I suppose if one has to die on a submarine due to an accident, going so fast that you're still mid-sentence reading a book would be far better than a slow dive into the depths waiting for the end. Another solid video, thank you.

FOR THE ALGORITHM!!!

If I'm not mistaken, the Soviet sailor's body that was recovered was given a formal burial at sea with military honors and the event was videotaped. The video was given to the Russians later during the Regan administration as a gesture of friendship and respect.

Project Azorian totally deserves the limelight of it's own sub brief. Great piece of history that deserves to be remembered.

If you haven’t read it before, I very highly recommend reading the book ‘Blind Man’s Bluff’. It’s one of my absolute favorites about submarine espionage during the Cold War and has chapters that cover everything from the K-129 and project Azorian to the USS Scorpion and the role of the Halibut.

Andre, you've lost another submarine? The Amur river has to be continually dredged to allow ships and subs built there to make it down river. It is the old story of "You can dredge it up or you can't take it out." Mooring stern first is called "Med moored" since it is common for ships in the Mediterranean due to lack of quay side space. You usually drop an anchor and then reverse to the quay. The tension of the anchor chain holds the stern off the quay but doesn't put undue stress on the mooring lines. I did this in Livorno Italy in the early 80s.

I'm the one Army guy in a family of Navy sailors - grandpas, dad, uncles, cousins - even my son. Me? I was drafted for Vietnam. Anyway, I've been reading military data for years - sooo boring. But you're a GREAT narrator, a story teller. You turn boring military reports into mystery cliff hangers. You also have extensive "at sea" time backing you up. You are a treat to follow and at 76, I'm a tough guy to entertain. Thank you for all your impressive efforts - keep telling us the 'haps' (an Army term, you wouldn't understand).

I would love to hear a sub-brief on Project Azorian! Even knowing what kind of advances we've made in machining and undersea exploration, the ability to go down and retrieve ever a part of K-129 is incredible to me.

Well, we’re talking about the folks that were ok with losing 5% to casualties during army maneuvers. I’ll never forgot the Soviet Ukrainian Colonel telling my dad, around 1993, something like “you Americans, if you’re too afraid to have soldiers die in training, how can you expect to fight a war”. Different mindset. Same folks at Baskin Robbins: “you have THIRTY ONE flavors? How did you do this? We have white vanilla and painted dark vanilla, we call it chocolate”. Even their ice cream was faked. He and Dad traded stories and old service gear, I have his Soviet dress blouse and a couple Soviet sub service wrist watches.

USS Halibut was originally designed to carry the Regulus II strategic cruise missile. When Regulus II was eliminated, the submarine was then modified to be a dedicated intelligence gathering platform.

I'm sorry, but I can't help but laugh a little every time I hear 'Kamchatka" because some kind of mishap is bound to ensue at some point. I blame Drachinifel for that.

Fascinating history, stranger than fiction.

Comment for the algorithm (and curiosity): I wonder where the CIA put K-129 later. Mystery warehouse someplace?

Project Azorian by itself is such an amazing feat of covert magnificence. Even years down the line tech from that project helpt leap forward offshore capabilities. Not to mention the produced HBM-1 ‘barge’ to house the submarine after it was taken, was later used as a covert base for the Sea Shadow.

The cover story given at the time was the Explorer was looking for manganese nodules, for deep sea mining as there were Soviet subs & ships in the area watching them

I like how he says the Russians are super secret for some reason then goes on to talk about how America secretly builds a structure to steal Russias submarine.

If you haven't done so yet, recommend you do a briefing on the USS Bonefish disaster. A battery related fire with loss of life and loss of ship. When I reported to work at NAVSEA in the SUBSAFE office in 1987, I was tasked with tracking the outstanding corrective actions from the NAVSAFCEN review.

Also my college algebra teacher was the XO onboard the Halibut at this time. He's the one that convinced me to join the navy and go subs. Unfortunately I went nuke and didn't really enjoy my service. If I had to do it over again I definitely would have been a coner - most likely a sonar tech so I would have had some idea what we were actually doing.

