DID THE RUSSIAN SUB SINKING ALMOST START WORLD WAR III?
BARENTS SEA — Based on various intelligence reports, I have attempted to reconstruct the August 12, 2000, sinking of the K-141 nuclear attack submarine Krusk the pride of the Russian Sub Fleet. The Krusk, commissioned in 1995, was one of eight active Oscar II class submarines of the new Northern Fleet. It was one the most powerful weapons systems in the World that the Chinese wanted to purchase. The Russians were involved in military naval exercises, that likely included Chinese observers. Two US Los Angeles attack submarines, the US Memphis and Toledo and the British Splendid submarines were conducting surveillance of the exercise. The submarine Kursk carries 24 Granit missiles code-named SS-N-19 Shipwreck that have a 1,600-pound conventional warhead. They can also be armed with an H-bomb warhead equal to one half million tons of TNT, enough to destroy a city or a carrier fleet. Shipwreck missiles are stored in launching tubes external to the inner pressure hull. It may have also car
