The Project 641 submarine B-39 was one of a class of 75 diesel-electric patrol submarines built between 1957 and 1983, including 58 for the Soviet Navy. Assigned the NATO reporting name 'Foxtrot', the Project 641 design was directly based on the German Type XXI submarine design and data gathered on the Balao-class and other Second World War-era American submarines. The Project 641 was the largest non-nuclear submarine built for the Soviet Navy and one of the last to be built before the adoption of the more efficient teardrop-shaped hull form now standard for submarines. They were capable of conducting a 70-day patrol, which could be extended by port visits or replenishment at sea from a tender. The Project 641 boats were noisier than most contemporary Western submarines due to their use of three propellers. While its large suite of batteries gave the Project 641 submarine an underwater endurance of 10 days, the batteries' weight meant that the boat's average submerged speed at maximum endurance was a mere two knots (3.7 km/h). Living conditions were cramped and the design was obsolete long before the final Project 641 boat was launched in 1983. Nevertheless, several Project 641 submarines remained in service with the Soviet/Russian Navy until 2000, after which a number were sold as museum vessels.
Laid down at the Admiralty Shipyard in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg, Russia) on 9 February 1962, B-39 commissioned into the Soviet Navy on 28 December 1967. Homeported in Vladivostok on Russia's Pacific coast, B-39 served with the 9th Submarine Squadron, undertaking patrols and shadowing American and other Western warships in the North Pacific, along the coasts of the United States and Canada, and in the Indian and Arctic Oceans. In 1989, B-39 came within 460 metres (1,510 feet) of a US frigate while the submarine was surfaced and charging its batteries in the Sea of Japan.
Like other major Soviet naval vessels, B-39 carried a Political Officer (Zampolit in Russian), responsible for devotion and adherence to the Soviet state and Communism. Zampolits were usually Communist Party zealots, sons of mid- to high-ranking Communist Party officials, or those who had demonstrated a lifelong interest in Communism and the Soviet state. They were given four years of training at the Kiev Higher Naval Political School, which included studying American, British, and other government structures, before being posted to naval vessels. While the Zampolit wore a naval uniform, he was neither a technical expert or trained to serve in a command position, instead being tasked with cultivating and maintaining the morale of the crew. Although during the early Cold War years, Soviet Navy crewmen often suspected Zampolits of being KGB agents sent to spy on them, these suspicions waned as the Cold War dragged on.
Sailors serving on B-39 and other Soviet submarines were better fed than non-submariners of the Soviet Navy and the general Soviet public, despite most of the food served aboard submarines being canned or frozen. Breakfast, dinner, supper, and tea were served daily. Breakfast might consist of coffee, bread, cheese, eggs cooked to request, sausage or bacon, and condensed milk. A midday dinner featured soup or borscht, meat with noodles or rice, goulash, pickled salad from a can, a half-glass of white wine, and soft drinks or juice. Supper, served between 6:00pm and 7:00pm consisted of soup or milk with rice or noodles, meat with rice or noodles, soft drinks or juice, a chocolate bar, salted fish from a can, caviar, tea, and fresh or canned fruit. At 10:00pm, tea was served, along with cookies, pancakes, or pirozhki (pie). To keep bread fresh, it was laced with alcohol and packed in cans; when heated, the alcohol burned off and the bread was fit to eat. Fresh fruit was generally available during the early part of a patrol and whenever the boat made a port visit or resupplied from a tender. The boat's captain and doctor regularly inspected the crew's food and the cleanliness of the galley in which it was prepared. Notably, although hard liquor was illegal aboard Soviet submarines, one Project 641 boat being converted into a museum was found to contain over 300 empty vodka bottles hidden throughout the vessel.
Decommissioned on 1 April 1994, B-39 was sold first to Finland and then through subsequent transactions to a group of Western businessmen who put the submarine on display in Seattle in 2002. From 21 April 2005, B-39 was displayed as a museum ship at the Maritime Museum of San Diego. Although a 2010 proposal to sink B-39 as an artificial reef was met with protest and the submarine remained a museum ship in San Diego, years of continued deterioration eventually led the museum in October 2021 to scrap B-39. The submarine was towed out of San Diego harbour on 7 February 2022, bound for a scrapyard in Ensenada, Mexico.
