On the eve of World War II, the USSR and Germany were actively developing new weapons - combat subterrins (underground boats) designed to strike at strategically important enemy targets literally from the ground. The ideas of the underground war were not forgotten even after the victory over Germany, but until now, developments in this area are under a veil of secrecy.
Trebel's capsule
Back in 1904, Russian inventor Pyotr Rasskazov published material in an English magazine about a self-propelled capsule that could move underground. Moreover, later his drawings surfaced in Germany. And the first underground self-propelled vehicle in the 30s of the last century was created by Soviet engineer and designer A. Trebelev, who was assisted by A. Kirilov and A. Baskin.
It is curious that the principle of operation of this underground boat was largely copied from the actions of a mole digging a hole. Before proceeding with the design of the subterrine, the designers carefully studied the biomechanics of the movements of the animal placed in a box of earth using X-rays. Particular attention was paid to the work of the head and paws of the mole. And already on the basis of the results obtained, its mechanical "double" was designed.
Trebelev's capsule-shaped subterrine was propelled underground by a drill, an auger, and four stern jacks that pushed it like a mole's hind legs. The machine could be controlled both from the inside and outside - from the surface of the earth, using a cable. The underground boat also received power through the same cable. The average speed of the subterrane was 10 meters per hour. But due to a number of shortcomings and frequent failures of the apparatus, the project was closed.
According to one of the versions, the unreliability of the subterrine was already revealed during the first tests. According to another, just before the war, they still tried to finalize it on the initiative of the future People's Commissar of Arms of the USSR D. Ustinov. According to the second version, at the beginning of 1940, the designer P. Strakhov, on the personal assignment of Ustinov, improved the Trebelev subterrine. Moreover, this project was originally created exclusively for military purposes, and the new underground boat was supposed to operate without communication with the surface. A prototype was created in a year and a half. It was assumed that he would be able to work autonomously underground for several days. For this period, the subterrine was supplied with fuel, and the crew, consisting of one person, with oxygen, water and food. However, the war prevented the completion of the project. The fate of the prototype of Strakhov's underground boat is unknown.
Subterrines of the Reich
Interest in underground boats was shown not only by the Soviet Union. Before the war, German designers also developed subterrins. In the 1930s, engineer von Wern (according to other sources - von Werner) filed a patent for an underwater-underground "amphibian" which was called Subterrine. The device had the ability to move both in the water element and under the surface of the earth, and, according to von Vern's calculations, in the latter case, the subterrine could reach speeds of up to 7 km / h. At the same time, the Subterrine was designed to transport a crew and troops of five people and 300 kilograms of explosives.
In 1940, Germany seriously considered the von Wern project for use in military operations against Great Britain. In the plans of Operation Sea Lion, developed by Hitler, which provided for the landing of German troops on the British Isles, there was a place for von Wern's submarines. His amphibians were supposed to swim unnoticed to the British shores and continue moving through English territory underground, in order to then deliver a surprise blow to the British defenses in the most unexpected area for the enemy.
According to some reports, by the way, a certain R. Trebeletsky had a hand in the work on the von Wern project. Moreover, there is an unconfirmed version that in fact it was the same Trebelev who developed the first underground boat in the USSR and either visited Germany and met with von Wern, or, with the help of the Abwehr, escaped from Soviet Union.
The Subterrine project was destroyed by the arrogance of G. Goering, who led the Luftwaffe and expected to defeat the British in an air war without help from underground. As a result, von Vern's underground boat remained an unrealized idea, as did the fantasies of his famous namesake Jules Verne, who wrote the science fiction novel Journey to the Center of the Earth long before the appearance of underground boats.
Another even more grandiose project of the German designer named Ritter was named with a fair amount of pathos Midgard Schlange ("Midgard Serpent") - in honor of the mythical reptile - the world serpent encircling the entire inhabited earth. This machine was supposed to move above and below ground, as well as on water and under water at a depth of up to one hundred meters. At the same time, it was assumed that the "Snake" would move underground at a speed of 2 km / h (in hard ground) to 10 km / h (in soft ground), 3 km / h - under water and 30 km / h - on the surface earth.
But most of all, the colossal dimensions of this gigantic machine are striking. Midgard Schlange was conceived as an underground train consisting of many caterpillar compartment cars. Each one is six meters long. The total length of the "serpentine" phalanx wagons connected together was from 400 meters. In the longest configuration - more than 500 meters. The path of the "Snake" in the ground was punched by four one and a half meter drills. In addition, the car had three additional drilling kits, and its weight was 60,000 tons. To manage such a colossus, 12 pairs of rudders and 30 crew members were required. The armament of the giant subterrin was also impressive: two thousand 250-kilogram and 10-kilogram mines, 12 coaxial machine guns and six-meter underground torpedoes.
Initially, it was planned to use the Midgard Serpent to destroy fortifications and strategic objects in France and Belgium, as well as to undermine British ports. But in the end, the underground colossus of the Reich did not take part in any of the military operations. There is no exact data on whether at least a prototype of the "Snake" was made or whether this idea, like Subterrine, remained only in paper incarnation. But it is known that the advancing Soviet troops discovered mysterious adits near Koenigsberg, and nearby - a destroyed machine of unknown purpose. In addition, technical documentation describing German underground boats fell into the hands of scouts.
