10 ms·

The Soviet Union’s Nuclear Icebreakers

103 points by picture 4y ago

alex_suzuki 4y ago
Fascinating stuff. You’ve got to hand it to the russians. At that time, they sure knew how to build.
- wiseowise 4y ago
  > Russians Are you sure about that?
  - christophilus 4y ago
    > Are you sure about that? No. But I'm curious what you're suggesting. The article mentions that the last 2 were built by the Fins. The rest appear to have been Russian-made. Are you suggesting the Russians didn't build any? Or... well... I'm not sure what you're getting at.
    - mangosteenjuice 4y ago
      The Soviet Union wasn't just Russians. Their shipbuilding industry and space programs were heavily Ukranian.
    - akho 4y ago
      They are probably suggesting that Ukrainians did it, that’s currently in vogue.
    - rat87 4y ago
      The Soviet Union was made up of many countries and many ethnicities. Yet a lot of impressive stuff including winning WW2 is attributed to Russia and Russians. Ukraine is often brought up these days for obvious reasons but there were many countries and even more ethnicities who get overlooked Ukraine was the second most populous (accounting for 18 percent of the population whole Russia accounted for 51 percent) and contained a lot of the manufacturing plants. It looks like these particular ships were built in Russia (although I don't know where engineers grew up or what their ethnicity was or if they might have hesitated to identify with Russia) but for instance the head of the Soviet space program Korolev was Ukranian (sort of he was born in Ukraine with Ukranian, Russian, Belarusian, etc ancestry and I've seen claims that he claimed both Russian and Ukranian ethnicity/nationality at different times) also take the flagship Moskva that Ukraine sank that was built in Ukraine as well as the recently memed Soviet Treasure Island (which was made by a studio in Kyiv). Often the west identifies something made in the Soviet Union as Russian even if it's not or if it's more complex to assign it to a modern country. Also part of the way that people think about identity of people like Korolev is based on Russia's and Putin's attempt to rehabilitate the atrocities and weaponize nostalgia about the few good bits. Korolev was sent to the Gulag due to fake accusations, some say he died due to physical injuries from that time preventing quick medical treatment.
- FridayoLeary 4y ago
  I think there was excellent higher education in the soviet union. You have many people with phds, engineers etc. They also promoted intellectual pursuits such as chess. The issue was/is the Communist system and now the unbelievable amount of corruption/organised crime at every level of government. The intellectual class in russia were robbed after the fall of the soviet union. They are scientists, mathematicians, engineers, they are extremely capable, but they have never been given a chance.
  - roywiggins 4y ago
    Not just corruption, at least during Stalin's rule: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolai_Vavilov https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolai_Vavilov > Vavilov's work was criticized by Trofim Lysenko, whose anti-Mendelian concepts of plant biology had won favor with Joseph Stalin. As a result, Vavilov was arrested and subsequently sentenced to death in July 1941. Although his sentence was commuted to twenty years' imprisonment, he died in prison in 1943. According to Lyubov Brezhneva, he was thrown to his death into a pit of lime in the prison yard.
  - adolph 4y ago
    Asianometry also has a video "Why the Soviet Computer Failed" [0]. If the Soviet Union had excellent higher education, why was/is Communism and then corruption/organized crime an issue? At what point do phds, engineers, etc take responsibility for the society in which they live? When do the smart people say "we have met the enemy and he is us?" [1] 0. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnHdqPBrtH8 1. https://library.osu.edu/site/40stories/2020/01/05/we-have-met-the-enemy/ From the video description: In 1986, the Soviet Union had slightly more than 10,000 computers. The Americans had 1.3 million. At the time of Stalin's death, the Soviet Union was the world's third most proficient computing power. But by the 1960s, the US-Soviet computing gap was already years long. Twenty years later, the gap was undeniable and basically permanent. Why did this happen? The Soviet state believed in science and industrial modernization. Support for research & development and the hard sciences were plentiful. They had the country’s finest minds. Goodness gracious, they launched Sputnik! They landed on Venus! How did it come to this?
- ch4s3 4y ago
  Once they were done shooting all of the engineers for "wrecking" and got around to training a new generation and got all of the western blueprints back from the NKVD they really got to work! [*edit] If you're downvoting I suggest you read about the waves of purges of engineers[1][2][3] that continued well after the Stalinist purges. Moreover in this context we're talking about a ship powered with a nuclear reactor, and it's well known that Soviet reactor designs were stolen from the West[4] in the early days. Also it's a joke, lighten up. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wrecking_(Soviet_Union) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wrecking_(Soviet_Union) [2] https://www.egr.msu.edu/~amezqui3/personal/extracts/the_gulag_archipelago.pdf https://www.egr.msu.edu/~amezqui3/personal/extracts/the_gula... [3] https://www.sciencespo.fr/mass-violence-war-massacre-resistance/en/document/nkvd-mass-secret-national-operations-august-1937-november-1938.html https://www.sciencespo.fr/mass-violence-war-massacre-resista... [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_spies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_spies
  - vkou 4y ago
    I think most of the downvotes aren't because of your claims about the purges, but because of your wink-nudge implication that Soviet engineers and mathematicians could not achieve anything of note without espionage.
    - ch4s3 4y ago
      Well to be clear what I'm saying is that they literally murdered a whole generation of engineers, scientists, and technicians. What are you supposed to do from that starting point? Had they not captured train loads of Nazi scientists and literally stollen every significant piece of technology developed in the west for 20+ years it would have taken them FAR FAR longer to develop a lot of this stuff independently. They essentially cut themselves off from the global community and purged all of their talent. They had to bootstrap science and engineering somehow. No doubt, absent the stalinist purges and closing off of the USSR, then Soviet scientists could have equally participated in the science and engineering going on in the rest of the world.