Specifications: Project 641/Foxtrot submarine B-39Displacement: 1,984 tons (surfaced) / 2,515 tons (submerged)
Length: 89.9 metres (294 feet 11 inches)
Beam: 7.4 metres (24 feet 3 inches)
Draught: 5.9 metres (19 feet 4 inches)
Propulsion: 3 x Kolomna 2D42M diesel engines, each generating 2,000-horsepower, and 3 x electric motors driving three shafts and propellers
Speed: 16 knots (30 km/h; 18 mph) surfaced or 15 knots (27.8 km/h, 17.3 mph) submerged
Range: 20,000 nautical miles (37,000 kilometres) at 8 knots (15 km/h) surfaced or 11,000 nautical miles (20,000 kilometres) snorkelling or 380 nautical miles (700 kilometres) at 2 knots (3.7 km/h) submerged
Endurance: 70 days without replenishment
Test depth: 246-296 metres (807-971 feet)
Armament: 10 torpedo tubes (6 bow + 4 stern) and up to 22 torpedoes
Complement:12 officers, 12 warrant officers, 56 seamen
Photos taken 13 January 2014
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| The former Soviet Project 641 submarine B-39 berthed at the San Diego Maritime Museum. The Project 641 boats featured a high grade nickel-steel pressure hull with additional ribbing for strength, protected by the outer hull casing. Although the Project 641 boats were capable of diving to a maximum depth of almost 1,000 feet (304.8 metres), such dives were restricted to less than 300 times during a submarine's service life as they incrementally weakened the pressure hull and increased the risk of being crushed. Operating depth for these submarines was less than 750 feet (228.6 metres). |
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| A closer view of the bulbous bow and port side of B-39. Protruding from the top of the casing, just aft of the bow, is the Tamir 5L active sonar array and the Feniks passive sonar array. The boat's diving planes are displayed in the extended position. The corrosion on the hull casing that would eventually doom B-39 to the scrapyard in 2022 was already clearly evident in 2014. |
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| B-39's sail features the windows typical on Soviet submarines and a large red star. An extendable snorkel mounted on the sail allowed the Project 641 submarines to operate underwater while using their diesel engines. |
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| Visitors board B-39 via a gangway just forward of the sail and proceed down a nearby hatch to commence the tour of the boat's interior. |
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| From the forward casing, visitors descend through the former torpedo loading hatch into the forward torpedo room, home to B-39's six bow torpedo tubes. The Project 641 submarines carried 22 torpedoes and up to 36 ground-drop mines. |
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| A closer view of the bow tubes. Each tube fired a compressed oxygen-powered torpedo measuring 21 inches (533 millimeters) in diameter and weighing two tons. Although most torpedoes were conventional variants, during the Cold War some Project 641 submarines also carried T-5 nuclear-tipped torpedoes with a 50-kiloton yield that was capable of destroying a US Navy battle group or a port city. |
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| From the forward torpedo room, visitors proceed aft through a hatch into one of the compartments housing the crew living spaces, as well as the radio room. While the officers and warrant officers had dedicated bunks, B-39's 56 enlisted sailors had to share 27 bunks scattered throughout the boat, including in the torpedo rooms; this necessitated 'hot bunking', whereby one sailor slept in a bunk while its previous occupant was on duty. Sailors had four hours of sleep between their duty watches. Bunks consisted of a thin mattress, paper sheet, paper pillowcase, and woollen blankets. The boat's doctor routinely inspected the sleeping quarters and the crew's hygiene to minimise the risk of a contagious disease outbreak which would have spread quickly in the tight confines of the submarine. The Project 641 submarines had only three toilets and two showers for their 80-man crews. |
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| The commanding officer's cabin. B-39 was commanded by a Captain 2nd rank of the Soviet Navy, equivalent to the rank of Commander in English-speaking navies. The captain of the boat was the only officer with a private cabin, which served both as sleeping accommodation and office. |
