Hunt for Red October 1990 (2016) | Hacker News Reader

Hunt for Red October 1990 (2016)

modelshipsinthecinema.com

328 pointsnixass137 comments

Great read on how ILM made the shots. As a crew member on the USS Salt Lake City (SSN-716), we took many of the cast and crew out to sea for 24 hours before they made the movie to get a feel for what sub-life was like before they made the movie. All the cast and crew were great, and I think it made the movie better.

Actor Scott Glenn, who plays the Captain of Dallas, modeled his character after our Captain, Tom Fargo. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rjO_VrESNo

It is a great movie!

>Actor Scott Glenn, who plays the Captain of Dallas, modeled his character after our Captain, Tom Fargo.

Terrific character. I just love the competency and leadership. Hopefully your Cpt. Fargo was just as good.

My favorite exchange from the movie is when Jonesy brings his report to the captain. He's aware of how crazy this theory sounds, especially when his very serious and hard-to-read captain rephrases it back to him. Jonesy starts getting nervous and fumbling and Mancuso cuts him off -- "Relax, Jonesy. You sold me." Not quite sure why that simple line hits so hard.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7g6dKncO-I

Capt Tom Fargo was better. As you learn from that YouTube video, he went on to run 7th Fleet as an Admiral. The stuff we did while he was CO was important in the Cold War for the security of the US.

So did Mancuso if you followed the books.

I use the "runs home to mama" line a lot when describing an unexpected result from a black box we've integrated into our workflows.

I love the "You sold me" line too, as it shows how Mancuso is willing to listen to his men even when they have such an out of the box idea. It also helps make Mancuso listening to Jack's port/starboard Crazy Ivan maneuver. He's kind of already bought into Jack's idea by that point anyways. Otherwise, he'd already had Jack into quarters somewhere

Google search is weirdly hallucinating saying "Theodore Scott Glenn is an American actor and Distinguished Professor at Rutgers University". As far as I can tell the actor and professor are two different people. Am I wrong? Can't tell what is true/false anymore.

I ran into a similar issue when researching Bill Paxton, a computer scientist who worked on the Mother of All Demos. Google's AI told me that he was also known for his roles in Aliens and Titanic, but that's a different person. I told Bill Paxton (the computer scientist) about this and he found it amusing.

Search engines are getting less usable..I assume this is because they're leaning into LLMs

You read the book? I’m curious how all of the operational details and jargon held up to a real sailor.

yes, I read the book before I got to the boat when I was at nuclear reactor prototype training in Idaho. Read it on the long bus rides back and forth to the site. Yes, it was good and pretty operationally accurate. All the sub lingo etc, is accurate. Some of the actors on the bridge of the Dallas were active duty sub sailors at the time.

> the long bus rides back and forth to the site

Did you live in IF or Pokey?

For some reason an image of my small green bus pillow came to mind. I wonder what happened to it.

In case you didn't know, Tom Clancy has also written a lot of non-fiction military reference material: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Clancy_bibliography#Non-fi...

Oh cool — no I didn’t know. Loved Red October - it somehow seemed to be faster paced than the movie was, which seems rare.

for those who didn't realize - same guy is Walton Goggins father in S03 of White Lotus

Bit of a spoiler, don't you think?

Dude... delete that. That’s an important spoiler for a show that just came out a week ago. Yeah, he's in White Lotus S3. That’s all you needed to say.

Just a quick note that this film really holds up, like weirdly well given its subject and vintage. If you haven't watched it in a long time, add it to your list.

Similarly the Clancy book Red Storm Rising really holds up well, and weirdly may be one of the best primers on Russian military practices, culture, and capabilities as the force was constituted during the first year of their full scale invasion of Ukraine.

Arguably RSR vis a vis Ukraine in 2022 is a great primer on just how much the Russian military had decayed from their mid-80s Soviet peak. You can study histories and interviews from the late Cold War about just how much of a bloodbath the NATO militaries expected a Russian invasion of West Germany to be.

The USAF A-10 fleet was expected to have been wiped out in approximately 2-3 weeks of fighting based on expected loss rates, and nuclear escalation was not outside the realm of possibility.

What the Ukrainians managed to do in 2022 was impressive, full stop. But to understand what that reveals about the Russians, you also need to understand that the Ukrainians are essentially a JV military as opposed to the US, a NATO force, or someone like the Australians, Japanese, or South Koreans. The bravery is there, but they just don't have the same ability to integrate the details at scale such as fires, logistics, and large-scale joint operations, because they're still trying to shake off their Soviet past.

