gunnut

Russian reactors in subs use liquid metal for heat exchange. It has higher efficiency than our pressurised water heat exchange, but easier to screw up. When it screws up, it screws up. I don't want to be anywhere close to it.

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Dreadnought

Ive been told by my boss on New Jersey (he being a former carrier man) that the bubbleheads have the best chow in the Navy.

Dreadnought

Just look at the death toll and morality rates for the past and future coming years since the accident.

TopHatter

I thought that was only the Alfa-class that used liquid metal?
Compared to a carrier, I'm sure it is!

sparten

Although the Sov reactors were definatly inferior to the NATO ones, I think they get a bad rap. A fleet twice the size of the NATO fleet suffered 4 losses. In the same time the USN lost two boats. Seems about even.

Also in the NATO navy, the Chief Engineer of a ship was a man of several years experience. In fact IIRC, command and Engineering were seperate career paths.

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SRB

Hm it was hard to find but here it is:

ttp://english.pravda.ru/russia/history/79361-1

The work had to be conducted manually: dressed in lead suits and gas masks liquidators were picking up uranium from the ground and throwing it in the reactor. When the territory was cleaned engineers started building the sarcophagus above the reactor.

http://bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/showthrea...360/page//vc/1

Liquidator


This image depicts the horrific working condition's of the Liquidator's. 600,000 men of the soviet armed forces who were sent in to work shifts to clear the debris from the roof of the Chernobyl-4 reactor. Because of the extreme levels of radiation these men had to work in eight man teams for no more than 40 seconds.10000 to 650000 it is 1.54% death liquidators, if they didnt carry protection it will be much higher death rate.

If Soviets didnt carry for human life they wouldnt put this heavy lead suit and mask on workers because that solw them in cleaning.

One more thing major problem with reactor shield in subs is space, so if you have very big sub you can build very good shield and Typhoon is big. I dont think that USSR was superior to West (in some things it was but in many other in was behind West) but I hate comments like Typhoon reactors are leaking in miles.

P.S. Francois I am not indian, your geography is bad Belgrade is well known city in last decade (Balkan wars, NATO Kosovo air campaign, fall of Milosevic).

TopHatter

The key word here is "lost". How many "incidents" occured with Soviet reactors during the same time? (Mind you, these are only submarines, not surface ships or civilian reactors.)

K-159
K-131
K-19
K-27
K-314
K-429
K-8

And exactly why were the U.S. subs lost? Reactor problems? Definitely not with USS Thresher. USS Scorpion is still something of a mystery but evidence points away from the reactor.

The fact remains that the Soviet Union's track record for safe and reliable nuclear reactors was extremely poor, ranking up there with their concern for their sailors and citizens.
Wow...Pravda ("Truth" ). Impressive source. I wouldn't trust anything put out by the Soviet/Russian press on Chernobyl for all the vodka in the world.
Hell, the Soviets took forever to even admit that there even WAS a problem.

The indisputable fact is that there were workers that were sent in without adequate protection. A hallmark of Soviet philosophy: The individual is nothing, the State is more important.

Despite what others might say, I've heard nothing negative in the news about the safety record of the Typhoons.

Attached Images

sub_on_the_beach.jpg (143.5 KB, 42 views)

urmomma158

what indian guy are you talking about?????????????

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gunnut

Hmm....I could be mistaken. I know I read or heard "...use liquid metal..." somewhere and I might have tuned out the rest of the sentence.

pdf27

Depends on what the radiation hazard is. They're pretty much completely protected from Alpha and Beta radiation unless there is extremely fine dust present. Gamma radiation isn't actually that big a problem unless in massive quantities (most Gamma rays go straight through you without even noticing). It won't make any difference to Neutrons, but frankly it takes a fairly substantial building to give any worthwhile protection from Neutrons anyway.

TopHatter

Since we are talking about Chernobyl, I think you can safely make a few assumptions from that.

pdf27

Well, they don't seem to have been going up on the roof as from other photos you can see people in rather heavier kit. Elsewhere the threat may have been limited to alpha/beta emitters, and as such heavier kit would merely be an encumbrance with no additional protection.

TopHatter

Judging by the reports, sending anyone near Chernobyl in that kind of kit (the kind you saw in my picture) is criminal murder.

avon1944

To me this is the same sort of 'experts' who said the T-72 was a better tank for the desert than the M-1! The ability to detect a nuclear submarine by the warmer water from the secondary coolant heat exchange is incredibly small. A difference of one to two degrees in water temperature produces a very slight trace in infra-red signature. The subs have a solution, go deeper. The IR energy does not penetrate a lot of water, that being the case greater sensativity of satellites will not mean much.

The class of ballistic missile submarines is one in which the Soviets were continuing to play 'catch-up' and the difference between the Trident subs and the Typhoon subs are tremendous. The ability of the Trident's very low noise level is 'just' being equalled by the latest SSK's!!
This compared to the Typhoons which were constantly being trailed by NATO SSN's. The 18 Tridents 2's with the D-5 missile system have a range in which they can remain in the deep areas of the oceans.

The USA was the first to be able to launch missiles from the artic ocean. Launching from breaking the ice is a last resort because breaking the ice makes noise, makes the sub vunerable to radar detection and restricts its path of escape. They stay in the open seas and where they can detect any local threat, launch their missiles and disappear again.

Adrian

SRB

RE to Adrian

When I said that T-72 is better than M-1?
I said that maybe T-80UM can compate with M1, no way T-72 can fight M-1 in desert or anywhere(look the price of two tanks T-72 below half million $, M-1 over 4 million $)

Hm when Typhoon break ice it is too late for defence dont you think?

I just said that Typhoon is so big because it is ice-breaker.Soviets want ice-breaker submarine only that they can say we have biggest sub in world, and truth it is still biggest sub but also most expensive sub in world also most comfort too.

Trident D-5 is 1990 missile much more advanced that Soviet missiles in Typhoons.

RE to TopHatter

Look another link if you dont like pravda.

Look at picture it is the most heaviest protection(30kg lead) you can put on man and get some kind of work capabilty.They can send man with 50 or 70 kg of lead protection but who he would work.They couldnt wait for volontiers (big number were people around Chernobil which were volontiers and also many volontiers form Ukraina and Belorussia) when they need to cover reactor was still sending radiation all over USSR and Europe. It was situation in which they couldnt lose time, and it was Gorbacov time in which you could say no, but would you say no if you knew that this is the only way to save more lives.
So if Soviets didnt care about human life why liquidators on my picture have protection?Without protection they will be more
efficent.Also they work only 40s on roof.Sad majorty of died liquidators were guys which clean the roof, even with that protection they get leathel dose, they died years later.
1,54% liquidators died,who many firefighters died in 11.09.01 form NY firefighters?
They knew that there is possibilty of Tower colapse but noone said I dont what to go.