Chapter One: Ocean of Tears
Hello everyone, and welcome to a brand new adventure. While we wait for my next large scale project, Horizon, I began to wonder about a new project, and a new story - one that takes us not to space (Right away, at least), but the bottom of the ocean. Scorpion’s Tale is a story of Cold War intrigue, and an exploration of the world of espionage and conflict on a global scale. As my forte is writing about space, I enlisted the help of my good friend @Pedroperson for his extensive knowledge of military history for this story. He is a delight to work with, and I am so excited to work with him on this project! We will both be checking the thread to answer your questions and dive deeper into the story as we progress. Scorpion’s Tale offers us a look into a world unseen, a glimpse of what could be if tensions flare and mistakes are made. I also want to remind all our readers that this is our first military timeline, and I’m sure mistakes will be made and things not accounted for, so go easy on us!
Of note: Our schedule will be a post every two weeks, with the potential for interludes interspersed.
That being said, let us dive right into the story, and explore Scorpion’s Tale - A World Unseen…
Chapter 1: Ocean of Tears
PINOCHET RISES TO POWER IN CHILE… FLORIDA WILL TRY TO RESCUE PALMS… 3 C.O.P VOTES FOR IMPEACHING NOW… ROCKET LAUNCHINGS AT WALLOPS CALLED A SUCCESS… THE PRESIDENT’S NEW ECONOMIC “CZAR,” KENNETH RUSH CALLS FOR TAX INCREASE… UN GENERAL ASSEMBLY MEETING ON PEACEFUL USES OF OUTER SPACE, TODAY AT 3PM…
The following excerpts are recovered from the journal of Martin J. Bushwick, engineering officer onboard the Hughes Glomar Explorer as it participated in Project Azorian, 1974-75.
July 1, 1974: Weather bad again today. We’ve been making good progress towards the recovery zone but I don’t know how much more of rolling off my bunk I can take before I snap. We’re expected to have calm seas at least while we’re in the zone, whenever we get there… four days I think? I am so sick of the cooking onboard, chef was a dropout from culinary school I think. We got a call from Hughes before we set off, stating how important our mission was… CIA boys onboard seemed to agree. I’m not so sure. They tell us we’ll be scouring the ocean floor looking for the sub, and our cover story is manganese mining - who’s gonna buy that, the fuck is manganese? Some of the spooks have been telling us about what the ocean floor was like… they say it's like walking on another planet. Some strange new world that lies just beneath our reach and is our key to victory when we really put our minds to it. I don’t know how much I buy it, to be frank. More later. Wrote a letter to mom.
July 8, 1974: Something paid us a visit today, Spooks called it Chazma. It coasted off our bow trying to get a good look at us, I don’t think it understood what we were doing. I was up on the bridge, and the spooks told me not to say anything. Chazma flashed lights at us, we went about our business. She was a strange ship, covered in lumps and bulges sticking out from her converted hull. I stared at her for a long time, watching her shapes move in the waves. Other than the spotlights she shone at us, her bridge structures were dark, flashlights were all we could see as she moved around us. Hunting us. I feel as though they know, I feel as though they can look inside our minds with their technology that we all fear so much. The technology we’re working to get down here. Here… Where are we even? I mean, I know where we are. Somewhere in the Pacific. Since we got here, we’ve all been so quiet. I know they’re getting ready to get moving on this project soon, but god… it feels so eerie. They’re out there watching us, just circling us, trying to figure out what we’re up to. Our public mission has been made clear, and those in charge have tried to keep us focused on our mission. It’s growing tiring.
A part of me wonders why we do it, why we go to such lengths to outsmart the enemy. Why do they bring such minds into the cause to attempt to win some war that hasn’t been fought, hasn’t even started… What is it for? We so often speak about the role of our “way of life” to govern how we move through this world, but what does that even mean anymore? As I stare out of this narrow window, across a dismal ocean on a divided planet, I begin to question my purpose on this Earth, my presence in a world so split. It is maddening to be so far from home with no guarantee of success. The numbers say it will work, but the real world is separate from the world of equations. The ocean is a cruel mistress, one who tears the chains of reality from us, reminding us she cannot be governed by conventional means. She is a magical beast, a temptress towards a world unknown.. She consumes all and who are we to attempt to wrestle a fraction of control.
We begin operational scouting tomorrow, looking for the submarine, hoping to get a chance at taming the wild ocean, to achieve whatever goal is being set for us here. I hope to God it’s worth it.