Whereas although the Soviets would have similar problems that come from being an authoritarian military, NATO would have been fighting them AND the entire Warsaw Pact (East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Poland et al). The Soviets wouldn't have had 30+ years of Russian societal decay and would have had the advantage of sheer mass.

> The bravery is there, but they just don't have the same ability to integrate the details at scale such as fires, logistics, and large-scale joint operations, because they're still trying to shake off their Soviet past.

Welllll. I saw posted here last week (cannot find it now), that the US helped them with the logistics and recon a lot more than was previously known. Like, "Shoot your artillery here at this time, and you'll like what happens. If you don't like it, we'll work harder to make you happy."

There are two things a NATO/Western military has that the Ukrainians don't fully have yet: the technology and assets you're talking about, but also officers and noncoms who've been brought up in the type of warfighting culture that can best make use of it. There's a great article from the start of the war written by a retired Army three-star here: https://www.thebulwark.com/p/i-commanded-u-s-army-europe-her...

The reason the US and Western militaries could utterly crush an opponent in places like Iraq is due to having not just cool gear, but a culture that promotes excellence in execution. Junior folks who can excel at small-unit tactics, and senior folks who have learned how to operate and orchestrate the large-scale machine over a 20-30 year career.

I wouldn't say it was just that. The Ukrainians realized they were in trouble in 2014 when Russia lopped off Crimea, and ordered a painful introspective to highlight all the weaknesses of their military.

They spent 8 years overhauling their military and learning from invited western forces to prepare for an invasion that they hoping beyond all would never come. And it paid off in spades.

That was a really interesting article. It does show though why Ukraine's relatively small army is able to punch above its weight class vs the more poorly train and led Russians. Was a great read:)

Fantastic article thanks! Good look into career postings. And it seems the Ukrainians worked hard in the few years of explicit notice they got.

This is the article you are referring to (gift link): https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/03/29/world/europe/...

you also need to understand that the Ukrainians...

really really do not want to be part of Russia again. that's what I take away from it. they like being independent and are willing to fight this hard to stay that way. I can only imagine their utter disappointment with the outcome of the US election.

but to your point, it does say a whole helluva lot about the inabilities of the Russians too. The fact they are using NK troops and now reports of Chinese soldiers too says just as much. Like, is Russia reserving its soliders on the Western front for NATO reasons rather than just using everything against Ukraine? Or are they using the why fight with your own soldiers when you can use someone else's like why fund your own startup when you can use someone else's money

> Like, is Russia reserving its soliders on the Western front for NATO reasons rather than just using everything against Ukraine?

The Russian government is treading a fine line domestically. For most Russians, the war is a not relevant to them. They do not want to fight, which is why when it became clear Russia wasn't going to have a quick victory, there was one quick and dirty mobilization that mostly sucked up people from the outer regions, in particular ethnic minorities. Russia is also dealing with acute labour shortages because of a variety of factors, including bad demographics, at least a million people leaving the country, and demand from arms manufacturers. This is why you hear about military contracts being as high as 50x the average yearly salary.

This is why there are North Koreans fighting; there was already a program that essentially sends North Koreans to work in parts of Russia as essentially slave labour that the NK govn't gets the money for. This was just an extension of that, with the added bonus for the North Koreans that they will get their first exposure to combat in decades. There are probably a few hundred Chinese soldiers (as well as people from a host of other countries) that are in it for the money, too.

From all of this, it doesn't really seem like they would be much of a threat to NATO. Except for the nukes. As far as traditional forces, there seems to be a disconnect between the fear of vs the credible threat. Or I'm just grossly misjudging things and it's a good example of why I'm not involved in any threat assessment type of position. Underestimate your opponent at your own peril type of thing

Russia isn't a conventional threat to all of NATO, but it can and does bring an enormous amount of artillery to grind away weaker enemies. The big risk is to the Baltic states. They've only got a small border with a friendly country (Poland). If Belarus allows Russian use of it's land, it'd be harder to defend.

Russia isn’t much of a threat outside of its own railway system. The soviets build their military logistics around rail as the primary mode of transport. This is why UA being able to hit the exit rail depots where RU was massing equipment was so effective at stopping the RU advance (coupled with UA’s innovative use of drones to attack road-based supply lines).

NATO makes use of rail, but also has LOTS of varied mobility for delivery of logistics.

In this way, NATO can shut down an invasion by RU by attacking the rail system, with both conventional and cyber weapons.

The only counterexamples I can find are where the RU contractors do large scale ware for junta/warlords like in Syria and multiple countries in the Sahara. But they aren’t fighting a large modern army there — mostly insurgencies and militias.

When you're willing to bankrupt your country, have internal industrial capacity at scale, and retool your industry for wartime production... any country is dangerous.

