KURSK
K-141 Kursk was a Project 949A nuclear attack submarine given the NATO codename of ‘Oscar II’. Displacing some 16,000 tons, she was 154m long (505ft), and her two nuclear reactors gave her a submerged top speed of 32 knots. Her outer hull of stainless steel 8.5mm (0.33in) thick was distanced 2m (6ft 7in) from the inner pressure hull, which was 50.8mm (2in) thick. Kursk was armed with Granit missiles, and had four 21in and two 26in torpedo tubes, all mounted in the bow. Commissioned in December 1994, she joined the Russian navy’s northern fleet. At the beginning of August 2000, Kursk sortied to join three other attack submarines, the flagship Pyotr Velikiy and several smaller ships, as part of a summer exercise, in which she was scheduled to fire practice torpedoes at Pyotr Velikiy.
At 1128 on 12 August 2000, an explosion occurred on board Kursk, which seismographic detectors recorded as 2.2 on the Richter scale, estimated as a blast equivalent to up to 250kg (550lbs) of TNT. Just over two minutes later, a second explosion was detected, measuring between 3.5 and 4.4 on the Richter scale, the equivalent of up to 7 tons of TNT. The Kursk sank to the bottom, 135km off Severomorsk, at a depth of 108m (354ft).
Alerted by the seismographic readings, British and Norwegian rescue teams offered their assistance, which the Russians declined. The Russian Admiralty assumed that the powerful explosions had killed the entire crew of 118 officers and men. When the wreck of the Kursk was recovered by Dutch salvors Mammoet and Smit International, the harrowing discovery was made of notes written by one of twenty-three survivors of the explosions, who had remained alive in the furthest aft compartment 9, for some time after the sinking.
The investigation in 2002 concluded that the disaster had been caused by the explosion of a HTP-fuelled Type 65–76 Kit torpedo, which had caused a major fire in the torpedo compartment, leading to the explosion of up to an additional seven torpedoes.
ROK CHEONAN
The heavily armed 1200-ton corvette Cheonan of the Republic of Korea’s navy sank on 26 March 2010 in waters disputed by both North and South Korea. Ever since the armistice which ended the fighting on the Korean Peninsula on 27 July 1953, technically the two Koreas have remained at war, as no peace agreement has ever been signed between the two. Although on land the two sides are rigidly separated by the Demilitarised Zone, no such division operates at sea. In particular the North claims certain rich fishing grounds to the south of the dividing line.
There have been several naval confrontations, collectively known as the ‘crab wars’, including the First Battle of Yeonpyeong on 15 June 1999, when the corvette Cheonan was slightly damaged and a North Korean MTB was sunk, and the Second Battle of Yeonpyeong a fortnight later, when a North Korean patrol boat was badly shot up but towed away, and a South Korean patrol boat was sunk.
On 26 March 2010 the Cheonan was on patrol about one nautical mile off the southwest coast of Baengnyeong Island in the Yellow Sea. The vessel was well within the waters South Korea claims as its own, a claim disputed by the North. At around 2120 an explosion occurred near the stern of the ship, which broke in two. The severed stern part sank within five minutes and the bow some time later. From the crew of 104 officers and men, fifty-eight were rescued by South Korean ships.
South Korea called in foreign experts to help them establish the cause of the sinking, including representatives from Canada, Britain, Sweden and Australia. Just one day after the salvage of the bow section, South Korea’s defence minister announced that the most likely cause of the sinking was a torpedo explosion. On 20 May an international commission presented its findings, stating that the Cheonan had been sunk by a North Korean CHT-02D torpedo, parts of which were claimed to have been dredged up at the scene of the sinking. A final report concluded that the Cheonan was struck by a torpedo with a warhead equivalent to 250kg (550lbs) of TNT which exploded 3m (9.8ft) to port of the centre of the gas turbine room at a depth of between 6 and 9m (20–30ft).
The North Korean government at all stages continued to deny involvement. In particular, its Central News Agency asserted among other points that it was unbelievable that a part of a torpedo doing so much damage to a ship would survive. They had obviously not read the Royal Navy divers’ report on their findings at the wreck of HMS Royal Oak in 1939, when a part of one of the German G7e torpedoes was recovered.
CONCLUSION
In accepting the commission to compile this encyclopedia, I thought I had a reasonable knowledge of the torpedo. As my research progressed, I discovered that previously I had only scratched the surface of this multi-faceted weapon system. On consideration, I would suggest that the story of the torpedo can be summed up in three separate phases.
Firstly, there was the Mechanical Age of the Torpedo, when assorted inventors and engineers thought of an idea and pursued it tirelessly, to conceive, modify and finally bring the torpedo to a state of mechanical perfection. It then entered its second phase, the Age of Torpedo Warfare, when the weapon rose to threaten domination of naval operations, a threat which remains valid in the twenty-first century. The third phase began during the Second World War, and is still with us today, namely the Electronic Age of the Torpedo.
Possibly more development effort and money are today being expended on the torpedo and on anti-torpedo defence than at any other time in its history. The very real threat to all surface ships, and the free movement of goods and supplies — to say nothing of the deployment of armed forces — all around the world, requires that every effort is made to defend against the modern torpedo. Luckily, to date no major conflict has erupted where the powers of defence have been realistically tested against the powers of offence. But the ease with which a supposed North Korean torpedo blew in half and sank a modern antisubmarine corvette involved in an ASW exercise, points to the fact that attacker will always hold the advantage over the defender in this deadly game of cat and mouse.