July 12, 1974: My god. We got it.
As of the time of writing this report, Project Azorian has largely concluded, and all materials recovered from the ocean floor have proved invaluable to studying the Soviet nuclear threat.
PURPOSE:
Project Azorian, as it stands now, demonstrates successful recovery operations for military equipment lost at the bottom of the ocean, well beyond traditional crush depths and similar conflicting factors - enabling a greater understanding of one component of the Soviet nuclear triad. The project set out to recover not only the hardware of a Soviet SLBM but also the handbooks for receiving and processing launch commands.
K-129 BACKGROUND:
K-129 was a Project 629A (Translated to: проект 629А Projekt 629A) (NATO reporting name Golf II–class) diesel-electric-powered ballistic-missile submarine that served in the Pacific Fleet of the Soviet Navy–one of several Project 629 strategic ballistic-missile submarines believed to have been assigned to the 15th Submarine Squadron based at Rybachiy Naval Base near Petropavlovsk, commanded by Rear Admiral Rudolf Golosov. Upon her final deployment, K-129's commander was Captain First Rank Vladimir I. Kobzar and Captain Second Rank Alexander M. Zhuravin as senior assistant to the commander (executive officer). Present also, according to radio chatter, was a political attache from the Kremlin, the identity of which has not been confirmed by the CIA or Department of Defense. Any identifying material to this attache was not found onboard. It is believed that this person of interest may have been present to supervise military procedure and protocol onboard K-129, as part of the overall inspection of the fleet
By mid-March, signals intelligence pointed to Soviet Navy commanders in Kamchatka becoming concerned that K-129 had missed two consecutive radio check-ins, and failed to make contact with any other vessel. Radio intelligence specialists recorded a series of events - First, K-129 was instructed by normal fleet broadcast to break radio silence and contact headquarters; later and more urgent communications all went unanswered. Soviet naval headquarters declared K-129 missing by the third week of March, 1968 and organized an air, surface, and underwater search-and-rescue effort in the North Pacific from Kamchatka and Vladivostok.
U.S. SOSUS in the North Pacific was alerted and requested to review acoustic records on 8 March 1968 to identify any possible anomalous signal in an effort to locate the site of the sinking. Eventually acoustic data from four Air Force AFTAC sites and the Adak, Alaska SOSUS array triangulated a potential event location to within 5 nautical miles, a site hundreds of miles away from where the Soviet Navy had been searching and in water around 16,500 feet deep.
Soviet search efforts, lacking a comparable SOSUS system, failed to find K-129 and eventually, Soviet naval activity in the North Pacific returned to normal. K-129 was subsequently declared lost with all hands by the Soviet Pacific fleet.
OPERATIONS:
Global Marine Development Inc., the research and development arm of Global Marine Inc., a pioneer in deepwater offshore drilling operations, was contracted to design, build and operate Hughes Glomar Explorer. The ship was built at the Sun Shipbuilding yard near Philadelphia, with executive oversight from United States Intelligence Forces. Howard Hughes – whose companies held experience with multiple classified projects – agreed to lend his name to the project to support the cover story that the ship was mining manganese nodules from the ocean floor. Hughes and his companies had no actual involvement in the project.
Hughes Glomar Explorer employed a large mechanical claw, which Lockheed officially titled the "Capture Vehicle" - affectionately called Clementine by the crew. The capture vehicle was designed to be lowered to the ocean floor, grasp the targeted submarine section, and then lift that section into the ship's hold. One requirement of this technology was to keep the floating base stable and in position over a fixed point 16,000 feet (4,900 m) below the ocean surface. Early testing pointed to potential failure modes of the system, so a drastic redesign was ordered to ensure that the operation would proceed smoothly. Sailing from Long Beach, California, on June 20, 1974, Hughes Glomar Explorer arrived at the recovery site July 4 and conducted salvage operations for over a month. During this period, at least two Soviet Navy ships visited Hughes Glomar Explorer's work site, the oceangoing tugboat SB-10, and the Soviet missile range instrumentation ship Chazma. It is believed, based on aerial and space based surveillance of the operation, that these crews were unable to discern the nature of Hughes Glomar Explorer’s true mission.