The only thing that will remove Russia as a credible threat is breaking its economy and/or aligning security guarantees with its neighbors to preclude invasion.

> You can study histories and interviews from the late Cold War about just how much of a bloodbath the NATO militaries expected a Russian invasion of West Germany to be.

*With the full benefit of hindsight*, most experts that I have read seem to agree that (ignoring nuclear weapons and staying completely conventional) the Russians were as a whole stronger on land in Europe than the west up until the mid-1970s, when western technological advancements started to remove the numbers advantages and were hard for the economically stagnating communist countries to keep up with. By the mid 1980s, the only real direct advantage the soviets had was a closer supply line than the bulk of NATO's power, which was the USA.

There are records showing the shock that Soviet military experts had at the effectiveness of the western stealth and jamming equipment that was used in the 1991 Gulf War (that was waged right at the tail end of the USSR's existence). It's much more regarded now that had a full blown NATO/Warsaw pact conflict occurred in the 1980s, the Soviets would have likely lost had they not effectively destroyed NATO's air power early on, though to be fair most experts in the west weren't as sure just how effective their kit would end up being.

Even taking air power out of the equation, the armoured kill ratios would have favoured NATO if it was even 1/4 the ratio it was against the Iraqis. Again here, the only advantage the Soviets would have had was if they got complete surprise before NATO could mobilise.

> NATO would have been fighting them AND the entire Warsaw Pact (East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Poland et al).

There are mixed signals in the archives we have access to about how well (or more accurately reliable) a good chunk of the Warsaw Pact would have been if the cold war turned hot. Half the Red Army's presence in these countries was to threaten them and keep a lid on any revolutions that cropped up (as they did inCzechoslovakia and Hungary as hard violent examples, and Poland in the early 1980s as a soft one). It was very nebulous with Romania in particular that it would participate in anything other than an full "unprovoked attack" from NATO.

> The Soviets wouldn't have had 30+ years of Russian societal decay and would have had the advantage of sheer mass.

There was already decay by the 1980s. Corruption was rife in the Soviet army, especially during and after the Afghanistan conflict. There are many documented cases of Soviet officers in Europe selling fuel earmarked for the army to local civilians, among other things. Many also participated with opium smuggling from Afghanistan to Europe as Soviet officers had some freedom to move around western parts of Germany unmolested, in particular West Berlin.

> There are records showing the shock that Soviet military experts had at the effectiveness of the western stealth and jamming equipment that was used in the 1991 Gulf War (that was waged right at the tail end of the USSR's existence).

> There are mixed signals in the archives we have access to about how well (or more accurately reliable) a good chunk of the Warsaw Pact would have been if the cold war turned hot.

Are there any decent books on this? Not because I'm doubting you, just because it would be a good read.

You may be interested in operation Mole Cricket 19 about ten years earlier.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=F33h9-oUfDU&t=2s&pp=2AECkAIB

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mole_Cricket_19

UAVs in 1982??

> Are there any decent books on this? Not because I'm doubting you, just because it would be a good read.

I'm a voracious consumer of cold war history so I've read things from all over the place.

I don't have direct sources handy, but for (expected) Warsaw pact reliability, it varied a lot by country. I'm not saying they wouldn't have fought (the full time core communist regime soldiers probably would have), but in a war that expands into conscription sucking in more of their people is where the will to fight "for the soviets" became more tenuous. By the 1980s most eastern block citizens knew life was better in the west and local revolutions may have had varying degrees of success, especially further in the south (again this is in hindsight, but the sudden speed of communism's collapse in Europe really caught everybody off guard about how fragile it all was especially without the threat or ability for the Soviets to put it down).

For the technological gaps, most of the good content is in either defence-related publications, historical or geopolitical think-tank pieces, or postgraduate academic writings (where you often go down the rabbit hole of looking up citations). It can be dry reading unless you're really into it.

Some more accessible examples about soviet reactions the success of the 1991 Gulf War:

This report by the US DoD highlights a lot of the Soviet denial and excuses early on in the conflict, not accepting that it could be so easy (the iraqis were using old equipment! They were badly trained!). If you read between the lines, there was a lot of doublespeak from official Soviet channels about it, but scroll down to the conclusion you'll see a lot more tactic admisions of capability gaps:

https://community.apan.org/cfs-file/__key/telligent-evolutio...

This one has a lot more content via internal Soviet thinking. Look at page 9 under "The Revolution in Warfare and Desert Storm" for Electronic Warfare notes:

https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/tr/pdf/ADA242543.pdf

This Chicago Tribune article references Russian attitudes via "a translated report":

https://web.archive.org/web/20240910225432/https://www.chica...

