Soviet Navy: "Even though titanium is difficult to work with, we have a lot of it that we can use." Lockheed Corp.: "Yeah, we know.... uh, wait, no. Actually, we meant to say, 'Oh, really? We were unaware of these facts.' "
@@skyden24195 Now you read that and put yourself in the position of someone that has no idea to what you are referring. Pick one out of the blue is utterly without meaning but you really can't quite grasp that, can you?
@@DifferentM14 True one fire like that took out one of their titanium subs that was full of officers. It was allot smaller than the alfa class but everyone died in it.
One of the great difficulties of working with titanium is that it loves oxygen like a greasy trucker loves his lot lizards. Any part of it that gets even cherry red needs to be purged or it will oxidize and sometimes even catch fire. Argon is the cheapest gas to do this with. The Soviets figured the best way to weld massive titanium sections was to purge the whole building with Argon, and supply the welders with oxygen, and stick welding stingers for holding tungsten electrodes. An extreme variant of TIG.
During my 1st few years out of engineering school, I managed a cleanup and disposal of a room at a Purdue that contained a liquid NaK heat exchanger and a mercury heat exchanger. Mercury dangers are well known, but that liquid sodium/potassium was nasty business. It was so reactive to water that humidity in the air would ignite it. Fun times. There was a 'manual' in the room and I think it was dated in the late 50's or early 60s.
They were also very loud as their focus was more on speed than stealth. My uncle was a P3 crewmember and he said the Alphas sounded like they had a chain wrapped around their screw they were so loud
Two unmentioned negatives: The Alfa class was the loudest submarine in the water and liquid metal reactors turn into bricks if they are ever shut down. Other marine reactors are generally shut down while in port and the sub is attached to shore power.
A lttle bit like a catalytic converter in a car exhaust system. They turn into bricks too. The Russians were the only ones capable of welding titanium to stainless steel at that time.
The Alfa reactors had to be hooked up to superheated steam from shoreside supply to be repaired in Soviet shipyards. When the Soviet boiler broke, or its fuel had been stolen by a crooked official the steam stopped and the liquid metal coolant turned to concrete.
Also, titanium can become brittle when subjected to the Artic cold. Any flaw in the hull can be catastrophic and there really isn't any cost effective way to weld any damage.
Plus the Soviets funded their projects by plundering and exploiting the outlier territories such as Ukraine. If anything the overall cost and maintenance probably helped usher in the end of the Soviet empire.
The US dismissed the fact Russia could weld Titanium pressure vessels not because they thought it impossibe, but because they couldn't do it so it was important to them to insist the Russians couldn't do it either. But they could.
Everybody's an expert and have never worked around this? Former Engineering Tech @ welding engineering laboratory at a US Naval Shipyard, Ti visual inspector.
It would be more appropriate to reference the Serria I & II class submarines as platforms that benefited from the developments of the Alpha project rather than Akula. Also addressing the radiological concerns of the Alpha's experimental reactor design and short falls in the automation systems / reduced manning plan would help explain why Russia didn't just build more Alphas or an improved / modernized Alpha II as was common in many other submarine class of the era.
There was plan to develop Alfa successor, but priority was given to increase numbers of new multipurpose submarines like Akula and Sierra capable to carry not only torpedoes, but also missiles. Alpha was capable only attack other submarines. Absence of 650mm torpedoes and ability to fire Granat cruise missiles was serious disadvantage. Alfa class successor should solve several drawbacks in original Alfa design, especially need for shore facilities to keep coolant liquid, but never left design board.
There is a lot of discussion of the hull strength, light weight, and automation design features of this submarine class, but no mention of sonar technology or of efforts to make the Alfa class quiet. This was a great focus of U.S. submarine design in the 1960s and is still the primary objective of naval submarine development today.
those things were far superior to US submarines and also hard to classify (every engineer know, how strong is titanium compared to construction steel, dtto when submarine of size of Permit class had 1/4th complement, automation is obviously on another level). On the other hand, noise reduction and sonar capabilities are hard to guess and usually classified. So majority of submarine fans know almost nothing about them. Fact is, that Alfa class was quieter than Victor II, so quieter than Los Angeles class and Okean was superb automated sonar (but of course, probably not as good as pair of ears of trained sonalyst in that era).
@@JohnRWMarchantNope to "extremly noisy" and "gave a lot of problems". Both statement are incorrect. American Urban legend stemming from a combination of arrogance and ignorance.
The first time an Alfa made a speed run off the North Cape of Norway it was picked up on the San Juan SOSUS array. What the Soviets failed to realize, I know it's a long list, was that while the Alfa could go fast and dive deep it was essentially useless when it did. The speed made it blind, the sonar was ineffective. At depth it couldn't shoot. The lack of fairwater (sail mounted) planes make it unstable in a high speed turn. I have heard, I can't confirm, that more than one Alfa made a complete 360 degree roll while making a hard turn at speed.
Yes yes yes and than Norway UFO flew, busted it wide open with a beam laser from Enterprize star trek ship, and than after it was destroyed by foton torpedo and that wasn't all, than a Godzilla came out and ate all the poor lil ol Russians and after that it was a total victory for NATO... No shit, this really happened, claimed by Fox News, CNBC, CNN, ABC, BBC, etc... True story!
Another issue with titanium is that it work hardens. Every time an Alfa went to test depth, the test depth would be decreased by about 10% due to embrittlement of the pressure hull. It was limited to the number of deep dives it could perform. And yes, they were very fast and very loud.
It's not the Titanium, it's the welds that get brittle. A article on this class of subs clarifies this. Titanium creates surfaces as strong as steel with half the weight, meaning a titanium hull can withstand greater pressure and allow for deeper dives. However, titanium is also three to five times more expensive than steel, and it is an extremely difficult material to work with. Manipulating large titanium panels for hull sections is especially hard. Failures in the welding process, for example, can lead to the titanium becoming embrittled, lowering its strength. Moreover, as was demonstrated in the building of the Lira-class submarines, titanium requires welders to work in hermetically sealed warehouses full of argon gas, adding further expense. Despite these costs and risks, the titanium hull was a necessary component of the Soviet Union’s innovation strategy.
Not true. I operate ROVs which are predominantly built of titanium and they go down to 6000M, for years of service. Thousands of cycles. You don't know what you are talking about.
I saw a video recently that showed 2 or 3 of those subs in russia. Only thing left was the reactor and the reactor compartment. Just floating tied off to a dock.
I remember seeing this sub in a book I had as a kid about eastern block subs, and remember that I thought this sub was by far the coolest one in the book. There are surprisingly few documentaries about these subs on yt
I was sitting recording sound signatures of all these boats and they never knew we were there. Within 10 hours every navy ship had a copy. There are no secrets amongst enemies.
Yeah, sure. 10 hours to deliver copy of sound sample having several megabytes or being in high def analog state on tape. How exactly you sent those to ALL navy ships IN 70s and from UNDERSEA position?!!
The other issue with alfas- you couldn’t turn the reactor off. If the molten salt solidified, the reactor was effectively frozen permanently. Faster then he’ll though
It was not a molten salt reactor, it was a liquid metal reactor that contained a lead bismuth alloy. Otherwise you are correct they could turn into a radioactive brick, and one of these submarines was scrapped because of that.