      - 4y ago
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
sudobash1 4y ago
> The debate went back and forth. But in the end, the Congressmen basically admitted that the only reason they wanted the US to build such a machine would be because the Soviets had one too. I want to see when that admission was made, and how someone got them to admit it. It was the most surprising part of the article for me. Wouldn't it be great to see more defense spending introspection and honesty.
- at-fates-hands 4y ago
  Here's some more information about the congressional hearings: “The United States Cannot Afford to Lag Behind Russia”: Making the Case for an American Nuclear Icebreaker, 1957-1961 https://www.cnrs-scrn.org/northern_mariner/vol31/tnm_31_31-60.pdf https://www.cnrs-scrn.org/northern_mariner/vol31/tnm_31_31-6... Its not surprising Eisenhower vetoed it. He vetoed 39 bills in 1958 alone.
  - simonebrunozzi 4y ago
    You probably know more about Eisenhower than I do - perhaps you grew up in the US and know its history well. Can you tell me why this isn't surprising? What about Eisenhower and his vetoing bills in great numbers?
    - CapitalistCartr 4y ago
      Eisenhower came from a military background, rather than political, and was pretty outspoken regarding his opinions, compared to most politicians. He was comfortable vetoing any bill he thought was wrong. In spite of his reputation as a hard-line anti-communist, his presidential farewell address famously warned against "unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex".
    - at-fates-hands 4y ago
      Eisenhower was notoriously prudent when it came to spending. The majority of his tenure from 53'-61' congress was controlled by the Democrats. His only power to constrain spending was the veto. Of the 181 bills he vetoed, only two were overridden by congress. Many people believe that because he vetoed so many bills, it allowed his administration to run a surplus in three of his eight years in office.
wiseowise 4y ago
> An oil burning icebreaker burned up to 70 tons of fuel in a single day. The Lenin by comparison burns just 45 grams each day. Huh.
- moffkalast 4y ago
  Really puts the energy density into perspective, doesn't it. And nuclear powered steam turbines typically run at 5-10% lower efficiencies than diesel engines too.
  - LargoLasskhyfv 4y ago
    No icebreaker, but related in context of energy density: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_Hahn_(ship) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_Hahn_(ship) > In 1972, after four years of operation, her reactor was refuelled. She had covered 250,000 nautical miles (463,000 km) on 22 kilograms of uranium.
    - moffkalast 4y ago
      Hmm, that seems oddly short. Don't nuclear subs regularly go 20 years between refuelling? But then again they use weapons grade enriched fuel so that's probably why.
      - LargoLasskhyfv 4y ago
        Yes, in the german version of the article this is mentioned. It was mostly a small version of a light water reactor using U235 enriched to about 5%, like the larger versions on land used in NPPs.
        GekkePrutser 4y ago
        Interesting choice, also makes it much less of a target than a military sub reactor running on highly enriched uranium. Considering these icebreakers are probably not very well guarded this is a very good decision for nonproliferation purposes.
MikePlacid 4y ago
There is a blog of the captain of 50 Years of Victory atomic icebreaker: https://dmitry-v-ch-l.livejournal.com/ https://dmitry-v-ch-l.livejournal.com/ (in Russian, but with a lot of videos and pictures). Note that cruises to the North Pole for tourists (mostly Western ones) were a regular thing before the war and sanctions. Upd. Actually, cruises to North Pole continue. This video features a recent one, with a lot of high school and college students: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7b8QMcGfsvY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7b8QMcGfsvY (the author talks too much, but the video is packed with info)
- aaron695 4y ago
cwillu 4y ago
IIRC, the Russian icebreakers are suspected to be unable to operate in the antarctic. Not because they don't work there, but because they can't “cross the equator due to limitations on the maximum inlet temperature of their cooling water”. https://www.navalgazing.net/Merchant-Ships-Icebreakers#fn1_3 https://www.navalgazing.net/Merchant-Ships-Icebreakers#fn1_3
- yohannparis 4y ago
  A simple heavy fuel tug boat could solve that problem, at some remarkable cost.
  - pastor_bob 4y ago
    I wonder if you could just have it slowly push a barge that is pumping up cold water from a couple hundred meters and outputting it in front of the intakes.
- somat 4y ago
  In weight of all the US and Soviet nuclear powered vessels that can cross the equilateral waters.... I doubt that is true.
  - genocidicbunny 4y ago
    You know that reactor cooling designs could be different right? The US has many warm-water ports; Their nuclear-powered ships already had to handle that. The Soviets had a single warm-water port and they'd have no need to base their nuclear icebreakers there, so they likely went with a simpler, cheaper design - "дешево и топорно".
kimi 4y ago
Lots of pictures on Fourmilab, from John Walker of Autodesk fame: https://fourmilab.ch/images/eclipse_2008/S005.html https://fourmilab.ch/images/eclipse_2008/S005.html
helsinkiandrew 4y ago
Interesting to note that Finland's Foreign ministry has blocked the building of a new icebreaker for Russia: https://yle.fi/news/3-12648960 https://yle.fi/news/3-12648960 Ironic that trade continued through decades of the often very tense cold war.
- dainiusse 4y ago
  Makes sense given russians are at war against Europe
dainiusse 4y ago
It would be all good, but russian safety is a disaster. Anything they build is just a waiting disaster due to neglicence in building and maintenance. Just like Kursk and Chernobyl...
- vbezhenar 4y ago
  Kursk was blown up by US submarine. Chernobyl was not less safe than other designs of its time. It could be safer for sure. Russia operates multiple nuclear reactors. They are fine so far.
orloffm 4y ago
A very beautiful video that usually pops up in such discussions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKaVhXn49xY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKaVhXn49xY
iancmceachern 4y ago
Love this channel

