HAND TO HAND COMBAT

HAND TO HAND COMBAT
Hand to hand combat...Jdging by action movies it consists of loud sdreams sonorous strikes and improbable somersaults and saltos. Heroes of those movies beat up a crowd of armed enemies by themselves. However in reality everything is different. Real-life hand to hand combat is a minimum of show off and maximum effciency.

Man was fighting from a start of time. For himself, for his cause, for his honor. The best way for someone to fight is following a fighting system. Art of hand to hand combat is the most ancient from all military sciences. Everyone who just one have been punched in the nose in school fight have dreamed to visit SAMBO or karate school, and just after couple of lessons to punish his offenders effectively and efficiently...or to protect a girl from other class and it would be better if there were many hooligans.

Spetsnaz hand to hand combat is a discipline far away from fantassies. Not every theorist or a dreamer can become real fighter. Zaichikov Igor Vasievich: Instructor-professor of RGUFK (Russian State University of Athletic Culture), instructor of applied hand to hand combat "The applied hand to hand combat is designed for the fastest possible traumatization of an opponent. Traumatization depends on combat mission. It is followed either by opponent's destruction, either by his capture for further interrogation." Applied fight is used by officers of special forces and has almost nothing in common with an army hand to hand fight. The first one is a lethal weapon, the second one is a sport. Army hand to hand combat is an athletic discipline which combines strikes with hands legs and elements of wrestling.

From a sport by default are excluded dangerous for health and of course for life methods. Both as technical, as tactical ones. It is impossible to conduct competitions following a real combat system. That's why we use a term "applied hand to hand combat". Applied means that it used exclusively in real action. The known proverb "after fight don't wave the fists" is not applicable to professionals. Professional fighter won't "wave fists" even during the most tense fight. In real fight every movement must be economical and maximum efficient and many times deceptive. "Designate strike from above, while it comes from the under. You can help yourself with other hand. And it is not necessary to lean. More you lean, more difficult is to control the situation. Here it goes. The second hit starts with the same way, but goes here. If you move to this side, then hit goes in the stomach,  and if you move here, then it goes to the kidney." Enermy's moves are unpredictable. For this reason every fighter develops in himself that unique sense, which allows him not just to participate in the fight, but to lead it and to win it. Here knowledge of psychology is the same important with combat technique. So, inportant component of applied combat as a pre fight situation is absent from a sport. To evaluate the opponent, his physical abilities, his phychological abilities, to decrypt fully his intentions. It must be part of applied technique but it is not in a sport".

To be in prepared condition for a fight continuously, each second to evaluate the situation and to calculate the most favorable and expedient actions is a combination of several factors. The first one is a muscular memory. When a man acts with his arms and legs without thinking about it...at level of reflexes. The second one but not less important is an indirect concentration. It means that when you think about something else, a part of your brain evaluates the situation subliminally. "Do you always control traffic when you sit in a car? Right? When you walk, do you step in a puddle? You jump over rocks, don't you? This way acts a man who passed special training. This is not an effort.. I would say that this is a specific way of wotld's perception." 

On the screen movie heroes throw their enemies to the right and to the left with an enviable ease, causing admiration of millions all over the world. During demonstrations soldiers execute arrar of exercises impressing spectators with accuracy of movements. "Unfortunately in real life things don't seem so beautiful like on the screen, because as a rule show teams work their. When a professional watch what they show, then it becomes obvious to him that this is a show with a goal to achieve an external impression. As a rule soldiers are trained by athletes. And this is probably right, because a soldier must be fit. Sport doesn't give a perfect preparation of real conbat situations... I underline the world "perfect"...however it gives a quite serious preparation."

Applied technique of Spetsnaz is a method of surviving via destruction of the enemy. And as faster and efficiently you do this, so more chances you personally get to stay alive. Lethal weapon must be trusted only to a grown-up man. Real professional must always understan in full degree consequences of his actions. That's why only very few are trained in real hand to hand combat. "If it is a everday life conflict, then the real professional will first of all try to eradicate the conflict's escalation and to avoid a fight. Professional... how can we put it..a professional is not a bully. He hasn't what we call "itchy fists". If he attachs, then he will do it only in case when he understands that the very next moment he will be attacked. Only men who are already socially and psychologically stable in life, preferably grown ups, must be equipped with such technique. They  leaded to conclusion that regular soldiers, who in many field are yet children of course, training of such dangerous techniques is not expedient."  The result of hand to hand combat first of all depends on ability of figter to control himself. Person who psychologically is not ready to "lead" a fight, can only to hurt himself. Hand to hand combat is not test of your strengths, neither it is a mean of self-realization. It is an invisible weapon, which you always carry with you.

MORTARS

MORTARS
It happened in the second half of the war...Explosions began to be heard at one part of the frontline. Germans issue an air alert. They decided that it's the Soviet aviation, which is bombing them, but there were no planes in the sky. Sounds of artillery fire also weren't heard, but explosions at German positions were still going on. Weapon which was firing was located only several kilometers away from the enermy, but only relatively quiet popping sounds were heard during fire. That's why Germans didn't hear salvos. These weapons were 160 mm mortars. This event is described in memours of Nikolay Nikolaevich Voronov. He became a Chief of Red Army Artillery in 1943.

A mortar as a kind of artillery weaponry was loved by infantrymen. Artillerymen, from the other hand, were respecting a mortar as a mean which is ab;e to accomplish tasks, which are not possible to other artillery guns. A mortar is an artillery weapon with a base plate. It's intended for indirect fire with mortar rounds. Mortars don't have recoil machanisms. The ground absorbs the recoil force through base plate. Because of that mortars can be lighter than other artillery weapons. Mortar is a powerful firing mean against personnel and enermy's military vehicles, located on open terrain and in shelters. The matter is that there is no a blind zone for a weapon like this. Mortar shells can get the target anywhere - behind a hill, a building, in a ravine and in a deep trench. This is possible, because angle of round's fall is always bigger than 45 degrees and sometimes it can be close to a right angle.

In more simple words mortar round falls on target almost vertically i.e. like a bomb dropped from a plane. In battles of World War II, infantry was bearing the biggest losses exactly because of motar fire. Mortars of various calibers were in arsenal of the Red Army during the Great Patriotic War. Infantry Companies were armed with 50 mm mortars. 82 mm mortars werein arsenal of Battalions. While mortars with caliber of 120 mm were intended for Regiments. A 107 mm mortar was developed for Infantry Mountain Divisions. Barrel receives a necessary angle of elevation in order to change range of fire. It varies in limits from 45 to 85 degrees. Except that, 50mm mortars had also a remote valve. It was opening a special hole, which was allowing parrt of powder gases to leak out.Pressure on round moving in barrel's channel was reducing and distance of round's flight was reduced accordingly.

50mm Company Mortar model 1940:
Weight in battle position: 9 kg
Rate of fire: 30 rounds/min
Muzzle Velocity: 97 m/s
Weight of shell: 920 grams
Range of fire: 800 m

One of advantages or mortars is a relative simplicity of their structure. So, they are easier for introduction in production, which is important in war-time conditions. Coordination of mortars mass prodution was conducted by a specially formed People's Committee of USSR's Mortar Arsenal. This People's Committee was established at 26th of November, 1941. Results appeared immediately 165,000 of mortars were produced during the first year of the war. That's 4 times more than during the pre-war period. The soviet industry produced about 350,000 mortars in the most difficult conditions during the years of the war. Backbone of mortar arsenal of the Red Army consisted of 82 mm mortars. Having this caliber they were relatively light and soldiers could move them without use of horse or mechanical power. For example, weight of a 76mm field gun was more than 1 ton, while the weight of a 82 mm mortar was not exceeding 60 kg.

82 mm Battalion Mortar model 1943:
Weight in battle position : 58 kg
Rate of fire: 30 rounds/min
Muzzle velocity: 211 m/s
Round's weight: 3.1 kg
Range of fire: 3.040 m

Fragmentation shells were main ammunitions of mortars. They were defeating the target with fragmentations and by action of explosives. Except that smoke rounds were in use. They were intended for creation of smoke screen on enemy's observation posts and fire positions, and also for ranging and target designation. Interesting detail... Often trophy German 81 mm mortar round were used for firing with Soviet 82 mm mortars. Meanwhile Soviet 82 mm mortar rounds were not suitable for fire with German mortats. One of the most known mortar teams was the team of Shumov brothers. They were 6 brothers in total, but only three of them managed to live till the victory. Weapon whichShumov brothers were using to fire against the enery, was a 120 mm Regiment mortar. Mortar of such caliber started being delivered to the Red Army already since 1939. 120 mm mortars were extensively used both in defence and in attack. It wasn't seldom that thier fire was playing a decisive role on the outcome of the battle. The most modern one was a mortar model 1943.

120 mm Regiment Mortar model 1943:
Weight in battle position: 275 kg
Rate of fire: 15 rounds/min
Muzzle velocity: 272 m/s
Round's weight: 15.9 kg
Range of fire: 5700 m

New motar was simpler in maintenance. Device was installed on weapon, which was preventin a double loading. The matter is that a very well trained team could fire with high rate of fire. For example, the team of Shumov brothers was reaching such rate of fire, that there could be up to 18 rounds in the air simultaneously. The safety was preventing a second round get inside barrel's channel if the previous round was still there for some reason. Special wheeled mount was designed for towing of 120 mm mortar. Mortars which we just saw had to be loaded from the muzzle. Round was sliding down in barrel's channel, a percussion cap was pricked by a sting, and shot was occurring. However not all mortars work like that. Some of them can be loaded from the rear side of the barrel. The barrel comes to horizontal position for that. As a rule, mortars which are loaded from the back have caliber 160 mm and bigger, because a long barrel and heavy round don't allow to load the weapon from its muzzle.

160 mm mortar model 1943
Weight in battle position: 1,170 kg
Rate of fire: 3 rounds/min
Muzzle velocity: 245 m/s
Round's weight: 40.9 kg
Range of fire: 5,100 m
At that time when this weapon was introduced into service no country in the World had such powerful mortar. 720 of these fearsome weapons were produced in total during war years. Explosions specifically of these mortars rounds forced Germans to issue an air alert. We mentioned about this episode in the beginning of this film. Soviet mortars proved themselves during the years of the war as reliable, fearsome and most important as effective weapon. If in the beginning of the Great Patriotic War mortars were considered as means for direct infantry support, then toward the end of the war they turned into one of main kind of artillery. Soviet mortar-men gained their glory on the battlefield. Many of them were awarded with orders and medals for presented heroism and bravery.

