History Literature / TheHuntForRedOctober

* BasedOnATrueStory: The story was inspired by a real-life mutiny on board a Soviet frigate (the ''Storozhevoy'', mentioned in the book) in 1975, but differs in several key respects from it. Most notably in that Valeriy Sablin (the real-life mutineer) was attempting to ignite a second, anti-Stalinist Bolshevik revolution, rather than flee to the West in his lust for blue jeans and Coca-Cola.

* AlternateHistory: The chapter headings' dates match 1982 or 1993. "Narmonov had succeeded [[UsefulNotes/YuriAndropov Andropov]] when the latter had suffered a heart attack" (Andropov was General Secretary from November 1982 and died of kidney failure in February 1984).

* AlasPoorVillain: [[spoiler:Loginov]], though he wasn’t much of a villain anyway.

It's a UsefulNotes/ColdWar tale of the fictional [[CoolBoat "Typhoon" class missile submarine]] ''Красный Октябрь'' ("Red October"). The sub has an experimental ducted tunnel drive, which allows it to run more quietly than any other ship at sea; effectively making it nigh-invisible to sonar detection. On its first deployment, Captain Marko Ramius murders his political officer, taking his [[TwoKeyedLock set of keys]] for the ''October'''s nuclear missiles. Conspiring with his senior officers, Ramius notifies his crew that they will be testing the ship by evading both the U.S. and Soviet navies to reach Cuba…

The ''Typhoon''-class submarine is real, and the largest submarine in the world. The submarine in the story, though, is quite considerably different to its real-life counterpart, to the point where they can't really be considered the same vessel, mainly because of its fictional "silent" propulsion system and due to a lot of details of the ''Typhoon''s having been classified at the time.

* AlphaStrike: Several hundred aircraft are deployed for a strike mission at the Soviet cruiser ''Kirov'' in response to Robby Jackson’s F-14 getting severely damaged and nearly shot down by a hothead Russian fighter pilot. [[SubvertedTrope Subverted]] in that the Alpha Strike is a feint, and the real mission is a flight of A-10’s that [[BuzzingTheDeck sneak in under the radar]] and drop a ring of [[IfIWantedYouDead flares]] around the ''Kirov'' before the Russians even realize they’re there.

** The ''E.S. Politovskiy''[='s=] reactor accident is more than a little screwy. Clancy erroneously describes the ''Lira''-class (NATO reporting name Alfa-class) as using a pressurized-water reactor like American nuclear-powered ships (he also states that the Americans mistakenly think it's a sodium-cooled or "hot salt" design). In fact, the ''Lira''-class used a molten lead-barium alloy for reactor coolant. Reactors with molten metal coolant are extremely difficult to melt down since the boiling point of most metals is hotter than any fission reactor could possibly get: in the event of accidents, they tend to absorb and re-radiate the excess heat until the coolant solidifies. This is also partly why the ''Lira''-class was so fast: it could safely generate far more power from its reactor than a conventional pressurized-water design. (Clancy erroneously attributes this to an advanced heat-exchanger.) The accident is said to be caused by a coolant leak, which would be self-sealing with the use of molten metal coolant. And if it was so catastrophic that it ''didn't'' self-seal, it would have rather horrific immediate consequences for the crew, and also cause some nasty chemical reactions and steam explosions if one attempted to cool the reactor in an emergency by introducing seawater into the containment vessel, as the ''Politovskiy''[='s=] reactor chief does.
* AwesomenessByAnalysis: Sonarman 1/C Jones. In just a few hours, he finds a way to beat the ''Red October''[='=]s top secret stealth propulsion system and track the sub.

* BatmanGambit: Much of the defecting officers' plans relied on one of these, by instilling paranoia in the crew through radiation tests, refusal to inform the enlisted crew of the situation and other suspicious activities, to the point where the crew would gladly [[AbandonShip leave the ship to be scuttled]] without asking too many questions.
* BenevolentBoss: Greer is quite fatherly to Ryan, and Judge Moore also announces that Ryan's conclusions about the sub are based on assumptions Moore has given him, so that any misjudgment isn't Ryan's fault.

