December 5, 1957, was a dark, drizzly Thursday in Leningrad, but to those huddled around the shipbuilding ways in Krylov Shipyard No. 194, it seemed as though a Communist sun was shining. The Lenin, first Soviet nuclear-powered icebreaker and the future flagship of the Soviet Arctic icebreaker fleet, slid down the greased ways into the murky waters of the Bolshaya Neva. The heart of the ship, her nuclear fission reactor, was not in place, but already the Lenin had been heralded far and wide as the first nuclear-powered surface ship in the world. Even more than that, she had been proclaimed as the physical evidence of a new era just opening in Soviet Arctic operations.
What is the real significance of the Lenin? Is she just a propaganda gimmick of the Russians, a huge, expensive, useless hulk constructed so that the Soviet Union could achieve another “first”? What use could the Soviets have for an icebreaker weighing 16,000 metric tons, nearly twice the size of the largest U. S. icebreaker, the Glacier? Or is the Lenin filling a real need of the Soviet maritime service? These are questions which are difficult to answer, for the answers overlap and obscure one another. Of course, the Soviet Union, similarly to other countries, thrives on and perhaps even depends on national prestige for its very existence. The propaganda value of a nuclear first is tremendous, especially in an area where the “peaceful” connotation may be exploited to the fullest. Even the size of the icebreaker is not inconsistent with Soviet engineering philosophy. Massiveness is a Soviet theme easily recognizable in such widely divergent spheres as sports parades and armored tanks. Then, of course, size in an icebreaker does increase to a certain degree her icebreaking capabilities, cargo capacity, living space for crew members, and provides displacement capacity sufficient to install a nuclear reactor and associated heavy radiation shield. The best answer to whether the Soviet Union has a real need for such a nuclear-powered icebreaker is reflected in the Soviet announcement in early 1958 that the keel of a second nuclear-powered icebreaker had been laid on the same building ways that had given birth to the Lenin. The real significance of the Lenin appears to be that she is the first or prototype of an icebreaker fleet which will have the endurance and range so badly needed by the Soviets to lengthen the navigation period in the Arctic areas and along the Northern Sea Route between Murmansk and Vladivostok.
The application of nuclear energy to transportation has been receiving serious consideration in the Soviet Union at least since 1954 when the 5-megawatt nuclear power station went into operation at Obninskoye, near Moscow. Serious articles by such substantial authors as Engineer Colonels V. A. Mikhailov and N. A. Varvarov and highly competent senior Soviet scientists as Academicians A. A. Shternfeld and V. G. Fesenkov have pointed out the attractiveness of nuclear power plants where great range and endurance with the least weight of fuel were desired. Possibilities of utilizing nuclear power plants in icebreakers, submarines, whaling mother ships, tankers, aircraft, rockets, and land transport have been investigated. In early 1955 emphasis was placed on planned and co-ordinated development of nuclear power plants for transport purposes. The Academy of Sciences revamped its old Section for the Scientific Solution of Transport Problems and created a new institute called the Institute of Complex Transport Problems. Though this new Institute had over-all responsibilities for solving scientific and technical problems related to transportation of all types throughout the Soviet Union, the Institute was charged specifically with developing nuclear-powered transport and integrating nuclear propulsion into the Soviet transportation system. The eminent Soviet economist T. S. Khachaturov was named director and the veteran transport engineer V. V. Zvonkov became deputy director. Feasibility and economic studies emanating from this Institute have reported substantial Soviet progress since 1955 on the application of nuclear energy to transport, particularly ship propulsion.
Beyond doubt, the greatest problem faced by the directors of the Institute of Complex Transport Problems is linking European Russia with Siberia and the Far East. Soviet transportation capability between eastern and western USSR is marginal even under the most favorable conditions. The Soviets have four means of linking the Far East with European Russia. There is the Trans-Siberian Railroad leading from Moscow to Vladivostok, a distance of nine days’ traveling time for fast passenger trains. A substantial percentage of the rolling stock traversing the vast expanses of Siberia over the Trans-Siberian is necessarily relegated to repair and upkeep and to transporting petroleum and coal for fuel. An increase in transport requirements brought about by a sudden growth of the economy in Siberia or the Far East or by international tensions would strain the capacity of this railroad to the breaking point. Air transport, though now available in substantial degree, is vulnerable even to the caprices of the weather, not taking into account the multitude of other events which could disrupt air communication. At best, air transport is never sufficient for other than high priority passengers and light cargo.