Main jeep of the US Army - "HUMMER"

Main jeep of the US Army - "HUMMER"
Double life of Army off-roader! The American jeep"Hummer"! Nuclear mace of the Russian Navy! The newest Navy strategic missile "Bulava"! Super-Hornet of the American deck aviation. F-18 "Hornet" fighter. Lord of Fire! Commander of reactive mortars "Katyusha", Georg Gumenyuk. Not many examples of military equipment become trendy in civilian life. But it was achieved by the American general purpose and high passability vehicle "Hummer"! A simple Army work-horse, turned into prestigious mean of transportation.

There are not a lot of cars, which can be recognized by first sight. But if a car with specific chopped characteristics appears in any country with a generally low profile and with a huge road clearance, then any man will say right away "This is a Hummer!" Real merits and disadvantages of this hero of military conflicts and Hollywood action movies are fazed into background long time ago. Trend and television turned a Hummer in
to an absolute attribute of success and superiority.

The name "Hummer" itself was born relatively recently. But everything was starting in 1979. When the Military Department of the USA declared a competition for creation of light operational-tactical car for Army's needs. American military, based on experience of local wars, came to conclusion that the Army needs a radically new car. Scope Statement written by Pentagon was incredibly difficult. Amy wanted to get a vechicle which would combine a perfect passability, good payload, capacity and crew protection. The car should work with same confidence in any climatic zone. Other two must have features were a simplicity of use and possibility of multirole usage of the vehicle. Several companies took part in the competition, including AM General corporation a traditional manufactor of military vehicles. The corporation presented a "High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle" or "HUMVEE", as it was baptized by engineers, at driving trials, which started in july of 1980 in Nevada desert.  This vehicle made an impression on Government Committee The car was easily overcoming almost  perpendicular slopes. It wasn't afraid of water obstacles. It scolded itself through the obstructions of stones and logs. It had a good reserve of strength and vitality.

HUMVEE had to prove its right to existence in a hard competitive struggle. In Spring of 1982, 11 cars of AM General corporation, together with vehicles of other companies, were sent in units for 5 months. Cars had to pass the most cruel trials there. Drivers of new examples had a single task - to kill the vehicles! In those 5 months "HUMVEEs" driven summary almost one million kilometers. They were sent through sands and swamps. They were forced to climp mountains and forcing rivers to drive on snow. They were subjected to rapid temperature changes and chemical reactions. The car was complying with Pentagon standards. All-Wheel Drive, a power-plant protected by strong frame, a road clearance reaching almost half a meter. All these made a "HUMVEE" as a good off-roader.

This vehicle could drive with speed 50 km/h even with holes in wheels made by assault rifle's burst. In Spring of 1983, Pentagon signed a contract with AM Aeneral for purchase of 55000 "HUMVEEs". Army units receive a vehicle, which replaced immediately several vehicles in Army garages. HUMVEE was suitable not only for troops transportation, but for accomplishment of many different tasks. Essentially every car was like a LEGO constructor, which was allowing to assemble a medical vehicle, a mobile command center, a mobile missile system. Variety of weapons, with which HUMVEE could br equipped, was also impressive.

From machine-guns and auto-cannons till Anti-tank Missile Systems and Anti-Aircraft Missile Systems. The automatic gearbox was proven as a weak spot of Hummer, which was broking more often than anyyhing else. Because most of American soldiers in civil life were driving cars only with automatic transmission, manufactor denied use of more reliable manual gearbox. Experience of use of HUMVEE in real combat operations have shown that it was often overloaded while taking additional weapons and ammunitions. It shown also that a hard suspension and lack of springs in seats become a reason of increased traumatism, while driving on off-road terrain.

Soldiers also hit a low roof with their heads. The car literally broke into a civil life from TV screens! When the biggest Television Channels were transmitting advance of operation "Desert Storm". One of journalists sais a word "Hummer" on air which stick to the car forever. The war became the best advertisment. Individuals desiring to buy this car became so many, that it was decided to mass produce a civilian version of "Hummer".

In 1992, first "Hummers", intended for civilians, left production lines. In exterior they almost had no differences from their Army fellows. Differences were mainly in car's fillings. Electrical devices were not waterproof anymore. System changing tire pressure had disappeared. Body wasn't armored by light armor. And of course an Army radio was missing. The first "mechanical hammers" introduced into 9th Mechanized Division of US Army in January of 1985. The car doesn't miss any war since then, in which American Forces are participating.

Military case - The Baltic Submariners

Military case - The Baltic Submariners
During years of the World War II, submarines were fighting in all seas and oceans. the Baltic Sea wasn't an exception. Our submariners has especially tough luck there. Baltic waters entail a lethal danger all by themselves. Shallow depths a lot of sand bars and bottlenecks. In those years the sea was literally stuffed with naval mines and steel nets. But even in such conditions Baltic submariners were doing their combat job.

June 22, 1941. At 3:30 am Border Guards observation posts reported to NAVY's Narkom Admirol Kuznetsov about big groups of German planes approaching bases of the Baltic Fleet. The Fleet didn't suffer combat losses from aviation raids at that day. However, that didn't happen because of increased combat readliness, but because Germans were not bombing ships. Their bombers didn't drop bombs in water areas of our navy bases, but mines. Right after the frst bombing raid, 17 submarines of the Baltic Fleet went out for combat patrol. Victory score was poen by crews of Captain of the 3rd rank Petrov, who sank a German submarine and Captain-Lieutenant Ivantsov, who sent an enermy tanker to the bottom.

Effectiveness of Soviet submarines attacks was not high during the first months of the war. Reason were laying in lack of reconnaissance, not sufficient training of boats commanders and formations commanders, underestimation of the enermy. And one more factor was that despite of expectations, German ships under fear of attack of our submariners, started moving not in existing fairways, but in coastal zone with shallow waters. Kriegsmarine Command had reasons to be worry. Strategically important transportation routs of high quality iron ore from Sweden were under threat. Even single cases of sinking of German and Sweden transports were taken very painfully in Berlin.

In Autumn of 1941, all available forces in Baltic Sea were concentrated in Kronstadt and Leningrad. Since September the city was under siege. And in November, Navigation in Baltic Sea stopped. A hungry blockade winter. Works on bringing of the submarine fleet to combat conditions were not stopping even for a single day. There was a shortage of qualified workers, machinery, instruments. Despite that, 32 submarines were repaired and introduced into service till the spring of 1942. They formed a brigade under command of Vice-Admiral Tributs. Military Council of the Baltic Fleet was Planning combat operations for 1942 from June to October, poerating by three echelons with 8-10 submarines each. But German were also preparing to Summer campaign.

From the Autumn of 1941 they had started operation for blockade of the Soviet Navy in river mouth of Neva. Till the may of 1942 they managed to build 2 very strong antisubmarine lines. More than that routes in shallow waters toward exit of Gulf of Finland were under fire of German coastal artillery. According to calculations of Military-Naval Academy experts, probability of breakthrough through German antisubmarine lines was not more than 15-20% in 1942. But rhey just had to do it. In order to not get under fire of German coastal guns, routes from Leningrad and Kronstadt to island Vavensari had to be passed under cover of destroyers and mostly at nighs.

Then they were going underwater and then, by touch, crawling in depth, only 5m above the bottom, were going through mine fields, listening to gnashing of mine mooring cable on the skin of the boat. Not everyone was succeeding in getting out to operational space to shores of Germany and Sweden. Anyhow many of our submariners were braking through to open seas and sinking enermy ships in summer of 1942. Following fact speaks about the difficulty of breakthrough. Captain of the 2nd rank Osipov managed to pass through German minefields twice became one of the first Heroes of the Soviet Union in the Great Patriotic War. His boat became a Guards one. The boat returned to the base from her second patrol when Neva was already chained by ice. During Summer-Autumn of 1942 our submariners had sank or damaged up to 40 transports and auxillary ships of the enermy. Despite scarcity of metal, Germany was forced to build several huge antisubmarine nets and close every exit from Gulf of Finland twice. In summer of 1943 three submarines were lost because of those nets.

The boat of the Captain of 3rd rank Travkin returned with extensive damage. Captain-Lieutenant Kuzmin died in unequal fight. Submarines of Captains Bashenko and Osipov passed through, but missed in action. Action of our Balric Sea submariners was covered by curtain of the secrecy for a very long time. Only after many years victories of Captain Marinesko became widely known, who had sank one of the biggest sea-loner of the Hitlerite Germany. And the famous patrol of captain Travkin glorified in movie The Captain of lucky "Shchuka" (northern pike). We know very little about dozens of other heroes submariners even till today. Summed tonnage of ships, which were sank by  Baltic submariners wasn't big. But their heroic actions can't be estimated with arithmetical numbers. The exit to operational space - breakthrough of antisubmarine defences - was a heroic act by itself. Our sailors were fighting while being pressed to the wall, but they didn't surrender and accomplished their combat duty to the end. The Baltic Sea didn't ever become an enclosed sea of the 3rd Reich.

US nuclear submarine "Los Angeles" type

US nuclear submarine "Los Angeles" type
Submarine hunters with nuclear heart. Submarines of "Los Angeles" type - the most mass produced submarines of the USA. For any simple person Los Angeles means palm trees, the Sun, Beaches and Hollywood. For sailors of Navy it first of all means the name of American multi-role submarines. Submarines of this type were at frontlines of Cold War, and even today they don't reduce their activity. While American Congress men don't spare money from budget for their modernizations.

In 20 years there were built 62 submarines of "Los Angeles" type. It does not seem much, especially in comparison with thousands "prints" of aircrafts and tanks. But submarine is a product of limited production and is very expensive. Ratio of foghter's price to price of submarine is the same with ratio of small family car to Luxury limo. "Los Angeles" boats are the most mass produced nuclear submarines in the world. Works on "Los Angeles" project started in the end of 60s. Those years Soviet Navy was rapidly increasing it's power. It was turning into global power and more often was pushing Americans all over the world. Strengthening of Soviets was a challenge to which Washington could not to not answer. Most of all the USA was concerning about two things. Starting of building of large aircraft carriers in Soviet Union and fast development of nuclear submarine forces.