* BunnyEarsLawyer: Jones is described as weird even by Navy sub sonarman standards.

* ClosestThingWeGot: Since the ships actual doctor wasn't in on the plan, the people wounded by the cook are treated by a junior officer who reads medical textbooks as a hobby. He does a surprisingly good job.

** In the [[HotSubOnSubAction final act]] there are only about twenty people handing a ship designed to be run by a crew of roughly a hundred and twenty. ''Red October'' is completely unable to shoot back because there's no one in the torpedo rooms and no one can be spared.

** ''[[ThePoliticalOfficer Zampoliti]]'' didn't have authority over combat matters, were strictly subordinate to the commanding officer, and functioned similarly to a chaplain in a Western military.

** The reactor accident that sinks the first Alfa would be impossible; they used a liquid metal cooled nuclear reactor that wasn't pressurized, and any leaking coolant would simply have frozen, sealing the leak. Ironically, the use of a liquid metal plant rather than an American-style pressurized water reactor is mentioned as a faulty guess by U.S. military intelligence.

* DoABarrelRoll: The "Crazy Ivan" maneuver, a sharp 360 degree turn taken to bring the sub's forward sonar to bear on what was in their "baffles" directly behind the sub before the turn, to make sure someone's not hiding behind them.

* EpicFail: by the end of the book, [[spoiler: the Soviets have lost one submarine due to critical reactor failure, another to defection (though they don’t know it and think it was just destroyed) and a third to being sunk by the second (though again, they think it was due to reactor failure). The loss of just one submarine in US territorial waters would be catastrophic. The loss of two is beyond imagining. Three? Over the course of ''two weeks?'' EpicFail.]]
* EveryoneKnowsMorse: {{Justified|Trope}}: the British Signals Officer is the one who sends the message via blinker from HMS ''Invincible'' to the ''Red October''. It is described as a slow and rather jerky process since the officer is a bit rusty at it. On the other hand, Ramius knowing Morse is entirely believable, since he's from an older school of military.

* ForgottenPhlebotinum: The caterpiller drive only appears in this book and is not brought up again in subsequent novels. Understandable as it was an invention of Clancy for his first novel and wouldn't fit into his later, hyper realistic books. Considering the fact that Jones (with good use of his sub's sonar tech) is capable of keeping track of it for an extended period of time, the implication of it being too AwesomeButImpractical is also firmly set.

* GoodIsNotSoft: One of the Joint Chiefs hints that DCI Arthur Moore, a laid-back, soft spoken former judge, was involved in some very dark stuff in his CIA career, like making the crew of a captured North Korean freighter disappear.

* HistoricalVillainUpgrade: The Soviet justice system, an organization one would hardly expect needed any more blackening. In the novel, the real-life mutiny led by Shablin is mentioned by Ryan. According to Ryan after the mutiny was suppressed, Shablin and 26 other mutineers were executed. In reality, only Shablin was executed, his main accomplice received an eight year sentence and the other crew members were freed.
* HoistByHisOwnPetard: A SleazyPolitician, Senator Donaldson, who had repeatedly butted heads with the CIA over his fishing for information [[HauledBeforeASenateSubcommittee during the committees he chaired.]] The CIA began to investigate him after a leak got one of their agents killed, and learned that he was leaking info to an aide who was a DoubleAgent. Said aide was arrested for espionage and treason, allowing the CIA to pressure Donaldson into retiring in order to prevent his name being tied to the scandal.

** {{Inverted}} during the final showdown, the [[ThePoliticalOfficer political officer]] of the Soviet submarine ''Konovalov'' is worried about the American subs protecting ''Red October''. Captain Tupolev replies that he will ignore ''Dallas'' and ''Pogy'' and points out that if the Americans had authorization to shoot one of them would have already sunk ''Konovalov''. Tupolev's original mission orders already gave him permission to shoot ''Red October'', while by their rules of engagement the Americans must wait until they are fired upon.