This publication "Russia's Air Power at the Crossroads" from the mid 1990s is often cited, too:

https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA319850.pdf

RSR is one of my favorite Clancy books, and I return to it quite often. It was the first book I read in my teens with such a descriptive telling of what an attack on an air base could be like. How the attack allowed for the runways still able to be used with "minor" repairs and then reused by the over taking forces. Mike's journey is probably my favorite plot line.

I make the mistake every few years of picking up my battered paperback copy and then end up spending an entire weekend reading the entire thing again. Such a good set of stories. Mike’s reply to the radio operator when they stress test his voice is probably my favorite passage.

I always wanted to see this book turned into a movie. I had hopes for it since it wasn't part of the Jack Ryan series. I can't imagine Larry Bond not wanting to earn some extra cash from that kind of deal. Of the Jack Ryan series, I had always hoped for a Cardinal In The Kremlin movie too. I wanted the laser scene to come alive even if they made it along the lines of Spies Like Us. Lasers are cool! pew! pew! was the main part of wanting it as a movie to be honest

Brilliant novel. I was thinking about it recently. Many years after reading it, I can still remember many of the battle/combat sequences as if I’d seen them on screen. Maybe someone could do a big Band of Brothers type adaptation, given how far along VFX have come.

I mean, aside from the weird civilian rape-to-romance subplot, yeah. Technically it holds up well. Which is true for most of Clancy's novels.

Didn't he save her (Vigdis?) from being raped, though? Your post implies that he raped her, and a romance developed from that.

I think I was ambiguous on who raped (or attempted to rape) her, but the point still stands. While its certainly possible, it seemed like such a non sequitor to have her fall immediately for her savior, after a rape whose sole point was to make it clear that the russians are the bad guys.

I think Clancy was misunderstanding his audience in believing he needed to add rape to all the other bad things, trivializing rape, and probably most importantly for the purposes of this discussion, insisting on a superfluous romance subplot in a techno-thriller. Its been a long time since I read Red Storm Rising, and the main thing I recall is that I hated the romance subplot. It was a human interest story when I picked it up for the guns and bombs and missiles and things.

Watched it again recently — still great. Alec Baldwin is a great Jack Ryan. It's such different role than what he's become known for since.

Now watch the uncut version of Das Boot undubbed (5hr8m long).

/me remorsefully remembers the cute German girl who asked him if he wanted to go see it with her. Decades later, it occurred to me that she liked me. Oh, well, story of my life!

The 5 hour uncut Das Boot is an amazing first date.

Here is your chance to have a similar experience if you're in NY: https://www.moma.org/calendar/exhibitions/5746.

wow lol, the normal version is already 2 and a half hours and kind of a slog for something the author of the source book described as a "cheap, shallow American action flick" and a "contemporary German propaganda newsreel from World War II"

you must be blessed with a very high level of masochism to want to read subtitles for 5 hours

A 5-hour movie is long, but not that long for people used to binge-watching TV shows. And I'd argue that watching modern productions without subtitles is a clearer indication of masochism. Too many actors just mumble their lines. If you care about the dialogue, you either have to use subtitles or concentrate and remain alert all the time.

I only wish it was longer. Also I can't stand dubs!

> 5hr8m long

pass

3 movies you would hate ranked from most to least:

1) Christian Marclay's The Clock

2) Sátántangó

3) Dekalog

The trick they use to handle the transition from Russian to English dialogue is so cool.

It's so cool that John McTiernan did it again in The 13th Warrior. A worse movie (not as bad as people say), but I think that one scene is extraordinary.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVVURiaVgG8

Heh, I just watched The Wild Robot with my nephews, and the film uses pretty much this same trick early on.

13th warrior is a fantastic film with an undeserved reputation. It's the best version of Beowulf on film and full of memorable lines.

That scene is one of my faves.

13th Warrior usually makes the top list of any “movies that Rotten Tomatoes has done dirty”.

It depends I think on whether the Big Trouble in Little China fans are still asleep.

Rotten Tomatoes scores Big Trouble in Little China favorably, as it obviously should.

Not sure if Mandela Effect or the score has been changing over time.

Edit: I think the box office was terrible

Agreed. As for the Russian spoken by American actors, my friend, a Russian linguist, said Alec Baldwin’s Russian was fine, but Sean Connery’s was terrible.

'Let zem zing!'

I'm trying hard to think of a false or dated moment in the whole movie. If you made a 1984 period film about the same subject, in 2025, I'm not sure what would be different other than the actors. Even the SFX hold up.