Specifically at those years our country surpassed the USA in number of nuclear submarines. With their help, Soviet Union in case of conflict could cut off sea communications and to turn United States into an isolated island. Americans decided to answer both with quantity and with quality. New US submarines should become champions in silent movement for many years to come. Technologies like in US were simply inexistent at that time in the USSR. Except of that, new serie is designed for use with the most modern weapons - cruise missiles "Tomahawk". Ship building started in two shipyards, Electric Boat and Newport Newship Building. The serie's first-born, "Los Angeles" itself, was shipped at 13 November of 1976. After 9 years already 20th submarine of this type, "Honolulu", has been built.

First 20 of "Los Angeles" had some weapons, electronics and hydro-acoustics. Boats had in their arsenal different types of torpedoes for battle against other subs and surface ships, "Harpoon" anti-ship missiles and the most important weapon, the super-modern "Tomahawks". Ship could bring 3 types of "Tomahawks". For launching against ships till 400 km, for launching against land based target till 2800 km with usual warhead and a version with same range, but with nuclear warhead. It was a revolution in evolution of Navy. For the first  time mlti-role submarines received long range nuclear missiles. In case of nuclear war, "Los Angeles" were going to become a part of missile-nuclear assault force. Strike zone of several dozens of "Los Angeless" is actually the whole World. The arsenal of first ships of ships of this type is consisted of 14 torpedoes, 4 "Harpoons" and 8 "Tomahawks". All these weapons had to be launched through only 4 torpedo tubes. While two of them must have torpedoes inside all the time for ship's self-defense. It was obvious, taht in case of emergency, the first "Los Angeles" wouldn't be able to launch massive missile salvos.

For this reason, starting from the ship "Providence", these submarines have being built with seperate verticle sils for "Tomahawks". Designers managed to locate on board of new "Los Angeles" a total of 12 launchers, and this was done without change of dimensions and hull design.

Submarine boat type "Los Angeles"
Lenth:  110.3 m
The widest part:  10.1 m
Maximum Operational Depth:  450-500 m
Crew:  141
Speed on Surface:  22 knots
Speed under surface: 33 knots

At the end of 80s the newest Soviet submarines reach "Los Angeles" in level of silent movement, while in parameters of max depth, speed and several types of weapons they even surpassed "Los Angeleses". Advantages of the USA dispersed loke a smoke. Decision was taken to modernize "Los Angeles" again. Starting from 40th ship "San Huan" and till the end of serie in 1996, these nuclear subs have been built according to project "Los Angeles Improved". Thanks to use of special materials this version became even more silent. This submarine is better prepared for operation under ice. Steering were moved from bridge to nose of the boat. Of course the newest ships had electronics of the latest generation. "Los Angeleses" took part in real combat operations. The "Albuquerque", the "Norfolk and the "Miami" were used against Yugoslavia. The "Pitsberg" and the "Jefferson City" in Persian Gulf Wars. Ships "Augusta" and "Memphis" were used for trials of the most modern weapons and Battle Management Systems. The most of the latest "Los Angeleses" will stay in service for other 20 years. In near future they will receive super-modern missiles. These will radically exceed "Tomahawks" in range, accuracy and speed. Western sources assert that this is about supersonic cruise missiles with range of 5,000 km. "Los Angeles" will retire gradually. The most mass produced nuclear submarine will be replaced by model of next generation, "Virginia".

Nuclear Submarines Ohio class US Navy

Nuclear Submarines Ohio class US Navy
"We shall reshoe swords to plows". It is a slogan of hopeless romantics. Today, the American MIC have another, more practical mission. It is necessary to rearm some of "Ohio" class submarines. Instead of "big cudgels", the Tridents, some of "Ohios" will be equipped with an entire pack of "Tomahawk" missiles. According to START II, the USA must remove nuclear weapon from 4 of 18 "Ohio" class submarines. Without their "main caliber" they are transformed into big submarine boats with nuclear engine. However, leaving quite modern and very expensive submarines without job and of course sending them for scarp is not wise. And then suddenly fasionable views on future of the American Navy power have appeared. An excusable theory was found for forced practice. The American Fleet in modern appearance is practically the same as in years of Cold War. By types and by quantity of military ships it suits first of all for huge oceanic battles. But the possibility of collision of gigantic sea armadas itself became clearly metaphysical in ourdays.

The main mission of American military forces is an insurance of new World order. Inmultiple regional wars, the Navy must act in coastal waters and fire on shore. According to military experts'opinion nuclear submarines can be quite prepared for taking part in conflicts in any region of the planet. Region of continental shelf and tiny coastal seas must become a stage of their new theater. It is considered that huge oceanic bomb-carries have the abilities to learn new and different kind of roles. Propositions arrive to transform the yesterday strategist into an effective tactician, carrier of cruise missiles and mine layer at the same time.

"Ohio" are huge and powerful boats and can carry wide arsenal. The storage of "Tomahawls" along will exceed 130 pieces. "Ohio" potential is fully compatable with new littoral strategy. It symbol of faith is a strike with smart weapons against enermy's military and economical objects and the most inportant elements of infrastructure of the state administration. Cruise missiles are a perfect weapon for that. American analysts are sure that no country in the World can block a massive strike with "Tomahawks". Especially, taking in mind, that in near future the appearance of next generation of these missiles is expected. Their range will be increased by 2 and flight speed by 5 times.

"Tomahawks" of the 21st century will be supersonic and except that, when necessary, their electronic brains can be reprogrammed and aimed on other target in flight. Members of "Ohio" clan, which saved their nuclear sword, will do a work of a "big cudgels" just as before. Specifically in this role the boats exist already for a quarter of century. The first submarine of this class, the "Ohio" herself, came into service already in November of 1981. The 18th, and the last, the "Louisiana" - in Autumn of 1997. The first 8 boats of "Ohio" class were equipped with missiles "Trident I". Their range of fire was 7.5 thousands kilometers. The following boats were equipped with new missiles "Trident II" with increased range till 10,000 kilometers. Today almost all boats are rearmed with these missiles. In such way, only one single boat controls a huge area - a circle with a diemeter about 20,000 kilometers. It is a half of the Earth's equater length.

"Ohio" doesn't need to crawl closer. In most of case, the range of missiles flight will allow to boats to launch missiles even without leaving their bases. According to experts' opinion, only the oldest boats of this class will remain without "Tridents". "Ohio" herself, "Michigan", "Florida" and "Georgia". However. "Trident" missiles comprise 65% of nuclear missile potential America. If 4 submarines will become multirole ones after all, more than a half of nuclear power of the USA will remain on the float, in depths of World's oceans.

Nuclear waste history

Nuclear waste history
Since its birth the nuclear industry seems to have swum in troubled waters. Effort to explain barely reassure the world's population. A recent EU survey shows that 75% of Europeans distrust the nuclear industry. The root of this distrust: the fear of radioactive waste. So let's talk about it. Part of the seabed are littered with gutted radioactive barrels. What exactly did they contain? The most dangerous waste is inside nuclear reactors. To feed a power plant, cells of uranium, a radioactive mineral,  are placed in the reactor core. Uranium is the plant's fuel. Inside the cells, the uranium reacts resulting in nuclear fission. Uranium atoms project particles called neutrons which hit other atoms and break them, releasing extremely high energy. The uranium cells heat up, the reactor boils water and the turbines produce electricity. After a few years, the cells are spent and must be changed. They are removed and placed in pools where they cool down over time. They have become nuclear waste. Inside the cells, new elements appear, like gases and metals, which have strange names: plutonium, caesium, americium, krypton, among others. Their life-cycle lasts from milliseconds to millions of years.Radioactive waste is dangerous and must be isolated. All that enters into contact with it is contaminated. The uranium cell are waste but so is all that touches them: water, liquids, buildings and worker's clothing.

We set off on a world wide quest to find out how the military and industry manage nuclear waste and if it's a risk for people everywhere. It's at the HQ of Greenpeace, the world's biggest anti-nuclear group, that our investigation begins. It was they who filmed the gutted barrels on the seabed. They let us into their treasure trove: the video archive. Mike tomsley is a veteran of every campaign against radioactive waste at sea. We went to a very deep part of the channel called the Casquets Trench, near the Channel Islands, in a fishery and near beaches. Rusty old barrels of nuclear waste. Empty waste barrels! In the empty barrels, marine wildlife had taken up residence. The question is: what happened to the radioactive waste? It's gone into the environment. So you can see what happens. It's hasn't disappeared into a black hole in the seabed. It pollutes the sea, gets into the food chain, and that could bring it back to your dinner plate.

Are the radioactive particles that enter the food chain dangerous? Radioactivity is radiation that can enter the body. Man is constantly exposed to weak, natural radioactivity, for example when taking a plane or walking in granitic areas. Man is more exposed after an atom bomb blast or by standing close to a radioactive source:irradiation. But he could also taken in radioactive food, water, gasses and dust. The irradiating particles become attached to the organs: contamination. Radioactive radiation is like an electron bombardment. They enter the body and break DNA strings. If the radiation is weak, the body can sometimes repair its DNA. But after strong radiation, it cannot. The broken molecules can cause digesttive or cardiovascular diseases, or more seriously cancer and genetic anomalies.

All dumping of radioactive particles in the environment can harm us. Was it common practice? Everybody did it : British, French, Americans, Russians, Japanese...The whole nuclear industry pumped its discharge into the sea. It was a time when everybody had no regard. The sea was thought of as the world's biggest dustbin. Figures from the International Atomic Energy Agency: in under 50 years, nuclear-capacity countries have dumped over 100,000 tons of waste into the seas. Britain alone accounts for 80% of the total. And landlocked Switzerland is second on the list. Faced with radioactive pollution, many nations oppose duping at sea, thus backing environmental groups. The impact helped us win an important battle. But it took another 10 years foe us to win the war. We managed to stop the dumping of radioactive waste at sea from ships.