"War Mole"
After the war, the subterrina project was attempted to be implemented by the head of SMERSH, V. Abakumov, who involved professors G. Babat and G. Pokrovsky to work with captured drawings and materials. But it was only in the 1960s, when N. Khrushchev came to power, that real progress was made in this area. The new leader of the USSR liked the idea of "getting the imperialists out of the ground." Moreover, he even announced these plans publicly. And, apparently, for such statements by that time there were already good reasons.
In particular, it is known that a secret plant for the production of underground boats was built in Ukraine. And in 1964, the first Soviet subterrin with a nuclear reactor, called the "Battle Mole", was released. Little is known about this development, however. The underground boat had an elongated titanium cylindrical hull with a pointed end and a powerful drill. According to various sources, the size of the atomic subterrine ranged from 3 to almost 4 meters in diameter and from 25 to 35 meters in length. Underground speed - from 7 km/h to 15 km/h.
The crew of the "Battle Mole" consisted of five people. In addition, the car could carry up to 15 paratroopers and about a ton of cargo - explosives or weapons. Such combat vehicles were supposed to destroy fortifications, underground bunkers, command posts and rocket launchers in mines. In addition, the "Battle Moles" were preparing for a special mission.
According to the plan of the military command of the USSR, in the event of an aggravation of relations with the United States, the subterrins could be used for an underground strike against America. With the help of submarines, it was planned to deliver the Battle Moles to the coastal waters of seismically unstable California, then drill into the United States and install underground nuclear charges in areas where American strategic facilities were located. If atomic mines were set off, there would be powerful earthquakes and tsunamis, which could be attributed to a normal natural disaster.
According to some reports, the tests of the Soviet nuclear subterranean were carried out in different soils - in the Moscow region, Rostov region and in the Urals. And most of all, the witnesses were struck by the capabilities of the underground boat, which she demonstrated in the Ural mountains. The "War Mole" easily bit into the hard rock and destroyed the underground target. However, during the repeated tests, a tragedy occurred: for some unknown reason, the car exploded in the bowels of the Urals. The crew died. Shortly thereafter, the project was closed.
Talking about the development of this unique superweapon, it is impossible not to recall the American science fiction thriller Tremors. Unlike the cinematic worm monster that killed every living thing in its path, Soviet designers managed to create its real mechanical prototype.
However, the Soviet mechanical "mole" self-destructed along with the people inside.
Without "Mole" and life is not the same
As is most often the case in scientific world, the development of a machine that could freely pass deep underground and suddenly commit sabotage behind enemy lines was carried out by designers from different countries. It was one of the fix ideas of the twentieth century. Nevertheless, the leadership in this direction belongs to the Muscovite Petr Rasskazov, who was the first to schematically depict an underground self-propelled vehicle in 1904.
It should be immediately noted here that everything connected with the invention of the "mole" mechanism is from the very beginning accompanied by numerous and varied digressions, strongly smacking of mysticism.
Rasskazov was allegedly accidentally killed by a stray bullet during the 1905 revolution. Then his drawings disappeared, and over time miraculously materialized in Germany.
The two world superpowers started working on a similar project at the same time. In the USSR, in the early 1930s, this project was led by engineer Alexander Trebelev. His German colleague Horner von Werner stepped on his heels.
Treblev, obsessed with the idea of building a machine that would copy genuine mole skills, allegedly managed to reach the creation of a prototype. But that was the point. The Nazis also did not launch their “Midgard Schlange” (“Midgard Serpent”, that was the name of the monster from the Scandinavian saga): the project cost fabulous funds, for this reason the scrupulous Germans turned it off.
They took the stolen, but their own
The further history of the creation of the Soviet underground submarine, the further, the deeper it becomes overgrown with conspiracy details, as documentary justifications for certain events are gradually lost. Probably, in this case, these nuances can be attributed to the law of the genre. Or, if you like, on the secrecy of the topic as such.
Nevertheless, it was precisely the borrowed experience of foreign developments of "combat moles" in the Stalinist USSR that was taken as a basis. The fact that its foundation was laid by a Russian scientist, no one else remembered. The topic was personally supervised by the Minister of State Security of the Soviet Union V. S. Abakumov. Apparently, the time has not yet come to find out about the details of the assignment that Viktor Semenovich personally gave to the President of the USSR Academy of Sciences, Sergei Ivanovich Vavilov - these details are still hidden under the heading "top secret".
The sinister secret of the Soviet military "Nautilus": he died, biting into the bowels
It is alleged that the Soviet "Battle Mole" was nevertheless created. And the underground combat vehicle was endowed with hitherto unknown abilities: supposedly it was equipped with a nuclear power plant like a classic nuclear submarine. The technical characteristics of the Soviet mechanical "Earth Tremor" are also described: 35 meters in length, 3 meters in diameter. All this was controlled by five crew members, the speed of the “Battle Mole” was 7 kilometers per hour.