103 points by picture 4y ago

alex_suzuki 4y ago

Fascinating stuff. You’ve got to hand it to the russians. At that time, they sure knew how to build.

wiseowise 4y ago
> Russians Are you sure about that?
- christophilus 4y ago
  > Are you sure about that? No. But I'm curious what you're suggesting. The article mentions that the last 2 were built by the Fins. The rest appear to have been Russian-made. Are you suggesting the Russians didn't build any? Or... well... I'm not sure what you're getting at.
  - mangosteenjuice 4y ago
    The Soviet Union wasn't just Russians. Their shipbuilding industry and space programs were heavily Ukranian.
  - akho 4y ago
    They are probably suggesting that Ukrainians did it, that’s currently in vogue.
  - rat87 4y ago
    The Soviet Union was made up of many countries and many ethnicities. Yet a lot of impressive stuff including winning WW2 is attributed to Russia and Russians. Ukraine is often brought up these days for obvious reasons but there were many countries and even more ethnicities who get overlooked Ukraine was the second most populous (accounting for 18 percent of the population whole Russia accounted for 51 percent) and contained a lot of the manufacturing plants. It looks like these particular ships were built in Russia (although I don't know where engineers grew up or what their ethnicity was or if they might have hesitated to identify with Russia) but for instance the head of the Soviet space program Korolev was Ukranian (sort of he was born in Ukraine with Ukranian, Russian, Belarusian, etc ancestry and I've seen claims that he claimed both Russian and Ukranian ethnicity/nationality at different times) also take the flagship Moskva that Ukraine sank that was built in Ukraine as well as the recently memed Soviet Treasure Island (which was made by a studio in Kyiv). Often the west identifies something made in the Soviet Union as Russian even if it's not or if it's more complex to assign it to a modern country. Also part of the way that people think about identity of people like Korolev is based on Russia's and Putin's attempt to rehabilitate the atrocities and weaponize nostalgia about the few good bits. Korolev was sent to the Gulag due to fake accusations, some say he died due to physical injuries from that time preventing quick medical treatment.
FridayoLeary 4y ago
I think there was excellent higher education in the soviet union. You have many people with phds, engineers etc. They also promoted intellectual pursuits such as chess. The issue was/is the Communist system and now the unbelievable amount of corruption/organised crime at every level of government. The intellectual class in russia were robbed after the fall of the soviet union. They are scientists, mathematicians, engineers, they are extremely capable, but they have never been given a chance.
- roywiggins 4y ago
  Not just corruption, at least during Stalin's rule: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolai_Vavilov https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolai_Vavilov > Vavilov's work was criticized by Trofim Lysenko, whose anti-Mendelian concepts of plant biology had won favor with Joseph Stalin. As a result, Vavilov was arrested and subsequently sentenced to death in July 1941. Although his sentence was commuted to twenty years' imprisonment, he died in prison in 1943. According to Lyubov Brezhneva, he was thrown to his death into a pit of lime in the prison yard.
- adolph 4y ago
  Asianometry also has a video "Why the Soviet Computer Failed" [0]. If the Soviet Union had excellent higher education, why was/is Communism and then corruption/organized crime an issue? At what point do phds, engineers, etc take responsibility for the society in which they live? When do the smart people say "we have met the enemy and he is us?" [1] 0. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnHdqPBrtH8 1. https://library.osu.edu/site/40stories/2020/01/05/we-have-met-the-enemy/ From the video description: In 1986, the Soviet Union had slightly more than 10,000 computers. The Americans had 1.3 million. At the time of Stalin's death, the Soviet Union was the world's third most proficient computing power. But by the 1960s, the US-Soviet computing gap was already years long. Twenty years later, the gap was undeniable and basically permanent. Why did this happen? The Soviet state believed in science and industrial modernization. Support for research & development and the hard sciences were plentiful. They had the country’s finest minds. Goodness gracious, they launched Sputnik! They landed on Venus! How did it come to this?
