As an aside Captain Ramius is the role Sean Connery was born to play!
Anyway something I’ve always wondered about the final battle scene (apart from how plausible it is, I’m guessing the answer is ‘not very’) one of the officers of Tupelov’s submarine cracks up when his captain orders the torpedos to be launched already armed.
Thats obviously a dangerous maneuvre but when his submarine is finally sunk the torpedo has been running for long enough to arm in a normal manner anyway so my questions are:
(a) why was such a big deal made about launching the torpedo already armed, apart than to show that Tupelov likes to put aggression above common sense
and
(b) unless I’m reading the scene wrong said questioning officer accuses Tupelov of having killed his own submarine and the context seems to suggest its because he’s launched the torpedo already armed but as mentioned by that point it had been running long enough for that not to be an issue
It’s been years since I’ve watched The Hunt For Red October, but…
(a) IIRC Red October was too close, so the safeties were removed. Red October took evasive action, and I think Dallas ran interference as well. I believe countermeasures were launched. So the torpedo missed. Had the torpedo hit Red October, it would not have detonated without having the safeties disabled. (Didn’t they bounce one off Red October, the safeties being enabled?)
(b) I don’t know what safeties torpedos have, other than that they need to run a certain distance before becoming armed. Is there another safety that is supposed to stop it from tracking the launching vessel? It could be that the safeties had nothing to do with the captain ‘killing themselves’. It could have been that the XO thought the captain should have foreseen the possibility that the torpedo would home in on them(selves), given the geometry of the shot.
I’m totally guessing on (b), and stand by to be corrected.
I think the filmmaker is implying that the torpedo did NOT run long enough to overcome the safety when it sinks Tupelov’s boat. His recklessness has killed his own crew.
By the way, the scene is completely different in the book.
Red October rams the other Russian sub, thus sinking it. No torpedos at all.
a) IIRC the first set of torpedoes they fired at Red October didn’t detonate because Ramius turned into them, closing the distance faster than the torpedoes could arm themselves, so they just passed right by. Because of this, Tupelov orders all of the torpedoes to be fired already armed.
b) I don’t think the two thing are connected. The torpedo came back to them because the Dallas intervenes (I don’t remember exactly how).
In the book, the Red October managed to make it to America, where they hid in a river until all the Russian “heat” was off. The Russians had been convinced, with American help, and some of Red October’s uniquely identifiable equipment, that Red October was destroyed. So the Russian recalled the “blocking force” along the U.S. coast that was supposed to intercept Red October.
They then attempted a stealth run to a more secure facility, but Tupelov, for reasons I can’t remember, did not leave the U.S. coast after the Red October’s supposed destruction, and detected her.
I don’t remember all the exact details of the battle, except that Red October did take a torpedo hit (but not a lethal one) and did indeed sink Tupelov’s boat by ramming.
It helps if you undersstand that the “Typhoon-class” is a pretty massive submarine, with about a 10:1 mass advantage over the “Alfa-class.”
That’s what I remember, though it has been a few years since I’ve seen the movie.
I liked Hunt for Red October and need to see it again. I never saw it in the theater which makes me sad. I’ll bet it looked and sounded amazing. I’ve never seen Das Boot, even though I own the DVD. I’d love to see it for the first time on the big screen and I’m hoping some theater will bring it back at a retrospective. What are some other good submarine movies? I remember liking K-19: The Widowmaker, but I haven’t seen it since it was released in 2002. Everyone made a big deal about Ford’s accent, but the rest of the movie was, I thought, very very good.
Please forgive me for this, but it’s not often I get to post this song where it’s at least somewhat, sorta on topic. How many songs do you know that were inspired specifically by this movie, or even submarines in general? This song about submarines was definitely inspired by the submarines in Hunt For Red October and Das Boot.
The admiral in charge of the Soviet Navy was stung by all of the operations that the US pulled, getting into position to sink key ships again and again. He ordered some of the quieter submarines to stay behind and try to pick up a missile submarine when the dust settled, so his navy could get one victory over the Americans.[/spoiler]
I too had gotten the impression that the two were unrelated, that the officer was talking about how Tupelov had been outmaneuvered, causing the torpedo to lock in on his Alfa.
I saw the movie several times during it’s original theatrical run, and indeed it looked amazing, although the pre-CGI graphics do appear very dated nowadays. And please, please, please take the time to watch Das Boot – it’s one the greatest WWII films ever made!!
As if a Lithuanian sub captain speaking with a Scottish accent makes any more sense.
Torpedoes have a minimum run distance as a safety for the launching sub. Sometimes when a torpedo comes out of the tube, the rudder can jam and it runs in a circle arriving back at the spot where it was launched. If armed this would be very bad for the launching sub. This happened at least once during WWII to the U.S.S. Tang
In the movie the Red October foils the first attack by closing the distance too fast so the torps don’t have time to arm.
Tupelov then orders the safeties removed on the rest of the fish. This is a risky move.
Anyway he fires and the RO is in deep shit. She can’t out run the torpedoes.
Enter the Dallas from stage left to the rescue. They come between the RO and the torpedoes. The torpedoes lock onto the Dallas and change course. Once the torpedoes lock onto the Dallas she launches noisemakers and does an emergency blow to get the hell out of Dodge. (“Put us on the roof!”)
The torpedoes go after the noisemakers and don’t find a submarine. So they are searching for a target. (sonar seeking torpedoes are nobodies friend) The pick up and home on Tupelov’s Alfa when there is not enough time to evade.
Bye bye.
IIRc, they lock back onto RO, which turns and runs towards Tupolev’s boat, and skims past him with bare yards to spare, and the torpedoes following RO now lock onto Tupolev’s boat, and cue, “You’ve killed us all, you arrogant ass!”
Torpedoes have anther safety that prevents them from detonating if they turn more than 180° from their original course. If this safety was disabled then Tupelov did indeed kill his own submarine.
And I don’t think the Russians had wire-guided torpedoes back then either (tho I am pretty sure they had towed arrays, which would make “Crazy Ivan” manuevers unnecessary).
The film gets a lot of criticism for this, but I have to defend it: it highlights that Ramius is different, not a Russian. The rest of the crew have bland American accents.