In 1993, a UN treaty finally put and end to the submerging of nuclear waste. France was the last country to sign the treaty. It was a victory for the protection of the environment. But many grey areas still exist in nuclear waste management. Nuclear was developed by the military and little is known about their waste. Much information is protected by offcial secrets acts. We heard to the first ever nuclear site in search of the first ever nuclear waste. In 1942, during World War 2, the Roosevelt government chose Hanford as its nuclear weapons site and the Manhattan Project. Built deep in the desert, Hanford became a city of barracks and caravans inhibited by 51,000 people. Nine nuclear reactors and five plutonium plants were hastily built. Today historical Hanford is like a wasteland surrounded by barriers. The fuel elements caused a lot of contamination to come into this river. Were local inhabitants aware of this? Of course not. It was a secret covered by the Manhattan Project and by the US Army operation. The bed of the Columbia river contains radioactive sediment that no one knows how to remove as it keeps contaminating the water.

But even more shocking is this people. Those in charge of the Hanford site allowed families to enjoy the river without informing them of the dangers. Alan Boldt lives in Richmond a few kilometers from the site. He was a nuclear engineer. He said "I came to Hanford in 1963. I was 21 and had just graduated college. I was young, believed in my superiors. Then I found out, that after following orders for about twenty years, what they had told me wasn't entirely the truth. Hanford was very not a good site because waste was expelled into the environment. I was rather shocked by the high level of chemical products. In 20 years, they built it and made a mess."

In 1943, in order to store the most dangerous waste, Hanford's engineers built 170 gigantic concrete tanks, each large enough to contain a building. These were then buried to reduce risk. It was supposed to be temporary storage. Sadly, engineers discovered in the 1980s that 60 of the tanks were leaking, contaminating the groundwater. Today there remain 200 million litres of highly radioactive gunge that must be rapidly neutralised. Camera inside the tanks allow us to see it. The task is a huge technological challenge. A factory that will trap the waste in glass is being built. Meanwhile under the tanks, radioactive conamination continues.

Even though we're living in the desert and there's only 15 cm of rainfall per year, So for hundreds and thousands of years, the ground water near the site will remain toxic. There are chemical products from the reactors running into the river. Primary chromium. This will affect salmon breeding grounds. They lay their eggs on the bed, the chromium comes up and surrounds the eggs before mixing into the water. And this is toxic to the baby fish. Alan Boldt's rears are far from imaginary.

In  2002 an official report for the US Department of Energy confirmed the presense of radioactive strontium-90 in Columbia river fish. 13 out of 15 fish caught are contaminated. Eating them regularly raises the chances of cancer. We want a scientific report onthe river pollution. With us is Bruno Chareyron, a nuclear physicist. He works for CRIIRAD, an independent lab for research and information on radioactivity. Also with us is American scientist Norm Buske. He had already studied vegetal contamination in Hanford. This is the most contaminated place in the Western Hemisphere. And as you can see, there is no problem. As you say, Tom, they've changed the bank here. They've done some landfill here.The last time Norm came to take samples, the US Department of Energy was far from happy. He was arrested by security guars. The contaminated trees were cut down. The bank was covered with stones. In fact everything is hidden. We're not measuring anything abnormal. The counter is measuring the stones.

Bruno finds a spot where it's still possible to take a soil sample. At the CRIIRAD lab, the scientists analyse the soil and water of the Columbia river. What did they find on the Hanford site in the USA? The 2 samples of the 300 zone show two things. One, tritium contamination of the Columbia river. 13 Eq per liter, where as higher up, it's less than than 2.5 Bq per littre. And two unnaturally high uranium contamination. There's four times more uranium than radium, which is abnormal. So this uranium is tied to the site's operation. And europium-152, an artificial element. The Hanford site admits that the tritium contamination exceeds the fit for drinking limits by an underground water surface of 121 km2. In other words this site continues to permanently leak, to drag radioactive elements in those waters that slowly migrate to the Columbia River. Because for some elements, iodine-129 and technetium-99, there is no working decontamination method.

From 1945, to keep up with the Americans in the arms race, the Soviet Union built a dozen atomic sites. For over 30 years, zero information crossed the Iron Curtain. In 1976, Soviet dissident Jaures Medvedev revealed a past nuclear accident in Urals, a Chernobyl before its time. In 1957, one of the nuclear waste storage tanks exploded. The same as those at Hanford. For 20 years, silence was kept. When Mededev told the story, Western scientists didn't believe him. Why do you think people refuse to believe you? Oh because in 1976, all the countries in the West were faced with the choice to develop nuclear energy. And suddenly we exposed this problem of nuclear waste, explosions and contamination. To answer what we had said, they decided to call it a KGB plot hatched to scare the people of the West. The head of the UK nuclear industry state that our claims were impossible. The CIA knew it was true but it a secret. Probably for the same reason they didn't want to cause problems for the nuclear industry. They'd been advised to say nothing that could harm nuclear power. But the nuclear waste problem still exists. In Japan, in the UK, France, America, Russia, and a few more countries. And how they deal with thier waste, we don't know.

We head to Russia. The 1957 happened in the region of Chelybinsk in the Urals. Details about the explosion are rare, and for good reason. Hidden by the CIA, the Russians and the whole nuclear industry, the accident showed that radioactive waste was not only a pollutants but also explosive. Since 1946, the nuclear site of Mayak has made Russian atomic bombs. It could be Hanford's twin. The town is prohinited to foreigners. For a long time, it was off the map and was given various code names. The tank that exploded in 1957 was close to this secret town. Today it remains inaccessible. To understand the consequences of the disaster, we go to Tatarskaia, a village hit heavily by radioactive fallout. Gulshara Ismagilova was 12 on the day of the accident. On that 29 September 1957, 1500 school children were in the fields helping the workers of the kolkhoz. What were you told at the time? On the 29th the wholw school was in the fields. All of a sudden, around 4 p.m., we heard an explosion. All the old folk who had survived the war thought a new war had started, so much the ground shook. Then near the village of Karabolka, the sky turned black, as if it were dirty. And this blackness covered the entire sky.

The villagers had no idea that a tank of highly radioactive nuclear waste had just exploded due to the failure of a cooling unit. The explosion was the equivalent to that of 75 tons of TNT. Radio-elements were projected 1 km into the sky, contaminating close to 15,000 km, 200 people were killed by the blast and 270,000 were exposed to radiation. This nuclear accident was the worst ever before Chernobyl, yet it remained a secret. Two day later, the workers brought the children to harvest the field again. They made us line up and told us the Kolkhoz needed us for the harvest. They even asked the first graders to join us. When we arrived, we saw that tractors had dug up ditches. The peasants in charge of the pupils told us, "See that pile of potatoes? Throw the lot in the ditches." And that was it. Our teachers asked why we had buried the harvest. They were told it couldn't be eaten: it was contaminated. But by what no one said. We are unable to find a detailed report on the disaster. Studies exist, but nothing proves their reliability, and there is no public cancer register to show the impact on health. The region is marked by the event. 800 km of contaminated land is closed off.The Mayak site and its activities remain a secret.

Here's some footage filmed by some reporters in the 1990s. The transparency of perestroika gained them access to the site. what they discovered was apocalyptic. Since opening, the plutonium plants of this huge military complex have dumped waste in the lake, transformed into a vast open-air reservior. Lake Karachay is now so dangerous, the authorities decided to fill it ina trick task with commentary by a reporter from ITN. We're taking a load of rocks down to the dump at Lake Karachay. The windows roof and sides of this truck are shielded with 5 tons of lead. Despite this, we've been told that to get to the lake and unload, we only have 12 minutes, because the radiation is so high. Lake Karachay is one of the planet's most radioactive locations. When the crew approaches the liquid, radiation is so strong they must take no more than 3 minutes to unload. Hope we don't break down! Today, Lake Karachay has been filled. To store waste still produced by the complex, engineers have dug even deeper lakes. These are still open-air radioactive reserviors but more diluted.

However we learn that the new lakes are close to sources and are contamination the region's main waterway, the river Techa. It feed numerous villages before flowing into the Ob which crosses all Siberia to Kara Sea. Muslimovo is the first village on the river. To investigate contamination from radioactive waste, we're joined by Christian Corbon, a CRIIRAD scientist. For 20 years, he has measured irradiated zones. We arrive at the river Techa. Christian starts sampling. The level is high here! Right at the foot of the steps we're at 1400 counts/second. Which is pretty high. The detector measures radiation levels. It shows the location is highly contaminated. On the edge here. It's totally rotten there. It's unbelievable! 5000 clicks a second: 50 times the natural radioactivity level. Given the radiometric level, it's very contaminated. We don't know which radioactive elements are in here, nor their type of toxicity. But it's very dangerous. You shouldn't put your fingers in it then lick them or touch your skin. There it went up to 16000. 16000 counts! That's enormous! In terms of site, what is it equivalent to? You mean finding such levels in the environment? Chernobyl. But finding this along a road under a bridge at such high level? No! And it's accessible to all. There are so many footprints. People must come here to cut reeds and fish. It 's very likely that people fish in that water.

The river should be off limits. It's a nuclear dump in the middle of nature with incredibly high radiation levels. To poor guys who built the new bridge. They must have absorbed amazing doses and be well contaminated. By the way, we should leave to limit our own dose. It happen very seldom. The river has been contaminated for 50 years. The government has evacuated many villages. Muslimovo is the last. Homes have fallen into disrepair. A handful of families live among the ruins. There used to be a school up there. Up to 1991 the chrildren of neighbouring villages studied here. It was the only high school in the district. This was their favourite spot. They would rest here, fish, play and lay in the sun. Now it's the most contaminated site off Muslimovo. The grandfathers led their greese here. they would sit on the grass as rasiation came up from the ground. Today all of them are dead. Why did the authorities not inform villagers of the dangers? The school is closed. In 1993, Boris Yeltsin's government decided to tell the truth. It was a time of openness and change. Russia craved transparency, once again forgotten.

Alexei Yoblokov is a Russian politician. A member of the Science Academy, he advised Yeltsin on ecology. During the Soviet era, the nuclear industry was held secret. The chenobyl disaster of 1996 was one of the reasons behind Gorbachev's Glasnost. the communists realised we could no longer live in a secretive society. It was dangerous: they had to reveal certain secrets, and the nuclear industry started telling the truth. Mayak was a secret site, nobody knew what was going on. Disasters were kept secret. Rumours spread that serious things were being kept secret. The disasters at Mayak affected the lives of tens of thousands. So we started talking about it. Yeltsin came to power on a wave of democratization and was forced to reveal the problems. After a political regime falls, there's a short period when the new regime tells the truth, like in Russua between 91 and 95. After that, it was hushed up again.

