spot it supposedly sank, and scuttled just like the Soviets believed it had been. Just in case Soviet DSRVs ever examined the area, they would find the remains of Red October, where they were expected to be.
Before my adult autism diagnosis, my firends used to joke about how often I watch this movie. Over 3,000 times now. It is the absolute perfect movie. The plot, the casting, the dialog, the pacing: flawless.
Same with me, I also have autism. I can't say I have seen this film 3000 times, I have seen more than a dozen times, getting closer to 20. And I agree, it is flawless.
In the same boat man...the number of times I watched all the Tom Clancy movies is crazy. I think it's because Tom Clancy is a fact/research nerd, and that combination of story + facts is like candy to the high functioning autistic brain. You have these people you want to relate to, involved in action with stoic military personalities (no big emotional areas), and they all give just enough exposition to feed looking up lots of details.
In my family this is a stop-and-watch movie and we've seen it dozens of times. I have learned it is also a perfect "radio drama" - the dialogue is so great I don't need the visuals. We do worry about the mini sub driver, they just left him alone in torpedo-infested waters!!!
It refers to the big bear Ryan has at the end in the plane. It's the same bear that John McClane has at the beginning of Die Hard. Strictly speaking, Stanley is the Koala Ryan's daughter has at the beginning, so there's no real conflict here... except that McTiernan wanted to refer to the big bear.
Author Tom Clancy was known for a lot of technical details in his novels. He used a lot of information, and gave the reader a lot of information, but in a very entertaining way. Having read five or six of his novels, and it was always a quick and intense read. "The Hunt For Red October" is one of the best adaptations of one of his novels.
I was serving in the U.S. Navy as a weaponeer aboard a U.S. ballistic missile sub when this movie came out. On the night the movie premiered, the multiplex movie theater nearest our base made an offer stating that if you showed up uniform, you got in free. As a result, I saw the premier of "Hunt for Red October" in an auditorium jam packed with several hundred fellow sailors. Needless to say; the audience reaction was ... 'unique'. And very, *very* enthusiastic. In the scene when *Dallas* emergency blew to the surface to evade the Russian torp, I think you could have heard the audience reaction from several blocks away (at the very least.) If you enjoy this kind of movie, may I also *strongly* recommend "Crimson Tide" staring Denzel Washington and Gene Hackman. "Hunt" is good, high-action fare but there are a few elements that are ... well ... 'fiction for the purpose of plot advancement.' "Crimson Tide" is just as much action and adventure but it's also *terrifyingly* plausible and very, very well researched.
😭 That’s one of the most beautiful stories I’ve heard in a while … 🫡 I’ll never forget watching Total Recall in the Theater at Fort Gordon, Ga in ‘91 … on the heels of Desert Storm. - Which reminds me, “… I’ll blow him to Mars!” 🤔 I still puzzle over this uncanny threat by Captain Mancuso. Any thoughts on that, Navy? - 31 Mike of the US ARMY Comm. 🍻
IIRC, the Navy was... uncomfortable with the premise of "Crimson Tide" and thus did not assist with its production. Whereas they enthusiastically helped with filming "The Hunt for Red October." In fact, the Navy and the CIA come off looking pretty heroic, in this film.
Hostile Waters is also an enjoyable submarine movie, its based on real events about the loss of the Soviet Navy's K-219, a Yankee I class nuclear ballistic missile sub. Its a television production though so its a bit B-quality and i think its still classified information (certainly at the time this film was made) so its still a guess what/who the real cause of the accident was.
The "Political Officer" (the guy he killed) was a uniquely Soviet military position. He was a member of the Communist Party tasked with ensuring political orthodoxy of the crew, and outranked everyone but the captain. The political officer could even, in some cases, countermand the captain or even take control of the ship.
EXACTLY 💯 PERCENT, That's what a lot of people don't get, that & he had no idea what the Bible was, other than just some book, little things to notice! That's communism!!!
The Zampolit. The only mutiny ever recorded (admitted to) in the Soviet Navy was led by the ship's Zampolit. Protesting the Soviet leadership. They were, of course, killed to a man.. The irony of the man there to prevent mutiny led the mutiny...
@@MGower4465 That very-real mutiny- aboard the Russian frigate _Storozhevoy-_ was the direct inspiration for Tom Clancy to write his very first book, _The Hunt for Red October_ ...which was then turned into a movie of the same name!
