Career
Ordered:
Laid down:	1992
Launched:	1994
Commissioned:	December 1994
Fate:	lost at sea August 12, 2000
Homeport:
Stricken:
General Characteristics
Displacement:	13.400 t, 16.400 t
Length:	154.0 m
Beam:	18.2 m
Draft:	9.0 m
Propulsion:	1 nuclear reactor OK-650b, 2 steam turbines, 2/7-bladed props
Diving depth:	300 to 600 meters [by various estimates]
Speed:	32 knots (59 km/h) dived, 16 knots (30 km/h) surfaced
Range:
Complement:
Armament:	24 x SS-N-19/P-700 Granit, 4 x 533 mm and 2 x 650 mm bow torpedo tubes
Crew:	officer-44 enlisted-68

K-141 Kursk (Russian in full: Атомная подводная лодка "Курск" [АПЛ "Курск"] - nuclear submarine "Kursk") was a Project 949A Антей (Antey, Antaeus; also known by its NATO reporting name of "Oscar-II" class) nuclear cruise missile submarine named after the Russian city Kursk, where one of the biggest battles of World War II took place (Battle of Kursk). She was commissioned into the Northern Fleet of the Russian Navy. Kursk sank on August 12, 2000 with all hands lost. Image File history File links From http://nfo. ... The ensign used by the Russian Navy. ... 1992 is a leap year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... 1994 was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated the International year of the Family. ... 1994 was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated the International year of the Family. ... August 12 is the 224th day of the year (225th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar. ... This article is about the year 2000. ... Hercules and Antaeus. ... NATO reporting names were code names for Soviet and Chinese military equipment. ... The Soviet Unions Project 949 (Granit) and Project 949A (Antey) submarines are known in the West by their NATO reporting names: the Oscar-I and Oscar-II classes respectively. ... USS Los Angeles A submarine is a specialized watercraft that can operate underwater. ... The Orthodox monastery on the Red Square Kursk (Russian: Курск; pronunciation: koorsk) is a city in Central Russia, an administrative center of Kursk Oblast. ... World War II was a truly global conflict with many facets: immense human suffering, fierce indoctrinations, and the use of new, extremely devastating weapons like the atom bomb. ... The Battle of Kursk was a significant battle on the Eastern Front of World War II. It remains the largest armored engagement of all time, and included the most costly single day of aerial warfare in history. ... The ceremonies involved in commissioning ships into a military force are based in traditions thousands of years old. ... Red Banner Northern Fleet (Северный флот in Russian, or Severniy flot), a part of the Soviet Navy, created in 1933 for the purpose of defending Soviet territory beyond the Arctic circle (Заполярье, or Zapolyariye). ... Russian Navy Jack Russian Navy Ensign The Russian Navy (Russian: Военно Морской Флот (ВМФ) - Voyenno Morskoy Flot (VMF) or Military Maritime Fleet) is the naval arm of the Russian armed forces. ... President Vladimir Putin at the Kursk, Russia memorial to the Kursk submarine. ... August 12 is the 224th day of the year (225th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar. ... This article is about the year 2000. ...

Background

Construction of the Kursk began in Severodvinsk, near Archangelsk, in 1992. She was launched for the first time in 1994 and formally commissioned in December of that year. The ship was "baptized" by an Orthodox priest in 1995. The Kursk was the last of the large Oscar-II class submarines to be designed and approved in the Soviet era. At 155 metres in length, and four stories high, it was the largest attack submarine ever built. The class had also been described as "unsinkable" on account of its double hull. The outer hull, made of high-nickel high-chrome content steel just one-third of an inch thick, had exceptionally good resistance to corrosion and a weak magnetic signature which helped prevent detection by Magnetic Anomaly Detection (MAD) systems. There was a two-metre gap to the two-inch-thick steel inner hull. Severodvinsk (Северодви́нск) is a city in Arkhangelsk Oblast, Russia. ... Murmansk, Archangelsk, Dikson, Tiksi, on the Arctic Ocean The city of Arkhangelsk (Арха́нгельск, formerly in English Archangel) lies on the Northern Dvina River (Се́верная Двина́) near its exit into the White Sea in the far north of European Russia. ... // Steel is a metal alloy whose major component is iron, with carbon being the primary alloying material. ... A magnetic anomaly detector (MAD) is a piece of equipment that is used to detect minute variations in the Earths magnetic field. ...

