Fortunately, this is not a Kirov class nuclear-powered battle cruiser.
We've yet to find out what happens to a nuclear powered warship that is blown up in war, i suspect the reactor would end up scrammed and become yet more seabed junk but its best we avoid finding out.
Not silly at all and the answer is likely to be "maybe but probably not"?
Umm...
www.bbc.co.uk
Norway has found a radiation level 800,000 times higher than normal at the wreck of a Russian navy submarine.
The Komsomolets sank in the Norwegian Sea in 1989 after a fire on board killed 42 sailors.
A sample showed radioactive caesium leaking from a ventilation pipe, but researchers said it was "not alarming", as the Arctic water quickly diluted it.
The Soviet-era sub is also deep down, at 1,680m (5,512ft), and there are few fish in the area, they added.
For the first time a Norwegian remotely-operated vehicle (ROV) examined and filmed the Komsomolets on 7 July, revealing severe damage.
The submarine is also known as K-278 in Russia, and it sank carrying two nuclear torpedoes with plutonium warheads.
Its front section has six torpedo tubes, and the sub could also launch Granit cruise missiles.
IMAGE SOURCE,IMR
Image caption,
This appears to be part of the auxiliary diesel system, revealed by the ROV
The news comes just over a week after fire swept through a Russian nuclear-powered submersible in the Barents Sea, killing 14 naval officers.
The survivors managed to get the mini-sub back to its Arctic base.
- Russia mini-sub fire: Putin issues heroism awards
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- Russia unveils new Arctic military base
Reactor shutdown
Norway's Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority (DSA) says the pressurised water reactor powering K-278 in April 1989 shut down quickly when the fire broke out in another compartment.
Twenty-seven sailors survived - they were eventually picked up by two Soviet ships.
The radiation leak found this week came from a pipe near the reactor. It was 800Bq (becquerels) per litre, while the normal level in the Norwegian Sea is about 0.001Bq.
However, some other water samples from the wreck did not show elevated levels.
The 42 sailors who died in the disaster succumbed to toxic fumes or froze in the icy Arctic waters after the K-278 had surfaced briefly.
The commander managed to send a distress call about an hour after the fire broke out, but he and four others died when their emergency capsule sank. The submarine was doomed when the fire spread, fuelled by compressed air from a damaged pipe, Russia's RIA news agency reported.
IMAGE SOURCE,IMR
Image caption,
The ROV is shown here collecting samples from inside the titanium hull
Russia has previously examined the wreck with a manned submersible, and found radiation leaking from the same section.
The Norwegian radiation specialists and marine researchers were accompanied by experts from Russia's Typhoon Research and Production Association.
"We took water samples from inside this particular duct because the Russians had documented leaks here both in the 1990s and more recently in 2007," said Hilde Elise Heldal, the expedition leader. "So we weren't surprised to find high levels here.
"The levels we detected were clearly above what is normal in the oceans, but they weren't alarmingly high," she said.
Norway and Russia have been monitoring radiation in the area regularly since the disaster, sometimes on joint expeditions.
It would not result in a nuclear explosion. The level of enrichment in a typical naval reactor (c. 25-40%) is nowhere near that of a nuclear weapon (> 80%), and there's simply no way to get a supercritical mass. Designing something that will go "boom" is very, very hard.
This is strategically important as with its anti-air missiles it was preventing Ukrainian air sorties over Southern Ukraine. Plus the immense political and humiliation value too of course.
Clearly when I read up on this previously the comment:Umm...
Russian nuclear submarine: Norway finds big radiation leak
Experts say there is no alarm, despite a high level of caesium at a Soviet-era submarine wreck.
But yes, your general point is correct that it is much better for radiation to be released deep at the bottom of the sea than into the atmosphere.
Maybe they only just got the opportunity.
Arguably, losing a ship due an accident would be more embarrasing.
There was a bit of an accident involved, they were apparently trying to tow it back to shore but rough seas helped sink it.
Not especially. The remaining surface elements of the Black Sea Fleet are a five frigates which should be able to protect themselves from air attack and provide some local air defence as well, especially if operating in a group of a few ships. But none of them have the true long range air defence capabilities that Moskva had. That being said the some of the frigates (and submarines) are probably more effective as they're capable of launching the Kalibr cruise missiles that we've been hearing so much about recently. Moskva didn't have that capability. It does also put a big dent in their anti-ship missile launch capability. That was her main mission, carry a plenty of very large anti-ship missiles (possibly her downfall in the end as well). The frigates have some as well so it's not a total gap in capability but it's still a big hole.
I think that's the fascinating part. They ended up deciding that it was more acceptbale to say it was lost to an accident than to enemy action. The mental gymnastics to make that be your preferred story are gold medal worthy.
I can't for the life of me remember where I read it (it was only about half an hour ago, so I'll have a look through my browser history), but apparently those missiles are a development of a Soviet design and actually made in Ukraine.
Same fate befell the Sheffield in the South Atlantic though I don't recall onboard munitions exploding as having been a factor. Just a very big hole after fire enlarged the initial missile damage. Can any "expert" here make a comparison between the Exocet missile of that era with today's Neptun or similar anti-ship missiles?
Ironically the updated Moscova was a development of a Soviet design made in Ukraine too.
