Andrey Krot how many weapons of the Second World War. underground boats

Incredible combat vehicles created for various tasks do not cease to amaze so far.

What seemed to us a fantasy in the work of Grigory Adamov (one of the best science fiction writers of the USSR), "The Secret of Two Oceans" was a device really created at that time: an underground cruiser.
A machine capable of cutting its way through hard rock, carrying out acts of sabotage behind enemy lines!

In 1976, at the initiative of the head of the Main Directorate of State Secrets Antonov, reports about this project began to appear in the press. And the remains of the underground cruiser itself rusted in the open air until the 90s. Now the former landfill seems to be declared a restricted area.
A dull echo of these works remained only in Eduard Topol's novel Alien Face, where the master of the detective genre describes how they intended to test the subterrine off the coast of North America. The nuclear submarine was supposed to unload the “subterrine” there, and the latter was going to reach California itself, where earthquakes are known to occur quite often. In a pre-calculated place, the crew left a nuclear warhead, which could be detonated at the right time. And all its consequences would then be attributed to a natural disaster ... But all this is just a fantasy: the tests of the underground boat were not completed.

From fantasy to reality

Nevertheless, those wishing to dream up were still there. One of these dreamers was our compatriot Peter Rasskazov. Despite his last name, he was not a writer at all, but an engineer and expressed his idea not in words, but in drawings. For which, they say, he was killed in the troubled times of the First World War. And his drawings mysteriously disappeared and "surfaced" after a while, not just anywhere, but in Germany. But they didn’t go into business, because Germany soon lost the war. She had to pay huge indemnities to the winners, and the country was not up to any kind of underground boats.

Meanwhile, the brains of the inventors continued to work. A similar design in the United States tried to patent Peter Chalmi - an employee of the "factory of inventions", which was headed not by anyone, but by the famous Thomas Alva Edison himself. However, he was not alone. The list of inventors of the underground boat includes, for example, a certain Evgeny Tolkalinsky, who emigrated from revolutionary Russia to the West in 1918 along with many other scientists, engineers and inventors.

"Mole" under Mount Grace

But even among those who remained in Soviet Russia, there were bright minds who took up this matter. In the 1930s, the inventor A. Trebelev, designers A. Baskin and A. Kirillov made a sensational invention. They created a project of a kind of "underground vehicle", the scope of which promised to be simply fantastic, up to the installation of metal lighting poles along the route of the car. For example, an underground boat reaches an oil reservoir and floats from one "lake" to another, destroying mountain barriers on its way. She pulls the oil pipeline behind her and, having finally reached the oil "sea", begins to pump "black gold" from there.

As a prototype for their design, the engineers took ... an ordinary earthen mole. For several months they studied how he makes underground passages, and created their apparatus "in the image and likeness" of this animal. Something, of course, had to be redone: the paws with claws were replaced with more familiar milling cutters - about the same as those of coal mining combines. The first tests of the mole boat took place in the Urals, in the mines under Mount Blagodat. The apparatus bit into the mountain, crumbling the strongest rocks with its milling cutters. But the design of the boat was still not reliable enough, its mechanisms often failed, and further developments were considered untimely. Moreover, the Second World War was on the nose.

Meanwhile in Germany

However, in Germany, the same war just served as a catalyst for a revival of interest in this idea. In 1933, the inventor W. von Wern patented his version of the subway. The invention, just in case, was classified and sent to the archive. It is not known how long it could lie there if Count Klaus von Stauffenberg had not accidentally stumbled upon it in 1940. Despite his magnificent title, he enthusiastically accepted the ideas set forth by Adolf Hitler in the book Mein Kampf. And when the newly-minted Fuhrer came to power, von Staufenberg was among his associates. He quickly made a career under the new regime and, when Verne's invention caught his eye, he realized that he had attacked his own gold mine.

After the end of the Great Patriotic War, not far from Koenigsberg, Soviet counterintelligence authorities discovered adits of unknown origin, and nearby were the remains of an exploded structure, it was assumed that these were the remains of the Midgard Serpent, an experimental version of the Third Reich's "Weapon of Retribution", some writers even associated this with the famous "Amber Room", which the Nazis hid in one of these adits.

Von Staufenberg brought the essence of the matter to the influential officials of the General Staff of the Wehrmacht. The inventor was soon found and all conditions were created so that he could put his idea into practice. The fact is that in 1940 the General Staff developed Operation Sea Lion, the main goal of which was the Nazi invasion of the British Isles. Underground boats would be very useful in this operation: having plowed the land under the English Channel, they could freely deliver detachments of saboteurs to the UK, which would sow panic among the British.