They shot the film with each sub and ship having it's own color lighting, so that visually the audience could instantly know which ship we're watching. One of the masterful ways to keep immersion in the movie.
@@NightOwlModeler A technique mirrored in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. The USS Reliant under Khan's command is brightly lit while Kirk's Enterprise is turned down low. This subconsciously establishes the superiority of the enemy ship while the hero ship is at a disadvantage and you root for the underdog.
And that was Navy footage not filmed for the movie - it was actually a film of a real Los Angeles-class sub trial. Nearly all of the military footage used in the movie was "stock footage" except the underwater scenes, which were mostly models and composite shots (no CGI).
@@BigTroyT - Yup... lots of real footage used here, which makes films so much more believable. Also worth noting... Alec Baldwin is best known for using real ammunition on film sets.
The zoom-in when the language transitions from subtitled Russian to English was a little homage by the director to the film "Judgment at Nuremberg," which used the same technique. Plus, it sets up a nice jarring effect when the DSRV docks with Red October, and the officer opening the hatch is suddenly speaking Russian.
Oh, but I caught it just a minute or so later and mention it. What was that about not catching things? Bazinga!! ;) And very glad to know the background to the awesome film technique. Thanks!
FYI: There’s static when boarding a submarine which is negatively charged, because it’s in the water and the earth is negatively charged. The helicopter with its rotating blades create a positive charge, so if the guy retrieving the person being dropped from helicopter touches him directly, he completes the current connection, and they will get shocked, like lightning. I may be explaining it wrong but that’s my understanding.
For the most part that is correct. Friction between insulators and conductor actually rubs electrons off a surface (this is how the classic grade school science demonstration of glass rod and wool experiment works, or your feet rubbing on a carpet). This is what static electricity is, the electrons being rubbed off one surface onto another. The helicopter blades are moving very quickly through the air, generating a lot of friction. The air rips electrons off the helicopter. Since the helicopter isn't touching anything these charges just keep building up. When Ryan was hanging in rainy weather out with saltwater...he is basically the key on the end of the kite string. If they don't get that ground cable onto the line all that electricity will jump between the first contact. They passed just a little to close to each other and it electrocuted the chief.
Fun fact, when Tom Clancy published this book the FBI showed up at his door. They believed he had somehow accessed classified documents and published what he had read, though in actuality he had just pieced together what had happened through public access documents and changed some minor details.
The political officer, Putin, is played by Colin Firths brother Peter. Each surface ship and sub has a unique sonar "signature", and attack subs have a computerised library of every signature. In 1977 the USSR launched a new aircraft carrier, the Kiev, when she first ventured out of Soviet waters, Royal Navy submarine HMS Swiftsure was tasked with getting her signature for the library, and possibly a close-up look at the underneath of her. After hours of cat and mouse maneuvers Swiftsure was directly underneath Kiev, and was photographing the bottom of her from a distance of 10ft. The most impressive part was, the whole time Kiev and her entire battle group were conducing anti-submarine detection drills.
It's always amusing that the political officer is named Putin. I believe that President Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin's father was a political officer aboard a submarine after running penal battalions in World War 2.
In 1980, Tom Clancy was in San Diego doing research for this book. He went to the "E clubs", where sailors hung out. He bought them drinks in return for information. At the same time, my sister was popular with sailors, so sailors took me on their ships and subs and told me stories. One story is like the one you posted, only a US sub had been hanging out underneath the USS Enterprise during an exercise. Another story: there was a sailor in the engineering spaces of USS Enterprise. This sailor was into Led Zeppelin in a big way. He had a BIG boombox and played Led Zep at top volume. An entire sonar class in San Diego was listening to Led Zep as the USS Enterprise approached Pearl Harbor.
In the Soviet Navy, political officers accompanied commanding officers on missions. Their job was to ensure things were done following Soviet ideology, and they could overrule the captain's orders if they chose. That's why Sean Connery's character had to murder the political officer at the start. Tom Clancy's novel is based on an incident in Soviet Navy history where the enlisted crew tried to sail their ship to Norway. The crew took a chance because all the officers were ashore. Unfortunately, they failed and were captured.
