There’s a thread in GQ about the technical aspects of torpedoes and sonar and such, but what I want to discuss is this: Why did the cook on Red October want to sabotage the sub? The Russians were obviously taken by surprise at Ramius’ defection, so it’s unlikely the cook was a Russian spy trying to stop the sub from falling into American hands. But he couldn’t have been an American spy either, as he continued to try to blow up the sub after the US Navy showed up. So what gives?
The movie left a lot of details out that were clearer in the book. The cook was an agent for the GRU (the Soviet military intelligence agency). The Soviets didn’t trust their own officers, including their political officers, so they would always plant secret agents among the crew. The cook was one of these; he had been given the job because cooks were able to travel around the ship while delivering meals without being questioned. When he realized the officers were trying to defect he tried to sabotage the ship.
All the movie provides as foreshadowing is a lingering shot on “the cook” cleaning up the officer’s mess after the death of the political officer. It is also apparent also that the agent wasn’t even on the ship’s roster, as he escapes notice even after Ramius tells the ship’s doctor (Tim Curry’s character) to take a careful count so that he knows everyone is evacuated.
The other indication was Ramius’ first question to the political officer, (paraphrased):
“How many agents are on my boat?”
“Your boat? This boat belongs to the people of Mother Russia. But even if the GRU put agents aboard this ship, I would be the last to know.”
Well, there was also the implication that the doctor was simply incompetent and selfish and was only interested in saving his own skin (that’s how I saw it).
BTW, in the book the cook ‘hotwires’ the warhead to the point that Ryan & Ramius decide to eject it into the sea. Not launch it, just let it sink to the bottom of the ocean in case the cook’s irrevicably set it to detonate. Made for some serious tension back on the Dallas when Jonesy (he stayed onboard in the novel) hears Red October “flooding a missle tube!”
That reminds me. I need to put a six-foot inflatable Red October submarine on eBay. I’ll get round to it eventually. Maybe I’ll include my VHS tape with it as well.
I was disappointed when the film came out. I’d read the book, and they left a lot out that I thought was important. (And I didn’t like the stock footage of the 1950s Grumman crashing.)
In the book it says the cook’s assistant got out onto the deck and then went back inside saying he’d left behind a CD player (I think—he said he’d left something expensive and electronic behind). So he was counted as having gotten out, but in the confusion no one remembered he’d gone back in.
The book also makes it fairly clear that the doctor isn’t incompetent but that he hadn’t followed procedure regarding testing the radiation exposure badges; the implication is that this disregard was endemic in the Soviet fleet. I can’t remember enough about it to say how much of his concern was for the personnel and how much was for himself, though.
In the book there was a whole subplot where the CIA set up a disinformation campaign to make it look like dissidents had given the Red October a set of fake orders and then faked Ramius’ defection letter. Because this wasn’t in the movie, it left a gap in the plot - the Americans were able to hide the defection from the loyal crew during the rescue, but the Soviets would have still known about it because of the letter Ramius sent.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t the Political Officers from a special bureau of the KGB?
Yes, but in the book, they don’t keep a count – Ramius is upset with himself later for not thinking to do that.
IIRC, you are correct.
Also, in the book they discussed how the Political Officer had led a mutiny and tried to go from Latvia to Sweden. The cook on the ship was supposed to be a young kid who had drawn unfortunate duty to “watch the watcher.”
The movie was actually really good, I thought, easily the best Clancy-book-movie ever. Great popcorn flick. But it did have three major irritations:
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In the book, one of the reasons the Americans realize Ramius is trying to defect is that he hasn’t already launched his missiles; if he was insane and wanted to nuke the USA, he could fire his missiles from anywhere, and wouldn’t have to cross the Atlantic and incur all that risk.
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In the book, it’s clearly noted that the cook could blow up the missile’s rocket engine, which would pretty much melt the submarine. In the movie you kind of get the impression he can set off the warhead (“No, but he could blow one up”) which is kind of silly.
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The doctor messing up the count is simply absurd; if he’s incompetent then say so, but in the film he is portrayed as geniunely concerned about the men’s welfare, even if he’s a bit of a twit. Surely he can count.
Hell, why would ONE OF THE OTHER COOKS not notice he was missing? They wouldn’t know he was KGB, they’d just assume he was a buddy. There aren’t that many men on an SSBN; surely one would look around and say “Hey, where the hell is Sergei?”
I don’t know if that’s really so much of a plot hole: have you ever tried to count over a hundred people? The darned things keep moving on you! I’m serious; it’s really hard to get an accurate count of that many people.
It might be easier in the military, you can order them to stand still, but during an evacuation on a submarine in the North Atlantic? I’m not sure you can get them all to stand still
I think counting people coming off a submarine should be fairly straightforward, as there are no doubt a very limited number of hatches to exit the boat from. However, unless the men are pre-assigned evacuation rafts by department then I can see no reason why the agent/cook would not be missed in any single raft.
Two other problems with the movie.
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People on both sides describe the Red October as a provocative, first-strike weapon. That’s ridiculous. The whole point of ballistic missile submarines is to remain hidden, survive a first strike and retaliate.
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The new submarine causes a panic because of its new, silent method of propulsion. But the sonar operator on the Dallas figures it out almost immediately. He could teach other sonarmen in the fleet, and the computers could be reprogrammed with what to listen for, which makes the Red October no more dangerous than any other Soviet missile sub.
Say what? I thought the point was that you could launch the missiles right off of your enemy’s coast, and hit them before they could launch their own missiles back.
If that was the case, there’d be no need to keep them around after developing ICBMs. After that point, at least, they were contemplated as a second strike weapon.
I don’t know if the range to target makes much difference in the travel time of a ballistic missile. It’s still going to go way up in the air before it comes back down. If the sub had some sort of cruise missiles, the range would make a difference; but they’re never mentioned in the movie.
And the whole Cold War/deterrence thing between the U.S. and U.S.S.R. was based on the idea that whoever fired first was going to get the shit kicked out of them in return. If a nuclear missile was launched at the U.S., it doesn’t matter if it came from the North Atlantic or Chesapeake Bay. We weren’t going to be shooting back at the submarine, we were going to be shooting back at Moscow.
I’ve thought about this more, and I’m dead certain that in The Sum of All Fears(the book), there’s a part where the Soviets are worried about the American ballistic missile submarines, because they could launch their missiles close enough to the Soviet union that they could take out the USSR’s ballistic missiles before they were launched.
It would depend on where your land-based launch sites are, how many you have, and how many submarine launched missiles the enemy has. And even if the U.S. could eliminate all the Soviet’s land-based launch sites, they would still retaliate with their ballistic missile submarines. That’s why it’s a second-strike weapon.
There may be some advantage to building an ultra-quiet missile submarine. By getting closer to an enemy’s coastline undetected, you may (and I’m still not certain) save a few minutes in delivering your missiles to their targets. But it does not start and finish a war all by itself.
And using a Tom Clancy cite to back up a debate about a Tom Clancy movie is not a particularly strong argument.