Delta-class-submarine-firing-SS-N-18-DIA

Operation Behemoth-1, Behemoth-2 ( - ''Begemot'',

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) were

military exercise A military exercise, training exercise, maneuver (manoeuvre), or war game is the employment of military resources in Military education and training, training for military operations. Military exercises are conducted to explore the effects of ...

s held by the

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Northern Fleet The Northern Fleet (, ''Severnyy flot'') is the Naval fleet, fleet of the Russian Navy in the Arctic. According to the Russian ministry of defence: "The Northern Fleet dates its history back to a squadron created in 1733 to protect the terri ...

in 1989 and 1991. Behemoth-2 was the first time ever when a

ballistic missile submarine A ballistic missile submarine is a submarine capable of deploying submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) with nuclear warheads. These submarines became a major weapon system in the Cold War because of their nuclear deterrence capabi ...

launched all of its missiles at once. The exercise took place barely four months before the collapse of the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

Behemoth-1

On August 6, 1989, the Delta IV-class submarine, K-84 , attempted to salvo launch all 16

R-29RM The R-29RM (, NATO reporting name SS-N-23 Skiff) was a liquid propellant, submarine-launched ballistic missile in use by the Russian Navy. It had the alternate Russian designations RSM-54 and GRAU index 3M27. It was designed to be launched from ...

missiles. The operation failed due to a leak of

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and

oxidizer An oxidizing agent (also known as an oxidant, oxidizer, electron recipient, or electron acceptor) is a substance in a redox chemical reaction that gains or " accepts"/"receives" an electron from a (called the , , or ''electron donor''). In ot ...

from missile number six just prior to the start. This leak caused a fire and a pressure boost inside the silo which destroyed the missile.

Behemoth-2

The second attempt took place two years later and succeeded. On August 6, 1991, the Delta IV-class submarine K-407 , under the command of Captain Second Rank Sergey Yegorov, performed a full salvo underwater launch, launching all 16 R-29RM missiles on board. The whole salvo took 224 seconds (3 minutes, 44 seconds) with a 14 second interval between launches. During this 3.7 minutes the submarine expelled more than 650 tons of weight. The first and sixteenth missile, launched from the

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at a depth of , hit their designated targets at

Kura Missile Test Range Kura Missile Test Range (), originally known as ''Kama'', is a Russian intercontinental ballistic missile impact area located in northern Kamchatka Krai in the Russian Far East. It is the destination for ballistic missiles which are test fired f ...

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"On August 6, 1991 at 21 hours 07 minutes a volley fire the complete fire unit of RSM-54 rockets from the submarine of the project 667BDRM was carried out the. In the interests of the reduction of expenditures the operation was conducted on the planned combat training of the crew of submarine and the regular flight only of two rockets. The rockets, which start in the volley of the first and last, had to run complete flight program and fall onto the assigned aiming points. The remaining rockets, which participate in the volley, had to from all parameters of launch completely correspond to combat missiles, but the height of their flight could be arbitrary. For conducting the volley by complete fire unit was isolated the submarine “Novomoskovsk” (commander of boat S.V. Yegorov) and 16 rockets RSM-54, prepared by the Krasnoyarsk Machine Building Plant. The launching passed successfully, and until then no one in the world had conducted a shoot of a complete fire unit."

K-407 ''Novomoskovsk'' broke the record of the Yankee II-class submarine, ''K-140'', which launched eight missiles on December 20, 1968. Behemoth-2 was viewed as a possible scenario of a

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against the

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and was executed to confirm the possibility and safety of a quick underwater salvo.

References

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External links

Video of Behemoth-2 launch
Soviet military exercises Military history of Russia 1989 in the Soviet Union 1991 in the Soviet Union Soviet Navy