The Soviets have two sea routes available from east to west under normal conditions. One extends from the Black Sea through the Turkish Dardanelles, through the Egyptian Suez Canal, through the Indonesian Straits of Malacca or Selat Sunda, and lastly through the Japanese-controlled straits separating or touching on their four main islands. A second route, the Northern Sea Route, runs between Murmansk or Archangel and Vladivostok along the northern coast of the USSR. Since this route is wholly within Soviet or Soviet-controlled waters, strategic considerations alone would demand development of this route for transfer of naval forces between fleet operating areas. But in an area where bunker fuel is in extremely short supply and which is closed to normal navigation by the Arctic ice pack ten months of the year, the development problems become almost insurmountable. Icebreakers, refueling at strategic way stations along the route, can lead naval and merchant ships in tandem train through thin plain ice and light ice floes, extending the navigable year to a degree. But required imports of fossil fuel to the way stations appropriate a large percentage of the available carriers, subtracting from the potential shipping capacity of the Northern Sea Route. The tremendous endurance and range promised by nuclear ship propulsion would be the greatest boon to transportation capabilities between east and west yet experienced by the Soviets.
A transarctic ship received first attention by Soviet nuclear scientists and engineers when nuclear energy had been developed to a point where it could be utilized in propulsion systems. It was in the Arctic and along the long northern coastline of the USSR that the range and endurance of nuclear-powered ships could give the best return for the higher capital costs invested in their construction. Details of a transarctic passenger-cargo ship were published in the technical youth magazine Tekhnika Molodezhi in November, 1955. The proposed nuclear-powered ship had a displacement of 25,000 metric tons, a length of 160 meters (520 ft.), and a beam of 25 meters (82 ft.). The nuclear reactor would produce 200,000 thermal kilowatts. The electrical generating capacity was to be 50,000 kilowatts, thus achieving a 25 per cent efficiency. Though the bulk of this electrical power was to be used to drive the propellers, part was to be for internal uses and to operate two powerful hydromonitors designed for cutting a path through the Arctic ice with hot water under high pressure. It would appear that, since the proposed ship was thin-hulled and forward progress in ice fields would be possible by using the hydromonitors, a new type of “icebreaker,” as the authors called it, was being considered.
The ice-breaking capability of such a ship is easily shown to be minimal. Assuming a 6- foot thickness of ice and 100 per cent utilization of excess reactor heat, the amount of water which could be heated and fed to the hydromonitors would limit the speed of advance of such a ship to 100 feet in 24 hours. The assumption that 100 per cent excess reactor heat could be obtained in a usable form is highly optimistic, and consequently icebreaking could not be accomplished by such a technique. Therefore, it is clear that the Soviet icebreaker would necessarily require a standard design to be effective in extending the navigation season in northern waters to any appreciable degree. Nevertheless, a thinhulled, nuclear-powered, passenger-cargo ship which could operate in thin ice and under marginal conditions could be effectively employed along the Northern Sea Route, and may be a secondary Soviet development after nuclear propulsion has been proven practicable in the Lenin.
The construction of the Lenin was first made an official Soviet objective on January 15, 1956, when the Sixth 5-year Plan (1956- 1960) was published. One of the objectives of the Plan was “to develop work on the creation of atomic power installations for transport purposes; to build an icebreaker with an atomic engine.” In April, it was announced that the icebreaker was under construction. Statistics began to appear piecemeal in Soviet publications. The Lenin, at least as near as can be determined from the Soviet press, has the following characteristics:
Displacement: 16,000 metric tons (15,747 long tons)
Length: 134 meters (439.6 ft.)
Beam: 27.6 meters (90.6 ft.)
Shaft horsepower: 44,000 h.p. metric (43,400 h.p.)
Draft: 9.2 meters (30.2 ft.)
Speed: 18 knots (open water)
Range: One year operation without refueling (300 days)
Power capacity: 2.75 h.p./ton displacement
Propellers: 3 (20,000 h.p. driving main screw, 12,000 h.p. each auxiliary)
Besides machinery spaces, the Lenin has spaces for food storage, refrigeration storage, ballast tanks, a club room, cinema, library, music room, reading room, medical or first-aid room, bathrooms, and laundry. The crew will be billeted in one- and two-person cabins. The ship will be air-conditioned and will have an automatic phone system. The navigational equipment includes various types of radar and two helicopters for ice reconnaissance.
The nuclear propulsion system, which is the unique feature of the Lenin, provides the most interest. The Lenin has only one nuclear reactor. It is a graphite-moderated, pressurized-water reactor very similar to the prototype nuclear power station at Obninskoye. It is fueled with uranium, enriched in the 235 isotope (possibly 5-10 per cent). Heat exchange is accomplished by means of a dual closed-cycle system, employing purified water in both cycles. Water is pumped into the reactor under 225 atmospheres pressure (3306 psia) and is heated to 370° C (698° F). The pressure given is just above supercriticality, probably deliberately so chosen to ensure better thermodynamic properties of the coolant. The reactor has a thermal output of 200,000 kilowatts.
The secondary cycle fluid is saturated steam which is dumped into the turbines, driving the generators and providing the necessary direct current for the ship’s motors. The icebreaker is equipped with three large electric motors and approximately 500 small motors for auxiliary uses. Operation of the whole system is automatic, with control being exercised from a central, remote control room.