He *_has to_* aim a gun at other people and pull the trigger while filming some movies. It's his *_job_* to do so. The fault was not making sure that the gun was indeed loaded with blanks, and yeah, for that, he deserves _some_ part of the blame - but he's also just a human who falls into patterns and takes little shortcuts here and there, especially when working with people who have proven to be reliable over and over. There are two principles in our traffic law here in Germany that come to mind - "Vertrauensgrundsatz" and "Misstrauensgrundsatz", which translate into "principle of trust" and "principle of mistrust". When you're driving, you may in the vast majority of situations trust that other people will follow the traffic rules (the "principle of trust"), with some exceptions such as children and old people, where the opposite applies, you can _not_ trust them to follow the rules (children don't necessarily know the rules, have too little experience to judge certain situations, ..., old people can be forgetful, confused, even suffering from dementia...), so you have to be more careful and always expect mistakes, which is the "principle of mistrust". To bring this whole thing back to the topic at hand - I'd say when you work all the damn time with professionals whose _job_ is to hand you a safe gun, something akin to that "principle of trust" should apply. Yes, you're still at fault when something does happen, but only partially, and only to a small part. The main guilt lies with the person whose job it was to hand him a safe gun.
The reason for the static electricity is because the helicopters blades produce a static charge. If you were to grab any part of it, including someone hanging underneath, the charge gets released. That poll they had is used to send the charge to ground.
38:57 This footage of the plane crash is actually from 1951, and has been used in several movies. Believe it or not, the pilot actually survived, and returned to flight duty six months later! en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Chamberlain_Duncan#Crash_on_the_USS_Midway
Former Navy Aviator Ward Carol (who has a RU-vid channel) had compiled a film of planes crashing on aircraft carriers, all gathered from public sources, so there was no copyright, or security issues with any of it, which the producers asked for a copy of, which he gladly provided to them. He was most disappointed that the clip they chose was for a Korean War era crash, and not one of several more modern planes crashing they could have picked.
Basil Poledouris. His music for Conan the Barabarisn is still being performed by symphony orchestras around the world. You know Dr. Beverly Crusher. Did you recognize the officer on the Enterprise who at first didn’t approve of Alec Baldwin? He played Moriarty to Data’s Sherlock Holmes. The cameos in this film…the big Russian guy in the sub was Tigris of Gaul in Gladiator. Helicopter guy, comedian and actor Rick Dicommun. RIP. This film is amazing that it somehow made submarine warfare as exciting as a game of chess and/or car chases!
Tom Clancy wrote and published THFRO, his first book, as a late-middle-age insurance salesmen in 1984. It was originally published by the small Naval Institute Press, and first sold primarily to Navy folks, but word of mouth was so strong that he soon had a much bigger publishing deal. Clancy spent the next 25 years topping the Best Seller's list with his series of Jack Ryan-related books until his death in 2017, having sold well over 100 million books. He also wrote a number of non-fiction technical books on various military weapons systems (tanks, ships, aircraft) based on his own research. There were also a number of "Clancy-branded" books by ghost-writers, and of course a long series of Clancy-inspired video games by Ubisoft, starting with Rainbow Six and including the Ghost Recon and Splinter Cell game series. Finally, I believe 6 of his novels have been made into movies, though only the first three (Red October, and the two Harrison Ford movies, Patriot Games and Clear And Present Danger) were really faithful to the books. Clancy is credited with creating the "techno-thriller" and was the best-selling author in the 1980s and 1990s, and was only surpassed in the 2000s by JK Rawlings. For getting such a late start as an author, Clancy was an absolute powerhouse, and he knew how to keep the reader on the edge of their seat until the very last page.
When Ronald Reagan was president he received a copy of "The Hunt for Red October" as a Christmas gift. After reading it he pronounced it "the perfect yarn". Word of his endorsement spread and helped the book become a best-seller.
As I recall, both Hunt for Red and Red Storm Rising had some technical-ish details that probably came from his job in insurance. The problems with the Akula's reactor pressure meters masking real (eventually fatal) issues, as one example.
The Hunt for Red October is one of the stories that really holds up. Saw the movie several times in the theater then read the book and listened to the audiobook. Each was outstanding.
Ex-Navy, submarine force here. The film got so many things right because A) Clancy was that correct, and B) the cast filmed in real subs. I forget which was used to breach via “emergency blow”, but it was an LA class. The periscope blinker messages was my sub, USS Puffer (SSN 652) and oddly enough, done by a cook (MS3 Berglund; on subs because he couldn’t take the seasickness on surface boat).
