lancelot wrote:I would attribute that more to proper use guidelines and luck to be honest.GarryB wrote:...
The funny thing is that the west was always going on about how unsafe Soviet liquid propellent missiles were regarding handling, but as far as I know the only major handing problem they had was loading an SS-N-20 solid fuelled missile into an Akula... it was dropped and of course exploded because that is what solid fuel is supposed to do... burn vigorously.... It is my understanding the burnt and damaged external tiles were not replaced and that sub got the nickname Red October because of the fire damage to its exterior....
There was a major accident in Soviet history with hypergolic propellant rockets. The Nedelin disaster.
Hypergolic fuel fumes are toxic and the substance is corrosive. Plus it ignites in contact with water or moist air.
Not exactly what you would want in a submarine.
Solid fuel is safer but it can still ignite. A bit like a powder keg.
The main incident with Soviet SSBN hypergolics was the loss of K-219 in 1986, when a Pr.667A Yankee-I class was lost after an explosion of a R-27/SS-N-6 missile following a leak of seawater into a missile tube. It resulted in 4 deaths' and the loss of the boat (which now sits at the colossal depth of 6kms, along with its full complement of 16x 1MT warheads, plus whatever nuke torpedoes she may have been carrying).