Kursk formed part of the Russian Northern Fleet. The Fleet had suffered tremendous cutbacks through lack of funding throughout the 1990s. Many submarines had been brought into docks along the Barents Sea and left to rust. All but the most essential frontline equipment was inadequately serviced, including search and rescue equipment. Sailors of the Northern Fleet had gone unpaid in the mid-1990s due to money being re-appropriated before reaching the Arctic North. However, the end of the decade represented something of a renaissance for the fleet. In 1999 Kursk had carried out a successful reconnaissance mission in the Mediterranean, spying on the United States Navy's Sixth Fleet during the Kosovo War. The training exercise of August 2000 was to be the largest summer drill since the collapse of the Soviet Union ten years before, involving four attack submarines and the Fleet's flagship Peter the Great amongst a flotilla of smaller ships. Red Banner Northern Fleet (Северный флот in Russian, or Severniy flot), a part of the Soviet Navy, created in 1933 for the purpose of defending Soviet territory beyond the Arctic circle (Заполярье, or Zapolyariye). ... // Events and trends The 1990s are generally classified as having moved slightly away from the more conservative 1980s, but otherwise retaining the same mindset. ... Southeastern portion of Barents Sea, the Kola Peninsula and the White Sea. ... // Events and trends The 1990s are generally classified as having moved slightly away from the more conservative 1980s, but otherwise retaining the same mindset. ... The term Kosovo War or Kosovo Conflict is often used to describe two sequential and at times parallel armed conflicts (a civil war followed by an international war) in the southern Serbian province called Kosovo (officially Kosovo and Metohia), part of the former Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. ...

Explosion and rescue attempts

President Vladimir Putin at the Kursk, Russia memorial to the Kursk submarine.

For details, see Russian submarine Kursk explosion (2000).

The Kursk sailed out to sea to perform an exercise of firing dummy torpedoes at a Kirov-class battlecruiser. On August 12, 2000 at 11:28 local time (07:28 UTC), the missiles were fired, but an explosion occurred soon after on the Kursk. The chemical explosion blasted with the force of 100 kg of TNT and registered 1.5 on the Richter scale. The submarine sank to a depth of 108 metres, approximately 135km (85 miles) off Severomorsk, at 69°40′ N 37°35′ E. Image File history File links The memorial of the Kursk submarine in Kursk, Russia, along with President Putin. ... Image File history File links The memorial of the Kursk submarine in Kursk, Russia, along with President Putin. ... Term of office: December 31, 1999 – Preceded by: Boris Yeltsin Succeeded by: Date of birth: October 7, 1952 Place of birth: Leningrad First Lady: Liudmila Putina Political party: None Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin (Russian: Владимир Владимирович Путин   pronunciation?; born October 7, 1952) is a Russian politician and the current President of the Russian Federation. ... President Vladimir Putin at the Kursk, Russia memorial to the Kursk submarine. ... The Kirov-class nuclear powered battlecruisers are some of the largest and most powerful surface warships of the Russian Navy, though they were originally built for the Soviet Navy. ... August 12 is the 224th day of the year (225th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar. ... This article is about the year 2000. ... UTC also stands for the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Coordinated Universal Time or UTC, also sometimes referred to as Zulu time, the basis for civil time, differs by an integral number of seconds from atomic time and a fractional number of seconds from UT1. ... Trinitrotoluene (TNT, or Trotyl) is a pale yellow crystalline aromatic hydrocarbon compound that melts at 354 K (178 Â°F, 81 °C). ... The Richter magnitude test scale (or more correctly local magnitude ML scale) assigns a single number to quantify the size of an earthquake. ...

Though a rescue attempt was made by Russian and Norwegian teams, all sailors and officers aboard the Kursk were lost. The subsequent investigation would show that most of the crew had died within minutes of the explosion, and the entire crew would be dead within a few hours after that. The Kursk was eventually recovered from her grave by a Dutch team and 115 of the 118 dead were recovered and laid to rest in Russia. The United States offered to help with rescue operations but these offers were rejected by Russia.

See also

• Major submarine incidents since 2000
• Russian subs sunk in August: Kursk (2000), K-159 (2003), AS-28 (2005)

USS San Francisco in Dry Dock after running aground 350 miles south of Guam Since the year 2000, there have been eight major naval incidents involving submarines: three Russian submarine incidents, three incidents involving submarines from the United States , a Chinese incident, and a Canadian incident. ... President Vladimir Putin at the Kursk, Russia memorial to the Kursk submarine. ... K-159 was a Projekt 627 Kit (NATO reporting name November) class submarine of the Soviet Navy. ... AS-28 is a miniature submarine of the Russian Navy belonging to the Project 1855 Priz class. ...

External links

• Some pictures of Kursk submarine
• Kursk Lifting Operation: official information channel (in English)
• Kursk Lifting Operation: official information channel (in Russian)
• Salvaging the Kursk
• History Channel Modern Marvels: Inviting Disaster DVD set (includes The Sinking of Kursk)
• Project 949 Granit / Oscar I Project 949A Antey / Oscar II
• BBC: Kursk mistakes haunt Russia