The development is based on Horner von Wern's patent, registered back in 1933. The inventor promised to make an apparatus with a capacity of up to 5 people, capable of moving underground at a speed of 7 km / h and carrying a warhead weighing 300 kg (this is quite enough to carry out an impressive sabotage). Moreover, von Wern's boat "floated" both under water and underground.

The Germans managed to develop and test this boat.

However, the initiative was seized by Hermann Goering, chief of the Luftwaffe. He convinced the Fuhrer that it was not worth engaging in "mouse fuss" when the valiant aces of the Third Reich could bomb Britain from the air in a matter of days. By order of Hitler in 1939, work on the underground boat was curtailed. The famous air war began in the skies of Britain, which, in the end, was won by the British. Wehrmacht soldiers were never destined to set foot on British soil.

Khrushchev's dream

However, the idea of ​​creating an underground boat has not sunk into oblivion. In 1945, after the defeat of fascist Germany, trophy teams of the former allies scoured its territory with might and main. The project fell into the hands of General SMERSH Abakumov. Experts gave a conclusion - this is a unit for moving underground. In the spring of 1945, it was discovered on the Lubyanka that one Russian self-taught engineer, Rudolf Trebeletsky, who graduated from the gymnasium and Moscow University as an external student, was shot during the repressions in 1933, took part in the German project. Copies of drawings brought by him from Germany were found in the special depository.

Trebeletsky significantly improved von Wern's invention. Now the boat could move equally successfully both underground and under water. In addition, he invented the "thermal super circuit", which greatly facilitated the movement underground. He named his boat "Subterina".
Trebeletsky told his classmate, the famous science fiction writer Grigory Adamov, about his ideas. Adamov used Trebelecki's ideas in his novels The Secret of Two Oceans and The Subsoil Conquerors. For mentioning secret technologies, Adamov was punished by complete oblivion during his lifetime and died before reaching his 60th birthday.

The project was sent for revision. Leningrad professor G.I. Babat suggested using microwave radiation to supply the "subterranean" with energy. And the Moscow professor G.I. Pokrovsky made calculations showing the fundamental possibility of using cavitation processes not only in a liquid, but also in a solid medium. Bubbles of gas or steam, according to Professor Pokrovsky, were able to destroy rocks very effectively. He spoke about the possibility of creating "underground torpedoes" and Academician A.D. Sakharov. In his opinion, it was possible to create conditions under which the underground projectile would move not in the thickness of the rocks, but in a cloud of sprayed particles, which would provide a fantastic speed of advance - tens or even hundreds of kilometers per hour!

Again, they remembered the development of A. Trebelev. Given the trophy developments, the case looked promising. But Beria, with the support of Ustinov, convinced Stalin that the project had no prospects. But in 1962 the project was developed - in Ukraine. For the serial production of underground boats, the testing of which, in fact, has not yet begun, in the town of Gromovka, on the orders of Khrushchev, a strategic plant for the mass production of underground boats was built! So this is where the well-known saying came from... And Nikita Sergeevich himself publicly promised to get the imperialists not only from outer space, but also from underground!
By 1964 the plant was built. The first Soviet underground boat was titanium with a pointed bow and stern, 3 meters in diameter and 25 meters long, a crew of 5 people, and could accommodate 15 fighters, and a ton of weapons, speed - up to 15 km / h. The combat mission is to detect and destroy enemy underground command posts and missile silos. Khrushchev personally examined the new weapon.
Several variants of the created underground vehicles were sent for testing in the Ural Mountains. The first cycle was successful - the underground boat at the speed of a pedestrian confidently made a move from one side of the mountain to another. Which, of course, was immediately reported to the government. Perhaps it was this news that gave Nikita Sergeevich the grounds for his public statement. But he hastened.

The idea to create such a machine that, like a mole, could dig underground passages and go deep into the planet, excited not only the minds of science fiction writers, but also serious scientists and designers.

Today, you will not surprise anyone with various tunneling equipment. With its help, thousands of kilometers of mines and tunnels were dug, through which trains rush, huge streams of water flow, various reserves are stored ...

However, in addition to such peaceful tunneling machines, under cover of secrecy, combat "moles" were developed that could destroy enemy underground communications, destroy its buried and well-protected command posts, and undermine arsenals hidden in rock masses. And they could also imperceptibly break through literally into the deep rear of the enemy, crawl out and land troops where no one was waiting for them. Such underground boats at the beginning of the twentieth century seemed to be almost a superweapon.