Early Tom Clancy, before he monetized his name, was pretty amazing. The Hunt for Red October was published by the Naval Institute Press. [0]

It was also the first adult book I read. Probably around 6 or 7? Before Jurassic Park, which I read before that movie came out.

I'd asked my father if "There were books about other things, because kids books were boring."

He handed me Tom Clancy off his bookshelf.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Naval_Institut...

That is one of my favorite moments in the film, and maybe in filmmaking generally.

A good Sunday afternoon pairs The Hunt for Red October and Down Periscope

Down Periscope is a definite guilty pleasure.

I've done a submarine day with Red October, Crimson Tide, and U-571

U-571 was OK, but a disappointment overall.

One of the interesting things about the movie was how well they conveyed the mood and atmosphere on subs.

I don't know exactly how to describe it, but the sub force just has a different temperament than the surface fleet.

Of course, all of that went out the window when people in the movie started yelling at each other. From that point on it's a fictional scenario contrived to create a dramatic story.

Same with Apollo 13. Everything I see and hear about NASA personnel indicates that these people are consummate professionals who stay cool under extreme circumstances... but that wouldn't make for a good movie.

I should probably note that this is coming from the perspective of someone who grew up with a father who was an career enlisted man (CPO/EM-N) stationed mostly on boomers.

Right. The thing that bugs me about Apollo 13 is that they played up the drama unnecessarily, because the ground crew was so large, well-trained, and in sync. Like the scene where they dump a box of stuff and say "You have to make this go into here using just this?"- the actual story is that one of the engineers on the ground realized basically as soon as he heard about the accident (and the LM lifeboat) that they would need to use the CM scrubbers, and within five minutes of talking to another engineer they had figured it out in principle. The delay was that they wanted to walk through all the steps to make sure their documentation was correct, and the only CM scrubber available was at Kennedy, so they had to wait while it was put on a plane and flown to Houston to mate with the rest of the practice equipment.

Similarly, the "oh we forgot the moon rocks!" bit was actually the engineers realizing it ahead of time and changing the prep checklist to account for it, rather than a last second dash. This was only because there were so many engineers, and they had made themselves so immersed in the task, and they had such good lines of communication that someone identified the problem and was able to escalate the fix to the correct levels at the appropriate time. This didn't happen by accident, but was the result of years of working together, both training and the experience of actual flights that made these teams so good.

Separately, there were a few things the movie got wrong just as one-off moments. At launch the arms retracted simultaneously, rather than sequentially as shown in the movie (not quite as cool looking) and if you listen to the bit where Lovell says "Houston, check my math here" he is doing addition, which can't be done on a slide rule.

It’s a reality of cinema that when they do a biopic or a film about a real event, they often have to make changes that enhance the drama. Some of these are reasonable, some not so. In Apollo 13, they upped the drama by significantly shortening the time required to get the LEM up and running as a lifeboat. I’m okay with that. Inserting drama where there was none is less justifiable, as it speaks to the character of the persons involved.

That said, as a retired NASA contractor, I can say that Apollo 13 is highly respected at NASA. Hidden Figures has a lot of fans there, too. In spite of the horrible physics, Gravity also has its fans - some astronauts said it really captured the feeling of being in space.

I've read that when they adapted the story of Desmond Doss into the movie "Hacksaw ridge" they had to tone down some of the true events, because the scriptwriters decided that audiences would find parts of the story unrealistic and unbelievable.

> "Houston, check my math here" he is doing addition, which can't be done on a slide rule.

I still love that scene where it cuts to everyone whipping out their slide rules. It just adds to the mystique of we put men on the moon with such antiquated tech compared to modern standards (even of those available in the 90s when the movie was made).

You've probably seen it, but you'd definitely love the movie "Hidden Figures".

They do seem to get the adding machines more or less correct.

> Everything I see and hear about NASA personnel indicates that these people are consummate professionals who stay cool under extreme circumstances

On the whole, they were consummate professionals. And then there is the Apollo 10 turd incident.

Off topic, but always amazed me that the Russian submarine in this film has a swimming pool (more like a plunge pool) but still seems wild.

https://youtu.be/JrULRXlAlMU?si=kvh64qy64E7aqXPY

From the yt comments:

One of the crew members' memoir (Эдуард Овечкин "Акулы из стали") mentions that the pool was filled with freshwater. The crew rarely used the pool themselves, because they could find better use for that much water. The author had an interesting story about this swimming pool. One day, a high-ranking officer came with inspection. He was very rude and the crew didn't like him in return, especially since he sat in the captain's chair (only the captain was supposed to sit there). Then this officer wanted to take a swim and he ordered the crew to prepare a pool. As the author was drawing water, he and other crew members decided to urinate in the pool. And then watched as this officer was swimming there, barely containing the laughter. When they finally told the captain about this in control room some time later, the submarine was sailing without control for several minutes, because everyone was laughing on the floor.