Since 1995, information has become to obtain in Russia. In Muslimovo and along the river Techa, Lives a generation sacrificed for the sake of nuclear secrecy. The government is offering a million rubles to leave the village: about 20,000 euros. It's too little for many to leave and they have decided to stay put. They took milk and water for analysis but we didn't get the results. The health authorities checking what we eat. They do it nearly every year. Have you ever had the results? Never. They do them for themselves. We take a sample and send it to the lab. The results are categorical: the milk is contaminated. It contains a significant amount of cesium-137, tritium and strontium-90, a radioactive element that attaches to bones. Regular drinking of this milk is a cancer risk.

Located in nearby Chelyabinsk, is the FIP, a nuclear-specialised hospital, which analyses and performs regular tests on patients. They never find out their results. To our surprise, the FIP agrees to see us. We talk to Mirak Offenko. As head of Epidemiology, she monitors the population's health. Regretfully, our population is very unique as its natural environment was hit by radiation. The result of the first studies were cinfirmed by our present research. They show an obvious linl between radiation dose received and the number of cancers...as well as the mortality rate due to them. We chose a group of individuals living in the villages along the Techa River. The group represents 30,000 people. As of today, we have been following them for 50 years. She admits the people of Muslimovo have been studied since the 1950s. Several generations were willfully left to live on contaminated land. They have no choice but to come here in the vague hope of a cure. Patient said "They are using us a guinea pigs. They built a monument in Kurchatov.  And for us, all that is left are the crosses. Everyday there is a funeral here in Muslimovo. We have 5 or 6 cemeneries that are all full. Go and see them, they're all full. Last year, I lost my son. He would have been 48 on June 21. He died of cancer. They should have warned us a long time ago and evacuated us. We live like guinea pigs. It's probably why they allow us to live here. It's our fate."

After numerous requests, we finally obtain a meeting with a top regional politician, Svetlana Kostina is deputy minister for nuclear safety in Chelyabinsk.
This is a conversation with her.
Q: Can we now live without danger near the river Techa?
Svetlana Kostina : It's no longer dangerous to live near the Techa River. But all a along the river, river water cannot be used for farming. The people who live near the river have been informed. They follow these restrictions.
Q: Shouldn't people be stopped from living there?
Svetlana Kostina : Today, there are no legal reasons linked to radiation levels obliging us to evacuate. I've said so before: the radiation level dropped under the level set by international norms. So there is no legal reason to stop people from living there. So officially, there are no problems.

In Muslimovo, the banks of the Techa are prohibited. But security is weak: people and cattle still use them. It's 75 tomes higher than natural radiation. Before leaving Russia we take advantage of the night for a rather special expedition. Back at the CRIIRAD lab, Chrisitian prepares the samples. The samples go into a counting chain which will measure radioactivity and detect the presence of certain radio-elements. Given the result, there's no doubt about it. A good caesium-137 contamination. It's more than obvious. It's incredible. Several days later, the final redults are in. First of all, the analysis shows that the Teecha River remains heavily contaminated. By tritium which official reports have never mentioned. Secondly the water contamination continues to lead to a major accumulation, notably of caesium-137, in the soil on the banks. Such a concentration of caesium has transformed this soil into redioactive waste. We measured up to 180,000 Bq per kilo in soil taken at the bridge. And of course the doses of radiation for people walking there are high. And since the water and soil are contaminated, there is a transfer to the food chain. We had more than 600 Bq per kilo on contaminated fish in Muslimovo and milk contamination with 24 Bq per kilo of caesium-137. Therefore the population living in muslimovo, through radiation coming up from the ground along the Techa and through the food chain contamination, is exposed to very high doses. That means Muslimovo is contaminated. The most pertinent question is: Why haven't the people of Muslimovo been evacuated?

A few days later complementary analysis shows that sediment from Techa is highly contaminated by the most toxic elements: plutonium-239 and -240. The level is at 2200 Bq per kilo when it should be zero. Plutonium is the explosive used in nuclear bombs. Military or civilian nuclear plants have one thing in common, they all produce radioactive waste often discharged into the environment.

France also has an atomic plant. The La Hague reprocessing plant is the same type as the one in Mayak. Yannick Rousselet of Greenpeace France has studied the plant's impact on the environment for 20 years. Here we are perfectly in line with the radioactive rejection pipe that comes from the Cogema site right behind. This 4.5 km long pipe goes out to sea empires at 1700 meters from the end of the La Hague point. Underneath us, the equivalent of 33 million 200 litre barrels of nuclear waste goes through this pipe every year and is dumped in the sea. If these products were conditioned in barrels, since 1993 it would be strictly forbidden to dump them.

The 1993 international treaty banned dumping waste at the sea. But only from ships. It might seem paradoxical, but discharge by terrestrial conduit remains legal. The pipe at La Hague discharges 400 cubicmeter of radioactive waste daily into the Channel's currents. Some discharged element like iodine-129, can be measured in the Arctic. Greenpeace filmed its divers taking underwaster samples. Results from the CRIIRAD lab show that certain seabeds have become nuclear waste themselves. This pipe discharges caesium, cobalt and other, which then enter the food chain, in seaweeds, crustaceans and shellfish. After our investigation on the pipe and what we demonstrated, we realized there was another agent that is an issue: toxic gases. How could we catch them? The best way to reach the exit of the stack was with large kites. We attatched a small pipe along the rope. We pumped the air and collected the gases from the stacks outside the site. Our results showed very high levels, tens of thousands of Bq per litre of air, in the radioactive waste rejected by La Hague. We were the first to ever measure them.

After finding krypton in the environment, we decided to check what was really going on. For that purpose, we used American software which Cogema also uses to observe the dispersion of this krypton-85. We took the source of krypton that exits through the stack and followed it over Europe. Depending on the winds, within 2 or 3 days, all of Europe was affected by these rejects. Our experiences measured or easily established the reprocessing calendar of La Hague's spent fuels on the roofs of Ghent University and Geneva University. In fact, due t the waste of La Hague, we practically have a permanent accident situation. It's as if we had a problem on a nuclear plant and had a permanent leak. There's a permanent but legal accident situation.

The samples taken from La Hague were analysed by Bruno Chareyron at the CRIIRAD lab. The Greenpeace kite samples show very high krypton activity in the air above La Hague, emissions of 90,000 Bq per cubic meter. These emissions occur every time there is a dissolution which happens during the plant's operating hours. Thus the krypton can reach an average level, also recently measured by Areva, of 1000 Bq per cubic meter permanantly in the villages around La Hague. So the population around La Hague permanantly breaths in radioactive kryton, i.e. radioactive air. La hague has one of the world's highest limit authorisations. If you look at the krypton quantity that was rejected by all the nuclear weapon tests, the 500 atmospheric tests, this is what it represents. You see that the site of La Hague in a single year, let's say 1999, rejected more krypton-85 in the air than all the atomic explosions caused by man for several decades. Since this gas has a 10-year lifespan, it progressively accumulates in the air. This chart shows that from the 60's to the 2000s, the concentration of radioactive krypton in the Northern Hemisphere has increased. That is due to the waste of the reprocessing sites that include La Hague.

Some radioactive elements like tritium and krypton-85 are very difficult and very expensive to trap. But the La Hague plant is permitted to discharge most if not all into the environment. Permission was granted by the Nuclear Safety Authority which oversees all installations. Its CEO is Andre-Claude Lacoste.
Q: How are the discharges from La Hague site determined?
A: It is a process in which the operator, in this case Areva, now writes us to explain what waste they would like to do. First we do a technical study using our technical back-up, the Nuclear Security Protection Institute (IRSN),  to verify if the request is technically reasonable or if the request corresponds to reasonable norms. A second study determines if the waste such as requested will have an impact on the populations of the area. We then try to set a waste authorisation level as low as possible , taking the 2 element into account.
Q: When processing spent fuel, rare gases are released, they include krypton-85. This gas can't be trapped so the norm will be proportional to the site's activity. Is that correct?
A: In such a case, we tell Cogema to reexamine they way they can modify their processes and the way they can trap waste. We then set a deadline for them to show us their research results.
Q: Can we trap krypton-85?
A: Not yet. But we asked Cogema to reduce this type of waste. It isn't easy.

A team from the plant takes samples and monitors its radioactive fallout. We met its leader accompanied by the site's PR director.
Q: Is the site's waste contaminating the environment?
A: I wouldn't say "contamination"  Based on our measures, we detect natural radiation. We are so to speak, in the background of natural radioactivity.
Q: If it isn't contamination, what is it?
A: I would say absense of impact. There are...Let's start over again! (The head of the site's PR intervenes.)
Q: The question is: Is the environment contaminated? It isn't contaminated?
A: No, it isn't.
Q: You find traces in the environment but it's not contaminated?

We understand the awkwardness of these Areva employees. Since the plant opened, their PR task is impossible. They must recognise the plant discharges radioactive waste, but without using the word "contamination" There are just "trace". There is radioactive waste in the environment but the nuclear industry says: This waste isn't dangerous since it's below health norms. There is a problem when Areva says they are below the norms. The question should be: "Which norms apply?" These norms are based on the Hiroshima and Nagasaki model with populations exposed to intense yet very short external radiation. La Hague is different. People living nearby permanently breathe and eat weakly contaminated elements in the air or food chain. They absorb very low levels but continuous doses of radiation inside the body: "internal contamination" which is chronic and at low levels. It isn't the same system or same model. Take Chernobyl, for example. By using the Hiroshima/Nagasaki model, scientists said: "Near Chernobyl, we'll never see an increase in cancer." 5 year later, they realised there was an epidemic of thyroid cancer among the young. They then had to admit that the model was wrong.

This issue is same around nuclear sites. A risk model is applied yet it isn't representative. Around La Hague there is the impact of environmental contamination. And it will certainly lead to a health impact. Using this model to perdict the number of cancers near La Hague is scientific absurdity. Exposure to low doses of radiation increase the risk of cancer. This has been confirmed by the International Commission on Radiological Protection. The commission considers that, using all existing studies on man and animals, the no-threshold risk model is the most realistic one. A model considering that any dose, even low, increases the risk of cancer, is the model that best reflects a reality.