It is believed that the first draft of a combat underground self-propelled vehicle was developed by our compatriot, Muscovite Petr Rasskazov back in 1904. But during the revolutionary events that engulfed Moscow at that time, he was killed as if by a stray bullet. At the beginning of the First World War, his drawings disappeared, and later surfaced, of course, in Germany. In the early 1930s, the USSR returned to this idea. The engineer Trebelev was engaged in the creation of the "fighting mole". Moreover, he wanted to design a machine that would copy a real mole. It was even possible to build and test a prototype, but things did not go further.

Also, attempts to create an underground combat vehicle in Nazi Germany were unsuccessful. The project was called "Midgard Serpent" (Midgard Schlange) - after the underground monster from the Scandinavian sagas. The total weight of the underground "serpent" was 60 thousand tons with a crew of 30 people. The project turned out to be insanely expensive to implement, and it was closed. Then almost mystical events began to occur.

The war machine had fantastic abilities

The "snake" is believed to be based on the drawings of Pyotr Rasskazov, stolen by German intelligence at the beginning of the First World War. And the detailed German drawings were already obtained by Soviet intelligence officers at the end of the Great Patriotic War. Traditionally, we recognize only Western authorities. Despite the fact that it was our engineers who were the pioneers in the creation of "battle moles", only the German drawings of an underground miracle forced the competent authorities to push through the start of work on Soviet underground boats. The Minister of State Security of the USSR Abakumov literally demanded that the President of the USSR Academy of Sciences, Sergei Vavilov, create a special group to study the possibility of designing an underground boat. The creation of the "battle mole" was even more classified than the Soviet nuclear project. Information about him is the most approximate. It is known that Khrushchev also actively supported the project. Still, the Soviet underground apparatus could make its way through the thickness of the earth, passing rocks like a butter knife. Maybe the extravagant Khrushchev dreamed that the time would come and the steel Soviet fist would come out of the ground right on the lawn near the White House in Washington? She will still be Kuz'kina's mother!

More than 50 years ago, a combat vehicle was created in our country that passed through granite like butter. Infographics: Leonid Kuleshov/RG

According to experts in their publications, the underground combat vehicle was not only built, but also had truly fantastic abilities. They called her, without further ado, "Fighting mole." The underground boat had a nuclear power plant, like a classic nuclear submarine. It is alleged that the Battle Mole had the following parameters: hull length 35 m, diameter 3 m, crew 5 people, speed 7 km/h. He could also carry troops up to 15 fully equipped fighters. The plant for the manufacture of underground boats was built in 1962 in Ukraine. After 2 years, the first copy was made.

The device simply evaporated, and the punched tunnel collapsed

There is evidence that Academician Sakharov also had a hand in the creation of this apparatus. An original technology for crushing soil and a propulsion system was developed. A certain cavitation flow was created around the body of the "mole", which reduced the friction force and made it possible to break through even through granites and basalts. It was assumed that the actions of the "mole" would be mistaken by the enemy for the results of an earthquake.

The first tests gave amazing results. The "fighting mole" really calmly bit into the rocks and went into their depths at an unprecedented speed for tunneling machines. However, during the next test in 1964, a car that penetrated the Ural Mountains near Nizhny Tagil at a distance of 10 km exploded for unknown reasons. Since the explosion was nuclear, the apparatus itself with the people in it simply evaporated, and the broken tunnel collapsed. The name of the deceased commander of the "Battle Mole" was called in the press - Colonel Semyon Budnikov. But there has never been any official confirmation of this. The project was closed, all documentary evidence about it was liquidated, as if nothing had happened. Why did it happen? Why, having actually created a unique tunneling machine for underground work that had no world analogues, the USSR abandoned its further development after the very first catastrophe. Rockets exploded much more, but no one turned off rocket science. There were also many accidents and disasters with nuclear submarines, but their designs were eventually brought to an almost perfect state. The answer to this may seem incredible and beyond fantastic. But... There is no other explanation.

What external force did not allow the "Mole" to deepen?

A long time ago, legends appeared that inside our planet there is another intelligent life - there is its own underground and completely unknown to us civilization that really controls the Earth, and maybe the entire solar system. And as if there are some portals that allow the chosen ones to enter this other world, as well as exit it. Nazi mystical scientists from the secret society Ahnenerbe seriously looked for these portals. Not the fact that they were not found. However, you can enter the interior of the Earth only if you are allowed to. And so the civilization of "Middle-earth" is protected by a powerful energy sphere and rocky armor, known to us as the earth's crust of the planet.