** Several of Ramius' officers have similar stories of being screwed over and subjected to indignities by the state. One was repeatedly denied promotion for ''decades'' because his parents, despite being loyal Communists, were Jewish; another was sexually propositioned by a superior officer, and was subsequently ''punished'' for reporting the impropriety because the man was the son of an extremely high-ranking party official. (The officer who was propositioned was probably Borodin, since the narrator noted that Borodin once accused a zampolit of homosexuality and the guy he informed on was the son of the chief zampolit of the Northern Fleet.) The chief engineer, although Ramius' equal in rank, never received a command of his own simply because he was too good of an engineer, and the Soviet Navy wanted to keep him in the engine room (in the Soviet Navy, like most navies, engineer is a staff position not in the line of command; due to its commitment to nuclear safety, the American submarine fleet is a rare exception).

** One of first actions taken by Ramius is to break Ivan Putin's neck and then set it up to look like he slipped on spilled tea and fell backwards into the corner of a table. This is largely done to fool Doctor Petrov and allow Ramius to substitute his own set of orders.

* TheMutiny: {{Inverted}}, {{Lampshaded}}, and glibly noted to be [[YouKeepUsingThatWord academic]]. An American officer calls it a mutiny, only to be told that "mutiny" is when the crew rises against officers. When the ''officers'' try to steal their ship, the correct term is "barratry". Doesn't mean that the Kremlin's not going to be furious someone stole their SuperPrototype boat.
** Admiral Foster of the Joint Chiefs of Staff also points out that nearly all mutinies/barratries are actually led by officers, because they're the ones who know how to steer the ship (which causes him to accept Ryan's idea about Ramius and his men defecting).

** Ryan describes intelligence report of a previous Soviet sub that surfaced and showed signs there may have been a mutiny on board, but this is never confirmed or referenced again.

** Putin on board the ''Red October''. Described as the perfect zampolit, a landsman and an easy man to fear.

* PostInjuryDeskJob: Commander Quentin, a former destroyer officer, had to man a sonar listening post while he's recovering from chemotherapy, and "Skip" Tyler, a former submarine officer who is now teaching at Annapolis and doing consulting work after losing half a leg to a drunk driver. At one point, Tyler is offered the chance to go back to sea, but he turns it down so he can spend more time with his family.
* RammingAlwaysWorks: Justified by ''Red October'' lacking enough manpower to fire torpedoes and Ramius' expert knowledge of how Soviet submarines handle (and their commanders behave), being effectively the submarine captain version of a test pilot for new designs. And because they plan to dissect the sub anyway so a little damage is less of a big deal. It helps that the ''Typhoon'' Class sub was a lot bigger than it's target.

* RupturedAppendix: Due to drunkenness while on duty, a surgeon botched removing an inflamed appendix from the wife of [[spoiler:Marko Ramius]], the organ bursting because the doctor took too long to try to sober up by breathing pure oxygen. She might have still survived, but the clinic was out of foreign antibiotics, so the ones used to treat her were Soviet made, and therefore probably just vials full of distilled water. [[note]]His wife's death at the hands of a doctor that [[ScrewTheRulesIHaveConnections couldn't be punished because he was the son of a senior Party official]] is what drives [[spoiler:Captain Ramius]] to defect.[[/note]]

** Tom Clancy even did his homework when it came to contemporary video games. He described Jones, the brilliant and eccentric sonar tech, as the resident ''VideoGame/{{Choplifter}}'' and ''VideoGame/{{Zork}}'' champion aboard the ''Dallas''. ''Choplifter'' is an arcade game, so this makes sense, but ''Zork''? It's a text adventure, so how could you be champion of it? Well, it turns out that ''Zork'' does keep score, and the challenge for expert players is to acquire the maximum points (350) in the fewest moves.

** Near the end, [[spoiler: Mancuso, aboard the ''Red October'', impersonates a British officer over the radio, just to throw off any nearby snoops wondering what an obviously non-American sub is doing in Chesapeake Bay at four in the morning]].