Reprocessing plants discharge 80% of Europe's radioactivity. Environmentalists and some policians are questioning their necessity. Why reprocess waste? We begin compiling a detailed report on a technology presented as "recycling". Areva show the nuclear fuel cycle as a closed circle. There's no mention of waste. When bottle is recycled 100% of the matter is used.What about nuclear waste? Avera plays at transparency and lets us visit the La Hague site with its directior Eric Blanc. We put on nuclear workers' gear: Areva boiler suit, Cogema socks and a safety kit. Spent fuels from 58 plants in France and certain foreign countries reach La Hague by road and train. These are unloaded in totally sealed bays by robots. Any contact with the fuel would be fatal.

We are near the unloading cell itself. It's the cell we see through the security porthole. We see the unloading dock. The pincers are descending to the spent fuel element. We'll see the spent fuel element being lifted. After unloading, the fuels are placed in a pool to await reprocessing. They must cool down more and become inactive. This is one of 4 intermediatly storage pools of spent fuel elements. In this pool, the water is 9 meters deep, 4 meters of which are above the baskets and fully protect us from the radiation. The water itself is contaminated by the particles from the reactors. The water is permanently filtered by the pumps along the pool. How long are the spent fuel elements stored here? On an average, they stay here for 5 years. France has treated waste from Europe and Japan. Today, it mainly reprocesses the 1400 tons of French fuel that arrive here each year. The cells leave the pool, are cut and placed in a nitric acid bath. This process seperates the different elements present. In the end, there is left: 95% uranium, 1% plunium, and 4% stabilised waste. Our visit illustrates that reprocessing does not neutralise radioactivity as many think, but concentrates it in stabilished waste. Which is extremely dangerous as it contains 99% of the radioactivity. It's poured into molten glass containers, then stored in ventilated pits. We are allowed to visit them. Foe example, if we use a 1000-megawatt reactor, it will annually produce 20 tons of spent fuels. usind these 20 tons, we will produce 15 to 20 glass containers. In other words a reactor will produce high-activity waste amounting to this surface on the ground. If we were to convert this into total French production, all that France consumes in nuclear electricity, which is 80%, will annually generate only this surface in terms of high-activity waste. The surface of the vitrified containers is weak. But some of this high-activity waste will be dangerous for several hundred thousand years!

Stabilised waste cannot be used, but plutonium can. It contains a huge amount of energy. Mixed with uranium, in forms a new type of fuel: MOX. MOX is indeed used again,  partly powering about 20 plants in france. But the large majority or matter captured by reprocessing is uranium: 99% of the waste. We were to  film the Pierrelatte site where the uranium is stored. On the eve of the shoot, Areva cancelled. Yet our only question was a simple one: If reprocessing truly is recycling, how is uranium reused? We're no longer allowed on nuclear sites, but Jacques Emmanuel Saulnier, Areva spokesman, agrees to see us.

Q: What happens to EDF's reprocessed uranium?
A: The reprocessed uranium is kept at the Pierrelatte site. The client can reuse it whenever he wants. It's a sort of built-up reserve in energy and raw materials. The specificity of nuclear energy is that it can be recycled. When the client asks us, we send it to another site, in the Netherlands or in Russia, where it will undergo a new enriching process. The Areva group doesn't have those technologies now. So this retreated uranium is sent to retreating sites in Europe or Russia,  thus re-injected in the cycle.
Q: So we send retreated uranium that is re-enriched. What comes back?
A: You must ask the clients. We move to the chosen site, at their request, the materials that will be re-enriched and then transformed into fuels. It's their property. You should ask them what their usage rate is and how they plan on using it.

The client in question: EDF. French uranium goes to Russia. But we could find out no more, either from Areva or EDF. What happens to uranium from reprocessing in France. We decide to return to Russia. In Moscow, we meet Vladimir Chouporov of Greenpeace Russia. He is investigating Russo-European uranium trafficking. French uranium actually heads for Tomsk in the middle of siberia. Vladimir accompanies us. We fully grasp the uranium's amazing journey after reprocessing in France. From Pierrelatte in the south of France, 900 km Le Havre by rail, 3500 km by sea to St Petersburg, then another 3200 km by rail into deepest Siberia.

Once in Tomsk, this dangerous substance has travelled almost 8000 km. Alexei is Vladimir's contact in Tomsk. He gives him info on what's happening in the region. They transport uranium and radioactive materials to Severk. The uranium doesn't stop in Tomsk. It crosses the town and continues a few kilometers to yhe nuclear complex Tomsk-7. Like all Russian atomic plants, Tomsk-7 is off-limits to foreigners. So that's the secret town of Tomsk-7. Yes. It's also called Seversk. Seversk and the nuclear complex are surrounded by barbed wire. The land around the plant also has additional protection. Behind these barriers, French uranium is enriched, but we cannot see it. Russia agreed to do this job in the 1990s. Enriching produces new fuels for power station. At the time, Russia could not afford to maintain its nuclear installations nor to pay their employees. The state and the nuclear industry thus offered to import the irradiated fuels of other countries. The trade in radioactive waste and nuclear substances gave rise to fierce opposition.

Alexandre Deev is the Tomsk representative in the Douma.
Q: What is the politicians' power regarding importing waste?
A: We can only talk about it without taking decisions. I'm a member of the government, and even for us, everyhing is secret. Our only info is in press releases from the regional authorities.
Q: What's your opinion of that?
A: It isn't normal. I believe it's this situation that is responsible, in large part, for the fear and mistrust of the population. They are againdt the collaboration between Russia and France. Many Tomsk residents are convinced that France sends all its radioactive waste to be buried here. Naturally, the residents of Tomsk aren't happy about this. Employees of the government and the nuclear industry must be paid enormous amounts to import this radioactive waste. It's a major mistake. Russia should not sign such contracts.

Since 1990, about 120 tons of retreated French uranium have ridden these tracks every year. Containers of uranium hexafluoride stored on Siberian soil. As you can see, each spot is one container. All 10 meter long. That why they're visible via satellite. This field full of containers is impressive. They're unprotected in the open air. We want to make sure it is uranium and obtain details on the plant's business. Yuri Zubkov will answer our questions. He's head of safety and radiological monitoring in Tomsk.

Q: As we've no authorisation to go to Tomsk-7, can you look at these photos and explain to us what we see?
A: This is Seversk. Those are the storage lots. That's the uranium hexafluoride storage lot.
Q: Isn't it a dangerous way to store it?
A: There's no danger. If it needed a roof, they'd have built it.
Q: So there are no environmental or health risks?
A: No, because there are no leaks. These containers are airtight. The only risk is a plane crash. Then we would have a cloud of contamination. But it's far from inhabited areas. We have such a huge territory, it doesn't bother me if a few hectares are accupied by containers.
Q: What happens to the French uranium once it arrives here?
A: Here, we transform it. We decant it from the transportation containers into local containers. Then we enrich it with uranium-235 to make fuel elements for nuclear plants. These fuel elements are then sent back to France in the shape of enriched gas.
Q: So all uranium coming from France returns there?
A: No, not all of ot. 80% maybe a little more. I don't have the exact figure. Rough 80% of the depleted uranium stays here, stored on our site.

That's the information we wanted. France dumps tons of depleted uranium in deepest Siberia. It's low in radioactivity, but must be observed and stored in the best conditions. Back in France, we approach EDF once again. They finally confirm our information from Russia. The uranium "tails", the leftovers after enriching, is left in Siberia and becomes Russia property. It accounts for 90% of the subtance. This new data changes the recycling pie-chart. In enriching uranium, 90% of it not reused. The sums show that retreating waste enables only 10% of the substance to be reused: much lower than the 96% claimed by Areva who use the figure to present nuclear as a renewable energy. The low rate of recycling requires dangerous transport, pollution and discharges of waste. Reprocessing is thus debatable. Only 3 countries have adopted it: France, the UK and Japan. But the others have yet to solve the problem or waste. In the US, spent fuel is placed in reinforced containers and stored in the plant grounds.Many scientists think it's the best practice, as it avoids handling and transport. But the cheapest and most widespread technique is to leave spent fuel in large pools, while awaiting a solution.

Bob Alvarez worked in the Senate in Washington as a nuclear site inspector. A former energy adviser to Bill Clinton, he has studied the risks of storing in pool. My colleagues and I filed a report in 2003 for which we studied documents from the past 25 years on the safety of spent fuel. We took it to the extreme and imagined a terrorist act scenario. The major problem is, this spent fuel is stored in pools. If the pool drains, the spent fuel heats up and catches fire. The fire would then release huge amounts of radiation into the air. A spent fuel fire causes more contamination than Chernobyl by maybe four times. And in terms of forbidden territory, the entire population would have to leave their homes in an area four times that of Chernobyl. We were, of course, denounced and attacked by the nuclear industry and government. But the National Academy of Sciences was asked by Congress to study it. And in 2005, the Acadamy said that we were correct and that we had to look at this problem much more seriously.

Spent fuel pools were recognised by German and Switzerland as an unacceptable risk from air crashes and notably terrorist attack. German placed its waste in dry storage areas. These concrete storage containers are put into hillsides. And if this isn't possible, they surround them in thick concrete buildings. So if an airplane crashes, it would avoid destruction or collapse. Our government refuses to do this, mainly because it costs money. The French, as you know at La Hague, have lots of spent fuel in pools. In case of attack,  you have anti-aircraft weapons. We don't have that here in the United States.