It is believed that the deepest well in the world is located on the Kola Peninsula. Indeed, during the Soviet era, it managed to break through to 12,262 meters deep. This is a world record. But even in Soviet times, work on the well began to be curtailed, allegedly because of their high cost. Today it is completely destroyed, the inlet is welded. However, there is a version that drilling was stopped for another reason. When it became possible to lower the video equipment into the wellbore to its entire depth, it turned out that the vertical depth was 8 km. And then, for some unknown reason, the drill began to spin in a horizontal plane, as if it had stumbled upon an obstacle of impenetrable strength. So I clocked over 4 km.

Or maybe another civilization exists not in space, but under our feet, and its guards did not want the Soviet "mole" to penetrate the forbidden limits

What external force did not allow to go deeper by more than 8 km?

Many cases have been recorded when people heard the rumble of working mechanisms coming from somewhere underground, although no underground work was carried out within a radius of thousands of kilometers. Submarine acoustics also recorded some technological noise coming from the ocean depths. We are looking for aliens in outer space. Or maybe another civilization exists literally under our feet? And her guards did not want the Soviet "mole" to penetrate the forbidden limits. After all, the technical characteristics allowed the "Battle Mole" to reach the center of the Earth. That is why the unique underground machine was destroyed. And the secret of the long-standing Soviet project is unlikely to ever be fully disclosed.

On the eve of World War II, the Soviet Union and Germany were actively developing new weapons - combat subterrins (underground boats), designed to strike at strategically important enemy targets literally from the ground.

The ideas of the underground war were not forgotten even after the victory over Germany, but until now, developments in this area are under a veil of secrecy. According to some reports, 50 years ago, a successful prototype of a new type of combat vehicle was created in the USSR.

Back in 1904, Russian inventor Pyotr Rasskazov published material in an English magazine about a self-propelled capsule that could move underground. Moreover, later his drawings surfaced in Germany. And the first underground self-propelled vehicle in the 1930s of the last century was created by the Soviet engineer and designer A. Trebelev, who was assisted by A. Kirilov and A. Baskin.

The principle of operation of this underground boat was largely copied from the actions of a mole digging a hole. Before proceeding with the design of the subterrine, the designers carefully studied the biomechanics of the movements of the animal placed in a box of earth using X-rays.

Particular attention was paid to the work of the head and paws of the mole, and on the basis of the results obtained, its mechanical “double” was designed. Trebelev's capsule-shaped subterrine was propelled underground by a drill, an auger, and four stern jacks that pushed it like a mole's hind legs.

The machine could be controlled both from the inside and outside - from the surface of the earth using a cable. The underground boat also received power through the same cable. The average speed of the subterrane was 10 meters per hour.

But due to a number of shortcomings and frequent failures of the apparatus, the project was closed. According to one of the versions, the unreliability of the subterrine was already revealed during the first tests. According to another, just before the war, they still tried to finalize it on the initiative of the future People's Commissar of Arms of the USSR D. Ustinov.

According to the second version, at the beginning of 1940, the designer P. Strakhov, on the personal assignment of Ustinov, improved the Trebelev subterrine. Moreover, this project was originally created exclusively for military purposes, and the new underground boat was supposed to operate without communication with the surface.

A prototype was created in a year and a half. It was assumed that he would be able to work autonomously underground for several days. For this period, the subterrine was supplied with fuel, and the crew, consisting of one person, with oxygen, water and food. However, the war prevented the completion of the project. The fate of the prototype of Strakhov's underground boat is unknown.

Interest in underground boats was shown not only by the Soviet Union. Before the war, German designers also developed subterrins. In the 1930s, engineer von Wern (according to other sources - von Werner) filed a patent for an underwater-underground "amphibian" which was called Subterrine.

The device had the ability to move both in the water element and under the surface of the earth, and, according to von Vern's calculations, in the latter case, the subterrine could reach speeds of up to 7 kilometers per hour. At the same time, the Subterrine was designed to transport a crew and troops of five people and 300 kilograms of explosives.

In 1940, Germany seriously considered the von Wern project for use in military operations against Great Britain. In the plans of Operation Sea Lion, developed by Hitler, which provided for the landing of German troops on the British Isles, there was a place for von Wern's submarines.

His amphibians were supposed to quietly swim up to the British shores and continue moving through English territory underground, in order to then deliver a surprise blow to the British defenses in the most unexpected area for the enemy.