A nuclear reactor operating at such high-power levels emits substantial amounts of harmful neutrons and gamma rays. Dense shield materials such as lead, uranium, or iron scatter and absorb the gamma radiation, while neutrons are scattered and absorbed by hydrogenous materials, boron, cadmium, hafnium, and other special materials. Shield materials surrounding the Lenin's reactor are special nuclear concrete, steel, and lead. The total weight of these materials probably exceeds 300 tons, based on analogy with the Obninskoye nuclear power station, but this weight is far less than the thousands of tons of fuel carried by a conventional icebreaker.
The first operational tests of the Lenin are scheduled either for late 1958 or early 1959, and shakedown will be accomplished in 1959. The icebreaker will be transferred to the operational control of the Administration of the Northern Sea Route in 1960, and at that time she will become the flagship of the Soviet Arctic icebreaker fleet.
Only after 1960 will the real value of the Lenin be definitely known, for only under actual operating conditions can her economy and utility be put to a critical test. The Soviet hopes are that the Lenin and her successors will open the whole northern coast of the USSR to economic exploitation and will open the sea passage from European USSR to the Far East. The Soviets report that their present icebreakers can only operate a month on the Northern Sea Route before returning to a fuel terminal. Fuel in those northern areas is scarce and a large percentage of present shipping is engaged in carrying fuel supplies to refueling bases. Nuclear-powered icebreakers having an operating endurance of one year and leading nuclear-powered cargo ships, tankers, and passenger ships through the ice-choked straits along the Northern Sea Route can relieve these shortages. In time of war, greater naval strategic flexibility may be attained by lengthening the navigation period over the Northern Sea Route, especially when there is danger that the Dardanelles, the Suez Canal, the Straits of Malacca, or the Japanese-controlled straits might be closed to Soviet shipping. Meantime, the Lenin will be an operating test-bed used to study the application of nuclear energy to ship propulsion under practical conditions. Without doubt, both the Soviet Navy and merchant marine will benefit from this initial step towards adaptation of nuclear power plants to surface ships.
The Soviets have said that the Lenin will be far more expensive to build than an ordinary icebreaker of the same displacement tonnage. Operational costs are expected to be less. But can we say that the Lenin's capital costs, even if they were twice the amount, are anything but economical when balanced against the enhanced strategic capability and the potential economic returns from the northern regions of the USSR, which will be achieved if the Soviet grand design for the Arctic is realized?
In the Army Air Corps during World War II, Lieutenant Guill was shot down near Hamburg and spent several months in a German prison camp. In 1947 he graduated from the University of California, was commissioned in the Naval Reserve in 1952, and during the Korean War served on the Joint Staff, Commander in Chief, Far East and later on the Staff, Commander Naval Forces, Far East. In 1956 he was assigned to the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations. He is at present Supervisor in Aircraft Nuclear Propulsion Department, General Electric Company, Cincinnati, Ohio.
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COMPLICATED COMPLIMENT
Contributed by Captain E. S. Brand, RN (Ret.)
In the days before television, after weeks of depressing rehearsals in the submerged torpedo flat and much conspiring with the shipwrights, the boatswain’s storekeeper, the painter, the electrical party, and others, I had finally ‘produced’ a one-night performance of the ship’s “Funny Party.”
Next morning a leading seaman came up to me on the upper deck and said, “That was a rare good show you put on last night, Sir, I’ve paid and seen worse!”
★ ★ ★
THE RECRUIT PROBLEM
Contributed by Lieutenant Commander J. H. Bing, MSC, USN
Whenever the low caliber of present day recruits is cited as a factor contributing to some of the Navy’s current problems I am pleasantly reminded that, deep in its human core at least, the Navy does not change so radically over the years as one might think. Not long ago, when the consensus of opinion at an informal gathering of old-timers was that today’s recruit was substantially less intelligent than the pre-World War II recruit, I was carried back to 1935.
In my imagination I was again standing in a long line of white-clad recruits at the Norfolk Naval Training Station, waiting my turn to sign an application for government life insurance. At the head of the line sat two yeomen, shuffling through a small mountain of completed application forms on which they had laboriously typed for days. Standing at the table and directing the signing of the forms was the station’s most formidable Chief Boatswain’s Mate. His seven gold hash marks, baleful glare, and fog-horn voice could, and sometimes did, reduce the most recalcitrant recruit to quivering jelly.
We heard his instructions long before we reached the table. In keeping with his character and reputation they were loud, terse, and unvaried. “Put your John Henry here!” he roared at each recruit. “Put your John Henry here!”
By the time my turn came I knew just what to do, and when the Chief pointed his stubby forefinger at a line on my application and yelled, “Put your John Henry here!” I took the pen and confidently wrote my two given names, John Henry. But before I could finish my signature or explain the coincidence, the Chief tore the application blank from my hands, ripped it to shreds, and stamped on the pieces.
Over the years, I can still feel his wrath and hear his words ringing in my ears, “You damn kids they’re taking in the Navy are getting more stupid every year!”
(The Naval Institute will pay $5.00 for each anecdote accepted for publication in the Proceedings.)