Why did no one mention that this sub was rumored to do 40 knots submerged? There's a reason it was still scary, even if it was bricked by its reactor. Even Tom Clancy got in on the Alfa-class stuff with Red October.
Rumors say that Tom Clancy invented naval warfare in the 1st place. Hes a genius. KGB often wanted to assassinate him cause he was such a valuable asset for the US military.
This is the craziest fuckin submarine. I love Soviet designs, a lot are just freaking nuts, the only thing crazier than their designs are the people who crewed it, much respect!
Steve Schmidt, you are a hero for our time. You are the living reminder of JFK’s inaugural address: We dare not forget today that we are the heirs of that first revolution. Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans--born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace, proud of our ancient heritage--and unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing of those human rights to which this nation has always been committed, and to which we are committed today at home and around the world. Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty. This much we pledge--and more.
started watching until CIA knew it was made of titanium just by looking at it, all new submarines have different coatings on top of them to keep them more silent. thats where i quit!!!!
Could the alfabe used has hares and if they couldn't escape cannon foderto at least root out the opponents that could then be hit by other elements? if they had a lot of subs in general
Please do a video about Laffey (Benson class destroyer DD-459). For the commenters please note that Dark Seas has done a video about USS Laffey DD-724 Allen M. Sumner-class destroyer not Laffey DD-459 Benson class destroyer which broadsided a Japanese battleship at point blank range.
Few important corrections... Its dive depth was one kilometer (sound boundary depth). It was faster than even newest US torpedoes. And while loud during max speed, it had two extendable super silent propulsors for 5 knot creep speeds. Countless testimonials of western submariners how they were easily tracking speeding Alfa and then it would just disapear completely.
Doesn't matter if it was faster. In WW2 slow as hell subs blasted many faster ships with inferior torpedoes. Silence is deadly and wolf packs give both a advantage speed does not eliminate. Many fast boats made that mistake.
@@Lucy-dk5cz All videos like this have far more sinister agenda behind them, targeted to willing public such as guy above your comment. Giving precise informations certainly is not their goal.
@@theghost9219 Use wikipedia, it is easy. And other sources from wich you will find that all Russian subs dive to 400 meters with ease, while Alfa dived moe than twice of that and was much faster than 40 knots.
No mention of the fact that the submarine was "very noisy" ( though this may have not been a problem at the time, especially when speed would have been a mitigating factor in combat ) and as technolgy caught up, the excessive noise rendered them 'not as useful as they might have been'. Additionally, the cost of running and maintaining them was immense; the design -nature of the nuclear reactor was such that it had to be kept running 24/7 whilst the submarine was anchored in port. To do anything otherwise, would have rendered it useless.
NR-1 was the smallest nuclear sub, though it wasn't a warship. But the Skipjack class were smaller nuc boats than Alpha's, they were older, and with their original prop, almost as fast, and they were quieter. An Alpha never tracked a US submarine. I don't even think they ever counter detected one. It was a noisy little rat trap that only scared skimmers. Soviets didn't build a decent sub until the Victor III and they didn't build a good one until the second batch of Akula's. There I said it.
Oh n worked on SKIPJACK n many others as an HT in R-1 Div. A British Boat and... an IRANIAN sub. In Groton. IINS KUSSEE. The old TROUT. All they'd drive were Z-28's and Trans Ams. They had way more money than us. Stealing all the girls in EM Club.
That noisy little rat trap can turn around 180° and be on top of a 688 in under 45 seconds. It has an auto trim system that we struggled to develope until very recently . Their boat was titanium hulled and because of its shape and size and thickness along with the free flood areas between the pressure hull and the outter hull made this a significantly tough little rat trap to destroy. Not only could make the little fucker outrun torpedoes when it came out , it's lead bismuth cooled reactor can make her go from idle to full power in under a minute, allowing them to make turns for 40 knots at the drop of a hat. A fast attack boat like that able to get underway in a matte of hours instead of far longr and go from 10-100% on its reactor (something again we struggled to do untill upgraded Seawolf had it's sea legs already) I'm sorry but this Rusty little rat trap kept nato planners up many many hours as they had to find a way to counter an attack boat that has a microscopic crew, fully automated working systems, and a liquid metal cooled reactor that can have this little rat trap zipping circles around your best attack subs with little or no countermeasures to negate it's unmatched agility and speed subsurface. Yeah it's loud. So what? The sucky part about stealth is once you're revealed, and that's all you had. Then that's all you HAD. But if you got badass blinding speed and cheetah like reflexes whilst displacing as much water as a newer Japanese diesel boat, try to catch her. Especially between 1979 and 1989. Good luck. This thing also isn't as noisy as you think. I've spoken to both surface ship sonar boys and submarine sonar boys and they all said the same thing: she was fast, agile, and she dictated when the game of cat and mouse began and ended. She was way ahead of her time. Way way ahead. Good luck to you, sir. "Life is all about speed. Fat nasty badass SPEED" -Eleanor Roosevelt
The US Skipjack was slightly shorter than the Alfa (Akula) had the same beam. Skipjack had 300 tons or so more displacement. So when you say smallest nuclear sub, it is with a caveat.
Retired Navy. We knew about typhoon class in the 80s. Titanium hulls if not welded and forged correctly has a tendency to crack. There’s does so their depth is limited.
@@samspade3227 Nope what? I was in Vladivostok and Magadan, I've seen detailed pics of the reactor sections. Russians have the fastest, and deepest diving subs.
@@ronjeremy5826it’s an easy assumption. With the fall of the USSR most military assets in Russia are either obsolete and in poor repair or amazing on paper but with teething problems that haven’t been solved yet. Ivan’s broke, he’s got what he’s got, and very little budget for new stuff.
I will allow myself to supplement this story about the difficulties of manufacturing and servicing boats with a titanium hull. To make it clear - titanium with many metals, such as steel, aluminum, copper, forms a galvanic pair and destroys these materials, which means that even elements such as door hinges, door handles, stairs and so on have to be made of titanium. Moreover, special berths had to be developed for such submarines, since ordinary ones made of reinforced concrete, such a boat turned into porridge literally in one year.
Not true. First it has to be corrosive (wet) environment. Second, if metals undergo galvanic corrosion or not depend on their anodic index. So Titanium and its alloys has -0,3V, cooper and ita alloys has -0,35V, so difference is just 0,05V which is not enough to initiate galvanic corrosion even in saline, let alone water. Corrosion resistant steels has -0,5V and aluminium and carbon steels have -0,85V to -1V, so titanum to corrosion resistant steel has smaller step (0,2V) then corrosion resistant steel to carbon steel (0,35V). Reinforced concrete has same effect on titanium as on steel. None. Steel inside concrete is isolated from outer environment and concrete itself after hardening does not dissolve any substances into water. There are more significant problems with dealing with titanium and its alloys. Not only price, but also it is much harder to bend, machine or weld. Especially welding is pine in the ass. You need to weld it in protection atmosphere (with minimum of free oxygen), which means that welders need to wear breathing masks and it is possible to weld hulls only in enclosed capsules. This is why USSR/Russia had limit how long and wide pressure hull of submarine can be and why pressure hulls of Typhoon are relatively tight.
