Kursk submarine Wallpaper, #4046

Russian submarine KurskThe K-141 Kursk was a Russian nuclear cruise missile submarine which
was lost with all hands when it sank in the Barents Sea on August 12,
2000. Kursk, full name Атомная подводная лодка "Курск" [АПЛ "Курск"] in
Russian, was a Project 949A Антей (Antey, Antaeus but was also known by
its NATO reporting name of Oscar II). It was named after the Russian
city Kursk, around which the largest tank battle in military history,
the Battle of Kursk, took place in 1943. One of the first vessels built
after the fall of the Soviet Union, it was commissioned into the
Russian Navy's Northern Fleet. The Kursk sailed out to sea to perform an exercise of firing dummy
torpedoes at the Pyotr Velikiy, a Kirov class battlecruiser. On August
12, 2000 at 11:28 local time (07:28 UTC), the torpedoes were fired, but
soon after there was an explosion on the Kursk. The only credible
report to date is that this was due to the failure and explosion of one
of the Kursk's new torpedoes. The chemical explosion blasted with the
force of 100-250 kg of TNT and registered 2.2 on the Richter scale. The
submarine sank to a depth of 108 metres (350 ft), about 135km (85
miles) from Severomorsk, at 69°40′N, 37°35′E. A second explosion 135
seconds after the initial event measured between 3.5 and 4.4 on the
Richter scale, equivalent to 3-7 tons of TNT. One of those explosions
blew large pieces of debris back through the submarine.