It's like the old public swimming pool joke. "Check the pH!" "Hmm, mostly p, not much H."

A normal ballistic missile submarine has one pressure hull, with a large section of ballistic missiles taking up the middle of it. This submarine has two pressure hulls, on either side containing no missiles, but sandwiching the missiles between them. In theory this means that you can torpedo the sub from a side, and the missiles are still okay. But it also means that the sub has ludicrous amounts of space available. No missiles taking up pressure hull space, and two, not one pressure hulls. So everything on this sub got to be more spacious and there was room for extras.

Yeah, the Typhoon sub was like two submarines side-by-side inside the external shell. The scene in the movie where Alec Baldwin fights the KGB agent between the missile silos ("Some things there don't react well to bullets") couldn't have happened as the missile tubes are between those internal hulls, though one could have argued this sub was built differently with it's "silent drive".

Still an amazing movie.

Diagram here: https://imageio.forbes.com/specials-images/imageserve/5f40d7...

Submarine life is inherently miserable. Anything the military can do to make their life less miserable does wonders for morale which leads to a better functioning sub.

They military also spends a lot on making sure that they are very well fed - as much as they can be under the circumstances:

The tour guide in the galley of USS Blueback noted that if the ice cream machine didn't work the submarine was not considered operational and required immediate repair.

If a British tank's tea-making facilities aren't working, it's the same.

Being on a sub is intensely mentally wearing. Months at sea, no interaction with the world outside.

Feeding the sailors lavishly is one of their few perks.

It only seems wild in light of how the US relates to its military. For all the hype about life in the russian navy, you are still much more likely to see sailors suntanning on a russian ship than any USN boat.

Look at this footage. Look at the guys on the helo deck. When russian sailors have time off, they take it seriously.

https://youtu.be/fVXxTS2f8CE

My ship celebrated July 4, 1994 off the coast of Mogadishu by holding a “steel beach picnic” on the flight deck. Everyone ran around under the noon equatorial sun in swimsuits while people grilled burgers, set up little inflatable pools to lounge in, played volleyball and soccer, and otherwise acted like we were at Ocean Beach on a hot day. At night we had fireworks (including rounds from the 5” guns) and the CIWS shot a stream of tracer bullets. It was glorious.

The US Navy spends long hours working hard, but I promise you it plays hard when possible.

USN certainly does events. That is that culture. The Russians are more about day-to-day comforts: fewer big party days but more everyday stuff.

Sometimes they even play football with two footballs!

A German film crew shot a documentary onboard a Typhoon class submarine (the TK-20 Severstal) in 2001, showing many aspects of daily life onboard, including the launch of a RSM-52 ICBM [1] (unfortunately awful video quality).

In hindsight, they catched a brief window in recent history where a western film crew would be allowed on board of a Russian ballistic missile submarine – remember that 2001 was the year when Putin gave a speech in the German parliament (in German language!) speculating about a new common safety architecture eventually succeeding NATO.

[1] https://youtu.be/cVWBhpjwXxo?si=IQkR6Pbx4dh86y0F&t=1172

Presumably there's some point in the film where you see this is actually in a sub rather than a propaganda film made elsewhere?

It’s real, there are photos from a real tour of a Typhoon submarine

This [1] seems to be a Quora post featuring such images. Very cool, didn't know that!

[1]: https://www.quora.com/Did-the-Typhoon-class-of-submarine-rea...

There are two decomissioned Typhoons visible on Google Maps, with parking spaces and cars for scale: https://maps.app.goo.gl/ov8Ppr6PE6X1gG1B9

Fyi, based on a true story:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_frigate_Storozhevoy

"Gregory D. Young was the first Westerner to investigate the mutiny as part of his 1982 master's thesis Mutiny on Storozhevoy: A Case Study of Dissent in the Soviet Navy. One of 37 copies of Young's thesis was placed in the Nimitz Library of the United States Naval Academy where it was read by Tom Clancy, then an insurance salesman, who used it as inspiration to write The Hunt for Red October."

There is a great YouTube video on the subject if you are interested. Its 38 minutes long but worth the watch.

When The Soviets Hunted Down Their Own Warship https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkBQl7YRI3E

It's interesting that ILM went with a smoke chamber to shoot the underwater scenes in this film. It was probably a lot easier than shooting underwater and less likely to screw up the models. Some of the time this method looks fantastic but, at other times, it looks like a model in a room full of smoke. I've always found the underwater model scenes shot for Das Boot[1] to be more convincing.