The capture vehicle was lowered and raised on a pipe string similar to those used on oil drilling rigs. Pairs of 30-foot (9.1 m) steel pipes were affixed together and lowered with the capture vehicle through a hole in the middle of the ship. The capture vehicle featured additional stabilizing bars that were engaged with the Target Object after an initial grapple by the claw. These bars acted to press the object into the claws grip and prevent it from surging up out of the claw as lift interruptions occurred. Upon a successful capture by the claw, the lift reversed the lowering process – 60-foot (18 m) pairs drawn up and removed one at a time. The salvaged Target Object was drawn into the moon pool, the doors of which could then be closed to form a floor for the salvaged section. This allowed for the entire salvage process to take place underwater, away from the view of other ships, aircraft, or spy satellites. The recovery operation proceeded over the course of 3 days, starting on July 11.
RESULTS:
The recovered section included all desired artifacts, including nuclear torpedoes and 3 SS-N-5 Snark ballistic missiles and thus Project Azorian was a complete and resounding success. Uncovered in the wreckage were a variety of Soviet codebooks, satellite frequency manuals, and secret communications equipment previously unknown to United States Intelligence Forces. The bodies of six crewmen were also recovered, and were given a memorial service and with military honors, buried at sea in a metal casket because of radioactivity concerns. Specific details of the assumed Soviet launch chain of command are outlined in [REDACTED]. Analysis of the recovered Snark indicates that current UGM-73 and even previous UGM-27 capabilities exceed those of the SS-N-5. It is possible to compare some of the systems recovered to known parameters of the SS-N-6 Serb and improve mass and performance estimates. These improve the agency’s position that the Serbs performance is below that of Poseidon but advances in liquid SLBMs could enable them to match UGM-73. A memo is being prepared to justify further SLBM development against a realistic Soviet future development.
From the wreck analysts were able to determine the most probable cause of the K-129 sinking. Through a number of different potential mechanisms the Main Fuel valve on the #1 missile opened and dumped its contents into the launch tube. The resultant depressurization and loss of structural support to the tank and warhead buckled the Oxidizer downcomer and allowed its contents to leak and ignite with the spilled fuel. The resultant fire degraded structural support inside the missile tube, flooding the compartment and eventually the full sub. More details are outlined in report [REDACTED]. No actions were identified for USN SSBNs to undertake as the solid propellant found on US SLBMs eliminates this specific failure mode.
With regards to operational security - a lesson was learned in securing materials at contractor sites. An intervention by agents was necessary to prevent publication in a nationally run paper of materials taken in unrelated petty theft at the contractors Long Beach office. Local law enforcement cannot be the sole protection provided to locations storing sensitive materials no matter the classification levels.
Of note: Our schedule will be a post every two weeks, with the potential for interludes interspersed.
That being said, let us dive right into the story, and explore Scorpion’s Tale - A World Unseen…
Chapter 1: Ocean of Tears
JULY 1, 1974
New York Times, Monday Edition, Selected Headlines:
New York Times, Monday Edition, Selected Headlines:
PINOCHET RISES TO POWER IN CHILE… FLORIDA WILL TRY TO RESCUE PALMS… 3 C.O.P VOTES FOR IMPEACHING NOW… ROCKET LAUNCHINGS AT WALLOPS CALLED A SUCCESS… THE PRESIDENT’S NEW ECONOMIC “CZAR,” KENNETH RUSH CALLS FOR TAX INCREASE… UN GENERAL ASSEMBLY MEETING ON PEACEFUL USES OF OUTER SPACE, TODAY AT 3PM…
The following excerpts are recovered from the journal of Martin J. Bushwick, engineering officer onboard the Hughes Glomar Explorer as it participated in Project Azorian, 1974-75.
July 1, 1974: Weather bad again today. We’ve been making good progress towards the recovery zone but I don’t know how much more of rolling off my bunk I can take before I snap. We’re expected to have calm seas at least while we’re in the zone, whenever we get there… four days I think? I am so sick of the cooking onboard, chef was a dropout from culinary school I think. We got a call from Hughes before we set off, stating how important our mission was… CIA boys onboard seemed to agree. I’m not so sure. They tell us we’ll be scouring the ocean floor looking for the sub, and our cover story is manganese mining - who’s gonna buy that, the fuck is manganese? Some of the spooks have been telling us about what the ocean floor was like… they say it's like walking on another planet. Some strange new world that lies just beneath our reach and is our key to victory when we really put our minds to it. I don’t know how much I buy it, to be frank. More later. Wrote a letter to mom.