Those brave sailors died doing what they loved. I wish them the best wherever they are now. I think it's really respectable that you treat all submariners as humans, despite the fact that these men would have been your "adversaries" during your service. I think that's the sign of a good fella - the ability to acknowledge we're all human, and we are in many ways living the same experiences, just in different places, with difference cultures.

the bullet point saying plutonium contamination means that a warhead did rupture.

I love the K-129 saga. I think I’ve read every book I can find on it. Including the one you showed. Excellent book. There’s also a great book on The Halibut. Can’t recall the name.

I was very confused for like 30 seconds since i just watched k-219 accident last night and was like “Wait didn’t he already do this one?”

The NOVA documentary series has an episode called "Secrets of the Cold War" that also covered this recovery attempt.

Loading rockets with hypergolic fuel onto submarines isn't just "dangerous" it's straight up criminally negligent recklessness. Words can scarcely describe just how stupidly dangerous it is to carry those kinds of reactants on what is already one of the most dangerous operating environments in the world. It really underlines just how desperate both sides were to "one up" each other for strategic advantage during the cold war. It's right up there with HTP fuelled torpedoes.

About 1974-75, I saw the Glomar Explorer anchored off of the West side of Catalina Island. I’m not sure if this was pre or post mission to raise the K-129.

*Very yes please* on the Project Azorian sub brief. I'd love to hear your take on that absolute madness!

Awsome going all the way back to Golf...crazy N. Korea is still able to use in some capacity as a threat so many years later. 👍content

When you said missile warhead that was odd, but your correction cleared things up. That most of the tube blew out would make me think the fuel went, but that's an amateur opinion.

You may want to check out the fascinating and well written book, "Red Star Rogue" for a more controversial account of this tragic story. One of the claims made was that satellite photography shows a heat plume in the area indicative of the boat suffering an explosion while on the surface. Further, a sailors body was discovered on the sea bed wearing the Soviet surface coat and was evidentially on the bridge when the explosion occurred. I won't say any more, but some here may want to check out the book.

I first heard about K-129 by reading a very fascinating book titled "Red Star Rogue". The author lays out his evidence to come to the conclusion that she was taken over by a KGB Osttsnaz (spelling?) group that had been put on board at the last minute. The KGB's reason for doing this was to make the K-129 launch a missile at Pearl Harbor from a shorter range than their own would be launched from in order to make it look like the Chinese had attacked the US. (The Soviets had sold older Golf 1s to China, but had broken off friendly relations with them and viewed them as enemies on near equal footing as the US by the late 1960's. So by framing the Chinese in an attack on the USA they hoped that their two enemies would destroy each other.) I found what he laid out rather convincing. Though I haven't looked at any of the other stuff out there about the K-129 so I'm not sure if he saw what he wanted to see, or if he was actually on to something. If it's the former, he did well enough to convince me and shame on me for not learning more about the subject. If it's the later, then that is a seriously scary thing to think about.

Given the K129 was in 16,000 ft of water and I KNOW the test depth of Halibut was nowhere even close to that, how did they get the pics? Must have had one heck of long array tethered to the "fish" cameras?

In the US NAVY, that form of mooring was known as "MED MOORING", and American surface ships generally had to do this in the port of Naples, Italy [during the Cold War], for example.

Love your channel! Favorite obviously being the sub briefs!

Great as usual.I found the switmming fish disctracting though...Thank you david

Being a lifelong submarine enthusiast, I appreciate these interesting and informative videos. I do wonder about these Soviet subs checking in with the fleet command via radio once or twice a day. Wouldn't that enable American listening stations to triangulate their positions and thus show the US Navy where these ballistic missile subs were at any given time?

Would love a brief on the Halibut!

I remember reading about another possibility that analysts at the time were considering, which was that the submarine had tried to fire it's ballistic missiles and sank. IIRC that was discounted pretty quickly!

The book Blind Man's Bluff has a pretty extensive chapter about this incident. It made one pretty good point in that the nuclear missiles aboard this Golf really wouldn't have been much use to US intelligence because the designs were already well over 10 years old - with perhaps 1/3 or less of the range, accuracy, and yield of missile designs which were being mass produced and used by 1968.

Interesting mooring arrangement. Must make replenishement, personnel movements *very* time-consuming. One of the big advances with mooring alongside is that you expose the whole vessel for replenishment, to gangways, cranes etc. (Which is why cargo ships are parked alongside.)