[1]https://theasc.com/articles/das-boot

It's less about screwing up the models as much as not needing a pool, as well as not needing underwater capable cameras. Underwater rigging for cameras puts incredible limitations on what camera is used, the motion of the camera, etc. Keeping everything dry is always going to be preferred. The motion control equipment isn't meant for use underwater either. It just makes much more sense to shoot it dry. Especially considering this was before CGI and 3D rendering was in its infancy, maybe toddler stages.

Underwater scenes on "For your eyes only" (1981) were all filmed on land because Carole Bouquet couldn't go underwater. When you know it you can see it, but when I saw the film (one of the first time I ever went to the movies) I didn't notice it at all.

Adhesion and cohesion always fuck up scenes that combine scale models and water. Splashes always look very wrong, and in the case of a submersible bubbles could be a problem. Smoke chamber makes sense.

Although in the days since “O Brother Where Art Thou?”, when they added dust-yellow color to the entire movie in post, maybe there are other ways now, if you didn’t want to go entirely to CGI.

> Adhesion and cohesion always fuck up scenes that combine scale models and water. Splashes always look very wrong

Like the terrible model work in In Harm's Way.

The terrible model work at the end of Fitzcarraldo pulled me right out of the (otherwise incredible) film. They could move over mountains but not film a convincing finale!

Time Bandits was pretty bad and so as I recall was Clash of the Titans. OG versions of both.

My wife and I (both 55) rewatch this probably once a year. It's a really solid film that holds up SUPER well -- so many great elements came together here. Obviously, the principal cast is outstanding; it's not just Baldwin and Connery.

Sam Neill we always love (Connery's XO; "I would like to have seen Montana"), and Scott Glenn (Mancuso, captain of the Dallas) rarely disappoints. We also get a late appearance by Richard Jordan (would would die only a few years later) and an early one by Courtney Vance as the Dallas' sonar tech. Stellan Skarsgard is Tupolev, the Soviet sub captain who pursues Connery. Jeffrey Jones, mostly of note to our generation as the principal in Ferris Bueller, has a small role as the former Navy intelligence man Skip Tyler. And there's a blink-and-you-miss-it role for Gates "Beverly Crusher" McFadden as Ryan's wife in the early moments of the film.

It was only on a relatively recent viewing that we noticed one of the Red October's minor officers was played by an actor we'd recently seen on TV. On THE AMERICANS one of the main Soviet characters is a man named Burov who eventually rotates back to the USSR to work in the same government ministry as his father. His father is played by Boris Krutonog, who 30 years before played Slavin -- his big moment is denouncing the political officer as a "pig" at the tense dinner scene early on.

I never know how film-nerdy people are, so I'll also note that Red October was directed by John McTiernan, who also directed the original Predator, Die Hard, The Last Action Hero, Die Hard with a Vengence, and the 1999 Thomas Crown remake. Unfortunately he did some deeply shady shit around one of his films and ended up in some significant legal trouble that basically blew up his career, but the films he made in the 20th century basically all hold up pretty dang well. The sense of momentum you get in October is present in Die Hard and in Crown as well.

The making of for "The Hunt for Red October" describes some of the other practical effects inside that movie, like the scenes on the surface with the Red October or the set for the interiors of the submarines: https://youtube.com/watch?v=2_epfA20dOY

Great reportage, thanks! What a great movie that is. I can't get enough of Scott Glenn as a captain.

I never had a mental image of Mancuso from reading the book, but Glenn is what was always pictured in my mind in any of the other books he appears. Similar for Jack, I never really got a mental image of Ford or Affleck, it was always closer to Baldwin if not quite Baldwin. Mancuso was just flat out Glenn.

“This business will get out of control. It will get out of control and we'll be lucky to live through it.”

Overheard every few sprints…

Yah, yah, yah... [waves people away while walking through offices, before sitting down to a cup of tea and some correspondence]

That scene is how most Monday mornings feel as I start to process my inbox. Including dropping the cup of tea all over myself and immediately needing a meeting with my superiors.

If you like Red October, dont miss the french movie "Le chant du loup". Absolutely great for lovers of the genre: "The Wolf's Call" - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7458762/

+1!

I had little expectations toward that movie (I think it was just randomly airing on the TV and I watched it), but was very pleasantly surprised.

I'm a fan of Clancy's books (and movies based on them), and The Wolf's Call could easily be one of them.

I love Clancy's books too and hate that they ruined his legacy by slapping his name on a whole bunch of books he didn't write at the end there.