The Subterrine project was destroyed by the arrogance of G. Goering, who led the Luftwaffe and expected to defeat the British in an air war without help from underground. As a result, von Verne's underground boat remained an unrealized idea, as did the fantasies of his famous namesake Jules Verne, who wrote the science fiction novel Journey to the Center of the Earth long before the appearance of underground boats.

Another even more grandiose project of the German designer named Ritter was named with a fair amount of pathos "Midgard Serpent" (Midgard Schlange) in honor of the mythical reptile - the world serpent encircling the entire inhabited earth.

This machine was supposed to move above and below ground, as well as on water and under water at a depth of up to one hundred meters. At the same time, it was assumed that the "Snake" would move underground at a speed of 2 km / h (in hard ground) to 10 km / h (in soft ground), 3 km / h - under water and 30 km / h - on the surface earth.

But most of all, the colossal dimensions of this gigantic machine are striking. Midgard Schlange was conceived as an underground train consisting of many caterpillar compartment cars. Each one is six meters long. The total length of the “serpentine” phalanx wagons connected together was from 400 meters, in the longest configuration - more than 500 meters.

The path of the "Snake" in the ground was punched by four one and a half meter drills. In addition, the car had three additional drilling kits, and its weight was 60,000 tons. To manage such a colossus, 12 pairs of rudders and 30 crew members were required.

The armament of the giant subterrin was also impressive: two thousand 250-kilogram and 10-kilogram mines, 12 coaxial machine guns and six-meter underground torpedoes. Initially, it was planned to use the Midgard Serpent to destroy fortifications and strategic objects in France and Belgium, as well as to undermine British ports.

But in the end, the underground colossus of the Reich did not take part in any of the military operations. There is no exact data on whether at least a prototype of the “Snake” was made or whether this idea, like Subterrine, remained only in paper incarnation.

It is known that the advancing Soviet troops discovered mysterious adits near Koenigsberg, and nearby - a destroyed machine of unknown purpose. In addition, technical documentation describing German underground boats fell into the hands of scouts.

After the war, the subterrina project was attempted to be implemented by the head of SMERSH, V. Abakumov, who involved professors G. Babat and G. Pokrovsky to work with captured drawings and materials. But it was only in the 1960s, when N. Khrushchev came to power, that real progress was made in this area.

The new leader of the USSR liked the idea of ​​"getting the imperialists out of the ground." Moreover, he even announced these plans publicly. And, apparently, for such statements by that time there were already good reasons. In particular, it is known that a secret plant for the production of underground boats was built in Ukraine near the village of Gromovka.

In 1964, the first Soviet subterrine with a nuclear reactor was released, called the Battle Mole. Little is known about this development, however. The underground boat had an elongated titanium cylindrical hull with a pointed end and a powerful drill.

According to various sources, the size of the atomic subterrine ranged from 3 to almost 4 meters in diameter and from 25 to 35 meters in length. Underground speed - from 7 km/h to 15 km/h. The crew of the "Battle Mole" consisted of five people. In addition, the car could carry up to 15 paratroopers and about a ton of cargo - explosives or weapons.

Such combat vehicles were supposed to destroy fortifications, underground bunkers, command posts and rocket launchers in mines. In addition, the "Battle Moles" were preparing for a special mission. According to the plan of the military command of the USSR, in the event of an aggravation of relations with the United States, the subterrins could be used for an underground strike against America.

With the help of submarines, it was planned to deliver the Battle Moles to the coastal waters of seismically unstable California, then drill into the United States and install underground nuclear charges in areas where American strategic facilities were located.

In the case of bringing atomic mines into action, powerful earthquakes and tsunamis would arise in the region, which could be attributed to an ordinary natural disaster. According to some reports, the tests of the Soviet atomic subterrane were carried out in different soils - in the Moscow region, the Rostov region and in the Urals.

The test of the newest "wonder weapon" took place on the territory of the Sverdlovsk region, near the town of Kushva, in the area of ​​Mount Blagodat. The first Ural test was completed successfully. All test participants were amazed by the result of the first launch in the conditions of solid Ural soils - the underground boat passed at low speed through from one mountain slope to another.

However, during the second test, in the thickness of the rock of Mount Blagodat, an experimental machine with a nuclear reactor exploded for unknown reasons, the entire crew of the boat died due to the explosion, and the boat remained immured in the thickness of the rock. The fate of the boat's nuclear reactor remained unknown.