It's a UsefulNotes/ColdWar tale of the fictional [[CoolBoat "Typhoon" class missile submarine]] ''Красный Октябрь'' ("Red October"). The sub has an experimental ducted tunnel drive, which allows it to run more quietly than any other ship at sea; effectively making it nigh-invisible to sonar detection. On its first deployment, Captain Marko Ramius murders his political officer, taking his [[TwoKeyedLock set of keys]] for the ''October'''s nuclear missiles. Conspiring with his senior officers, Ramius notifies his crew that they will be testing the ship by evading both the U.S. and Soviet navies to reach the eastern coast of the United States itself…

** The noisiest thing on a nuclear submarine isn't the screws by a long shot, it's the nuclear power plant itself. A caterpillar drive, if possible, would do nothing to help with this. In the novel, the caterpillar is a pump-jet propulsor rather than a phlebotnium drive; at best it would confuse sonar operators and mask the reactor noises.

* BenevolentBoss: Greer if quite fatherly to Ryan and Judge Moore also announces that Ryan's conclusions about the sub are based on assumptions Moore has given him, so that any misjudgment isn't Ryan's fault.

* CrusadingWidow: The last straw turning Ramius against the Soviet Union was the death of his wife. He came to the revelation, at her miserable excuse for a funeral, that the government had not only been responsible for her death, it also left him no choice but to deny the hope -- ''even if it was a false hope'' -- of seeing her again.

* DefectorFromCommieLand: Ramius and his officers are attempting to defect, bringing the ''Red October'' as a gift, with Ryan as the protagonist whose task is to help them succeed.

* ShownTheirWork: The portrayal of submarine life and submarine warfare is pretty realistic -- in some cases, too realistic, as some of the technology got Clancy a visit from the government to find out how he knew about it, as it was classified top secret at the time. The descriptions of submarine warfare are so realistic that ''The Hunt For Red October'' has become one of the only fictional works to appear on the U.S. Naval Academy's recommended reading list.
** Tom Clancy even did his homework when it came to contemporary video games. He described Jones, the brilliant and eccentric sonar tech, as the resident Choplifter and Zork champion aboard the ''Dallas''. Choplifter is an arcade game, so this makes sense, but Zork? It's a text adventure, so how could you be champion of it? Well, it turns out that Zork does keep score, and the challenge for expert players is to acquire the maximum points (350) in the fewest moves.

** Inverted during the final showdown, the [[ThePoliticalOfficer political officer]] of the Soviet submarine ''Konovalov'' is worried about the American subs protecting ''Red October''. Captain Tupolev replies that he will ignore ''Dallas'' and ''Pogy'' and points out that if the Americans had authorization to shoot one of them would have already sunk ''Konovalov''. Tupolev's original mission orders already gave him permission to shoot ''Red October'', while by their rules of engagement the Americans must wait until they are fired upon.

* WeaponRunningTime: Inverted. [[spoiler:When ''Red October'' is attacked by the Alfa-class hunter-killer sub ''V.K. Konovalov'', the ''October'' survives because ''Konovalov'' fires its torpedo from too ''short'' a range. The torpedo's safety system requires a run of at least 400 meters before the warhead will arm, and it hit ''Red October'' just 350 meters after it was launched.]]

* SealedOrders: For security, the ''Red October''[='s=] mission orders are sealed and locked into a safe until after she leaves port. Once the submarine is underway, Ramius removes the orders and reads them -- and then lies to the rest of the crew about what they say.

* ArbitraryMinimumRange: Russian torpedoes have a safety feature that will only arm the torpedo when it is a safe distance away from the ship that fired it. This means that the torpedo fired on the ''Red October'' during its final attack run is useless, as Ramius is trying to get close enough to ram the opposing submarine.

* WeaponRunningTime: Inverted. When ''Red October'' is attacked by the Alfa-class hunter-killer sub ''V.K. Konovalov'', the ''October'' survives because ''Konovalov'' fires its torpedo from too ''short'' a range. The torpedo's safety system requires a run of at least 400 meters before the warhead will arm, and it hit ''Red October'' just 350 meters after it was launched.