I believe you're mistaken about them filming IN an actual American sub. The making-of featurette on the DVD and blu-ray shows that sets of both the Dallas bridge and Red October bridge were built in huge gimbaled rigs that could tilt in real-time side-to-side and fore-and-aft by over 30 degrees. Many of the cast members actually got seasick filming in them. I believe the production designers got to tour actual boats and they did a phenomenal job making the sets look so realistic. However, all of the exterior shots (on the surface) used actual US Navy boats. The underwater shots were ship models in a smoky miniature set, with one of he earliest uses of CGI to create the flotsam and jetsam that fly past the camera to ad some extra depth and realism.
I was working at the Navy's AUTEC Project when the film came out. The story I got about the novel was that the NIS called Tom in for an interview requesting all the sourced material used in researching the book. His team provided BOXES of declassified documents. He explained he merely connected the dots and used deduction to fill in the blanks, then finally asked, "How close did I get?" and the response was; "You're in the middle of an NIS investigation - How close do you THINK you got?"
@@AlphaLimaXray they were on the boats themselves more than a few times, including mine. I was leaving the service at the time, but one of my last times on board I met James Earl Jones. His voice is just as deep in person. Yes, they did most of the actual filming on sets, but learned from us what it was like.
The Russian officer who said "You ass, you killed us!" is a Polish actor very popular in Poland in the 1960s when he played a lead role of a teenager in a very popular Polish TV series. At the time "Red October" was filmed he had defected to the US and worked as a character actor in Hollywood. He returned to Poland for a very successful career in the late 1990s or early 2000s.
Basil Poledouris was one of the greatest movie composers of the past half century. He won an Emmy for the music to Lonesome Dove, and did great scores for Conan the Barbarian, Quigley Down Under, Robocop, and other films. The legendary filmmaker John Milius is uncredited but wrote a lot of the Russian dialogue, including Connery's big speech to the crew. Milius was frequently called on by filmmakers for such favors because has a knack for writing powerful speeches. Spielberg had him write Quint's iconic USS Indianapolis scene in Jaws.
Hunt for Red October was Clancy's first novel and was VERY well researched. A personal note, just after the book was published I was working at one of the three letter agencies when we had a surprise visit from several members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. As they were being escorted through our work area, one of the admirals stopped at the desk of my friend who had a copy of the book on his desk. The officer turned to the others in his party, smiled and said, "I see this man is working on a very sensitive project".
Jack Ryan met Skip Tyler while recovering in the hospital. Ryan recovering from his chopper crash, Tyler from his traffic crash. That's why they ask about the back and the leg, respectively.
13:10 - So this is a drydock. Basically a large floating workbay for boats. The drydock are generally fitted with big ballast tanks that are filled with air or water (and sometimes they contain big doors on the end). When they want to get the boat in or out of the drydock they flood the ballast tanks and open ports letting water in. They entire bay sinks, and then the boat can float out. This is mainly used for repairing and serving existing vessels. Usually in construction they are built in a shipyard which has a big ramp on one side. The boats are pretty much on large dollies that will descend down the ramp and drop the boat in the water. If you travel up in New England you can see the old decommissioned Naval Shipyards and the still active one in Maine. Seeing a shipyard dump a ship in the water is quite the sight....it makes a very big wave.
5:20 - Basil Poledouris was an American composer and scored the soundtracks of franchises such as Robocop, Conan, Iron Eagle, and Starship Troopers. 27:09 - Yes, political defection and asylum are very real things and were exacerbated by Cold War tensions. Often people get tired of executing their country's political will and just want to live a simple, normal life. Connery's character epitomizes this and you can see his exhaustion, disdain, and regret in being the Russian navy's pawn, having to mentor their submarine fleet's commanders.
There was a Russian pilot who successfully defected to Ukraine with an Mi helicopter a few months back, and reports a few days ago of an attempted defection by a Russian pilot with a T22M3 strategic nuclear-capable bomber, which would be sorta like an American pilot attempting to flee to Russia in a B1 bomber.
Fyi the USS Dallas was based in Groton CT. I'm retired from Electric Boat sub manufacturer in Groton. The closeup in the Capt's cabin was transition from Russian to English.
The admiral in command of the Enterprise is played by Fred Thompson. He was a senator for Tennessee from 1994 to 2003. After his term he went back into acting. He ran for president in 2008.
One thing missing from the film is another reason for Ramius's defection. Its mentioned that his wife died a year before. What isn't mentioned is that he was a believer in the Communist system until his wife became ill and was operated on by a surgeon who was drunk and died as a result. Because the surgeon had party connections he was never punished, this heavily contributed to his reason for defecting.
