The Plot Thickens

Most anyone who has ever taken a class from me knows that I have a deep and abiding affection for Hunt for Red October, in spite of the fact that the film channels a river of Team B bullshit about Soviet and American naval capabilities. A few years back, I was discussing Hunt for Red October with a Ukrainian graduate student, and she told me that she much preferred K-19: Widowmaker. K-19 dispenses with the nonsense about crew members spontaneously singing the Soviet National Anthem, officers having casual conversations about the contrariness of privacy to the Soviet public interest, and the dread superiority of the Soviet military-industrial complex. Rather, K-19 is about a group of sailors and officers testing a submarine that doesn’t quite work right, and trying not to get killed or have their careers destroyed in the process. As such, my Ukrainian friend argued, it was much closer to the reality of Soviet life than the Connery film.

With that in mind, I’ve been following the Nerpa story with great interest. Galrahn has a detailed post with the latest information, the most intriguing of which centers around the fact that the fire suppression system may not have deployed by malfunction. Of course, much remains to be learned, and the Russians have a vested interest in claiming crew perfidy instead of manufacturing defect. Nevertheless, it appears that the story of the Nerpa incident will serve to increase the cinematic appeal of the Russian submarine service…