Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)UPDATE OF 19 AUG:
In an intemperately worded comment posted in defense of RED NOVEMBER (RN) on all unfavorable reviews of that book, SumarineVets attacks the credentials of Loves Submarines (Norman Polmar) who is described as a (quote) self-proclaimed know-it-all who never served (in the Navy) (end quote). Assessments of RN by five Rear-Admirals and two Navy Captains, submarine and history experts who represent (quote) a who's who of naval intelligence (end quote), are offered as a counter to Polmar's review.
This appears to be a selective editing of comments by these senior naval officers, the most senior of whom wrote to Polmar, the author of more than 40 books on naval matters, saying: (quote) I can only say that your rather negatve review (of RN) was too charitable. It is one of the sloppiest books I have ever read. Full of mistakes of facts...uncorrobrated sea-stories, and out-and-out BS (end quote). This puts the SubmarineVet defense of RN in a new perspective which is: when you don't like the message (RN is simply a very bad book), attack the messenger, even if it requires distorting information.
MAIN REVIEW
Collectively, the first 34 reviews of RED NOVEMBER (RN) indicate that if you like "sea stories" and are not concerned with their historical or technical accuracy (whether important sections of the book are fiction or non-fiction), this book may be for you. HISTORICAL issues are addressed persuasively by Michael Dobbs' one-star review and by his responding comments to Craig Reed comments. TECHNICAL issues are addressed below. In his Amazon.com author's page (blog), Craig Reed admits to numerous errors in RN: "I must fall on my sword for some, and a few are somewhat embarrassing." Craig Reed also admits he rushed to complete RN in less than a year. He has requested assistance from both this reviewer and from "Love Submarines" to make RN "as accurate as possible," something he should have done before RN went to press. Read and compare the 5-star reviews, responding comments to those 5-star reviews, and the 1-star reviews. What should be obvious to all is that RN is simply a very poorly researched book replete with errors in many areas, both historical and technical. As discussed below, many of the factual/technical errors in RN resulted from Craig Reed's unquestioning acceptance of conspiracy theories and misinformation provided by earlier books.
This review addresses only those sections of RN that discuss the losses of the USS SCORPION and the Soviet submarine K-129, and then only two of the most egregiously erroneous claims: (1), that the Soviets sank the SCORPION with a torpedo and (2), that the K-129 impacted the bottom at 200-knots (230 mph). This will still leave a feast of factual and technical errors, many ludicrously wrong, for other reviewer to discuss.
- On page 214 of RN, the author describes the Sound Surveillance System (SOSUS) paper displays (lofargrams) that recorded the acoustic signatures associated with the loss of the USS SCORPION as "scribbles (that) verified a high-speed screw. The targeted submarine's signature shifted in width and size, indicating evasive actions as the torpedo neared. Seconds later, the paper filled with black ink as the high-speed screws caught up with the evading submarine and ended her life."
As discussed at length in the reviewer's one-star Amazon.com review of Ed Offley's SCORPION DOWN (SD) (which 75 of 77 readers found useful), there was no such detection by either SOSUS or the Canary Island hydrophone sensors. Fifteen individuals with a total of 400-years experience in SOSUS confirmed this conclusion. Craig Reed appears to have accepted Ed Offley's conspiracy theory that the Soviets sank SCORPION without making any effort to independently verify that conjecture. Reed then regurgitated Offley's interviews with "Students [at a Navy SOSUS training class in 1982] (who) were told that the recording (they were analyzing) was made during SCORPION's encounter with an Echo II (Soviet nuclear) submarine." (pp 214 RN)
Reed apparently never spoke to anyone with the technical expertise or direct operational experience to evaluate what Offley was told by Vince Collier and Richard Falck, a student and junior instructor at the ASW Training Center in Norfolk, VA. As discussed in the Amazon.com review of SD, Collier and Falck were deceived by a composite-tape of three separate and unrelated detection events made by the members of the school staff for training purposes and misrepresented to Collier and Falck as a real event, all this 14-years after the event supposedly happened. Where was the tape from 1968 to 1982 and what has happened to it since? Too many questions to which there are no answers.