At least 450 pools storing radioactive waste are spread across nuclear-capable countries. Every power station and reprocessing plant has at least one. So many ultra-sensitive locations to keep watch over! The dangers of nuclear waste appear to be worsening. The industry has improved protection during transport, but terrorism puts us at a risk we had never imagined before. The problem of nuclear waste is increasing. Corinne Lepage was French Environment Minister. Her post gave her an enlightened view of nuclear energy? We adopted this technology based on a gamble: knowing how to treat waste. This gamble was made in the 70's and 2010 is close. 40 years on, the gamble hasn't paid off: we've no solution for waste. Treating the waste could be done by massive reuse of nuclear waste not the case with MOX or it could be an instrument to incinerate nuclear waste, but that doesn't exist, so for now, we are stuck with it. That's why it isn't a sustainable area in terms of what sustainable should mean today. Nuclear energy is almost like a religion, particularly in France, shared by all political parties from right to left, and fed by the issue of climate change, which has us believe nuclear energy will save us. So it's almost religious, and thus a tricky subject. I repeat that I'm not fundamentally antinuclear. I'm not against nuclear technology. It creates many problems. I'm not sure it is worth it economically. I am sure, however, that it is at the root of many ills in French society because the system chose to act in secret opacity that spread to other fields since the fact that it was for nuclear was hidden. Secondly, It's the cause of some of our present financial difficulties. As we set everything on nuclear energy, we didn't develop renewable energies, efficient energy, new materials and so on. French industry is lagging benind.

Although nuclear energy is a subject of debate, citizens are not involved. It was imposed on them from the start. But who decides what a whole country must follow for decades? Who controls nuclear power in France? Mycle Schneider is an international energy and nuclear analyst. French energy policy was invented and developed by mining civil servants, not by politicians. Who are they? Then cream of the French engineering universities. The top dozen from the Ecole Polytechnique, plus one star from the Ecole Normale Superieure, or other top universities. But under twenty a year. These pepple fill all the positions which are most important for the application of energy policy. They are the heads of all the key ministries: Industry, Research, the Environment. They are also at the top of politics: Prime Minister, the President. Plus there's industry: the head of Areva, the French Atomic Energy Commission, the top positions in EDF. These positions belong, dare I say, to the Corps des Mines. Politicians have nothing to do with this sector. It's the realm of the Corps des Mines. So politicians' knowledge of nuclear is an absolute disaster! The presidential candidate debate between Segolene Royale and Mr Sarkozy was a phenomenal example of this problem: two people who were running for the highest office in France, debating a subject about which they hadn't the sloghtest idea. That showed how much politics had completely given over.

Large Caliber Sniper Rifle - VKS "Vykhlop"

Large Caliber Sniper Rifle - VKS "Vykhlop"
This is a silenced sniper rifle VSS "Vintorez" (a thred cutter). It fires special 9mm sniper cartridges. And it allows silent liquidation of targets protected by light bulletproof vests. Meanwhile the rifle shoots so quietly, that the enemy won't ever understand where the lethal lead came from. The VSS has only one disadvantage - short range of fire, not more than 400m.

This one is the OSV-96. It's caliber is 12.7mm. Sniper can hit targets more than 1.5km away with this rifle. While at shorter distances its super-powerful round allows destruction of light armored vehicles. But its shot is extremely loud. The sound and barrel flash unmask the shooter. But what to do if a super-powerful cartridge, long range of fire and sound suppression need to be combinded, meanwhile removing all the disadvantages? Specialists of Tula Instrument Design Bureau are ready to offer a solution. Our film crew got an unique opportunity today to meet the newest Russian suppressed 12.7mm caliber VKS sniper rifle. There is nothing like this super-weapon in the World today.

Silenced large-caliber 12.7mm sniper rifle VKS was developed in 2002 especially for SPETSNAZ Center of Russian FSB. This is a standard 7.62mm cartridge. While this one is an aemor-pircing 12.7mm caliber round for VKS rifle. Its bullet is many times heavier than a regular one and it has a huge stopping power and it can penetrate 16mm thick steel sheet at range of 250m. Entire family of totally new 12.7x55mm rounds was developed especially for the VKS. High-accuracy rounds and high power rounds are some of them. For the example, this Tula's super-weapon can hit enemy,s armored personnel carrier 200m away, to destroy communication devices like antennas or to set a radar station out of order. Even a wall won't save anyone from the VKS. One meter thick wood or 15 thick brick... everything will be turned to pieces after impact of armor-piercing round.

Even if a man is located behind a wall. There were cases when snipers were shooting at an estimated location of the enemy, and they were getting them. Either he had a bulletproof vest, either he hadn't - there is no difference. The bullet will pass right through. If a sniper armed with VKS needs to make a shot upon targets located too far away, then he can use special sniper rounds. They can reach the enemy at distances more than 1.5km. Let's put it this way. If round will hit body extremities, like an arm f.e., then it will be torn out. If the round will hit a leg, then depending where exactly it will hit, a leg also will be amputated... same with arm. That's if round hits extremities. If it hits torso, then it leaves quite a big hole in it. And it doesn't matter what kind of vest the target is wearing. The round will fly right through anything. The hole is big. It leads to an instant fatal outcome. Surviving such wound... no way.

VKS rifle fires special subsonic 12.7mm caliber rounds. Thank to these rounds and it's effective auppressor, it is possible to use it indoors even without special ear protectors. We would literally become deaf if we like to fire any other large-caliber weapon here. The sound of VKS's shot will be virtually indistinguishable in open terrain. That means a criminal will never know where the round came from and sniper will remain undetected for the enemy. Majority of large-caliber sniper rifle have two disadvantages - long length, about 1.5m and they are not light more than 10kg. However VKS is unique even in this field thus surpassing its large-caliber colleagues in every single aspect.

The VKS rifle has a bullpump layout. In such a layout, the magazine isn't located in front of the grip but behind it. This fact allows shortening weapon's dimensions significantly. But that's not all. Thanks to manual reloading of the rifle, designers got rid of complex automation system, and this fact in its turn, allowed to make VKS incredibly light. Tula's long-range puncher, with its suppressor and loaded magazine attached weights only 7kg. That means that a sniper armed with this rifle will move much easier and he will save strengths to accomplish his mission.

VKS is an unique sniper rifle. No other firearm combines a long range of fire, super-powerful munitions and lack of unmasking factors. Tula designers created an absolute weapon which is feared by terrorists and envied by Western Special Forces.

The "Vykhlop" (an exhaust) rifle was proved so successful that a special large-caliber assault rifle is being already developed on its basis. We sure will present that unique weapon to you, as soos as "Top Secret" label will be taken off it. 12.7mm assault rifle has already been created. It's an ASH-12. ASH-12 with a triple under-barrel grenade launcher.

How To Build A Submarine

How To Build A Submarine.
The process of submarine manufacturing isn't less complex than building of a space ship. A giant submarine is a fruit of team work of dozens of thousands of peaple. And it is not a job of workers only but job of scientists in design bureaus, metallurgists and millitary specialists too. Several years may pass from the starting moment for design of new project till the moment of laying down a subsequent submarine and sometimes even decades. Builders and designers don't have a right for mistake. A negligently welded seam or badly placed wiring, the slightest mistake on bench test of devices can result to death of the crew or even to a global catastrophe. Building a nuclear submarine boat is a very serious business.

"Take aviation for example. They build several airplanes. They crash them, They break them and then start a serial production. While we can't do that. We build a boat and right after it was commissioned and passed trials it must go for combat patral."

Manufacturing of a submarine somehow resembles a building kit. Here they assemble disassemble and assemble back again in the same manner. Only that the parts of that building kit are many times more complex and bigger.

"This is a hull processing workshop. Construction of any ship starts exactly from metal cutting. Here they cut details from 12 meters long till so small like this one."

Thickness of metal sheets from where these parts get cut of can vary from 5mm to 20cm. Right here in the 5th workshop of Sevmash, those part will be polished to ideally even surface, they smooth out their edges and if it necessary they can bend them too and exactly under that angle which is demanded by the specific from of nuclear submarine. The hull processing workshop is probably the most automated and computerized in the entire enterprise. They don't cut anything by manual patterns from blueprints on tracing paper for long time already. All shapes are installed in computer's memory which controls the cutters. An experienced gas burner operator need one minute top in order to give computer an order to cut a new detail. And an experienced doesn't mean an elderly man. Many young people work in the 5th workshop.

New generation chooses new generation technology. "The job is interesting. We work with machinery and computers here. The job isn't physically difficult. We don't have to carry loads here. Everything is done by cranes. They explained the job to me once and I understood everything right away."

The future submarine which yet consists of dozen of thousands tiny fragment moves from the 5th workshop to the hull-welding workshop. Here the details turn to read fragments and sections of the future boat.

"The max dimensions of structures which we can produce here is up to 600 tons. Main occupations in our workshop are assembly operator of metallic vessels and electric welder."

However no matter how big these parts are or how much they weight, they still will be placed in the panoramic gammagraphy chamber. This hugh cylinder is an X-ray office. Only that they don't x-ray human body parts but submarine parts. Entire body sections can fit here in order to control the quality of every welded seam. The ship x-ray office of Sevmash works with its full capacity today. Five submarines are being simultaneously at the enterprise. Four of them belong to the latest, the 4th generation. After a forced break when works on all military orders were essentially frozen here, the hull-welding facility gets back to its normal pace of production now.

Maybe we wouldn't be able to produce all of main orders by the Navy, but regarding the tonnage of our production, during the last year while having less people, we produced as much as we producing in 1985 when the workshop started working with its planned capacity. The ready and checked section now move to the slip workshop on rails. There they take their placed on a slip train. This construction consists of girders placed on special carriages. The assembled hull of the submarine passes through hydraulic trials. If they passed successfully then the already formed construction gets cut to block-modules. All necessary devices and mechanisms get rolled in them from the open ends. Boat's systems, pipelines and wiring cables get mounted. The entire household stuffing of the boat gets installed in the slip workshop too, till washbasins and shower cabins.

Before the beginning of final assembly of the boat all the hardware planned to be installed, together will all new devices, weapon, electronics, pass long lab and field trials. Only after their successful completion, people of the plant start assembling the new boat's hull. The most important thing is to test the equipment of our co-exectives. To make sure that it works well. To work out the acoustics in the sea. Because imagine what will happen if it will go for service and its acoustics won't work? That will be a tragedy. The filled block-modules get connected and welded again. The strong hull is then dressed in a light hull. And the almost ready submarine passes workshop trails of every piece of equipment. If there are no problems in their operation then the sub gets out of the workshop to the World. And it gets lowered in yet dry reservoir of filling pool. Water gets pumped in there and the boat floats.