Soviets actually had, what 5 classes with Titanium pressure hulls ( 1 prototype, Alfa, Sierra I/II, Papa ... ) and reportedly some of extreme multihul configurations ( 941 Typhoon 949 Antey) had some of hulls of titanium instead of HY100 stell.
This sub was way too advanced for its time, not even today, more than 50 years later, nobody is able to produce anything near to this marvel ! It was not only the speed and the diving ability, but was more automatized than any other sub even by the standard of the most modern subs today ! This marvel was driven by a crew of only 25 sailors, a miracle in engineering.
3:17 higher corrosion resistance 😅😅😅. Yes - titanium is a strong for corrosion, but it means that you cannot use stainless steel or simple steel or copper because in the process of electrochemical corrosion titanium will "eat" almost very metall or alloy (except some special cupronicel or bronze). There were rumors that the first "goldfish" destroyed the steel pier at which it was moored.
These are not rumors, she really turned the pier into mush, literally in one year. This was told to me by my father, who was involved in the maintenance of boats of this class. The thing is that titanium forms a galvanic pair with many metals.
I've always wondered about a bronze titanium alloy. Most people don't know but bronze is stronger than iron, but weaker than steel. It wasn't until iron production started to produce higher carbon iron and steel's that they overtook bronze weapons. Tin was hard to find, iron wasn't
The original brief was to design a submarine akin to a long range bomber, fast with a small crew for the potential outcome, the target - carrier groups. Spotted by tu 95 bears or satelites, alphas would get details of the positions and be sent to destroy them. Sound wise the US and UK would easily find them hundreds of miles away but when you can do 40 knots versus 30 there was only one potential outcome from the Russians point of view.
Kind of a weird idea though considering they relied on land based spotters like that. US carrier Air groups maintain long distance air superiority, they had regular brown bears above them during Vietnam but that's because they couldn't fire on the Soviet aircraft when they weren't at war and in international waters.
@@arthas640The Alfas never stayed at sea like US submarines did. It was a small sub with a small crew (all officers) with a small amount of supplies. The enlisted crew at the base did all the maintenance. When deployment orders were issued, the officers would board the sub, rip around the North Atlantic to be a pest, and then go home.
@@danielhenderson8316 The "pester Americans" idea sounds more plausible than a ship hunter role. Nations do that a lot to one another including at air fairly often and even planes that could easily be shredded are routinely used in that role. Knew a guy who was stationed at some air force base in the 90s and 00s where they routinely pestered the Russians or were in turn pestered by them, he said it was a bit weird since they'd have cutting edge American planes intercepting "old ass Soviet planes that looked like about ready to fall apart". My dad was on a carrier in Vietnam and they'd sometimes spot Soviet planes and he said the Soviet planes looked like they were from WW2. They likely could be easily shot down by the Americans but spotter planes still provide a good threat or to probe enemy air defenses and radar even in peacetime; during war sometimes people will use spotter planes to divert attention since if an enemy spots those overhead they may expect bombers or artillery or in this case a sub.
@@arthas640 If World War III happened in the 70's, the Alfa could have succeeded in it's mission or drive the nuclear carriers out of range while the conventional ones would be coral reef bait. The US Mk 36 Torpedo was (at best) as fast, but couldn't dive to Alfa depths while the British Tigerfish was trash AND didn't work. When the original Mk 48 came out in the early 80's, the Alfa's "invincibility" went away and just because an underwater NHRA dragster.
@@danielhenderson8316😂😂😂 the navy could pick up the spotter planes they were so loud. The subs weren't any better. They would've been detected like they were on a constant basis.
LRRPs brother, please do a video about LRP/LRRPs of the Vietnam war. Make sure you read some books about them for information because what's online is scarce and often inaccurate. They were absolutely not strictly reconnaissance, they were extremely offensive teams. Throughout the war there was only several hundred LRPs and they are accredited with over 10,000 enemy KIA. It would be really interesting content and these aging veterans deserve some recognition.
These titanium hulled subs were likely only coated in titanium with an orc then pocketing the cost of the titanium hull whilst it’s actually made from steel
@@tonyp2865 everybody knows about orc titanium production, it’s shitty quality always has been Per head of population the central and South American countries far out strip the USA for gun kills I’m talking double and triple
Titanium is not rare at all. It just has been expensive to process the titanium oxide into titanium metal. A new plasma process reduces this, but the energy requirement is still large. With dedicated nuclear plants, perhaps SMRs, we could make mountains of the stuff. It is also extremely difficult to work with. Still, I think it is the next stage of industrialization. We need to be making most transportation devises with it. The use of aluminum has been fraught with tribulations. In aircraft, it easily fatigues. In buses, it is simply unsafe in accidents where buses easily rip open, but it continues to be used by busing companies, and continues to have horrifying accidents, because the weight savings is substantial over steel, and thus the operating cost. Passenger trains, too, are often built of aluminum, with the same increased risks. Titanium is just a vastly superior metal for these applications. In automobiles, it can help keep occupants safe at higher speeds. It is also fantastic for trucks, where truck beds often have to contend with destructive loads. A titanium bed, would handle this far better than aluminum, and better than the typically used steel. But at the very least, it should be used extensively in unsprung weight, in vehicles such as the springs, calipers, hubs, axles, differentials and their housings and such. But applications are not limited to transportation. I even think it is ideal for food cans. Recycling it is much less costly than initial refinement. As cans for food, no linings would be required, and the cans would outlast any food placed within. It would also reduce denting, as titanium flexes quite a bit before permanently deforming.
That's why comments are so deliciously salty. Minds programmed by supremacy propaganda can't cope with reality and that's why it 's so easy to deceive them. Americans can't protect their women, can't protect their children, can't protect their elderly, all they can do is post bullshit on social media.
Soviet subs used Variable Frequency Drives during the 60's and the US could easily pick them up from these emissions due to their huge harmonic radio frequencies. For over two decades the US could detect Russian submarines locations using this technique - they (the Russians) never knew about this at that time. I wonder where the scales lie now? .....
How easy it is to believe propaganda. Read about the wake of a submarine, if you don't know, this is an area of heterogeneity of the physical fields of the marine environment that remains after passing in the submerged position of the submarine. Since Soviet times, with the help of this phenomenon, the USSR controlled the movement of American submarines, and hunters of the "Shark" type, with its help, could launch homing torpedoes from a depth of 400 meters.
@@robertfischer6437 yes it is, are you stupid? It is factually stronger than steel but doesn’t flex, literally you can do a quick google search and figure this out. Don’t be stupid
I worked ina ship yard near Vladivostok for the Sakhalin Molipak expansion project. The yard had a large titanium structure outside can’t recall what it was. Inside submarines were being made for the Indian navy. Workers in the yard claimed they had built the large titanium submarines. Needless to say the standard of work on the offshore modules was abysmal. Hence further modules were built in Korea 😂
yeah bro, it was Russia long before it was the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. It's Been Russia no matter the ruling party for many, many hundreds of years. @@goodlife6277
An interesting fact is that only women were involved in all welding works of titanium, women welders were searched all over the country. The welding process was extremely difficult, it was believed that women were more responsible and attentive to such work... The cost of titanium at that time was eighty times more expensive than steel...
Crawling into that thing is like a tank man in the Ukraine they are taking out those tanks with 300 dollar drones those tanks cost what 20 million a peace or more.
One thing that they were doing during the Cold War was accidentally crashing into Soviet submarines to do enough damage to send them back to base for repair and we knew that they could not afford it
Assembly would be hard enough but maintenance and repair of the hull would be a problem nearly impossible to overcome and the Soviets are 💩 at maintenance, all their ships are rust buckets.
Not with Titanium but the hull presented a different problem. Put Titanium in salt water, tie it to a jetty made of reinforced concrete what do you get? A cell. At the expense of the steel (iron) bars within the concrete which led to the piers corroding.
Their nuclear arsenals have problem already with maintenance, mostly because some generals pocketed the money, now submarine. Lucky russian generals, they grew rich by pocketing only money.
Here I'm thinking it would be useless for a submarine to be made from titanium. I guess when you have an abundance of titanium you can get away with it.
Being able to do it isn't the same as useful. Titanium alloys are more brittle than other steel or aluminum alloys. It gets worse in the cold. So they could dive deeper, but at the risk of cracks. Cracks which get bigger with repeated deep dives. Also the things were noisy. The whole point of a sub is relative stealth.
That is not correct. Titanium only gets brittle if the alloy has impurities, this is why you need to weld it under argon. IDK about the 60-70's soviet alloys, maybe they were of poor quality. Everything that have a body-centered cubic crystal structure is very maleable but sucetible to impurities. Modern titanium is stronger lighter and more ductible than any steel under the same stresses.
@TyaxComp and? This really isnt the same as sinking several subs with hundreds of sailors and its reactor materials (which are several tons of uran) around the seabed. A nuclear bomb will be unusable as soon as it reached the seafloor and a plutonium core sure isn't great on the seabed but a much smaller problem.
@@flixri726 Thank you , I forgot about Kursk. The Russian navy has killed more of their own sailors than they have enemies. The U.S. has lost a couple of nukes. Freely admitted and common knowledge for decades. I guess someone forgot about the "somewhere between 84-100" briefcase nukes Russia can't find
Titanium is stronger than the type of steel used in sub production. There are steel alloys that are stronger than titanium, yes, but generally speaking, you’re incorrect.
![Felix "Unfair" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Oswujxm2Ag0/mqdefault.jpg)
I guess Submarines are going to be a hot topic this summer
AHHHH!!! I am so tired of hearing about the 5 that went Boom!! A distraction from Hunter Biden Wrist slaps.
How incredibly insightful! Are you also going to predict that we should expect blue skies and a globe earth during the same time frame?
Can't imagine why.
...looking at you, Titan
Lasers are coming into their own
Ha
Soviet Navy: "Even though titanium is difficult to work with, we have a lot of it that we can use."
Lockheed Corp.: "Yeah, we know.... uh, wait, no. Actually, we meant to say, 'Oh, really? We were unaware of these facts.' "
😅
SR-71😁😁 Work buddies daughter in Air Force saw one land. Everyone was looking.
"we" being you and which identifiable immediate interlocutor?
@@vhawk1951kl pick one.
@@skyden24195 Now you read that and put yourself in the position of someone that has no idea to what you are referring.
Pick one out of the blue is utterly without meaning but you really can't quite grasp that, can you?
Old school EW2 here. Thanks for the memories/ nightmares
I don't care who you are, The engineering of you using just titanium for submersible you have to respect that!
Aye, a Class D fire will ruin the day. Yikes!
@@DifferentM14 True one fire like that took out one of their titanium subs that was full of officers. It was allot smaller than the alfa class but everyone died in it.
One of the great difficulties of working with titanium is that it loves oxygen like a greasy trucker loves his lot lizards. Any part of it that gets even cherry red needs to be purged or it will oxidize and sometimes even catch fire. Argon is the cheapest gas to do this with. The Soviets figured the best way to weld massive titanium sections was to purge the whole building with Argon, and supply the welders with oxygen, and stick welding stingers for holding tungsten electrodes. An extreme variant of TIG.
During my 1st few years out of engineering school, I managed a cleanup and disposal of a room at a Purdue that contained a liquid NaK heat exchanger and a mercury heat exchanger. Mercury dangers are well known, but that liquid sodium/potassium was nasty business. It was so reactive to water that humidity in the air would ignite it. Fun times. There was a 'manual' in the room and I think it was dated in the late 50's or early 60s.
They were also very loud as their focus was more on speed than stealth. My uncle was a P3 crewmember and he said the Alphas sounded like they had a chain wrapped around their screw they were so loud
You can't kill what you can't catch, and nothing that NATO had could catch a 40 knot sub.
Is that why they didn't bother with a rubber coating?
The hardest part was the seals for the oar ports.
Two unmentioned negatives: The Alfa class was the loudest submarine in the water and liquid metal reactors turn into bricks if they are ever shut down. Other marine reactors are generally shut down while in port and the sub is attached to shore power.
A lttle bit like a catalytic converter in a car exhaust system. They turn into bricks too. The Russians were the only ones capable of welding titanium to stainless steel at that time.
Until Japan sold the Soviets high tech machines
@@tomhenry897 You forgot the Norwegians - they sold the Russians the multi-axis milling machines needed to make quieter propellers.
The Alfa reactors had to be hooked up to superheated steam from shoreside supply to be repaired in Soviet shipyards. When the Soviet boiler broke, or its fuel had been stolen by a crooked official the steam stopped and the liquid metal coolant turned to concrete.
@@recoil53 Yes, the Toshiba-Kongsberg scandal. I remember it well and wouldn't buy anything from Toshiba for a long time because of it.
US said using titanium was "impractical".
Because they couldn't do it.
Also that it was rare and expensive (the majority of the titanium of the world is in Russia)
Also, titanium can become brittle when subjected to the Artic cold. Any flaw in the hull can be catastrophic and there really isn't any cost effective way to weld any damage.
Plus the Soviets funded their projects by plundering and exploiting the outlier territories such as Ukraine. If anything the overall cost and maintenance probably helped usher in the end of the Soviet empire.
SR-71 is proof the US can get titanium and do a lot with it. That said, Soviet’s had better access to it
Yea. We got the titanium from Russia for the sr-71 through backdoor deals
The US dismissed the fact Russia could weld Titanium pressure vessels not because they thought it impossibe, but because they couldn't do it so it was important to them to insist the Russians couldn't do it either. But they could.
Yup, just like hypersonic missiles. US is way behind
Everybody's an expert and have never worked around this? Former Engineering Tech @ welding engineering laboratory at a US Naval Shipyard, Ti visual inspector.
And it's because the u.s.know where exactly they are at any point in their nazi journey around the sea 🌊 😂😮😅😊
@@kevinquinn6107 They are Communists not Nazis, big Difference.
@@ryanlewis7427 same fascist wankers when you think about it.🤣
It would be more appropriate to reference the Serria I & II class submarines as platforms that benefited from the developments of the Alpha project rather than Akula.
Also addressing the radiological concerns of the Alpha's experimental reactor design and short falls in the automation systems / reduced manning plan would help explain why Russia didn't just build more Alphas or an improved / modernized Alpha II as was common in many other submarine class of the era.
Yeah, Akula (971) was supposed to be more feasible fiscally.
There was plan to develop Alfa successor, but priority was given to increase numbers of new multipurpose submarines like Akula and Sierra capable to carry not only torpedoes, but also missiles. Alpha was capable only attack other submarines. Absence of 650mm torpedoes and ability to fire Granat cruise missiles was serious disadvantage.
Alfa class successor should solve several drawbacks in original Alfa design, especially need for shore facilities to keep coolant liquid, but never left design board.
Always gr8 show !!! I'd love to have seen this shiny silver sub. Keep up the gr8 work 💪
Thank you again that was interesting.
There is a lot of discussion of the hull strength, light weight, and automation design features of this submarine class, but no mention of sonar technology or of efforts to make the Alfa class quiet. This was a great focus of U.S. submarine design in the 1960s and is still the primary objective of naval submarine development today.
those things were far superior to US submarines and also hard to classify (every engineer know, how strong is titanium compared to construction steel, dtto when submarine of size of Permit class had 1/4th complement, automation is obviously on another level). On the other hand, noise reduction and sonar capabilities are hard to guess and usually classified. So majority of submarine fans know almost nothing about them. Fact is, that Alfa class was quieter than Victor II, so quieter than Los Angeles class and Okean was superb automated sonar (but of course, probably not as good as pair of ears of trained sonalyst in that era).
Well they were extremly noisy and even more so at high speed. Lead bizmuth whilst innovative as a coolant system also gave a lot of problems.
@@JohnRWMarchant Nope.
@@tomascernak6112 Nope What ??.
@@JohnRWMarchantNope to "extremly noisy" and "gave a lot of problems".
Both statement are incorrect. American Urban legend stemming from a combination of arrogance and ignorance.
You forgot to mention the reactor was as noisy as a truck load of scrap metal on a bumpy road. Sonar techs could hear them a hundred miles off.
I second that.
The only thing that I knew about the Alfa class is that you never have torpedoes armed in the tubes. 😊
"You Arrogant A$$ ... you've killed US!" Outstanding movie! Salute ... ^v^
@@taproom113 "You've lost ANOTHER submarine???"
My favorite sub movie
Always very watchable. Thank-you.
Thank you for sharing. It's very interesting that all your videos are very informative, thank you for sharing, JV
The first time an Alfa made a speed run off the North Cape of Norway it was picked up on the San Juan SOSUS array. What the Soviets failed to realize, I know it's a long list, was that while the Alfa could go fast and dive deep it was essentially useless when it did. The speed made it blind, the sonar was ineffective. At depth it couldn't shoot. The lack of fairwater (sail mounted) planes make it unstable in a high speed turn. I have heard, I can't confirm, that more than one Alfa made a complete 360 degree roll while making a hard turn at speed.
Yes yes yes and than Norway UFO flew, busted it wide open with a beam laser from Enterprize star trek ship, and than after it was destroyed by foton torpedo and that wasn't all, than a Godzilla came out and ate all the poor lil ol Russians and after that it was a total victory for NATO...
No shit, this really happened, claimed by Fox News, CNBC, CNN, ABC, BBC, etc... True story!
Imagine zooming around in your submarine and it fucking rolls over
@@testiclegaming1250imagine you’re mid shit and do a 360
@@testiclegaming1250 then, it is going to be "rock and roll" submarine of ruski.
Such an alpha move, a barrel roll in a submarine, I guess that's why it's called Alfa
To this day. Russian underwater crafts are amazing
And Ukraine gives them a new one every week!
Another issue with titanium is that it work hardens. Every time an Alfa went to test depth, the test depth would be decreased by about 10% due to embrittlement of the pressure hull. It was limited to the number of deep dives it could perform. And yes, they were very fast and very loud.
Yup and yup
Нет
It's not the Titanium, it's the welds that get brittle. A article on this class of subs clarifies this. Titanium creates surfaces as strong as steel with half the weight, meaning a titanium hull can withstand greater pressure and allow for deeper dives. However, titanium is also three to five times more expensive than steel, and it is an extremely difficult material to work with. Manipulating large titanium panels for hull sections is especially hard. Failures in the welding process, for example, can lead to the titanium becoming embrittled, lowering its strength. Moreover, as was demonstrated in the building of the Lira-class submarines, titanium requires welders to work in hermetically sealed warehouses full of argon gas, adding further expense. Despite these costs and risks, the titanium hull was a necessary component of the Soviet Union’s innovation strategy.
Not true. I operate ROVs which are predominantly built of titanium and they go down to 6000M, for years of service. Thousands of cycles. You don't know what you are talking about.
Lol nope
Awesome bit of kit
I love the Alfa class boats. Not only are they gorgeous but theyre fast as hell. They could do almost 40 knots submerged 😳
More, significantly more, but shhh....;-)
Wow this is like 20th submarine video that's popped up in my recommended list.
I saw a video recently that showed 2 or 3 of those subs in russia. Only thing left was the reactor and the reactor compartment. Just floating tied off to a dock.
I remember seeing this sub in a book I had as a kid about eastern block subs, and remember that I thought this sub was by far the coolest one in the book. There are surprisingly few documentaries about these subs on yt
I was sitting recording sound signatures of all these boats and they never knew we were there. Within 10 hours every navy ship had a copy. There are no secrets amongst enemies.
Yeah, sure.
10 hours to deliver copy of sound sample having several megabytes or being in high def analog state on tape. How exactly you sent those to ALL navy ships IN 70s and from UNDERSEA position?!!
Do a video about the sverdlov class cruisers
What was the Sea-horse power?
0 to blyat in 3 seconds
🤣
The other issue with alfas- you couldn’t turn the reactor off. If the molten salt solidified, the reactor was effectively frozen permanently. Faster then he’ll though
It was not a molten salt reactor, it was a liquid metal reactor that contained a lead bismuth alloy. Otherwise you are correct they could turn into a radioactive brick, and one of these submarines was scrapped because of that.
Thank you.
Why did no one mention that this sub was rumored to do 40 knots submerged? There's a reason it was still scary, even if it was bricked by its reactor. Even Tom Clancy got in on the Alfa-class stuff with Red October.
The narrator says it could go about 40 knots submerged (around 8:35). .
Rumors say that Tom Clancy invented naval warfare in the 1st place. Hes a genius. KGB often wanted to assassinate him cause he was such a valuable asset for the US military.
Makes me wonder what they did with all that titanium, when they scraped those submarines.
Western rich grandpas have them in their hips.
@@tomascernak6112 Hilareous!!!
@@machdaddy6451 But also true.
This is the craziest fuckin submarine. I love Soviet designs, a lot are just freaking nuts, the only thing crazier than their designs are the people who crewed it, much respect!
Steve Schmidt, you are a hero for our time. You are the living reminder of JFK’s inaugural address: We dare not forget today that we are the heirs of that first revolution. Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans--born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace, proud of our ancient heritage--and unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing of those human rights to which this nation has always been committed, and to which we are committed today at home and around the world.
Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.
This much we pledge--and more.
Subs are a smashing good subject.
started watching until CIA knew it was made of titanium just by looking at it, all new submarines have different coatings on top of them to keep them more silent. thats where i quit!!!!
That's what I immediately thought, they have been using rubber tiles or coatings since the early 60s, my interest was definitely priqied
I think there was a bit more to the story then they stumbled upon the sub well out on a nice cruise ..
Could the alfabe used has hares and if they couldn't escape cannon foderto at least root out the opponents that could then be hit by other elements? if they had a lot of subs in general
Please do a video about Laffey (Benson class destroyer DD-459). For the commenters please note that Dark Seas has done a video about USS Laffey DD-724 Allen M. Sumner-class destroyer not Laffey DD-459 Benson class destroyer which broadsided a Japanese battleship at point blank range.
Few important corrections... Its dive depth was one kilometer (sound boundary depth). It was faster than even newest US torpedoes. And while loud during max speed, it had two extendable super silent propulsors for 5 knot creep speeds. Countless testimonials of western submariners how they were easily tracking speeding Alfa and then it would just disapear completely.
Doesn't matter if it was faster. In WW2 slow as hell subs blasted many faster ships with inferior torpedoes. Silence is deadly and wolf packs give both a advantage speed does not eliminate. Many fast boats made that mistake.
His videos are always inaccurate. All he has going for him is his voice, sad that people will reference his videos as fact
@@Lucy-dk5cz All videos like this have far more sinister agenda behind them, targeted to willing public such as guy above your comment. Giving precise informations certainly is not their goal.
Mk48 is faster and dive deeper
@@theghost9219 Use wikipedia, it is easy. And other sources from wich you will find that all Russian subs dive to 400 meters with ease, while Alfa dived moe than twice of that and was much faster than 40 knots.
Thumbs up for your exciting hysterical content.
No mention of the fact that the submarine was "very noisy" ( though this may have not been a problem at the time, especially when speed would have been a mitigating factor in combat ) and as technolgy caught up, the excessive noise rendered them 'not as useful as they might have been'.
Additionally, the cost of running and maintaining them was immense; the design -nature of the nuclear reactor was such that it had to be kept running 24/7 whilst the submarine was anchored in port. To do anything otherwise, would have rendered it useless.
I thought this was going to be an article about the use of nano materials to create a radar absorbing shell interesting
The way it was possible for the large sections to be welded was to fill the entire building with inert gas and have the workers where scuba gear
I love submarines and I love russian subs. Thanks for the video
Great channel!
NR-1 was the smallest nuclear sub, though it wasn't a warship. But the Skipjack class were smaller nuc boats than Alpha's, they were older, and with their original prop, almost as fast, and they were quieter. An Alpha never tracked a US submarine. I don't even think they ever counter detected one. It was a noisy little rat trap that only scared skimmers. Soviets didn't build a decent sub until the Victor III and they didn't build a good one until the second batch of Akula's. There I said it.
I did 30 days straight. 12 on 12 off guarding the NR-1. Marines main gates. Marines to lower base, get through them it's my turn. Sucked.
Oh n worked on SKIPJACK n many others as an HT in R-1 Div. A British Boat and... an IRANIAN sub. In Groton. IINS KUSSEE. The old TROUT. All they'd drive were Z-28's and Trans Ams. They had way more money than us. Stealing all the girls in EM Club.
You are being far too kind to the Soviets. The Alfa made a rock concert seem like a library.
That noisy little rat trap can turn around 180° and be on top of a 688 in under 45 seconds.
It has an auto trim system that we struggled to develope until very recently . Their boat was titanium hulled and because of its shape and size and thickness along with the free flood areas between the pressure hull and the outter hull made this a significantly tough little rat trap to destroy. Not only could make the little fucker outrun torpedoes when it came out , it's lead bismuth cooled reactor can make her go from idle to full power in under a minute, allowing them to make turns for 40 knots at the drop of a hat.
A fast attack boat like that able to get underway in a matte of hours instead of far longr and go from 10-100% on its reactor (something again we struggled to do untill upgraded Seawolf had it's sea legs already)
I'm sorry but this Rusty little rat trap kept nato planners up many many hours as they had to find a way to counter an attack boat that has a microscopic crew, fully automated working systems, and a liquid metal cooled reactor that can have this little rat trap zipping circles around your best attack subs with little or no countermeasures to negate it's unmatched agility and speed subsurface.
Yeah it's loud. So what? The sucky part about stealth is once you're revealed, and that's all you had. Then that's all you HAD. But if you got badass blinding speed and cheetah like reflexes whilst displacing as much water as a newer Japanese diesel boat, try to catch her. Especially between 1979 and 1989. Good luck. This thing also isn't as noisy as you think. I've spoken to both surface ship sonar boys and submarine sonar boys and they all said the same thing: she was fast, agile, and she dictated when the game of cat and mouse began and ended. She was way ahead of her time. Way way ahead.
Good luck to you, sir.
"Life is all about speed. Fat nasty badass SPEED"
-Eleanor Roosevelt
Worng you not from USSR i know better - they never did normal sub at all and will never do
The US Skipjack was slightly shorter than the Alfa (Akula) had the same beam. Skipjack had 300 tons or so more displacement.
So when you say smallest nuclear sub, it is with a caveat.
Retired Navy. We knew about typhoon class in the 80s. Titanium hulls if not welded and forged correctly has a tendency to crack. There’s does so their depth is limited.
Titanium subs dive the deepest. Soviet titanium was welded correctly.
@@BigSmartArmed Nope, I worked NDT qualed both nuc and non-nuc.
@@samspade3227 Nope what? I was in Vladivostok and Magadan, I've seen detailed pics of the reactor sections. Russians have the fastest, and deepest diving subs.
@@BigSmartArmed research subs yes. Typhoon class no, it’s a LID boat if you know what that means.
That’s a badass sub. I can’t imagine what they have now.
The same shit only it's in worse condition
@@CharlieNasty-cd5huwho hurt you, boy? Your uncle?
@@ronjeremy5826it’s an easy assumption.
With the fall of the USSR most military assets in Russia are either obsolete and in poor repair or amazing on paper but with teething problems that haven’t been solved yet.
Ivan’s broke, he’s got what he’s got, and very little budget for new stuff.
@@CharlieNasty-cd5hu show us the place where the bad man touched you
I HEARD OF THIS ALONG TIME AGO WHEN THE RUSKIES WERE IN THE SOVIET ERA !!! THEY DIVE DOWN AND DISSAPEAR FROM
SONAR !!!
I will allow myself to supplement this story about the difficulties of manufacturing and servicing boats with a titanium hull. To make it clear - titanium with many metals, such as steel, aluminum, copper, forms a galvanic pair and destroys these materials, which means that even elements such as door hinges, door handles, stairs and so on have to be made of titanium. Moreover, special berths had to be developed for such submarines, since ordinary ones made of reinforced concrete, such a boat turned into porridge literally in one year.
Not true. First it has to be corrosive (wet) environment. Second, if metals undergo galvanic corrosion or not depend on their anodic index. So Titanium and its alloys has -0,3V, cooper and ita alloys has -0,35V, so difference is just 0,05V which is not enough to initiate galvanic corrosion even in saline, let alone water. Corrosion resistant steels has -0,5V and aluminium and carbon steels have -0,85V to -1V, so titanum to corrosion resistant steel has smaller step (0,2V) then corrosion resistant steel to carbon steel (0,35V).
Reinforced concrete has same effect on titanium as on steel. None. Steel inside concrete is isolated from outer environment and concrete itself after hardening does not dissolve any substances into water.
There are more significant problems with dealing with titanium and its alloys. Not only price, but also it is much harder to bend, machine or weld. Especially welding is pine in the ass. You need to weld it in protection atmosphere (with minimum of free oxygen), which means that welders need to wear breathing masks and it is possible to weld hulls only in enclosed capsules. This is why USSR/Russia had limit how long and wide pressure hull of submarine can be and why pressure hulls of Typhoon are relatively tight.
Remember tracking one back in the day we could hear them miles and miles away
Soviets actually had, what 5 classes with Titanium pressure hulls ( 1 prototype, Alfa, Sierra I/II, Papa ... ) and reportedly some of extreme multihul configurations ( 941 Typhoon 949 Antey) had some of hulls of titanium instead of HY100 stell.
Titanium has it's own challenges
It does better in saltwater than regular steel
@@coryb8432 I said challenges... Saltwater is just one 'advantage', but the other issues outweigh it's salt water benefit.
@@jlford30 I wasn't disagreeing it's harder to weld harder to manufacture
This sub was way too advanced for its time, not even today, more than 50 years later, nobody is able to produce anything near to this marvel ! It was not only the speed and the diving ability, but was more automatized than any other sub even by the standard of the most modern subs today !
This marvel was driven by a crew of only 25 sailors, a miracle in engineering.
😂😂😂
@@jonnybgoode7742 👌👌👌
3:17 higher corrosion resistance 😅😅😅. Yes - titanium is a strong for corrosion, but it means that you cannot use stainless steel or simple steel or copper because in the process of electrochemical corrosion titanium will "eat" almost very metall or alloy (except some special cupronicel or bronze). There were rumors that the first "goldfish" destroyed the steel pier at which it was moored.
These are not rumors, she really turned the pier into mush, literally in one year. This was told to me by my father, who was involved in the maintenance of boats of this class. The thing is that titanium forms a galvanic pair with many metals.
@@vladimirnikolskiy I was involved in the "maintenance" of modern U-boats up to 2018 )). Titanium is still widely used but with some hints ))
I've always wondered about a bronze titanium alloy. Most people don't know but bronze is stronger than iron, but weaker than steel. It wasn't until iron production started to produce higher carbon iron and steel's that they overtook bronze weapons. Tin was hard to find, iron wasn't
This was not available to search for the ' Oceangate ' crew.
No point. The Alfa was noisy, blind, and could only dive a 1/3 of the way before imploding.
What is something that they automated?
Sub designers should still consider using TITANium..especially small ones and I mean all over...cheers. RIP Calculon
The original brief was to design a submarine akin to a long range bomber, fast with a small crew for the potential outcome, the target - carrier groups. Spotted by tu 95 bears or satelites, alphas would get details of the positions and be sent to destroy them. Sound wise the US and UK would easily find them hundreds of miles away but when you can do 40 knots versus 30 there was only one potential outcome from the Russians point of view.
Kind of a weird idea though considering they relied on land based spotters like that. US carrier Air groups maintain long distance air superiority, they had regular brown bears above them during Vietnam but that's because they couldn't fire on the Soviet aircraft when they weren't at war and in international waters.
@@arthas640The Alfas never stayed at sea like US submarines did. It was a small sub with a small crew (all officers) with a small amount of supplies. The enlisted crew at the base did all the maintenance. When deployment orders were issued, the officers would board the sub, rip around the North Atlantic to be a pest, and then go home.
@@danielhenderson8316 The "pester Americans" idea sounds more plausible than a ship hunter role. Nations do that a lot to one another including at air fairly often and even planes that could easily be shredded are routinely used in that role. Knew a guy who was stationed at some air force base in the 90s and 00s where they routinely pestered the Russians or were in turn pestered by them, he said it was a bit weird since they'd have cutting edge American planes intercepting "old ass Soviet planes that looked like about ready to fall apart". My dad was on a carrier in Vietnam and they'd sometimes spot Soviet planes and he said the Soviet planes looked like they were from WW2. They likely could be easily shot down by the Americans but spotter planes still provide a good threat or to probe enemy air defenses and radar even in peacetime; during war sometimes people will use spotter planes to divert attention since if an enemy spots those overhead they may expect bombers or artillery or in this case a sub.
@@arthas640 If World War III happened in the 70's, the Alfa could have succeeded in it's mission or drive the nuclear carriers out of range while the conventional ones would be coral reef bait. The US Mk 36 Torpedo was (at best) as fast, but couldn't dive to Alfa depths while the British Tigerfish was trash AND didn't work. When the original Mk 48 came out in the early 80's, the Alfa's "invincibility" went away and just because an underwater NHRA dragster.
@@danielhenderson8316😂😂😂 the navy could pick up the spotter planes they were so loud. The subs weren't any better. They would've been detected like they were on a constant basis.
LRRPs brother, please do a video about LRP/LRRPs of the Vietnam war. Make sure you read some books about them for information because what's online is scarce and often inaccurate. They were absolutely not strictly reconnaissance, they were extremely offensive teams. Throughout the war there was only several hundred LRPs and they are accredited with over 10,000 enemy KIA. It would be really interesting content and these aging veterans deserve some recognition.
These titanium hulled subs were likely only coated in titanium with an orc then pocketing the cost of the titanium hull whilst it’s actually made from steel
The orcs produce the most titanium in the world Gus, the US produces the most gun deaths.
@@tonyp2865 everybody knows about orc titanium production, it’s shitty quality always has been
Per head of population the central and South American countries far out strip the USA for gun kills I’m talking double and triple
Does it also come with a tugboat...?
In terms of attack subs (SSNs), the smallest was USS Tullibee (SSN-597), which emphasised quietness over performance.
Titanium is not rare at all. It just has been expensive to process the titanium oxide into titanium metal. A new plasma process reduces this, but the energy requirement is still large. With dedicated nuclear plants, perhaps SMRs, we could make mountains of the stuff. It is also extremely difficult to work with. Still, I think it is the next stage of industrialization. We need to be making most transportation devises with it. The use of aluminum has been fraught with tribulations. In aircraft, it easily fatigues. In buses, it is simply unsafe in accidents where buses easily rip open, but it continues to be used by busing companies, and continues to have horrifying accidents, because the weight savings is substantial over steel, and thus the operating cost. Passenger trains, too, are often built of aluminum, with the same increased risks. Titanium is just a vastly superior metal for these applications. In automobiles, it can help keep occupants safe at higher speeds. It is also fantastic for trucks, where truck beds often have to contend with destructive loads. A titanium bed, would handle this far better than aluminum, and better than the typically used steel. But at the very least, it should be used extensively in unsprung weight, in vehicles such as the springs, calipers, hubs, axles, differentials and their housings and such. But applications are not limited to transportation. I even think it is ideal for food cans. Recycling it is much less costly than initial refinement. As cans for food, no linings would be required, and the cans would outlast any food placed within. It would also reduce denting, as titanium flexes quite a bit before permanently deforming.
the soviet achieved the unthinkable outperforming entire western technology complex
That's why comments are so deliciously salty. Minds programmed by supremacy propaganda can't cope with reality and that's why it 's so easy to deceive them. Americans can't protect their women, can't protect their children, can't protect their elderly, all they can do is post bullshit on social media.
So, the external hull was titanium but was the actual internal pressure hull titanium also, I doubt it!
Soviet subs used Variable Frequency Drives during the 60's and the US could easily pick them up from these emissions due to their huge harmonic radio frequencies. For over two decades the US could detect Russian submarines locations using this technique - they (the Russians) never knew about this at that time. I wonder where the scales lie now? .....
oh my, detecting submarine by EM wave emission? what nonsense can one find on the internet 😀
2 centuries? That's 200 hundred years! Think you may have meant 2 decades I.e twenty years
How easy it is to believe propaganda. Read about the wake of a submarine, if you don't know, this is an area of heterogeneity of the physical fields of the marine environment that remains after passing in the submerged position of the submarine. Since Soviet times, with the help of this phenomenon, the USSR controlled the movement of American submarines, and hunters of the "Shark" type, with its help, could launch homing torpedoes from a depth of 400 meters.
It had to be a titanium mix, yes titanium is stronger but it doesn’t flex as well as steel.
NO titanium is not stronger then steel.
@@robertfischer6437 yes it is, are you stupid? It is factually stronger than steel but doesn’t flex, literally you can do a quick google search and figure this out. Don’t be stupid
@@robertfischer6437 I actually can’t believe you said something so stupid 😂💀
I worked ina ship yard near Vladivostok for the Sakhalin Molipak expansion project. The yard had a large titanium structure outside can’t recall what it was. Inside submarines were being made for the Indian navy. Workers in the yard claimed they had built the large titanium submarines. Needless to say the standard of work on the offshore modules was abysmal. Hence further modules were built in Korea 😂
CCCP it's not Rússia...
@@goodlife6277 Joe never lived in USSR. He is an American bot
Bloody Russians
yeah bro, it was Russia long before it was the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. It's Been Russia no matter the ruling party for many, many hundreds of years. @@goodlife6277
How long did they have to breed submarines to get a shiny? The rate is way too low to encounter using the super rod.
I like how top secret, and shiny are used in the same sentence, kinda redundant isn’t it? Lok
Despite it’s flaws, you have to admit that a titanium submarine is pretty kickass.
Says the guy who can never get enough of the SR-71. 😉
What flaws? It did what it was designed to do. High cost is not a flaw, it's an expense.
Kursk 2, does your policy cover accidental sinking and no recovery clause. ✌️☘️
But what's the wierd sub at the head of this story?
That’s one expensive submarine and how do they weld it?? They need a gas chamber to purge all the time….?
Yes.
I read somewhere that the Alfa class was, in fact, *extrenely* noisy.
Peered "into" or "through" the Iron Curtain?
An interesting fact is that only women were involved in all welding works of titanium, women welders were searched all over the country. The welding process was extremely difficult, it was believed that women were more responsible and attentive to such work... The cost of titanium at that time was eighty times more expensive than steel...
One well placed torpedo sinks it and it's so big it can't hide from sonar or raidar
Bro do some research before commenting
Death in a metal tube underwater, chest to chest with sweaty seamen?
This is the submarine they sent to hunt down the Red October in the Tom Clancy novel The Hunt for Red October
What ?! I was expecting a “Yellow Submarine” !
16 to 20 man crews make for some weak damage control parties if you ever get hit.
....if You get hit.... This killer subs was not created to have any future at all , but just to be one-way mission destroyer. ( of US air carrier )
Less deaths too
Crawling into that thing is like a tank man in the Ukraine they are taking out those tanks with 300 dollar drones those tanks cost what 20 million a peace or more.
Very good video
One thing that they were doing during the Cold War was accidentally crashing into Soviet submarines to do enough damage to send them back to base for repair and we knew that they could not afford it
So insurance fraud
@@JohnDoe-on6runot if you stop and exchange details
Titanium, yes. Carbon fiber..... no. 🤨
you make your own shiny submarine with solar panels
Assembly would be hard enough but maintenance and repair of the hull would be a problem nearly impossible to overcome and the Soviets are 💩 at maintenance, all their ships are rust buckets.
Not with Titanium but the hull presented a different problem. Put Titanium in salt water, tie it to a jetty made of reinforced concrete what do you get? A cell. At the expense of the steel (iron) bars within the concrete which led to the piers corroding.
Their nuclear arsenals have problem already with maintenance, mostly because some generals pocketed the money, now submarine. Lucky russian generals, they grew rich by pocketing only money.
They can build the best sub on the planet, but they can't build a car.
You dare disrespect Lada?
@@Lewythefly It's literally in the name, Lada, la-yes
Here I'm thinking it would be useless for a submarine to be made from titanium. I guess when you have an abundance of titanium you can get away with it.
Being able to do it isn't the same as useful.
Titanium alloys are more brittle than other steel or aluminum alloys. It gets worse in the cold. So they could dive deeper, but at the risk of cracks. Cracks which get bigger with repeated deep dives.
Also the things were noisy. The whole point of a sub is relative stealth.
That is not correct. Titanium only gets brittle if the alloy has impurities, this is why you need to weld it under argon. IDK about the 60-70's soviet alloys, maybe they were of poor quality. Everything that have a body-centered cubic crystal structure is very maleable but sucetible to impurities. Modern titanium is stronger lighter and more ductible than any steel under the same stresses.
Russia has TONS of resources. What innovation. God know what they are engineering now. Cease to amaze you.
'Russian' + 'High levels of automation' + nuclear is a train wreck looking for a place to happen
@TyaxComp and? This really isnt the same as sinking several subs with hundreds of sailors and its reactor materials (which are several tons of uran) around the seabed. A nuclear bomb will be unusable as soon as it reached the seafloor and a plutonium core sure isn't great on the seabed but a much smaller problem.
@@flixri726 Thank you , I forgot about Kursk. The Russian navy has killed more of their own sailors than they have enemies. The U.S. has lost a couple of nukes. Freely admitted and common knowledge for decades. I guess someone forgot about the "somewhere between 84-100" briefcase nukes Russia can't find
@@flixri726 you speak as if US submarines have not sunk in the past
F35 automation = cant fly
@@dexlab7539tf are you talking about?
Titanium stronger then steel is a myth..........
Titanium is stronger than the type of steel used in sub production. There are steel alloys that are stronger than titanium, yes, but generally speaking, you’re incorrect.
They have to be weled in Atmosphere or the welds become brittle and prone to failure. Their reactors were their other weakness.