Ramius' reason for defecting was when he learned purpose of the ship: treaty violation and active plan for first strike. His wife's death meant Ramius had nothing at home.
The system Petty Officer Jones (Jonesy) uses in an attempt to identify the submarine (Red October) when first encountered, called "SAPS" (Signal Analysis Processing System), is a real system (with a different name) developed by Motorola for the U.S. Navy, and Top Secret at the time the original novel was written. This is one of many things in his novels that Tom Clancy should not have known about and for which he was apparently investigated by one or more departments of the U.S. government. On another note, if you want to get a really good look into the current, and immediate future of the, Russia/Ukraine situation, and where it could lead, read (there is no movie) Red Storm Rising.
The man Ramius kills isn’t a councilor. He’s the “political officer.” He’s there to make sure the officers and crew remain faithful to the USSR. Regarding Sean Connery as Marco Ramius, he was brought in almost at the last minute.
Another fun fact.....all the shots of the control rooms in both subs were full sets that were built on pistons so when the scene called for turns the set actually tilted in the direction of the turn.
You caught Gates McFadden from TNG, but you missed a notable guest star from there. The man who plays the 2nd in command on the aircraft carrier Enterprise is the same actor who portrays Moriarty on TNG. The "Big D" is a nickname for the USS Dallas. Fun fact, both aircraft carriers named Enterprise (CV-6 & CV-65N) were nicknamed "The Big E".
They're not the only Trek actors. The nervous officer telling Yuri they're gonna get killed would also be in Capt. Sulu's bridge crew in the Excelsior. Him: "She's gonna fly apart, sir!" Sulu: "Fly her apart, then!"
The man in the DSRV who bangs on the hull of the Red October was also in TNG. He the Starfleet officer who gave Data a hard time when Data was given command of a ship involved in the Federation blockade against the Romulans and Tasha Yar's daughter during the Klingon Civil War.
16:55, not so much Warp Drive as the Romulan/Klingon(?) Cloaking device. If you remember TOS "Balance of Terror", that was basically submarines in space.
Yes, definitely know that episode. I was thinking the caterpillar was also faster which would have been warping WHILE cloaked. I was ready to be impressed.
That's certainly a good reason, though it doesn't explain why Connery has never done anything about his accent in any other role, either (gotta love his "Spaniard" in "Highlander". All said with love, of course; part of Connery's charm is his irrepressible brogue).
"We're cavitating! He can hear us!!" "Okay Ryan we just unzipped our fly..." When a submarine goes in reverse, especially while traveling forward (direction changes are delayed because water) it stirs up the water and creates bubbles... like stirring your coffee one way quickly andnthen suddenly stirring it in reverse. Those bubbles collapse under the water pressure especially when they encounter the proppellers that are chopping through them. The result is like vigorous applause... the sudden collpasing of thousands of bubbles creates vibrations in the metal propellers and makes a shrieking noise... like air in your pipes kind of noise.... the creation of the bubbles is called cavitation..as in creating cavities.... and no matter if the Dallas is hidden behind the October... its like someone sneaking up behind you and shouting, "HEY!!" You're gonna know someone's there even if you dont know who. By delaying their "all stop" to stop the engines so they drift but slower, in order to ask "which way is he turning?", Mancuso kind of forced them to HAVE to hit the breaks by going reverse. But also he wanted to announce his presence to Ramius.
To this day, whenever I make a hard right turn, I say to myself, “Right full rudder, reverse starboard engine!” I sometimes say it out loud and my wife just rolls her eyes.
8:38 Fun Fact for you, Christina: The actor who played the COB(Chief Of The Boat) aboard USS Dallas is Larry Ferguson, who, in addition to playing the Dallas' COB, was also one of the screenwriters for this movie
A great entry into the Tom Clancy Jack Ryan series. Look forward to hopefully the Harrison Ford ones. One of the reasons the USS Dallas was better equipped to evade torpedoes than the Red October is that it is a much smaller more agile submarine. The Subs are essentially two very different classes. The large missile boats (Boomers) are giant vessels designed to carry as many warheads as possible and stay underwater as long as possible. They essentially just patrol or sit in the ocean in strategic positions for months at a time. Their entire mission is to provide a nuclear weapon launch point near the enemy in a place where noone on land truly knows where they are (they rarely report in, and when they do only 1 or 2 people are privileged to know that information). The Dallas is a Hunter/Killer, a fast-attack submarine that is designed primarily to find and attack other submarines and vessels. They are much smaller, but much faster. In the cold war this was the constant game at play under the water. The HKs would go search for the other submarines, and the boomers would go hide and practice missile drills. And this would continue over and over and over. Each side trying to show how they could best the other at any given moment.