I do have that book. Hardcover and all. Awesome book. It's amazing what we can do when we set our minds to it (not to mention almost unlimited budget, of course lol). I've always been fascinated by Project Azorian, ever since I read "The Hunt for the Red October" when a Russian character mentions the Glomar Explorer, and by then I thought, 'hey, this is fiction, right?' I was amazed when I found out it wasn't. I'm looking forward to a Sub Brief about the Hallibut and another one about Azorian. Excelent stuff, sir, keep it up!

Lead-Acid battery explosion is a consequence of flooding and sinking, but may not be the cuase of initial flooding leading to sinking. Meaning that in any case when sub sinks, seawater will get to battery compartment, that will cause explosion .

The company that Howard Hughes started (Hughes Aviation) was notable as being the only non-profit defense contractor.

I have seen a lot where they think it was an attempted unauthorized launch and the missile had a tamper protection

Commenting for the algo

Please adjust your overlays so that there is more efficient use of space. Your videos tend to use small element as it is. Having ~20% of the space taken up by pretty background makes chat and a lot of the text in the presentation unreadable and the photos to small to see anything. I do applaud your effort to bring this info to the public. And hope you continue to make content.

Greetings from Sweden! Active duty Army Paratrooper. You,Sir, just got yourself a new subscriber!

Sad to say, I worked on the government financial entries to sell Glomar Explorer for scrap. Very interesting story. I was briefed on the radiation exposure records of the crew...those missile warheads were pretty hot.

Definitely interested in an "Azorian" follow-up doc!

Great work Sub Brief. Fantastic video.

A book I enjoyed about this boat was Josh Dean's 'The Taking of K-129'

2:10: With Nuclear Submarines today, does the turbine drive the propellor directly, or does it drive an electric motor?

Scuttlebutt has that someone was trying to launch a missle and that another person stopped it from happening

This is covered in the book “Blind mans bluff” very thoroughly too. I am always intrigued by the differing facts presented from different sources. The cover story was heavily invested in. I even recall the manganese nodules story being aired on the UK children’s program (Blue Peter) that I used to watch at the time.

Interesting that diesel-electric subs in the late 50's/early 60s were using the exact same propulsion scheme as a Toyota Prius.

Listening to documentary information about submarine disasters pokes my thalassophobia so much.

Please do a sub brief on the ship that picked up K-129!

ALWAYS interested in any history about the Glomar Explorer! I believe it went on another mission, before it was revealed as a spy recovery ship... pity they scrapped her, IIRC...

Excellent analysis, well done!

I think a Subbrief about the recovery of that sub would be great. Thx.

Your wording on the slide is probably fine. It wouldn't just be the rupture of the missile body but of the warhead itself to contaminate those sailors as per the first bullet point unless one or both of the torpedoes warheads were also ruptured. There was no other sources of plutonium to give that reading.

I’ve always found myself drawn to anything regarding K-129 along with USS Scorpion. Unlike other maritime mysteries, most of the info regarding them isn’t unknown, just classified. The most important details are likely hidden. Who knows how much the story changes once they are known

"Red Star Rogue" explains EXACTLY what happened to K-129

Yahoooooo!!!!

You had me at KoA shipyard!

While the US did tragically lose 2 subs early in the age of nuclear subs, it boggles my mind that the soviets/russians lost so many so recently.

Have you ever done anything in the “Gulf of Tonkin incident” I’d like to put in a request as it was pivotal in wotld history even if it involved surface vessels.

Great story! To bad the claw broke that would have been a huge coup. I wonder where the torpedos went?

Please write the sub brief about this incident. Great program!

The book "red star rogue" by Kenneth sewell and clint Richmond, puts forward an intriguing hypothesis as to what they think occurred,covers project azorian in detail too,an interesting read

I said it before, the Navy is fucking horrifying.

that must be kind of satisfying when a cold war adversary pops his tin can.

If you haven’t, I would love to see the follow up to this.

This video reminds me a bit of what MentourPilot does with airplane acidents.

Floating drydocks do not draw very much water.

LIKED, COMMENTED, A WE'RE AT COMBAT DEPTH! LETS GO!