Mount Grace with a chapel on top, 1910

After the accident, the project was closed, and all data on testing the latest weapons were either destroyed or classified. There was no official confirmation of the tests and there is still no.

After the closure of the project, according to some reports, they tried to convert equipment and prototypes of installations for civilian needs and adapt combat vehicles for mining needs, for example, for the construction of a subway. But military technology required significant improvements before it could be used in a civilian environment.

As a result, it was decided not to spend money on the re-equipment of machines and their processing, but simply to eliminate everything. Thus was put an end to the history of the underground combat vehicle. Unfortunately, the Soviet designers failed to make the fairy tale come true.

Used materials from the article by Andrey Lyubushkin from the site

Talking about the development of this unique superweapon, it is impossible not to recall the American science fiction thriller Tremors. Unlike the cinematic worm monster that killed every living thing in its path, Soviet designers managed to create its real mechanical prototype.
However, the Soviet mechanical "mole" self-destructed along with the people inside.

Without "Mole" and life is not the same

As is most often the case in the scientific world, designers from different countries were engaged in the development of a machine that could freely pass deep underground and suddenly commit sabotage behind enemy lines. It was one of the fix ideas of the twentieth century. Nevertheless, the leadership in this direction belongs to the Muscovite Petr Rasskazov, who was the first to schematically depict an underground self-propelled vehicle in 1904.

It should be immediately noted here that everything connected with the invention of the "mole" mechanism is from the very beginning accompanied by numerous and varied digressions, strongly smacking of mysticism.

Rasskazov was allegedly accidentally killed by a stray bullet during the 1905 revolution. Then his drawings disappeared, and over time miraculously materialized in Germany.

The two world superpowers started working on a similar project at the same time. In the USSR, in the early 1930s, this project was led by engineer Alexander Trebelev. His German colleague Horner von Werner stepped on his heels.

Treblev, obsessed with the idea of ​​​​building a machine that would copy genuine mole skills, allegedly managed to reach the creation of a prototype. But that was the point. The Nazis also did not launch their “Midgard Schlange” (“Midgard Serpent”, that was the name of the monster from the Scandinavian saga): the project cost fabulous funds, for this reason the scrupulous Germans turned it off.

They took the stolen, but their own

The further history of the creation of the Soviet underground submarine, the further, the deeper it becomes overgrown with conspiracy details, as documentary justifications for certain events are gradually lost. Probably, in this case, these nuances can be attributed to the law of the genre. Or, if you like, on the secrecy of the topic as such.

Nevertheless, it was precisely the borrowed experience of foreign developments of "combat moles" in the Stalinist USSR that was taken as a basis. The fact that its foundation was laid by a Russian scientist, no one else remembered. The topic was personally supervised by the Minister of State Security of the Soviet Union V. S. Abakumov. Apparently, the time has not yet come to find out about the details of the assignment that Viktor Semenovich personally gave to the President of the USSR Academy of Sciences, Sergei Ivanovich Vavilov - these details are still hidden under the heading "top secret".

The sinister secret of the Soviet military "Nautilus": he died, biting into the bowels

It is alleged that the Soviet "Battle Mole" was nevertheless created. And the underground combat vehicle was endowed with hitherto unknown abilities: supposedly it was equipped with a nuclear power plant like a classic nuclear submarine. The technical characteristics of the Soviet mechanical "Earth Tremor" are also described: 35 meters in length, 3 meters in diameter. All this was controlled by five crew members, the speed of the “Battle Mole” was 7 kilometers per hour.

The Soviet "Mole" could bite into the ground with 15 paratroopers on board, by 1962 everything was ready for "practical use". In 1964, a pilot copy of the underground submarine was created to the extent of "getting off the stocks."

The conspiracy theory of the creation of the "Battle Mole" is replete with details that today have no scientific confirmation. In particular, Academician Andrei Sakharov is considered to be one of the founding fathers of the underground combat vehicle.

There are descriptions of the practical application of the Mole (they date back to 1964), but this experience is more like the finale of a science fiction story than the result of a scientific experiment: supposedly, at a depth of ten meters, an underground boat exploded, and it was a nuclear explosion. The people who were in the evaporated apparatus died.

... The secret of the Soviet "Big Mole" is reminiscent of the plot with the Dyatlov Pass. But if in the case of the history of the death of a group of Soviet climbers, if not all, then very many details of what happened are open to researchers today, then there are still more ambiguities with the fate of the underground Soviet submarine than any textural certainty on which one could build a reasonable version of the creation and testing of Soviet scientific and technical development.