I only wish she was in the movie more! And I did recognize the CO, but couldn't place him until later. Especially not in the Elementary period clothing! LLAP
Remember, this is during the Cold War, when the US & Soviet Union were "rattling sabers" at each other, with nukes aimed at each other. Ramius is defecting. A live Political Officer would do his duty & remove the traitor Ramius from duty. So the loyal Soviet (Political Officer) had to die. But not everyone is in on his plan. The crew are loyal Soviets. So, how do you persuade crew to leave their ship? This movie was made after a Russian sub went missing, so Tom Clancy's story was tweaked to tie into the real event.
@@TheOneTrueChris And Iron Eagle and Free Willy. Lots of strong military or "strength"-related themes, and his style is immediately recognizable. Sadly, he died in 2006.
8:05 "Toilet paper?" Yes, well spotted. Back in the day before really advanced computer driven displays became common, an operator would use a wax crayon / grease pencil to mark something of interest on the glass screen of his display. When he was finished with that mark, how to wipe it off? Toilet Paper. Crude but effective, idiot proof and fast. Sometimes cheap and simple gets the job done. Not just sonar operators would do this. My gig many years ago was designing radars. Our displays had an sheet of glass to protect the display tube behind it but also for writing on...
The guy who met Ramius discussing orders is the Political Officer. He is a representative of the Soviet government and has tight control over Ramius, the Captain of the sub. Nothing on that sub goes unless the P.O. approves.
i love that opening, where the camera zooms out from his face to the whole sub. As fot that "uncomfortable with water" thing, how about Das Boot? Generally acknowledged as the best submarine movie ever. I think they call this a confrontational therapy :)
One of the best of the Cold War movies. Girls love sailors. My mother did ;-) There was an actual mutiny on a Russian surface ship in the Baltic in the 80s. The Soviets were able to recover it by force. There is a conspiracy theory that this happened with a Russian nuclear submarine off of Hawaii.
I think you're referring to the actual incident that inspired much of Clancy's writing here, thought it occurred in 1975. Basically, the crew of a brand-new state-of-the-art Soviet warship, the Storozhevoy, decided that the Kremlin leadership was destroying the Communist dream through corruption (undeniable), and so they set-out to inspire another revolution by sailing to Leningrad and broadcasting a call for the people to rise-up. It failed, but the dream was admirable.
It is interesting that you commented on his letter opener. In the book there is a paragraph dedicated to it. It was his combat knife that broke when he used it to kill a German soldier, he kept it and later had it filed down into that letter opener.
57:15 Those are the launch tubes for the 20 Thermonuclear, Submarine-Launched Ballistic Missiles. The "200 warheads parked off the coast of Washington" they talk about before alludes to the fact that these missiles could carry 10 Multiple Independent Reentry Vehicles (MIRVs) each in those days. Arms Reduction Treaties since then have cut-down the number of MIRVs in the missiles on both sides, but by no means have Single-Warhead SLBMs been agreed upon.
They're never going to get rid of every MRV-capable missile because multiple warheads are the only viable means for a strategic counterforce sortie against an enemy's hardened targets. Several warheads detonated on top of an underground command center or ICBM silo is the only way they can create enough dynamic overpressure to collapse a subterranean target.
@@BogeyTheBear There's also the anti-anti-ballistic-missile defences considerations. One warhead, traveling more-or-less on a ballistic trajectory, is relatively easy to intercept. Dozens or hundreds of MIRVs, some empty decoys, are a nightmare to intercept before they reach their detonation points, especially when mixed with other decoy munitions. Putin is finding this out the hard way, as Ukraine has mastered cloaking Storm Shadow or HIMARS strikes in clouds of cheap Grad rockets and/or other less-precise munitions and/or the virtually-magic American MALD drones. This tactic creates a cloud of targets on the radars of AA units, who have mere seconds to figure-out which blips are the real danger before the opportunity to intercept is gone.