Such a badass channel

I've been on a "Golf" submarine, surprised to see the top of the three diesel engines are almost even with the lower deck.

Keep the excelent work man!!

We were driving by San Francisco Bay my dad pointed out the Explorer as it was sitting there proud in the mothball Fleet next to all the warships

Thanks for the incredible video as always. I have a question: how did the halibut take those photos if the wreck was 16k’ down, when the halibut could not go anywhere near that deep? Was the camera/light cable just extremely long?

Ther is a documentary film called Azorian The raising of the K 129 that is an excellent film that includes interviews with the engineers that actually designed, built and later operated the ship.

It's nice when you see something in your feed that you KNOW will be GOOD.🙏

Now that you're on the USS Halibut I'm reminded of the "super ping" gag the US Navy pulled on the Russians by tapping their sea cable that transmitted orders to the Russian subs.

An icon of the Age of Flight, Howard Hughes was the prodigal son of the 20th century. Aircraft designer and test pilot, movie producer, director, and star, inventor, millionaire playboy . . . one of the archetypes for Bruce Wayne. He is infamous for designing the Hercules (AKA "Spruce Goose"); the largest airplane built at the time; a giant seaplane. Similarly, his XF-11 reconnaissance plane, which was over budget, behind schedule, sparked so much official controversy that Hughes had to test fly it himself, a decision leading to tragedy when he stayed aloft too long, suffered an engine failure, and crashed into a Hollywood home, leaving it ablaze. Hounded by enemies in Congress and elsewhere, Hughes, injured in the crash of the XF-11, subsequently retired from the public eye, becoming the first modern meme: the recluse with tissue boxes on his feet. Think Elon Musk plus expert engineering chops. His later decline into madness was widely suspected to be a relic of the brain injury he suffered in the crash of the XF-11.

The older Gato-class USS Halibut had an interesting career, especially her 10th (and last) war patrol... ...I would suggest doing a report on the Halibut's...erm, "casualty" (in the singular sense) is way too insufficient to describe the damage she survived... ...and I'm not sure how classified magnetic anomaly detection was when you served on submarines, but that topic would be quite interesting for you to cover (especially considering what happened to the first USS Halibut!)

I remember reading a Soviet sailor was discovered by the halibut ROV in full wet gear was laying a few yards from the wreck on the sea floor?

not sure what the point of putting the stream chat on screen is, i absolutely cannot read it . and I'm on a large 4K display. it just makes the informational slides smaller for no reason

We called it, (mooring stern to..) a Med moor. Did it all the time in... you guessed it! In the Med.

That documentary on Amazon is pretty amazing. Highly recommended!

You really ought to read the book, K129.

There any chance the extra personnel were on the sub performing some kind of repair or diagnostic function? Like how commercial vessels sometimes have a crew on board at sea performing maintenance or renovative work? Still favor your explanation, but it's a thought.

Great story. Did they bring the wreck to land, or did they examine it on the boat?

1600 rpm. Lol. I bet it’s half that. At least for diesel electric.

While I completely understand the reasoning, wouldn't it be a bit of an awkward situation for Japan when we would pull a sub into one of their ports and then immediately tell them, "Alright, everybody out! No Japanese people allowed near this port while we work on our vessel." I can imagine them talking amongst each other as they leave the premises, like "Did the Americans just kick us off our own port?" And would that type of scenario work in reverse? If Japan was working on one of their subs, could they suddenly demand, "All Americans out! We will let you know when we're finished and you're welcome back in the area." I can also imagine them talking amongst each other as they... refuse to leave the premises, like "Did the Japanese just try to kick us off the port? Who the hell do they think they are?"

One theory is the subs Captain wanted to launch a missile at Pearl harbor. His hope was that Red China would be blamed since the US and Red China were at high state over Taiwan and Vietnam. He was stopped by the KGB officer. The type who is under cover among the crew. He somehow sabotage the launch and blow up the sub.

Is it strange that with all the forces in an implosion that the sailor was still holding a book?

The Navy hat DOESNT make you look more qualified. Lol

there were techs on the boat due to previous issues and fixes were being done during the deployment

Nuclear testing sensors or Pacific SOSUS?

Yes