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| The officer's wardroom. Wardroom seats were assigned according to rank and on the basis of who needed to be able to leave fastest to respond to an emergency. Violating the wardroom seating arrangement was considered a major social faux pas. The boat's commanding officer (Captain 2nd rank) sat at the head of the table and he would be joined by the first officer (Captain 3rd rank), political officer (Captain 3rd rank), mechanical engineer (Captain 3rd rank), torpedo officer (Captain lieutenant), Navigator (Captain lieutenant), electronics officer (Captain lieutenant), and supply officer (Captain lieutenant). One end of the wardroom table could be lowered quickly to permit the designated watch officer to quickly exit to attend to an emergency in the boat. The wardroom was also used as a surgical theatre and medical examination room for any crew members injured or ill. The deckhead above was fitted with a large, high intensity light for surgical procedures, as well as hooks for holding plasma bags, screens, and other medical equipment. As in all Soviet submarines, the doctor aboard B-39 could perform all but the most complex medical procedures and was also schooled in performing tooth extractions and filling dental cavities; however, more complicated dental procedures would need to be performed aboard a submarine support vessel or at a shore base. The boat's doctor was often the most capable linguist aboard, and would be called to the periscope or the bridge (when cruising on the surface) to read the names of foreign vessels, especially US and other Western naval ships. |
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| The chart room, where the navigation officer plotted the boat's course and stored the various nautical charts required for a mission. |
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| Located at the forward end of the control room are the engine order telegraphs, one for each of the boat's three propellers. These telegraphs were used by the helmsman to send speed orders to the engine room. |
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| Looking forward from the control room through the hatch to the forward accommodations compartment. B-39's crew was organised within four major departments: Navigation, Torpedo (weapons), Electronics (sonar, radio, radar), and Mechanical (motors, diving & surfacing equipment, and maintenance). Each department was headed by a senior officer and had junior officers, midshipmen, and enlisted men ranging from Sailor to Senior Chief Petty Officer. Crew salaries ranged from $20 per month for a Sailor up to $250 per month for a Captain 2nd rank. Soviet submariners were highly trained at various shore and shipboard schools, most in Leningrad, and assigned a specialty trade which was usually impossible to change during a career. Submariners typically retired in their late 40s, though many chose to remain in the Soviet Navy past that age due to the shortage of high profile positions elsewhere. For retirees, the pension was half of the salary of the highest rank they attained, and they needed to collect their pensions in Russia. |
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| Looking down the narrow passageway running the length of B-39, its bulkheads and deckhead covered in a maze of pipes and items of equipment. Although the Project 641 submarines had three decks, two of them (below) housed the electric batteries used when running submerged. |
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| A hatch and short ladder leads down into the engine room. |
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| The engine room, housing the three Kolomna 2D42M turbo diesel engines, each generating 2,000 horsepower. Each diesel engine was connected to a propeller shaft driving a six-bladed propeller. The diesels provided power for cruising on the surface and also charged the electric batteries used for submerged propulsion. The use of three shafts and three propellers made the boat very noisy and, therefore, easily detectable by hydrophones. The Project 641 submarines were capable of cruising 20,000 nautical miles (37,040 kilometres) on 416 tons of diesel fuel. |
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| Looking into the motor control room housing the submarine's electric generator and motor control stations. There is a motor control station for each of the boat's three electric motors, comprising two rated at 1,350 horsepower and one rated at 2,000 horsepower. Like other spaces in the boat, the motor control room also contains bunks for crewmen, crammed in wherever space permits. Beyond the motor control room is the aft torpedo room, containing four torpedo tubes which were used to launch high explosive defensive torpedoes or noisemakers designed to distract pursuing enemy vessels. |
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| A final look at B-39 at the San Diego Maritime Museum on the evening of 13 January 2014. Eight years later, the badly-deteriorated submarine would be towed out of San Diego harbour for a scrapyard in Mexico. |