@@michaelccozensWell, less warheads in the bus means more room for penetration aids. Question: "What is a 'penetration aid'?" Answer: "Well, in the late 60's it was a Sidecar and a Sinatra album on the turntable..."
Captain Tupolev's submarine, an "attack" sub like Dallas, is part of a Sovet class called Alfa. They are extremely fast underwater, but it is thought some of that speed is a result of reducing the boat's mass by reducing the shielding keeping the crew safe from the radiation of the nuclear reactor. Note - the Soviets have another class of attack sub they call Shchuka, which NATO code-named Akula. Then the Soviets built the missile boats like Red October. And perhaps in a poke at NATO, called these way-bigger vessels Akula. NATO called them Typhoons.
If you are interestet in more Submarine action, there is "Das Boot"(1981) about the Crew of a German Sub during WW2. A movie like no other, not even Red Ocober can come close to the Claustophobic feeling "Das Boot" can make you feel.
During the 80s, if Paramount made a movie that had a US Aircraft Carrier, it was always shown as the USS Enterprise. This movie, Top Gun and of course Star Trek IV.
Yes, 'Turbulence' was a commonly known word at the time, and YES, suitcases have had wheels since the 1960s...LOL. Why would you think suitcases didn't have wheels in the 1980s? LMAO
26 knots is 30 mph. Not fast until you figure it's while threading an underwater obstacle course in a huge sub. Then it's pretty fast. The "Top Gun people" who crashed were in a damaged aircraft. The spinning rotor blades on a helicopter generate static electricity. When they land it is transferred into the ground, but in the air you'll get popped.
Yup, and cold air increases friction against the rotorblades, as well as humidity, so an arctic storm generates shitloads of static that charge up all the metal surface. Imagine if a simple minor shoe/carpet event already stings when you touch doorknob, you can figure out the hell of static discharge you'd get from a chopper in such conditions.
Yeah, if the chopper is still in the air and you make contact, the fastest course for the electrical charge from the helo to the ground tends to be directly through your nice, watery heart.
The actor you called "a familiar kid" also played a tactician on a America's Cup boat in a movie "Wind." If you know ANYONE who has a sailboat or likes sailing, guaranteed they have seen that movie.
When Ryan first meets up with his friend "Skip Tyler" while he is supervising the DSRV mods, Tyler asks Ryan, "how's your back?" That foreshadows the admirals' story to the carrier captain about Ryan's injuries in the helicopter crash and Ryans other bona fides. Tom Clancy had never seen a submarine when he wrote Red October. His mind was such that he just figured all that stuff out. "Brilliant" doesn't do him justice.
He actually did a ton of research, reading many relevant books, but, yes, he did ultimately combine all of that knowledge in his head and filled in minor details himself.
Defecting from the Soviet Union was a very dangerous business. Check out the book "Mig Pilot," the true story of Victor Belenko who flew his Mig 25 jet to Japan in 1976.
43:30 think of the helicopter's blades as several balloons and the air in a thunderstorm as a giant woolly jumper. As the blades whip through the air they generate friction and pick up electrical charge, the metal of the helicopter stores it as it builds up, and because the whole thing is airbourne there is no way for that charge to ground itself and discharge. If the gap from air to ground becomes small enough in proportion to the stored electrical potential, it can then jump the gap in a mini lightning strike. Ideally you'd dip the winch cable into the ocean a few feet to ensure the aircraft is grounded before trying to have it picked up by the ship's crew. Don't know if it's still the same now, but around 20 years ago when I was learning to sail you could call up the Coast Guard stations around Portsmouth/Southampton in the UK and ask if they wanted to do a winch practice; it's good to know how the process works and they gotta practice on someone...
Regarding smoking and burning things on a submarine. 1. They do come up for fresh air as often as they need to. It's not like they're in deep space. Just deep water. 2. They have lots of air filtration. These filters are necessary to remove carbon dioxide from all the humans breathing in the enclosed space and are changed constantly, as needed. They're more than capable of getting a little smoke out of the air. Now, if everybody would stop smoking and burning things, they could wait a little longer before having to change the filters, maybe get 5% longer filter life (I don't know for sure, but the CO2 is almost all of the problem and the smoking barely impacts it). On the other hand, smoking has long been considered an effective way to relax. A relaxed crew makes better decisions under pressure. As for the risk of lung diseases, that's obviously a risk when choosing this form of relaxation but has nothing to do with air quality on submarines. Russia banned indoor smoking in 2013, long after this movie was made.