ch4s3 4y ago
Once they were done shooting all of the engineers for "wrecking" and got around to training a new generation and got all of the western blueprints back from the NKVD they really got to work! [*edit] If you're downvoting I suggest you read about the waves of purges of engineers[1][2][3] that continued well after the Stalinist purges. Moreover in this context we're talking about a ship powered with a nuclear reactor, and it's well known that Soviet reactor designs were stolen from the West[4] in the early days. Also it's a joke, lighten up. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wrecking_(Soviet_Union) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wrecking_(Soviet_Union) [2] https://www.egr.msu.edu/~amezqui3/personal/extracts/the_gulag_archipelago.pdf https://www.egr.msu.edu/~amezqui3/personal/extracts/the_gula... [3] https://www.sciencespo.fr/mass-violence-war-massacre-resistance/en/document/nkvd-mass-secret-national-operations-august-1937-november-1938.html https://www.sciencespo.fr/mass-violence-war-massacre-resista... [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_spies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_spies
- vkou 4y ago
  I think most of the downvotes aren't because of your claims about the purges, but because of your wink-nudge implication that Soviet engineers and mathematicians could not achieve anything of note without espionage.
  - ch4s3 4y ago
    Well to be clear what I'm saying is that they literally murdered a whole generation of engineers, scientists, and technicians. What are you supposed to do from that starting point? Had they not captured train loads of Nazi scientists and literally stollen every significant piece of technology developed in the west for 20+ years it would have taken them FAR FAR longer to develop a lot of this stuff independently. They essentially cut themselves off from the global community and purged all of their talent. They had to bootstrap science and engineering somehow. No doubt, absent the stalinist purges and closing off of the USSR, then Soviet scientists could have equally participated in the science and engineering going on in the rest of the world.
    - 4y ago
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

sudobash1 4y ago

> The debate went back and forth. But in the end, the Congressmen basically admitted that the only reason they wanted the US to build such a machine would be because the Soviets had one too. I want to see when that admission was made, and how someone got them to admit it. It was the most surprising part of the article for me. Wouldn't it be great to see more defense spending introspection and honesty.

at-fates-hands 4y ago
Here's some more information about the congressional hearings: “The United States Cannot Afford to Lag Behind Russia”: Making the Case for an American Nuclear Icebreaker, 1957-1961 https://www.cnrs-scrn.org/northern_mariner/vol31/tnm_31_31-60.pdf https://www.cnrs-scrn.org/northern_mariner/vol31/tnm_31_31-6... Its not surprising Eisenhower vetoed it. He vetoed 39 bills in 1958 alone.
- simonebrunozzi 4y ago
  You probably know more about Eisenhower than I do - perhaps you grew up in the US and know its history well. Can you tell me why this isn't surprising? What about Eisenhower and his vetoing bills in great numbers?
  - CapitalistCartr 4y ago
    Eisenhower came from a military background, rather than political, and was pretty outspoken regarding his opinions, compared to most politicians. He was comfortable vetoing any bill he thought was wrong. In spite of his reputation as a hard-line anti-communist, his presidential farewell address famously warned against "unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex".
  - at-fates-hands 4y ago
    Eisenhower was notoriously prudent when it came to spending. The majority of his tenure from 53'-61' congress was controlled by the Democrats. His only power to constrain spending was the veto. Of the 181 bills he vetoed, only two were overridden by congress. Many people believe that because he vetoed so many bills, it allowed his administration to run a surplus in three of his eight years in office.