The Soviet "Mole" could bite into the ground with 15 paratroopers on board, by 1962 everything was ready for "practical use". In 1964, a pilot copy of the underground submarine was created to the extent of "getting off the stocks."
The conspiracy theory of the creation of the "Battle Mole" is replete with details that today have no scientific confirmation. In particular, Academician Andrei Sakharov is considered to be one of the founding fathers of the underground combat vehicle.
There are descriptions of the practical application of the “Mole” (they date back to 1964), but this experience is more like the finale of a science fiction story than the result of a scientific experiment: allegedly, at a depth of ten meters, an underground boat exploded, and it was a nuclear explosion. The people who were in the evaporated apparatus died.
... The secret of the Soviet "Big Mole" is reminiscent of the plot with the Dyatlov Pass. But if in the case of the history of the death of a group of Soviet climbers, if not all, then very many details of what happened are open to researchers today, then there are still more ambiguities with the fate of the underground Soviet submarine than any textural certainty on which one could build a reasonable version of the creation and testing of Soviet scientific and technical development.
One of the many myths about the Third Reich's secret supertechnology says that there were developments of underground combat weapons codenamed "Subterrine" (project by H. von Wern and R. Trebeletsky) and "Midgardschlange" ("Midgard Serpent"), (Ritter's project).
The huge subway according to the second project consisted of several compartments measuring 6 meters long, 6.8 meters wide and 3.5 meters high, with a total length of 400 to 524 meters. Weight - 60 thousand tons. There were 14 electric motors with a capacity of 20 thousand horsepower. Speed - under water 30 km / h, in the ground - from 2 to 10 km / h. The vehicle was operated by a crew of 30 people. Armament - mines and machine guns, underground torpedoes "Fafnir" (combat) and "Alberich" (reconnaissance). Auxiliary detachable means - shells to facilitate penetration in rocky soils "Mjolnir" and a small transport shuttle for communication with the surface "Laurin".
At the end of the Second World War, adits of unknown purpose were found in the area of the city of Koenigsberg, and a blown-up structure of unknown purpose was found nearby. There is a possibility that these were the remains of the "Midgard Serpent" being developed as one of the incarnations of "retribution".
Watch movie: underground boat
Lost Subterine
For thousands of years, people have dreamed of conquering the elements. Our ancient ancestors took the first steps in the development of the seas and oceans; watching the flight of birds - people dreamed of being freed from gravity and learning to fly. And now, it would seem, today a person has fulfilled his dreams - high-speed ocean liners proudly cut through the waves of all seas and oceans, nuclear submarines silently sneak in the water column, and the sky is streaked with contrails of jet aircraft. Over the past 20th century, we have even managed to overcome Earth gravity taking the first step into the infinite space. All this is true, but humanity had another cherished dream - to travel to the center of the Earth.
The underground world has always been something very mysterious for people, alluring and at the same time frightening. The mythology and religion of almost all peoples, one way or another, is connected with the underworld and the creatures that inhabit it. And if in ancient times the underworld was a forbidden place for a person, then with the development of science and the appearance of the first hypotheses of the structure of the Earth, the idea of traveling to its center became more and more tempting. But how to do that?
Of course, this question could not but worry science fiction writers, and while scientists were wondering about the structure of the underworld, in 1864 Jules Verne finished the novel Journey to the Center of the Earth, in which the main characters of his work, Professor Lindenbron and his nephew Axel, make a journey to the center of the earth through the mouth of a volcano. They travel on a raft through the underground sea and return to the surface through a cave. I must say that in those years there was a popular theory about the existence of vast cavities inside the Earth, which, apparently, Jules Verne made the basis of his novel. However, later scientists proved the failure of the “hollow Earth” hypothesis, and in 1883 the story of Count Shuzi “Underground Fire” was published. The heroes of his work, with the help of ordinary pickaxes, break through an ultra-deep mine into the zone of "underground fire". And although the story “Underground Fire” does not describe any mechanisms, its author already realized then that the road to the center of the Earth must be made by a person, and that there are no cavities through which one can travel deep underground. It is understandable, because the Earth's core is exposed to colossal pressure and temperature, and from this it follows that there is no need to talk about any "underground cavities", and even more so the existence of life in them.
In subsequent science fiction works, descriptions of tools for penetrating the earth's firmament appear, much more advanced than the pickaxe from Count Shuzi's story “Underground Fire. So, for example, in 1927, the science fiction novel by Count Alexei Nikolayevich Tolstoy "Engineer Garin's Hyperboloid" was published, in which engineer Garin, using his invention - a hyperboloid (thermal laser), pierces many kilometers of earth rock and reaches the mysterious olivine belt.
With the improvement of Earth science and the development of technologies for laying deep drilling shafts, the idea of an underground rover arose, some kind of fantastic machine capable of moving in the thickness of solid earth rocks. So, in Grigory Adamov's novel "The Winners of the Subsoil", published in 1937, the author sent his heroes to the underworld on an underground vehicle, which was a massive rocket-like projectile. This fantastic apparatus had drill bits in the front and sharp knives made of heavy-duty metal and capable of crushing any rock in its path. His underground boat could move at speeds up to 10 km per hour.
It must be said that a lot of science fiction works have been created and are being created to this day, dedicated to the topic of traveling to the center of the Earth, and if earlier a person reached the depths of our planet on foot in them, then with the development of technology and science, underground travelers pave their way with the help of devices in much like modern submarines. The existence of such devices real life is still in doubt, but there are some facts that suggest that a person has repeatedly tried to design and build an underground boat.
According to one version, the leadership in the creation of underground shells belongs to the Soviet Union. Back in the 30s, engineer A. Treblev, designers A. Kirilov and A. Baskin created a project for an underground boat. According to their plan, it was to be used as an underground oil producer - to go deep into the ground, find oil deposits, and lay an oil pipeline there. The inventors took the structure of a living mole as the basis for the design of the subway. Tests of the underground boat took place in the Urals in the mines under Mount Blagodat. With its cutters, approximately the same as on coal-mining combines, the underground rover destroyed strong rocks, slowly moving forward. But the device turned out to be unreliable, it often failed and the project was recognized as untimely. However, the first pre-war developments in our country do not end there. It is known that Dr. technical sciences P. I. Strakhov, who was the designer of underground tunneling machines, at the beginning of 1940, while he was busy building the Moscow metro, was called by D. F. Ustinov, the future People's Commissar of Armaments of the USSR. The conversation between them is more than interesting. Ustinov asked Strakhov if he had heard about the work of his colleague, engineer Treblev, who in the 1930s proposed the idea of an underground autonomous self-propelled vehicle? Strakhov was aware of these works, and he answered in the affirmative.
Then Ustinov said that he had a much more important and urgent task than the subway - work on the creation of an underground self-propelled vehicle for the Red Army. According to Strakhov himself, he agreed to participate in this project. He was allocated unlimited funds and human resources, and after a year and a half, the prototype of the subway passed acceptance tests. The autonomy of the underground boat was designed for a week, this is how much the driver should have had enough supplies of oxygen, food and water. However, with the outbreak of war, Strakhov had to switch to the construction of bunkers and further fate underground boat is unknown to him.
We should not forget about the numerous legends that enveloped the superweapon of the Third Reich. According to one of them, in Nazi Germany, there were projects of underground combat vehicles under the code names "Subterrine" (project of H. von Wern and R. Trebeletsky) and "Midgardschlange" ("Midgard Serpent", Ritter's project).
The Midgardschlange submersible was designed as a super-amphibian capable of moving on the ground, underground and under water at a depth of up to 100 meters. The device was created as a combat universal vehicle and consisted of a large number of compartments connected together, measuring 6 meters long, 6.8 meters wide and 3.5 meters high. The total length of the apparatus varied from 400 to 524 meters, depending on the tasks. The weight of this "underground cruiser" was 60 thousand tons. According to some assumptions, it began to be developed in 1939. This combat vehicle had on board a large number of mines and small charges, 12 coaxial machine guns, military underground torpedoes "Fafnir" and reconnaissance "Alberich", a small transport shuttle for communication with the surface "Laurin" and detachable projectiles to help in driving difficult areas of soil " Mjolnir. The crew consisted of 30 people, the internal structure of the hull resembled the layout of the compartments of a submarine (accommodation compartments, galley, radio room, etc.). 14 electric motors with a capacity of 20 thousand horsepower and 12 additional engines with a capacity of 3 thousand horsepower were supposed to provide the Midgard Serpent maximum speed under water at 30 km / h, and underground - up to 10 km / h.
When did the second World War, near the city of Koenigsberg, adits of unknown origin were discovered, and nearby the remains of an exploded structure, perhaps these are the remains of the Midgard Serpent - a possible version of the Third Reich's "Weapon of Retribution".
There was another in Germany, less ambitious than the Midgard Serpent, but no less interesting project, - besides, it was started much earlier. The project was called "Sea Lion" (another name is "Subterrine") and a patent for it was registered back in 1933 by the German inventor Horner von Werner. As conceived by von Werner, his underground apparatus was supposed to have a speed of up to 7 km / h, a crew of 5 people, carry a warhead of 300 kg and move both underground and under water. The invention itself was classified and transferred to the archive. Perhaps he would never have been remembered if Count von Stauffenberg had not accidentally stumbled upon him in 1940, besides, Germany developed Operation Sea Lion to invade the British Isles and an underground boat of the same name could be very useful . The idea was that an underground boat with saboteurs on board could freely cross the English Channel and, having reached the island, quietly pass under English soil to the right place. However, these plans were not destined to come true. The chief of the Luftwaffe, Hermann Goering, managed to convince Hitler that his aviation alone would be able to bring England to its knees. As a result, Operation Sea Lion was canceled, the project was forgotten, and Goering never managed to fulfill his promise.
In 1945, after the victory over Nazi Germany, numerous "trophy teams" of the former allies operated on its territory, and the project of the German underground boat "Sea Lion" fell into the hands of General SMERSH Abakumov. The project was sent for revision. Professors G. I. Babat and G. I. Pokrovsky were studying the possibilities of developing the idea of a combat underground boat and came to the conclusion that these developments have a great future. Meanwhile, general secretary Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev, who replaced the deceased Stalin, personally showed interest in the project. The scientists involved in this problem already had their own developments of an underground boat, and the breakthrough of science in the field of nuclear energy brought the project to a new stage of technological development - the creation of an atomic underground boat. For their serial production the country urgently needed a plant, and in 1962, on the orders of Khrushchev in Ukraine, in the town of Gromovka, the construction of a strategic plant for the production of underground boats began, and Khrushchev made a public promise "to get the imperialists not only from space, but also from underground." In 1964, the plant was built and produced the first Soviet nuclear underground boat, called the Battle Mole. The underground boat had a titanium hull with a pointed bow and stern, 3.8 m in diameter and 35 m long. The crew consisted of 5 people. In addition, she was able to take on board another 15 troops and a ton of explosives. The main power plant - a nuclear reactor - allowed her to reach speeds underground up to 7 km / h. Its combat mission was to destroy enemy underground command posts and missile silos. Ideas were put forward about the possibility of delivering such "subs" by specially designed nuclear submarines to the shores of the United States, to the California region, where, as is known, earthquakes often occur. Then the "subterina" could install an underground nuclear charge and, having blown it up, cause an artificial earthquake, the consequences of which would be attributed to disaster.
The first tests of the "Battle Mole" took place in the autumn of 1964. The underground boat showed amazing results, passing through difficult ground “like a knife through butter” and destroying the underground bunker of a mock enemy.
In the future, the tests continued in the Urals, in the Rostov region and in Nakhabino near Moscow ... However, during the next tests, an accident occurred that caused an explosion and an underground boat with a crew, including paratroopers and commander - Colonel Semyon Budnikov, remained forever immured in the thickness of stone rocks of the Ural Mountains. In connection with this incident, the tests were stopped, and after Brezhnev came to power, the project was closed, and all materials were strictly classified.
In 1976, at the initiative of the head of the Main Directorate of State Secrets Antonov, reports about this project began to slip in the press, but the remains of the underground nuclear-powered ship itself, meanwhile, rusted in the open air until the 90s. Are research and testing of underground boats being conducted in our time, and if so, where? All this will remain a mystery to which we are unlikely to receive a satisfactory answer in the foreseeable future. One thing is clear, that man has only partly realized the dream of traveling to the center of the Earth, and even if the projects of "subterines" created by scientists cannot be compared with devices from science fiction works and capable of reaching the Earth's core, nevertheless, humanity has taken its first timid step in exploration of the underworld.
Incredible combat vehicles created for various tasks do not cease to amaze so far.
What seemed to us a fantasy in the work of Grigory Adamov (one of the best science fiction writers of the USSR), "The Secret of Two Oceans" was a device really created at that time: an underground cruiser.
A machine capable of cutting its way through hard rock, carrying out acts of sabotage behind enemy lines!
In 1976, at the initiative of the head of the Main Directorate of State Secrets Antonov, reports about this project began to appear in the press. And the remains of the underground cruiser itself rusted in the open air until the 90s. Now the former landfill seems to be declared a restricted area.
A dull echo of these works remained only in Eduard Topol's novel "Alien Face", where the master of the detective genre describes how they intended to test the subterrine off the coast North America. The nuclear submarine was supposed to unload the “subterrine” there, and the latter was going to get under its own power to California itself, where earthquakes are known to occur quite often. In a pre-calculated place, the crew left a nuclear warhead, which could be detonated in right moment. And all its consequences would then be attributed to a natural disaster ... But all this is just a fantasy: the tests of the underground boat were not completed.
From fantasy to reality
Nevertheless, those wishing to dream up were still there. One of these dreamers was our compatriot Peter Rasskazov. Despite his last name, he was not a writer at all, but an engineer and expressed his idea not in words, but in drawings. For which, they say, he was killed in troubled times First World War. And his drawings mysteriously disappeared and "surfaced" after a while, not just anywhere, but in Germany. But they didn’t go into business, because Germany soon lost the war. She had to pay huge indemnities to the winners, and the country was not up to any kind of underground boats.
Meanwhile, the brains of the inventors continued to work. A similar design in the United States tried to patent Peter Chalmi - an employee of the "factory of inventions", which was headed not by anyone, but by the famous Thomas Alva Edison himself. However, he was not alone. The list of inventors of the underground boat includes, for example, a certain Evgeny Tolkalinsky, who emigrated from revolutionary Russia to the West along with many other scientists, engineers and inventors.
"Mole" under Mount Grace
But among those who remained in Soviet Russia, there were bright minds who took up this matter. In the 1930s, the inventor A. Trebelev, designers A. Baskin and A. Kirillov made a sensational invention. They created a project of a kind of "underground vehicle", the scope of which promised to be simply fantastic, up to the installation of metal lighting poles along the route of the car. For example, an underground boat reaches an oil reservoir and floats from one "lake" to another, destroying mountain barriers on its way. She pulls the oil pipeline behind her and, having finally reached the oil "sea", begins to pump "black gold" from there.
As a prototype for their design, the engineers took ... an ordinary earthen mole. For several months they studied how he makes underground passages, and created their apparatus "in the image and likeness" of this animal. Something, of course, had to be redone: the paws with claws were replaced with more familiar milling cutters - about the same as those of coal mining combines. The first tests of the mole boat took place in the Urals, in the mines under Mount Blagodat. The apparatus bit into the mountain, crumbling the strongest rocks with its milling cutters. But the design of the boat was still not reliable enough, its mechanisms often failed, and further developments were considered untimely. Moreover, the Second World War was on the nose.
Meanwhile in Germany
However, in Germany, the same war just served as a catalyst for a revival of interest in this idea. In 1933, the inventor W. von Wern patented his version of the subway. The invention, just in case, was classified and sent to the archive. It is not known how long it could lie there if Count Klaus von Stauffenberg had not accidentally stumbled upon it in 1940. Despite his magnificent title, he enthusiastically accepted the ideas set forth by Adolf Hitler in the book Mein Kampf. And when the newly-minted Fuhrer came to power, von Staufenberg was among his associates. He quickly made a career under the new regime and, when Verne's invention caught his eye, he realized that he had attacked his own gold mine.
After the end of World War II, not far from Koenigsberg, Soviet counterintelligence authorities discovered adits of unknown origin, and nearby were the remains of an exploded structure, it was assumed that these were the remains of the “Midgard Serpent” - an experimental version of the “Weapon of Retribution” of the Third Reich, some writers even associated this with the famous "Amber Room", which the Nazis hid in one of these adits.
Von Staufenberg brought the essence of the matter to the influential officials of the General Staff of the Wehrmacht. The inventor was soon found and all conditions were created so that he could put his idea into practice. The fact is that in 1940 the General Staff developed Operation Sea Lion, the main goal of which was the Nazi invasion of the British Isles. underground boats would be very useful in this operation: having plowed the land under the English Channel, they could freely deliver detachments of saboteurs to the UK, which would sow panic among the British.
The development is based on Horner von Wern's patent, registered back in 1933. The inventor promised to make an apparatus with a capacity of up to 5 people, capable of moving underground at a speed of 7 km / h and carrying a warhead weighing 300 kg (this is quite enough to carry out an impressive sabotage). Moreover, von Wern's boat "floated" both under water and underground.
The Germans managed to develop and test this boat.
However, the initiative was seized by Hermann Goering, chief of the Luftwaffe. He convinced the Fuhrer that it was not worth engaging in "mouse fuss" when the valiant aces of the Third Reich could bomb Britain from the air in a matter of days. By order of Hitler in 1939, work on the underground boat was curtailed. The famous air war began in the skies of Britain, which, in the end, was won by the British. Wehrmacht soldiers were never destined to set foot on British soil.
Khrushchev's dream
However, the idea of creating an underground boat has not sunk into oblivion. In 1945, after the defeat of fascist Germany, trophy teams of the former allies scoured its territory with might and main. The project fell into the hands of General SMERSH Abakumov. Experts gave a conclusion - this is a unit for moving underground. In the spring of 1945, it was discovered on the Lubyanka that one Russian self-taught engineer, Rudolf Trebeletsky, who graduated from the gymnasium and Moscow University as an external student, was shot during the repressions in 1933, took part in the German project. Copies of drawings brought by him from Germany were found in the special depository.
Trebeletsky significantly improved von Wern's invention. Now the boat could move equally successfully both underground and under water. In addition, he invented the "thermal super circuit", which greatly facilitated the movement underground. He named his boat "Subterina".
Trebeletsky told his classmate, the famous science fiction writer Grigory Adamov, about his ideas. Adamov used Trebelecki's ideas in his novels The Secret of Two Oceans and The Subsoil Conquerors. For mentioning secret technologies, Adamov was punished by complete oblivion during his lifetime and died before reaching his 60th birthday.
The project was sent for revision. Leningrad professor G.I. Babat suggested using microwave radiation to supply the "subterranean" with energy. And the Moscow professor G.I. Pokrovsky made calculations showing the fundamental possibility of using cavitation processes not only in a liquid, but also in a solid medium. Bubbles of gas or steam, according to Professor Pokrovsky, were able to destroy rocks very effectively. He spoke about the possibility of creating "underground torpedoes" and Academician A.D. Sakharov. In his opinion, it was possible to create conditions under which the underground projectile would move not in the thickness of the rocks, but in a cloud of sprayed particles, which would provide a fantastic speed of advance - tens or even hundreds of kilometers per hour!
Again, they remembered the development of A. Trebelev. Given the trophy developments, the case looked promising. But Beria, with the support of Ustinov, convinced Stalin that the project had no prospects. But in 1962 the project was developed - in Ukraine. For the serial production of underground boats, the testing of which, in fact, had not yet begun, in the town of Gromovka, on the orders of Khrushchev, a strategic plant for the mass production of underground boats was built! So this is where the well-known saying came from... And Nikita Sergeevich himself publicly promised to get the imperialists not only from outer space, but also from underground!
By 1964 the plant was built. The first Soviet underground boat was titanium with a pointed bow and stern, 3 meters in diameter and 25 meters long, a crew of 5 people, and could accommodate 15 fighters, and a ton of weapons, speed - up to 15 km / h. The combat mission is to detect and destroy enemy underground command posts and missile silos. Khrushchev personally examined the new weapon.
Several variants of the created underground vehicles were sent for testing in the Ural Mountains. The first cycle was successful - the underground boat at the speed of a pedestrian confidently made a move from one side of the mountain to another. Which, of course, was immediately reported to the government. Perhaps it was this news that gave Nikita Sergeevich the grounds for his public statement. But he hastened.
Since ancient times, man has been drawn to either sink to the bottom, or rise into the air, or reach the very center of the Earth. However, this was possible until some time only in fantasy novels and fairy tales. Nowadays, an underground boat is no longer just a fantasy. Successful developments and trials have been carried out in this area. After reading our article, you will learn a lot of interesting things about such an apparatus as an underground boat.
Underground boats in literature
It all started with a flight of fancy. In 1864, Jules Verne published a famous novel called Journey to the Center of the Earth. His heroes descended to the center of our planet through the mouth of a volcano. In 1883 Shuzi's Underground Fire was published. In it, the heroes, working with pickaxes, laid a mine to the earth's center. True, the book has already said that the core of the planet is hot. Alexei Tolstoy, the Russian writer, has had more success. In 1927, he wrote "Engineer Garin's Hyperboloid". The hero of the work made his way almost through the thickness of the earth, while casually and even with some cynicism.
All these authors built hypotheses that could not be substantiated in any way. The matter remained with the inventors and engineers, the rulers of people's thoughts of the late 19th - early 20th centuries. However, in the "Winners of the Subsoil" published in 1937, he reduced the problem of storming the earth's interior to the usual achievements of the USSR authorities. The design that the underground boat had in his book seemed to have been written off from the drawings of a secret design bureau. Is this a coincidence?
First developments
Now no one can answer the question of what formed the basis of Grigory Adamov's bold guesses. However, judging by the few data, there were still reasons for them. The first engineer who allegedly created the drawings of the underground apparatus was Petr Rasskazov. This engineer was killed in 1918 by an agent who stole all his documentation from him. The Americans believe that the first developments were started by Thomas Edison. However, it is more reliable that they were carried out in the late 20-30s of the 20th century by engineers from the USSR A. Treblev, A. Baskin and A. Kirilov. It was they who developed the design of the first underground boat.
However, it was intended solely for utilitarian purposes related to oil production, in order to facilitate this process and satisfy the needs of the socialist state. They took as a basis a real mole or earlier developments in this area by Russian or foreign engineers - now it's hard to say. However, it is known that in the Ural mines located under the test "floats" of the boat were carried out. Of course, the sample was experimental, rather a reduced copy than a full-fledged working device. Apparently, it resembled later coal mining combines. The presence of flaws, a reliable engine, a slow penetration rate was natural for the first model. It was decided to curtail the work on the subway.
Strakhov resumes the project
After some time, the era of mass terror began. Many specialists who participated in this project were shot. However, on the eve of the war, they suddenly remembered the "Steel Mole". The authorities were again interested in the underground boat. P. I. Strakhov, a leading specialist in this field, was summoned to the Kremlin. At that time, he worked as a curator on the construction of the Moscow metro. The scientist, in a conversation with D. F. Ustinov, who headed the arms commissariat, confirmed the opinion about the combat use of the underground vehicle. He was instructed to develop an improved experimental model according to the surviving drawings.
War interrupts work
People, funds, necessary equipment were urgently allocated. The Russian underground boat had to be ready as soon as possible. However, the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, apparently, interrupted the work. Therefore, the state commission never adopted an experimental sample. He was destined for the fate of many other projects - the sample was sawn into metal. The country at that time needed more aircraft, tanks and submarines for defense. But Strakhov never returned to the underground boat. He was sent to build bunkers.
German submarines
Similar designs, of course, were also carried out in Germany. Any superweapon capable of bringing world domination to the Third Reich was necessary for leadership. In fascist Germany, according to information received after the end of the war, there were developments of underground military vehicles. The code name of the first of them is Subterrine (project by R. Trebeletsky and H. von Wern). By the way, some researchers believe that R. Trebeletsky is A. Treblev, an engineer who fled the USSR. The second development is Midgardschlange, which means "Midgard Serpent". This is a Ritter project.
After the completion of the organs Soviet power adits were found not far from Koenigsberg of unknown origin, next to which were the remains of a blown-up structure. It has been suggested that these are the remains of the Midgard Serpent.
No less remarkable project was the "Sea Lion" (its other name is Subterrine). Back in 1933, Horner von Werner, a German engineer, filed a patent for it. According to his plan, this device could reach speeds of up to 7 m / h. On board could be 5 people, and the weight of the warhead was up to 300 kg. This device, moreover, could move not only underground, but also under water. This underground submarine was immediately classified. Her project ended up in the military archive.
Probably no one would have remembered him if the war had not started. Count von Staufenberg, who oversaw military projects, pulled it out of the archive. He suggested that Hitler use a submarine to invade the British Isles. She had to quietly cross the English Channel and secretly go underground to the right place.
However, these plans were not destined to come true. Hermann Goering convinced Adolf Hitler that England could be forced to surrender much cheaper and faster by simple bombing. Therefore, the operation was not carried out, although Goering could not fulfill his promise.
Exploring the Sea Lion Project
After the victory over Germany in 1945, an unspoken confrontation began on the territory of this country. Former allies began to compete among themselves for the possession of German military secrets. Among some other developments, the German project of an underground boat called "Sea Lion" fell into the hands of Abakumov, a SMERSH general. The group, led by professors G. I. Pokrovsky and G. I. Babata, began to study the capabilities of this apparatus. As a result of the research, the following verdict was issued - the underground vehicle can be used by the Russians for military purposes.
Designed by M. Tsiferov
Engineer M. Tsiferov created his own underground projectile at the same time (in 1948). He was even given a USSR copyright certificate for the development of an underground torpedo. This device could move independently in the thickness of the earth, while developing a speed of up to 1 m / s!
Construction of a secret factory
Meanwhile, Khrushchev came to power in the USSR. Were necessary in the beginning cold war their trump cards, military and political. The engineers and scientists who were confronted with this problem came up with a solution that took the underground boat project to a new level of development. It was supposed to be done with the type of the first submarines that had a nuclear reactor. In a short time for pilot production, it was necessary to build another secret plant. By order of Khrushchev, in early 1962, construction began near the village of Gromovka (Ukraine). Khrushchev soon announced publicly that the imperialists should be obtained not only from space, but also from underground.
Development of the "Battle Mole"
After 2 years, the plant produced the first underground boat of the USSR. She had a nuclear reactor. The underground nuclear boat was named "Battle Mole". The design had a titanium body. The stern and bow were pointed. The underground boat "Battle Mole" in diameter reached 3.8 m, and its length was 35 meters. The crew consisted of five people. In addition, the underground boat "Battle Mole" was able to take on board a ton of explosives, as well as another 15 paratroopers. "Battle Mole" allowed the boat to reach speeds of up to 7 m / h.
What was the atomic underground boat "Battle Mole" intended for?
The combat mission that was assigned to her was the destruction of missile silos and underground command bunkers of the enemy. The General Staff planned to deliver such "subs" to the United States using nuclear submarines specially designed for this. California was chosen as the destination, where high seismic activity was observed due to frequent earthquakes. She could mask the movement of the Russian subway. The underground boat of the USSR, in addition, could install a nuclear charge and, having blown it up remotely, in this way cause an artificial earthquake. Its consequences could be attributed to an ordinary natural disaster. This could undermine the power of the Americans financially and materially.
Testing a new underground boat
In 1964, in early autumn, the Battle Mole was tested. The subway showed good results. He managed to overcome the heterogeneous ground, as well as destroy the underground command bunker, which belonged to conditional adversary. Several times the prototype was demonstrated to members of government commissions in the Rostov region, in the Urals and in Nakhabino near Moscow. After that began mysterious events. During scheduled tests, the nuclear-powered ship allegedly exploded in the Ural Mountains. The crew, led by Colonel Semyon Budnikov, died heroically (it is possible that this is a fictitious name). The reason for this is an allegedly sudden breakdown, as a result of which the "mole" was crushed by rocks. According to other versions, there was a sabotage by foreign intelligence services or even the device got into the anomalous zone.
Minimizing programs
After Khrushchev was removed from leadership positions, many programs were curtailed, including this project. The underground boat again ceased to interest the authorities. The economy of the Soviet Union was bursting at the seams. Therefore, this project, like many other developments, such as the Soviet ekranolet flying over the Caspian in the 60-70s, was abandoned. in the ideological war could compete with the United States, but noticeably lost in the arms race. I had to save money on literally everything. This was felt by the common people and Brezhnev understood. The existence of the state was put on the line, therefore, advanced bold projects that did not promise quick superiority were classified and curtailed for a long time.
Is work ongoing?
In 1976, information about the underground nuclear fleet of the Soviet Union was leaked to the press. This was done for the purpose of military-political disinformation. The Americans fell for this bait and set about building such devices. It is difficult to say whether the development of such machines is currently underway in the West and in the USA. Does anyone need an underground boat today? The photos above and also historical facts- arguments in favor of the fact that this is not just a fantasy, but a real reality. How much do we know about modern world? Perhaps, right now, underground boats are plowing the earth somewhere. No one is going to advertise the secret developments of Russia, as, indeed, of other countries.