Not so much "filtration" and more "carbon sequestration." Eventually the banks of, say, lithium hydroxide get saturated with carbon from the CO2 they can't absorb anymore.
I used to drag race big rigs (tractor-trailers) and had a highly modified Series 60 Detroit Diesel which I used to quote the line "come on Big 'D' fly" while racing.
12:58 That submarine is in a dry dock. One end has a water tight door, so when the sub is ready to go back into the water, they open the door and flood the dry dock.
When the new generations, Gen Z, Millennials, watch this movie, how well they understand the Cold War. We grew up in it, and it was a part of our lives. I wonder if this movie means the same to them, as it meant to us.
I am from the very North of my country (Germany) and we have the sea in our blood as have all the people on the coast..and that Columbus quote at the end hits EXACTELY how we feel every day somebody of us goes out on the ocean
The drive technology is based on controlling the direction a liquid flows using electrical current. The "doors" pull water in and shoot it out the back, like a jet engine. Since there's no mechanical parts, there is no noise. The downside to this form of movement is the water gets ionized passing through the engine. Using the Star Trek comparison, the sub leaves an ion trail that can be detected and tracked.
The novel (especially the end "dogfight") is better than the movie, but the movie did a pretty good job of converting the book to the screen. Well worth a read if you're into reading!
10:50 "So he's like the ship's councilor?" No, not even close. He's the "Political Officer". In Cold War Russia, the Communist government was super oppressive. Many Russian citizens wanted to leave, go anywhere else, rather than stay under that regime. In fact, as you've seen, that is exactly what Ramius is doing. Preventing these "defections" (citizens leaving) is why Russia built the famous Berlin Wall. It's also why they put a political officer on every ship of the Russian navy. Think of him like a spy. He is constantly watching everybody on board, especially the officers, for any sign that anybody might not be fanatically loyal to the Russian government. He will report anything suspicious, often leading to arrests, incarceration, or execution of the people he reports. Basically, stay on his good side, impress him with your fanatical loyalty, or you lose your career, probably your freedom, and possibly your life.
hmmm that still sounds a tiny bit like the counselor as far as how much power they could have. They watch the crew closely and can report behavior that can lead to damage to a career, but I still see what you are saying.
"What are the countermeasures?" With aircraft there are 2 kinds: flares qhich provide a heat signature hotter than the target's engine thus distracting a heat seeking missle, or chaff which is strips of foil which disrupt the active radar guidance of radar guided missiles. With submarines the countermeasure is a.device which causes a massive amount of bubbles which mask other sound... like dropping a box of alkaseltzers into your bathwater. This disrupts the sonar tracking as the forward scanning sonar pings bounce off the myriad of bubbles and all the passive sonar hears is fizzing. However if the torpedo in its trajectory goes through and beyond the bubble cloud, it may then reacquire its intended target. "RIGHT FULL RUDDER, REVERSE STARBOARD ENGINE!" not only were they turning hard right, they were making the right side go backwards making them spin even tighter (normally both engines pripel in the same direction buton a dual engine like the Red October the engines can work independently)... however for a ship that big... its like the Titanic: a hard turn, even ehanced with sharp throttle differentials, is still slow as hell.
Static electricity because helicopters have lots of moving parts rubbing against each other, and are insulated from the ground whilst in flight. So they can build up a significant static charge with respect to ground, and this can be a danger when using the winch, either to a person on the end of the line or to someone on the ground who grabs the line. That's why it's important to let the end of the line touch ground first without a person in between.
In the aircraft carrier scene between Ryan, the Admiral and the Captain, the Captain, played by Daniel Davis, also played ‘Moriarty’ on a episode of Star Trek: Next Generation.
28:08 "He Said That He Doesn't Like Turbulence" And the type of aircraft transporting him to the USS Enterprise, which is an AWACS plane, is notorious for giving a rough ride in strong winds. Mainly due to that circular dish on top of the fuselage of the plane
No. Ships are *repaired* or *refit* in a drydock. Ships the size of subs are *built* on slipways, and launch by into the water stern-first. Some ships actually launch sideways if there is no room for the stern-first option.
Saw this with my parents when it premiered in the theater, one of my favorites. Another one of my favorites you should react to is The Final Countdown (1980) The U.S.S. Nimitz goes back to December 6th, 1941. It's filmed on the Nimitz. It's like Top Gun meets Back to the Future.