From: skunk-works-digest-owner@harbor.ecn.purdue.edu To: skunk-works-digest@harbor.ecn.purdue.edu Subject: Skunk Works Digest V4 #23 Reply-To: skunk-works-digest@harbor.ecn.purdue.edu Errors-To: skunk-works-digest-owner@harbor.ecn.purdue.edu Precedence: bulk Skunk Works Digest Tuesday, 28 September 1993 Volume 04 : Number 023 In this issue: Re: Glomar Explorer / Clementine deep matters SR-75 See the end of the digest for information on subscribing to the skunk-works or skunk-works-digest mailing lists and on how to retrieve back issues. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Erik Hedberg Date: Mon, 27 Sep 1993 12:04:29 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Re: Glomar Explorer / Clementine > > Yes!! Excellent article.. They alluded (sp?) to a special project of the > > skunk works several years ago that seemed interesting. Apparently a > > Russian Sub was sunk (or had sunk) in very deep waters off of Hawaii, and > > Lockheed designed a "Claw" type machine to retrieve it.. Anyone know any > > details? > > > > Read 'A Matter of Risk' by Roy Varner & Wayne Collier, Ballantine > Books, 1980. ISBN: 0-345-28639-1 > > It was a highly classified operation to recover all or parts of a > Soviet submarine that had sunk in about 17,000' of water. Primary > retrieval target was crypto materials. > CIA contracted Summa Corp (a Howard Hughes company) to provide their > Glomar Explorer ship, & Lockheed designed & built a huge 'claw' device > (dubbed 'Clementine') which would be lowered down to pick up the sub. > 'Clementine' was stored in the HMB-1 barge which was later used by the Sea > Shadow. > The operation was mostly successful. The "official version" of the story is that the sub broke apart and we only retrieved a small section. Others believe we retrieved the whole ship (or all that was left after being crushed at 17,000 feet). Another interesting part of the story is how we knew where the sub was and the Soviets didn't. I haven't read the book (yet), but does it mention the "deep sea net"? Erik ------------------------------ From: I am the NRA Date: Mon, 27 Sep 93 13:27:34 PDT Subject: deep matters >"erik@eskimo.com" "Erik Hedberg" 27-SEP-1993 16:04:19.74 >Subj: Re: Glomar Explorer / Clementine >Another interesting part of the story is how we knew where the sub was >and the Soviets didn't. I haven't read the book (yet), but does it >mention the "deep sea net"? Its been 10-15 years, so i ferget exactly waht the book says, but it alludes to a deep sea surveillance net equivalent to, or ancestor of, sosus. I believe the FUSSR knew more or less where it was, but they though the depth was enough "protection". SOSUS, et al, were, ahhhhh delicate, since ther was language, in a treaty the US had signed, banning "military installations" on the sea floor in international waters. SOSUS bent that language, more than slightly... regards dwp ------------------------------ From: cargo@cherry.cray.com (David S. Cargo) Date: Mon, 27 Sep 93 16:08:59 CDT Subject: SR-75 Just thought I'd mention that the SR-75 model kit has been sighted in the Twin Cities. I saw it Sunday, 9/26 at Scale Model Supplies in St. Paul. The staff in the store didn't know it was one part of a larger ensamble. (The box shows both the SR-75 by itself and an SR-75 with another vehicle on its back.) David S. Cargo cargo@escargot.cray.com ------------------------------ End of Skunk Works Digest V4 #23 ******************************** To subscribe to skunk-works-digest, send the command: subscribe skunk-works-digest in the body of a message to "listserv@harbor.ecn.purdue.edu". If you want to subscribe something other than the account the mail is coming from, such as a local redistribution list, then append that address to the "subscribe" command; for example, to subscribe "local-skunk-works": subscribe skunk-works-digest local-skunk-works@your.domain.net To unsubscribe, send mail to the same address, with the command: unsubscribe skunk-works-digest in the body. Administrative requests, problems, and other non-list mail can be sent to either "skunk-works-digest-owner@harbor.ecn.purdue.edu" or, if you don't like to type a lot, "prm@ecn.purdue.edu". A non-digest (direct mail) version of this list is also available; to subscribe to that instead, replace all instances of "skunk-works-digest" in the commands above with "skunk-works". Back issues are available for anonymous FTP from harbor.ecn.purdue.edu, in /pub/skunk-works/digest/vNN.nMMM (where "NN" is the volume number, and "MMM" is the issue number).