When people of Sevmash say "The ship is trying the water" they mean a water of this exact hugh filling pool. A ready ship gets out from the sheds exactly here. Here it comes to light. The size of the pool is impressive. However a nuclear submarine is also not a small vessel. When they place a huge body of the submarine here, the entire process reminds a washing of a hippo in a regular bathtub. Exquisite accuracy in ship control is demanded from tug crews, who push the boat to the gates of the filling pool. Sometimes the operation of talking a sub to big water takes an entire day light time. Since recent times subs get out from the pool not with help of tugs but inside an unique floating dock "Sukhona", which was also built at the Severnoye Mashinostroitelnoye Predpriyatie. The "Sukhona" takes the body of the boat when it is still on the ground. Then the dock goes into the water, and when it gets to open waters, it releases or pushes the boat out of its womb. This way is much safer.

However even this phase doesn't mark the end of building process. They will continue its finishing for a long time. Its hydroacustic system, hull's strength, correct work of all equipment will be tested over and over again. And only after the moment when all sub systems will get an ok from the manufacturer, designers and clients, it will be handed to Navy sailors for trials in the open sea. If they also complete with success, then the boat becomes a full worthy combat until of the Russian Navy.

Every lay down and every commissioning of new sub were always special days for Sevmash.It's beginning and an end of specific phase in life. Many events happen in lives of every Sevmashovets - some got his kids married, others went to retirement. It's a custom here to count the time itself by constructed boats. They say like "That happened when the "Guepard" was moved to water." or "That happened when the "Bars" was laid down." Lying down of ships is not a rare event in last 5 years. Four boat of the lastest generation are under construction and they will become a backbone of Russian submarine fleet in the future.

Here it is - the result of work of the entire plant - an almost ready combat boat - the nuclear submarine "Belgorod". Level of its completion is estimated approximately at 75%. And we can only hope that the State will find funds to complete it. The twin brother of tragically lost "Kursk" is located in the slip workshop of Northern Machinery-building Enterprise, since 1992. The "Belgorod", the nuclear submarine of the 3rd generation, the last submarine of project 949. Belgorod is completed by 3/4 already, but all work on its completion are practically frozen. Up there, they still can't decide to complete or not the construction. After the events with "Kursk", the Project recieved many improvements and upgrades. And the people of enterprise think that dragging time for completion of its construction is simply inadvisable.

We would like a lot to see a decision in favor of Russian Navy and we would hand on this boat to service of the Motherland. It's not difficult to understand the builders of Severodvinsk. Because the "Belgorod" is not just a piece of metal, which can be cut, molded, sold out, at any moment. It's a part of their life. An alloy of designers thoughts and work of thousands of masters. It's their dear child, whom they didn't abandon in the toughest times when salaries were not paid at Sevmash fpr months. So if the "Belgorod" wasn't betrayed then, in early 90s, and it wasn't cut to garden benches, then how is it possible to do that today? When the country remembered again its submarine fleet. To build is not the same with destroying. It's much more difficult. Especially when the speech is about construction of a nuclear submarine.

Degtyaryov light machine gun

Degtyaryov light machine gun
At 2nd of February 1940, a Pan-Union Elder Michail Ivanovich Kalinin was awarding medals and orders in the Kremlin.
"To the Hero of the Socialistic Labour comrade Degtyaryov, who received this high title for remarkable inventions and desidning of new, especially important weapons for the Red Army." Vasiliy Alexeevich Degtyaryov was awarded with the golden medal "sickle and Hammer" with number 2.The first Hero of Labour became Stalin himself, two weeks earlier.Degtyaryov created many examples of firearms during years of his working carreer.However the first and probably the most known of his creations is a "DP" light machine gun - Degtyaryov Pekhotniy (Gegryaryov for Infantry).

Weapon in History - DP light machine gun
SERGEY MAKAROV:Firearms expert of Central Museum of the Great Patriotic War said "The World War I had already revealed a necessity for Infantry units to have not only heavy machine guns but also more maneuverable machine guns aka light machine guns.Essentially this kind of weapon was born in fields of the World War 1 but neither the Russian Army, neither the Red Army at first stages of its existence hadn't their own light machine gun.Light machine guns of English French US origins were in the arsenal.There were attempts to convert a "Maxim" machine gun to a light machine gun.We can say that such attempt was successful and in 1925 a "MT" light machine gun was introduced into service. MT stands for Maxim-Tokarev.That means that conversion was done by Fyodor Vasilyevich Yokarev.Any way despite machine gun was named as a light one it still was bulky heavy unsatisfying high requirements addressed to this type of weapon."

Meanwhile the requirements were following,A light machine gun must be maneeuverable, i.e. light enough.By constantly remaining in an Infantry chain, it must increase unit's fire power in attack. It must be able to fire with it from any position standing up laying down on the move.Creation of a light machine gun following these requirements wasn't an easy task.

SERGEY MAKAROV said "The problem was solved in 1927 when the DP machine gun of Degtyaryov's design was introduced into service. DP - Degtyaryov Pekhotniy. The design is quite original and not borrowed. And for that moment of time, i.e. middle of 20s, it was a quite modern machine gun."
Caliber: 7.62 mm
Weight without a magazine - 8.4 kg.
Weight of magazine with round - 2.8 kg.
Magazine's capacity - 47 rounds.
Aiming range of fire - 1500 m (max distamce marked on iron sights).
Rate of fire - 600 rounds per minute.
Combat rate of fire - up to 80 rounds per minute.

Degtyaryov light machine gun was a totally new example positively different from all known machine guns of that time. Thanks to successfully selected system of automation.Degtyaryov managed to achieve light weight of the machine gun. The DP was also differing by extreme simplicty of production.For example time needed for manufacturing of Maxim machine gun was 700 hours. Meanwhile a DP needed only 130. In the battle DP was served by a machine gun operator and his assistant.Load magazines were kept and transported in a metallic box. It is visible in the background. Three disks in each box.

SERGEY MAKAROV said "DP machinegun was designed for use of rifle cartridge. It had such specifically shaped disk for 47 round. Well maybe this form is not the most convenient one but it was dictated by following conditions. First of all existing cartridge had to be used. And secondly magazine had to have the biggest possible capacity. So for a reason that carteidge had an extending rim a quite reasonable decision was taken to place rounds in a circle with bullet heads directing to the center. Thus a magazine received this shape. By the way it's not a first experience. There were machine guns with similar magazines before.Particularly a Lewis machine gun model 1915. Anyhow disk for this machine gun became quite capacious - 47 rounds. Having a technical rate of fire about 600 rounds per minute, its combat rate of fire was quite satisfactory for those times."

"Learn to shoot sharply. Here conscripts of Moldavian kolkhoz "Lyuchapyar Rozh" learnt a Degtyaryov light machine gun. Perfect aiming!"

Quite original tricks were used sometimes for firing. A rope was fastened to the machine gun and soldier was pressing a buttstock to his shoulder tighter with help of his leg. Fluctuations of the machine gun were reducing and fire accuracy was increasing. "8 bullets - 7 hits. Range - 300m. Target "light machine gun". By the way the enermy machine-gunner on the target is armed with an English Lewis machine gun which appeared in Russia in 1917. But with introduction of DP machine guns into service Lewis  started being gradually retrieved from Infantry units and moved to warehouses for a while.

In 30s DP machine guns got a firm stand in arsenal of the Red Army. Their production was mostly satisfying troops's needs. But a necessary mobilization reserve of Degtyaryov light machine guns wasn't created.While in the first half of yhe 1941 when production lines were under reconstruction for production of new models of firearms production of DP was reduced to the minimum. Light machine guns were necessary at the frontline. At first days lack of them was compensated by those English Lewis machine guns. They are well seen on this photo of parade in November of 1941. DP machine gun became a base for creation of the first Soviet family of firearms for infan try tanks planes armored cars and ships.

A DA machine gun - Degtyaryov's for Aviation was created on basic of DP with minor changes. In contrast of infantry variant the aviation machine gun had a magazine with bigger capacity - 63 rounds. Buttstock's shape was different and was supplemented with a pistol hand grip. A twin aviation machine gun was introduced into service in 1930. A "tankoviy" (for tanks) version of Degtyaryov machine gun "DT" differed from version for infantry by a foldable metallic buttstock and a pistol hand grip. Capacity of its magazine is incresed to 60 rounds. DT was installed on many Soviet tanks and armored cars. DT machine gun could be used in field conditions too.If tank was out of order during battle then the crew was dismounting the machine gun leaving the vehicle and after mounting the machine gun on a bipod it could fire against the enermy.

Motorcycles were also equipped with a Degtyaryov machine gun. Meanwhile this device was allowing even to fire against aerial targets in case of necessity. However this machine gun despite that it was reliable and quite easy in use, also had disadvantages which were noted already during battles. The most important one we can consider was a fact that it couldn't maintain rapid rate of fire. The barrel of this machine gun had quite thin-walled and barrel change in the middle of the battle wasn't predicted. Because of that a length of burst was limited. It was necessary to wait for a barrel to be cooled down in order and don't bring the weapon out of order. Except that the recoil spring which is located here under jacket of the barrel, so it's located very closed to the barrel and during intensive fire, it was also overheating from the barrel and had a tendency to loose its temper which was affecting an uninterrupted operation of machine gun. By experience of its use in World War II, many of these factors were taken into consideration toward the end of the war and the machine gun was transformed into its modernized version known as DPM which had not so significant exterior differences nevertheless. Retaining its general scheme and feeding mechanism. For fire control this machine gun already had a pistol-like hand grip.

The bipod wasn't detachable loke on this machine gun but a non-detachable one and bipod's fastening became a bit different more convenient in use. While the recoil spring was relocated to a special tube in a trigger frame where of course it wasn't so affected by heating and was operating much more reliable.

DP was a fearsome weapon in hand of Soviet soldiers in battles at lake Khasan at river Halkin Gol. They were fighting with it in Finnish war too. DP light machine gun was beating the enermy at frontlines of the Great Patriotic War as well.

"Here is Ivan Gornostaev. He was a tractor driver before the war. Now his occupation is to destroy hitlerites. He killed 52 Germans in the first battle. The war turns teenagers into men."

Hundreds and thousands of the Red Army soldiers were protecting the Motherland with a machine gun in their hands. Degtyaryov Pekhotniy was supporting and covering many soldiers in their attacks. The road to the victory was very long but Degtyaryov light machine gun passed the entire war till Berlin itself together with infantrymen. It got its place rightfully in Victory parade of 1945.