wiseowise 4y ago

> An oil burning icebreaker burned up to 70 tons of fuel in a single day. The Lenin by comparison burns just 45 grams each day. Huh.

moffkalast 4y ago
Really puts the energy density into perspective, doesn't it. And nuclear powered steam turbines typically run at 5-10% lower efficiencies than diesel engines too.
- LargoLasskhyfv 4y ago
  No icebreaker, but related in context of energy density: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_Hahn_(ship) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_Hahn_(ship) > In 1972, after four years of operation, her reactor was refuelled. She had covered 250,000 nautical miles (463,000 km) on 22 kilograms of uranium.
  - moffkalast 4y ago
    Hmm, that seems oddly short. Don't nuclear subs regularly go 20 years between refuelling? But then again they use weapons grade enriched fuel so that's probably why.
    - LargoLasskhyfv 4y ago
      Yes, in the german version of the article this is mentioned. It was mostly a small version of a light water reactor using U235 enriched to about 5%, like the larger versions on land used in NPPs.
      - GekkePrutser 4y ago
        Interesting choice, also makes it much less of a target than a military sub reactor running on highly enriched uranium. Considering these icebreakers are probably not very well guarded this is a very good decision for nonproliferation purposes.

MikePlacid 4y ago

There is a blog of the captain of 50 Years of Victory atomic icebreaker: https://dmitry-v-ch-l.livejournal.com/ https://dmitry-v-ch-l.livejournal.com/ (in Russian, but with a lot of videos and pictures). Note that cruises to the North Pole for tourists (mostly Western ones) were a regular thing before the war and sanctions. Upd. Actually, cruises to North Pole continue. This video features a recent one, with a lot of high school and college students: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7b8QMcGfsvY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7b8QMcGfsvY (the author talks too much, but the video is packed with info)

aaron695 4y ago

cwillu 4y ago

IIRC, the Russian icebreakers are suspected to be unable to operate in the antarctic. Not because they don't work there, but because they can't “cross the equator due to limitations on the maximum inlet temperature of their cooling water”. https://www.navalgazing.net/Merchant-Ships-Icebreakers#fn1_3 https://www.navalgazing.net/Merchant-Ships-Icebreakers#fn1_3

yohannparis 4y ago
A simple heavy fuel tug boat could solve that problem, at some remarkable cost.
- pastor_bob 4y ago
  I wonder if you could just have it slowly push a barge that is pumping up cold water from a couple hundred meters and outputting it in front of the intakes.
somat 4y ago
In weight of all the US and Soviet nuclear powered vessels that can cross the equilateral waters.... I doubt that is true.
- genocidicbunny 4y ago
  You know that reactor cooling designs could be different right? The US has many warm-water ports; Their nuclear-powered ships already had to handle that. The Soviets had a single warm-water port and they'd have no need to base their nuclear icebreakers there, so they likely went with a simpler, cheaper design - "дешево и топорно".

kimi 4y ago

Lots of pictures on Fourmilab, from John Walker of Autodesk fame: https://fourmilab.ch/images/eclipse_2008/S005.html https://fourmilab.ch/images/eclipse_2008/S005.html

helsinkiandrew 4y ago

Interesting to note that Finland's Foreign ministry has blocked the building of a new icebreaker for Russia: https://yle.fi/news/3-12648960 https://yle.fi/news/3-12648960 Ironic that trade continued through decades of the often very tense cold war.

dainiusse 4y ago
Makes sense given russians are at war against Europe

dainiusse 4y ago

It would be all good, but russian safety is a disaster. Anything they build is just a waiting disaster due to neglicence in building and maintenance. Just like Kursk and Chernobyl...

vbezhenar 4y ago
Kursk was blown up by US submarine. Chernobyl was not less safe than other designs of its time. It could be safer for sure. Russia operates multiple nuclear reactors. They are fine so far.

orloffm 4y ago

A very beautiful video that usually pops up in such discussions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKaVhXn49xY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKaVhXn49xY

iancmceachern 4y ago

Love this channel