July 8, 1974: Something paid us a visit today, Spooks called it Chazma. It coasted off our bow trying to get a good look at us, I don’t think it understood what we were doing. I was up on the bridge, and the spooks told me not to say anything. Chazma flashed lights at us, we went about our business. She was a strange ship, covered in lumps and bulges sticking out from her converted hull. I stared at her for a long time, watching her shapes move in the waves. Other than the spotlights she shone at us, her bridge structures were dark, flashlights were all we could see as she moved around us. Hunting us. I feel as though they know, I feel as though they can look inside our minds with their technology that we all fear so much. The technology we’re working to get down here. Here… Where are we even? I mean, I know where we are. Somewhere in the Pacific. Since we got here, we’ve all been so quiet. I know they’re getting ready to get moving on this project soon, but god… it feels so eerie. They’re out there watching us, just circling us, trying to figure out what we’re up to. Our public mission has been made clear, and those in charge have tried to keep us focused on our mission. It’s growing tiring.
A part of me wonders why we do it, why we go to such lengths to outsmart the enemy. Why do they bring such minds into the cause to attempt to win some war that hasn’t been fought, hasn’t even started… What is it for? We so often speak about the role of our “way of life” to govern how we move through this world, but what does that even mean anymore? As I stare out of this narrow window, across a dismal ocean on a divided planet, I begin to question my purpose on this Earth, my presence in a world so split. It is maddening to be so far from home with no guarantee of success. The numbers say it will work, but the real world is separate from the world of equations. The ocean is a cruel mistress, one who tears the chains of reality from us, reminding us she cannot be governed by conventional means. She is a magical beast, a temptress towards a world unknown.. She consumes all and who are we to attempt to wrestle a fraction of control.
We begin operational scouting tomorrow, looking for the submarine, hoping to get a chance at taming the wild ocean, to achieve whatever goal is being set for us here. I hope to God it’s worth it.
July 12, 1974: My god. We got it.
TOP SECRET
FINAL STATUS OF PROJECT AZORIAN, MAY 1975
FINAL STATUS OF PROJECT AZORIAN, MAY 1975
As of the time of writing this report, Project Azorian has largely concluded, and all materials recovered from the ocean floor have proved invaluable to studying the Soviet nuclear threat.
PURPOSE:
Project Azorian, as it stands now, demonstrates successful recovery operations for military equipment lost at the bottom of the ocean, well beyond traditional crush depths and similar conflicting factors - enabling a greater understanding of one component of the Soviet nuclear triad. The project set out to recover not only the hardware of a Soviet SLBM but also the handbooks for receiving and processing launch commands.
K-129 BACKGROUND:
K-129 was a Project 629A (Translated to: проект 629А Projekt 629A) (NATO reporting name Golf II–class) diesel-electric-powered ballistic-missile submarine that served in the Pacific Fleet of the Soviet Navy–one of several Project 629 strategic ballistic-missile submarines believed to have been assigned to the 15th Submarine Squadron based at Rybachiy Naval Base near Petropavlovsk, commanded by Rear Admiral Rudolf Golosov. Upon her final deployment, K-129's commander was Captain First Rank Vladimir I. Kobzar and Captain Second Rank Alexander M. Zhuravin as senior assistant to the commander (executive officer). Present also, according to radio chatter, was a political attache from the Kremlin, the identity of which has not been confirmed by the CIA or Department of Defense. Any identifying material to this attache was not found onboard. It is believed that this person of interest may have been present to supervise military procedure and protocol onboard K-129, as part of the overall inspection of the fleet
By mid-March, signals intelligence pointed to Soviet Navy commanders in Kamchatka becoming concerned that K-129 had missed two consecutive radio check-ins, and failed to make contact with any other vessel. Radio intelligence specialists recorded a series of events - First, K-129 was instructed by normal fleet broadcast to break radio silence and contact headquarters; later and more urgent communications all went unanswered. Soviet naval headquarters declared K-129 missing by the third week of March, 1968 and organized an air, surface, and underwater search-and-rescue effort in the North Pacific from Kamchatka and Vladivostok.
U.S. SOSUS in the North Pacific was alerted and requested to review acoustic records on 8 March 1968 to identify any possible anomalous signal in an effort to locate the site of the sinking. Eventually acoustic data from four Air Force AFTAC sites and the Adak, Alaska SOSUS array triangulated a potential event location to within 5 nautical miles, a site hundreds of miles away from where the Soviet Navy had been searching and in water around 16,500 feet deep.