The reviewer's 2008-2009 reanalysis of the SCORPION acoustic data, the first in 40-years, provided to the Chief of Naval Operations (CN)O) and the Office and Naval Intelligence (ONI), confirmed that the initiating events responsible for the loss of SCORPION were two small explosions that occurred one-half second apart at 18:20:44Z on 22 May 1968 and were contained within the submarine's pressure-hull. The source of these explosions, which are estimated to have been equal to the explosion of not more than 20-lbs of TNT each, has been determined from examination of a recovered battery component to have been the ignition of hydrogen outgassed by the SCORPION TLX-53-A main storage battery. This assessment was provided to the CNO and ONI in Aug 2010.
These battery-generated explosive events prevented the crew from maintaining depth-control. SCORPION sank to 1530-feet at which depth the pressure-hull and all internal bulkheads collapsed at 18:42:34Z on May 22, 1968 in less than one-tenth of a second with a force equal to the explosion of 13,200 lbs of TNT at 1530-feet: potential energy in the form 680 psi sea pressure almost instantaneously converted to kinetic energy as the water-ram entered the pressure-hull at supersonic velocity.
In addition to the acoustic evidence, there is the imagery of the SCORPION wreckage which shows one after hull-section "telescoped" within another section by 50-feet. This is the "signature" of collapse under enormous pressure - hydrostatic pressure - because such telescoping could result only from pressure applied symmetrically around the pressure-hull as would be the case with sea-pressure at great depth. A torpedo would have applied pressure asymmetrically, only at the point of impact, and SCORPION would be on the bottom relatively intact with one hole in her hull because the hull would have been fully-flooded (pressure-equalized) before the submarine sank to collapse depth. Instead, the SCORPION is on the bottom in two very badly damaged sections with the propeller and shaft some distance from the after section of the submarine.
There were no explosions from a torpedo or any other source EXTRRNAL to the SCORPION pressure-hull. SCORPION was lost because of an onboard problem (the two battery explosions explosions) the crew could not overcome. There was no Soviet involvement.
- On page 224 of RN, Craig Reed speculates the Soviet submarine K-129, which sank near 40-06N, 179-57E on 11 March 1968, impacted the bottom at a speed of 200-knots.
The problem with this speculation is that fully-flooded submarines are known to sink at speeds of 11-13 knots, e,g, the USS STERLET (SS 392) instrumented sinking on 31 Jan 1969 and the MIKE Class Soviet nuclear submarine (K-278) on 7 Apr 1989 (known from open-source information: the book FIRE AT SEA and then-Soviet press coverage).
Any speed in excess of about 11-13 knots would require the application of power (thrust). For a submarine, the horsepower required increases expotentially with increasing speed. Example: SKIPJACK could achieve about 80-percent of her maximum speed on 50-percent of maximum power. To increase speed 50-percent over maximum, SKIPJACK would have required about 3.5 times the maximum installed horsepower.
The K-129 would have required more than one-million (1,000,000+) horsepower (several times the total engine-power of a Boeing 747) to achieve 200-knots, and that assumes vertical descent with the bow down. (Note: the installed K-129 horsepower for submerged operations was 5400, good for about 15-knots.) At 200-knots, the sail, the after control-surfaces and probably the entire exterior "light" hull would have been carried away.
1974 Imagery of the K-129 wreck on the bottom in 16,400-feet of water showed the hulk to be in two largely intact sections, the bow through the sail, which, though badly damaged aft, was still intact forward with an undamaged leading edge, and the after, engineering section. Had the K-129 impacted the bottom at 200-knots, there would be little left other than pieces littered in and around the impact crater.
Notes: (1) during Soviet State-Commission acceptance trials on 30 Dec 1969, the PAPA Class Soviet nuclear submarine sustained super-structure damage at 42-knot; (2) no surface-ship launched, anti-submarine weapon has a "free-fall" sink-rate in excess of 30-knots even though designed to be hydrodyamically efficient compared to the K-129 which, with its huge sail, was hydrodynamically a "brick," and (3), the Soviet/Russian Shkval (VA-111) rocket-powered torpedo briefly achieves speeds of 200-knots "by producing a high-pressure stream of bubbles from its nose and skin, which coats the torpedo in a thin layer of gas and forms a local envelope' of supercavitating bubbles (Fed of Am Scientists website)," i.e., the torpedo does not encounter the enormous resistance of the water as did the K-129 hulk.
Also note that the sails of the THRESHER and the SCORPION were detached by the force of the...Read more›
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