Mutiny: The True Events That Inspired The Hunt For Red October by Boris Gindin, David Hagberg Page B
Authors: Boris Gindin, David Hagberg
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wrench and the same determined expression on his face. And just a few minutes later the sailor is heading forward again, the wrench over his shoulder. The boy isn’t on any repair mission; he’s trying to
look
as if he were busy to avoid any real work. But the wrench was really heavy, and the last Gindin saw of the boy, sweat was pouring off his forehead. The kid was doing more work trying to get out of work.
The same look of determination is on Firsov’s and Bogonets’s faces. They want to play a practical joke on Bogomolov. Unless the
Storozhevoy
is tied up at a dock and connected to shoreside utilities, water is so scarce aboard ship that the men are allowed to take very few showers. Many of them go weeks or even a month without a shower. That includes the officers. Part of Gindin’s job is control of the water pumps and steam heat. In other words, anyone who wants to take a shower needs Gindin’s cooperation.
“Let’s give Nikolay a shower he’ll never forget,” Bogonets suggests, his face lit up, and Gindin immediately understands just what kind of a shower these guys have in mind.
Topsides, in officers’ territory, Sergey and Vladimir hold back out of sight as Gindin offers to let Bogomolov take a shower. It’s a gestureof real friendship that Nikolay appreciates. He rushes back to his room for his soap, towel, and clean clothes and hops into the shower room, giving Gindin a big grin.
Of course, Gindin turns off the steam right in the middle of Bogomolov’s shower, so that the water immediately switches from hot to ice cold. Nikolay lets out an ear-piercing screech and scrambles out of the shower, his body covered in soapsuds, a towel hastily wrapped around his waist. Gindin, Firsov, and Bogonets are all standing in the passageway laughing so hard that tears are streaming down their cheeks. But this is the kind of stuff that happens at the end of a six-month rotation at sea. The only problem is that the crew will have just time enough to get the
Storozhevoy
back in shape, take a short leave to see families, and it’ll all start over again.
It’s the Cold War, against the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and especially the Russians’ main adversary, the United States, that could turn hot at a moment’s notice. They’ll be ready. Gindin and other officers just like him will make sure of that.
At least that’s what most of them believe in their hearts this mid-morning, moored in the middle of the Daugava River, near downtown Riga.
THE
STOROZHEVOY
IN CUBA
NATO war planners describe the
Storozhevoy
as a Krivak-class frigate, which means his size is somewhere between two thousand and six thousand tons, and his main job should be as an offensive surface warship. But the Russians designed the Krivaks as defensive ASW ships. That’s a big difference in how each side sees the class. In the West the ships were viewed as just another example of the Soviet Union’s aggressive military posture, while Gindin and his fellow officers thought of their ship as a last-ditch stand against Allied submarines.
The
Storozhevoy
is 405 feet long on deck, carries two hundred men and officers, and can cruise forty-five hundred nautical miles at 20 knots or, if he’s in a hurry, less than seven hundred nautical miles at 32 knots. He was built in 1972-74 in the Yantar Zavod 820 shipyard in Kaliningrad and was outfitted with an impressive number of weapons systems. In addition to quadruple torpedo tubes amidships port and starboard, his most effective ASW platform is a four-tube launcher for the SS-N-14, which is backed up by missile launchers for the radar-guided SA-N-4 SAMs, plus a variety of 30mm Gatling and three-inchguns, the usual complements of mines, and a pair of twelve-barrel RBU-6000 ASW mortars forward of the bridge. This last weapons system is deadly effective out to 3.3 nautical miles and is automatically loaded. As fast as the weapons officer, who happens to be Senior Lieutenant Bogomolov,
look
as if he were busy to avoid any real work. But the wrench was really heavy, and the last Gindin saw of the boy, sweat was pouring off his forehead. The kid was doing more work trying to get out of work.
The same look of determination is on Firsov’s and Bogonets’s faces. They want to play a practical joke on Bogomolov. Unless the
Storozhevoy
is tied up at a dock and connected to shoreside utilities, water is so scarce aboard ship that the men are allowed to take very few showers. Many of them go weeks or even a month without a shower. That includes the officers. Part of Gindin’s job is control of the water pumps and steam heat. In other words, anyone who wants to take a shower needs Gindin’s cooperation.
“Let’s give Nikolay a shower he’ll never forget,” Bogonets suggests, his face lit up, and Gindin immediately understands just what kind of a shower these guys have in mind.
Topsides, in officers’ territory, Sergey and Vladimir hold back out of sight as Gindin offers to let Bogomolov take a shower. It’s a gestureof real friendship that Nikolay appreciates. He rushes back to his room for his soap, towel, and clean clothes and hops into the shower room, giving Gindin a big grin.
Of course, Gindin turns off the steam right in the middle of Bogomolov’s shower, so that the water immediately switches from hot to ice cold. Nikolay lets out an ear-piercing screech and scrambles out of the shower, his body covered in soapsuds, a towel hastily wrapped around his waist. Gindin, Firsov, and Bogonets are all standing in the passageway laughing so hard that tears are streaming down their cheeks. But this is the kind of stuff that happens at the end of a six-month rotation at sea. The only problem is that the crew will have just time enough to get the
Storozhevoy
back in shape, take a short leave to see families, and it’ll all start over again.
It’s the Cold War, against the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and especially the Russians’ main adversary, the United States, that could turn hot at a moment’s notice. They’ll be ready. Gindin and other officers just like him will make sure of that.
At least that’s what most of them believe in their hearts this mid-morning, moored in the middle of the Daugava River, near downtown Riga.
THE
STOROZHEVOY
IN CUBA
NATO war planners describe the
Storozhevoy
as a Krivak-class frigate, which means his size is somewhere between two thousand and six thousand tons, and his main job should be as an offensive surface warship. But the Russians designed the Krivaks as defensive ASW ships. That’s a big difference in how each side sees the class. In the West the ships were viewed as just another example of the Soviet Union’s aggressive military posture, while Gindin and his fellow officers thought of their ship as a last-ditch stand against Allied submarines.
The
Storozhevoy
is 405 feet long on deck, carries two hundred men and officers, and can cruise forty-five hundred nautical miles at 20 knots or, if he’s in a hurry, less than seven hundred nautical miles at 32 knots. He was built in 1972-74 in the Yantar Zavod 820 shipyard in Kaliningrad and was outfitted with an impressive number of weapons systems. In addition to quadruple torpedo tubes amidships port and starboard, his most effective ASW platform is a four-tube launcher for the SS-N-14, which is backed up by missile launchers for the radar-guided SA-N-4 SAMs, plus a variety of 30mm Gatling and three-inchguns, the usual complements of mines, and a pair of twelve-barrel RBU-6000 ASW mortars forward of the bridge. This last weapons system is deadly effective out to 3.3 nautical miles and is automatically loaded. As fast as the weapons officer, who happens to be Senior Lieutenant Bogomolov,
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