* CrusadingWidower: The last straw turning Ramius against the Soviet Union was the death of his wife. He came to the revelation, at her miserable excuse for a funeral, that the government had not only been responsible for her death, it also left him no choice but to deny the hope -- ''even if it was a false hope'' -- of seeing her again.

** Ramius' main motive was to punish the state for the fact that [[CrusadingWidower his wife had died]] in a botched operation directed by a surgeon who had got the job from [[UpperClassTwit Party Patronage]], compounded by faulty antibiotics that did nothing to improve Mrs. Ramius' health. Further, what he considers the greatest crime is the State's suppression of religion that robbed him of "the hope, even if it ''was'' a lie", of seeing his wife again.

* EpicFail: by the end of the book, [[spoiler: the Soviets have lost one submarine due to critical reactor failure, another to defection (though they don’t know it and think it was just destroyed) and a third to being sunk by the second (though again, they think it was due to reactor failure). The loss of just one submarine is US territorial waters would be catastrophic. The loss of two is beyond imagining. Three? Over the course of ''two weeks?'' EpicFail.]]

* BenevolentBoss: Greer if quite fatherly to Ryan and Jduge Moore also announces that Ryan's conclusions about the sub are based on assumptions Moore has given him, so that any misjudgment isn't Ryan's fault.

* CIAEvilFBIGood: Mostly averted though it is acknowledged that the CIA does some DirtyBusiness.

** The ''E.S. Politovskiy''[='s=] reactor accident is more than a little screwy. Clancy erroneously describes the ''Lira''-class (NATO reporting name Alfa-class) as using a pressurized-water reactor like American nuclear-powered ships (he also states that the Americans mistakenly think it's a sodium-cooled or "hot salt" design). In fact, the ''Lira''-class used a molten lead-barium alloy for reactor coolant. Reactors with molten metal coolant are extremely difficult to melt down since the boiling point of most metals is hotter than any fission reactor could possibly get: in the event of accidents, they tend to absorb and re-radiate the excess heat until the coolant solidifies. This is also partly why the ''Lira''-class was so fast: it could safely generate far more power from its reactor than a conventional pressurized-water design. (Clancy erroneously attributes this to an advanced heat-exchanger.) On the other hand, the accident is said to have been caused by a catastrophic coolant leak, which, given that molten metal is involved, would have rather horrific immediate consequences for the crew, and also cause some nasty chemical reactions and steam explosions if one attempted to cool the reactor in an emergency by introducing seawater into the containment vessel, as the ''Politovskiy''[='s=] reactor chief does.

** Very few Soviet submarines were ever given official names, yet all of the Soviet submarines with viewpoint characters aboard—the eponymous ''Red October'' itself, the pursuing ''V.K. Konovalov'', and the ill-fated ''E.S. Politovskiy''—are named.
** The noisiest thing on a nuclear submarine isn't the screws by a long shot, it's the nuclear power plant itself. A caterpillar drive, if possible, would do nothing to help with this. In the novel, the caterpiller is a pump-jet propulsor rather than a phlebotnium drive; at best it would confuse sonar operators and mask the reactor noises.

* AFatherToHisMen: Ramius and his wife, in the backstory that is given, are said to have taken junior officers in as the children that they never had.

* HollywoodTactics: Averted. In one of the only instances of its like seen in military media, a group of American and British generals and admirals get together to plan a defense against a perceived Soviet Navy attack ''without'' involvement in the discussion by any political figures such as the President or national security advisor. They know what they're up against and with very concise language arrange for certain ships to be on the front lines with certain others in support, arrange unneeded aircraft on aircraft carriers to be replaced with ones more appropriate for subsurface warfare, swap assets between units without regard for political niceties, and in the end have a very workable plan for a large-scale naval battle ready in a matter of minutes. The plan never has to be put into effect, of course, but it's a great show of what a room of professionals can do without worrying about outside factors while doing what they do best.