And "Das Boot"!

Yes of course! I did not mention it since it's so well know.

The pylon holding up the ship out of frame reminded me of the Captain Disillusion video on how they did the ship in Flight of the Navigator. https://youtu.be/tyixMpuGEL8?si=PBwP3BWLcuSfTu2n&t=206

Thank you - I'm watching that video now and it's amazing!

I know it's not for cinema but anyone in Cambridge, MA should visit the nautical model museum at MIT. Has some excellent large models. https://mitmuseum.mit.edu/more/hart-nautical-gallery

Love this movie, it turned me into an avid reader of Clancy.

At the time of this movie, I was working as a software engineer for a defense contractor building combat control systems for submarines. When it was released, the company took the entire department, including former Navy submarine officers now project/program managers to a private viewing. There were definitely groans when some things on the sub were inaccurate, but given the level of hands-on knowledge and expertise in the audience, it was very well received.

This man bought the prop recently

https://cowboystatedaily.com/2024/10/28/the-hunt-for-red-oct...

I don't think prop is the right word here

Really curious to know what the test shots from Boss Films looked like!

Richard Edlund’s team’s work on various films of the 80s was impeccable (including Ghostbusters, Die Hard, Big Trouble in Little China, and more). They were the inheritor of the crown of high quality 65mm VFX after Douglas Trumbull quit the business (the pinnacle of his work being films like Blade Runner and Brainstorm).

I have to wonder what was wrong that caused the last minute switch to ILM!

If you like this movie, I recommend Jamelle Bouie and John Ganz's podcast "Unclear and Present Danger" (the name is a riff on Clancy as well) which covers the political and military thrillers of the 1990s and how they dealt with the United States' changing place in the world after the end of the Cold War.

They have done two episodes on this movie:

https://jamellebouie.net/unclear-and-present-danger/2021/10/...

https://jamellebouie.net/unclear-and-present-danger/2022/10/...

Presumably the description that "mirrors were used in a periscope like arrangement" refers to something like these: https://www.keslowcamera.com/gear/lenses/other/periscopes-an... or https://www.panavision.com/camera-and-optics/optics/product-...

I once played with a sub miniature version of this with a 35mm screw adapter. I think it's the kind of thing used to shoot inside violins, or the one I saw architectural models.

Bigger would admit much more light for film

I really liked the movie which was pretty faithful to Clancy's book and, I think, to submarine life itself but the one thing I didn't like about it was the choice of Sean Connery as Ramius. For a supposed Russian speaker, his Scottish accent was a bit jarring to my ears. He did a great job with the role but the believability was compromised. I be curious to know who the producers considered for that part and why they were rejected.

Listen. If you're watching Connery in a film in 1990, you've had decades to learn to suspend disbelief regarding his accent skills.

Especially the Highlander, a film set mostly in Scotland and Connery is supposed to be Spanish...

My favorite egregious accent snafu was The Wind and the Lion where he was supposed to be Moroccan tribal leader.

Second favorite was the mad barking which was supposed to be Japanese in Rising Sun.

My memory is the intruded explosions and depth charge effects were a bit intrusive to the model. ILM was fusing digital and analogue effects?

They look like they were taken separately and composited in later but I don't think they're digital effects beyond compositing them into the shot, rig removal, color matching/grading etc.

One of my favorite movies. The Tom Clancy (Jack Ryan[1]) themed movies are all very good. I wish Hollywood would make more of this type of genre today instead of recycled superhero garbage.

  [1]
    - The Hunt for Red October (1990)
    - Patriot Games (1992)
    - Clear and Present Danger (1994)
    - The Sum of All Fears (2002)

Yay, in one of the photos there's a giant mermaid beside the submarine!

Great article.

The book has a few mentions of an Apple II on the USS Dallas and that the sonarman, Jones, is the boat champion of Choplifter and Zork. As a nerdy teenager, I always loved that detail.

Youtube channel InCamera did an interesting series of videos showing their use of practical effects in the creation of a submarine-based short. Not directly related to Red October, but folks might find it worth a watch.

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0pnlLzhW4c1v-vKUWRWXZBD4...

The shot in this movie where you see the nuclear missile bays was incredible.

My only complaint was one of my favorite lines from the book did not make it into the movie, where Captain Ramius says 'there is enough chemical energy in the rocket fuel to melt the submarine'.

Somewhat related (submarine war movie), is Crimson Tide with Denzel Washington and Gene Hackman.

I can't vouch for the military accuracy, but can say that the drama and intensity is one of best i've seen.

Is there any real life basis for the plot of Hunt For Red October? Did any Soviet subs ever defect?

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