Inside a Foxtrot-class submarine (56k out)

Bounty · Post by **Bounty** » 2008-09-08 05:22pm

Boat!

I was strolling down the coast when this boat caught my eye. It's a 1960's vintage Foxtrot submarine, open to the public. Now, I'm not good with confined spaces, but an opportunity like this I couldn't pass up.

I'm not sure about the maintenance on the boat itself; the outside looked pretty weathered, but that might be normal for submarines. The insides were supposedly kept exactly as they were when the Russians sold it, apart from a few extra light fixtures. Supposedly. To me it looked like it could fall apart at any moment and the thing needs a new paint job bad.

It's not seaworthy any more as far as I know, especially now that they installed stairs in the torpedo rooms.

Aft torpedo room:

Lower ranks' loo and sink:

Engineering spaces:

Crew quarters - higher-ups only:

Control room; a very cramped space, but part of it was cordoned off:

Executive shitter off the bridge:

View through the periscope:

Forward torpedo room:

And finally coming back up through the bow:

Col. Crackpot · Post by **Col. Crackpot** » 2008-09-08 09:58pm

NicePics! I'm Jealous! We had one docked at the Port of Providence as a museum but it sunk in a blizzard last winter before i could check it out. Been down ever since. Navy Divers have been down to see if they can re float it, but it's likely rotted to shit by now.

Knife · Post by **Knife** » 2008-09-08 10:30pm

Cool. Looks a lot smaller than the USS Blueback I toured last year in Portland.

Bounty · Post by **Bounty** » 2008-09-09 04:19am

Knife wrote:Cool. Looks a lot smaller than the USS Blueback I toured last year in Portland.

One the inside perhaps, but it's 30m longer than a Barbel on the outside. This class was the largest conventional Soviet submarine.

The inside was ridiculously cramped. I'd always envisioned submarines as small, but very neat and precise - this however, looked like the basement of a mdad scientist. Pipes and gauges everywhere, no place to stand except in a very narrow corridor down the centerline... all the time I was there it felt like the walls were closing in on me, and that was with an almost-empty boat and no running engines. I don't even want to imagine what it'd been like at sea.

It's too bad the sail was off-limits, I'd have loved to see what was in there.

MKSheppard · Post by **MKSheppard** » 2008-09-09 04:36am

Jesus that's one corroded as fuck commie boat.

Bounty · Post by **Bounty** » 2008-09-09 04:50am

MKSheppard wrote:Jesus that's one corroded as fuck commie boat.

The last extensive repairs I know of were in 2002. All the way through the tour I kept wondering if the corrosion was "normal" or if it was just bad maintenance.

Kanastrous · Post by **Kanastrous** » 2008-09-12 11:25am

Judging by the condition of the Foxtrot we have down in Long Beach - looks like it's on the lower end of 'normal.'

wautd · Post by **wautd** » 2008-09-13 07:00am

Wow. I've been into caves less crampy