Soviet search efforts, lacking a comparable SOSUS system, failed to find K-129 and eventually, Soviet naval activity in the North Pacific returned to normal. K-129 was subsequently declared lost with all hands by the Soviet Pacific fleet.
OPERATIONS:
Global Marine Development Inc., the research and development arm of Global Marine Inc., a pioneer in deepwater offshore drilling operations, was contracted to design, build and operate Hughes Glomar Explorer. The ship was built at the Sun Shipbuilding yard near Philadelphia, with executive oversight from United States Intelligence Forces. Howard Hughes – whose companies held experience with multiple classified projects – agreed to lend his name to the project to support the cover story that the ship was mining manganese nodules from the ocean floor. Hughes and his companies had no actual involvement in the project.
Hughes Glomar Explorer employed a large mechanical claw, which Lockheed officially titled the "Capture Vehicle" - affectionately called Clementine by the crew. The capture vehicle was designed to be lowered to the ocean floor, grasp the targeted submarine section, and then lift that section into the ship's hold. One requirement of this technology was to keep the floating base stable and in position over a fixed point 16,000 feet (4,900 m) below the ocean surface. Early testing pointed to potential failure modes of the system, so a drastic redesign was ordered to ensure that the operation would proceed smoothly. Sailing from Long Beach, California, on June 20, 1974, Hughes Glomar Explorer arrived at the recovery site July 4 and conducted salvage operations for over a month. During this period, at least two Soviet Navy ships visited Hughes Glomar Explorer's work site, the oceangoing tugboat SB-10, and the Soviet missile range instrumentation ship Chazma. It is believed, based on aerial and space based surveillance of the operation, that these crews were unable to discern the nature of Hughes Glomar Explorer’s true mission.
The capture vehicle was lowered and raised on a pipe string similar to those used on oil drilling rigs. Pairs of 30-foot (9.1 m) steel pipes were affixed together and lowered with the capture vehicle through a hole in the middle of the ship. The capture vehicle featured additional stabilizing bars that were engaged with the Target Object after an initial grapple by the claw. These bars acted to press the object into the claws grip and prevent it from surging up out of the claw as lift interruptions occurred. Upon a successful capture by the claw, the lift reversed the lowering process – 60-foot (18 m) pairs drawn up and removed one at a time. The salvaged Target Object was drawn into the moon pool, the doors of which could then be closed to form a floor for the salvaged section. This allowed for the entire salvage process to take place underwater, away from the view of other ships, aircraft, or spy satellites. The recovery operation proceeded over the course of 3 days, starting on July 11.
RESULTS:
The recovered section included all desired artifacts, including nuclear torpedoes and 3 SS-N-5 Snark ballistic missiles and thus Project Azorian was a complete and resounding success. Uncovered in the wreckage were a variety of Soviet codebooks, satellite frequency manuals, and secret communications equipment previously unknown to United States Intelligence Forces. The bodies of six crewmen were also recovered, and were given a memorial service and with military honors, buried at sea in a metal casket because of radioactivity concerns. Specific details of the assumed Soviet launch chain of command are outlined in [REDACTED]. Analysis of the recovered Snark indicates that current UGM-73 and even previous UGM-27 capabilities exceed those of the SS-N-5. It is possible to compare some of the systems recovered to known parameters of the SS-N-6 Serb and improve mass and performance estimates. These improve the agency’s position that the Serbs performance is below that of Poseidon but advances in liquid SLBMs could enable them to match UGM-73. A memo is being prepared to justify further SLBM development against a realistic Soviet future development.
From the wreck analysts were able to determine the most probable cause of the K-129 sinking. Through a number of different potential mechanisms the Main Fuel valve on the #1 missile opened and dumped its contents into the launch tube. The resultant depressurization and loss of structural support to the tank and warhead buckled the Oxidizer downcomer and allowed its contents to leak and ignite with the spilled fuel. The resultant fire degraded structural support inside the missile tube, flooding the compartment and eventually the full sub. More details are outlined in report [REDACTED]. No actions were identified for USN SSBNs to undertake as the solid propellant found on US SLBMs eliminates this specific failure mode.
With regards to operational security - a lesson was learned in securing materials at contractor sites. An intervention by agents was necessary to prevent publication in a nationally run paper of materials taken in unrelated petty theft at the contractors Long Beach office. Local law enforcement cannot be the sole protection provided to locations storing sensitive materials no matter the classification levels.
Last edited:
