“One of our nuclear subs is missing…we are conducting an emergency rescue operation.”
The Red October Read-along - Episode Three - Days 7 and 8
Welcome back to the Two Navy Guys Debrief, the (mostly) weekly forum where we take on real—and fictional—national security issues.
If you’ve just joined us, we’re engaged in a guided read-along of The Hunt for Red October, Tom Clancy’s debut novel about a rogue Russian ballistic missile submarine. Feel free to join the crew.
Day 7 – Jack Ryan goes to sea
We open with Jack Ryan, in disguise as a Navy commander, enroute to the USS Kennedy on a COD flight, or carrier on-board delivery, to brief the admiral. Clancy also drops in the reason for Jack’s fear of flying, which featured prominently in the movie and the TV series.
[Editorial note: unlike Ramius, where we were spoonfed his entire biography in Chapter 1, Clancy takes care to develop Ryan as a character organically over the course of the story.]
Onboard the USS Dallas, Jonesy unravels the secret of the Red October’s new propulsion system. Mancuso buys in and radios back to SUBLANT for permission to try to intercept the Russian sub. (More on this below)
Dallas goes deep and fast to leapfrog ahead of Red October and catch her on the other side of Red Route One.
On the VK Konovalov, Captain Tupolev, a Ramius acoloyte, has mixed emotions about his orders. He knows how Marko Ramius operates and he has a plan to kill “The Schoolmaster.”
He had to do this himself. He’d get ahead of Marko and wait. Marko would try to slink past, and the Konovalov would be there. And the Red October would die.
As Jack is dispatched to brief the British admiral, Captain Ramius executes Phase 2 of his plan. When the Red October doctor processes radiation badges, he finds there is a radioactive leak onboard the submarine. As the engineers on the Red October search for the elusive leak, the rumor mill onboard the sub kicks into high gear. (If you’ve ever served in any military capacity, you know how true this description of the rumor mill is.)
The Eighth Day - “One of our nuclear subs is missing…”
The Soviet ambassador is called to the White House to explain to the President the “troubling increase in Soviet naval activity in the North Atlantic.” The President points out that absent an explanation the US Navy has no choice but to deploy their own ships to “observe” the Russians.
Within hours, the Soviet ambassador is back with an update: the USSR has lost a submarine. The increased naval activity is an “all hands” rescue operation, because members of the crew are “sons of high Party officials.” The President immediately offers to help find the missing sub…
Meanwhile, in the Pentagon, Skip Tyler runs his computer analysis on the Red October’s tunnel drive. He meets an old friend who just happens to work for the admiral in charge of all submarine operations and gets invited to see the “Grand Dolphin.” As soon as Tyler gets a brief on the unprecedented Soviet sortie, he realizes (1) the Red October is trying to defect and (2) his analysis is the key to finding the Russian submarine.
The reading for this week ends with a dramatic reactor accident and sinking of the Politovskiy, an Alfa-class Soviet sub. One man, a cook, manages to escape.
A note on Clancy’s style
The detailed description of the reactor accident is a good illustration of Clancy’s style. Using an omniscient POV, he hopscotches through various POVs to explain in some detail all the causes and steps in the reactor failure and subsequent sinking. The whole explanation takes up 10 pages.
These detailed descriptions are a feature not a bug of Clancy’s writing—and readers either love it or hate it. For every reader who enjoys the technical minutiae, there are just as many whose eyes glaze over and they skip ahead. As one (mildly frustrated) reader wrote in the comments last week:
…some of this detail ultimately felt superfluous to the total narrative, and therefore, needlessly distracting and, frankly, tedious…Of course, your mileage may vary.
We’ll have much to say about this in later posts.
Technical sidebar: Waterspace Management
In Day Seven, Commander Mancuso transmits a message back to SUBLANT requesting permission to do a high-speed transit to see if he can find the Red October. In the real world, this is exactly what would happen.
Last week, we discussed how the US Navy submarine force works very hard to earn the title of the Silent Service. This creates a safety issue. If our subs are that quiet, what happens if we can’t detect each other?
Welcome to the wonderful world of Waterspace Managment. When a submarine dives, it is assigned an operational area of ocean that is theirs alone. Unless otherwise warned, we can rest assured that there are no friendly submarines in that assigned area.
Usually, this area is quite large—a patrol area might be thousands of square miles of ocean. When a submarine is transiting, such as the Dallas did in the Day 7 chapter, it is assigned a moving “box” that advances at the projected speed of advance (SOA). If submarines must be assigned the same water, as part of an exercise, for example, they will usually have depth restrictions to ensure there is not an inadvertent collision.
Waterspace is managed by the relevant submarine command authority, SUBLANT in this story, and submariners take waterspace management very seriously. If you suddenly find yourself out of your assigned area, the immediate action is to place yourself on report with the relevant command.
The upshot of all this is that if you suddenly detect a submerged contact in your assigned water, you immediately assume it is hostile. Even in peacetime. As Clancy put it:
Submarines typically operated on what was effectively an at-war footing.
Next week’s reading assignment: Days 9 and 10
Feel free to tell us what you think in the comments section. Next week, we’ll recap the reading, offer some thoughts about how the story is developing, and share some submarine knowledge.
Be happy. Stay healthy. Read (or listen to) a book.
As always, thanks for being a supporter –
David & JR, AKA the Two Navy Guys
PS – Are you looking for the FREE download of Death of a Pawn?
PPS - This email is free, but it's not cheap. If you'd like to show your support, here's where you can find all the Two Navy Guys' books.
PPPS - If you enjoyed this post, you can get it delivered to your inbox every week for free.
