The Hunt for Red October vessel. It is equipped with a cutting-edge silent propulsion system, known as the caterpillar drive, that makes audio detection by passive sonar extremely difficult and enables the submarine to sneak its way into American offshore waters and launch nuclear missiles with little or no warning. As the ship leaves the shipyard at Polyarny, Ramius kills Ivan Putin, his political officer, to ensure that he will not interfere with the defection. Initially, Ramius was instructed to conduct military exercises with Soviet attack submarine "V. K. Konovalov", commanded by his former student Viktor Tupolev, for the purpose of testing the effectiveness of
The Hunt for Red October (film) test of time". In contrast, "Newsweek"s David Ansen wrote, "But it's at the gut level that "Red October" disappoints. This smoother, impressively mounted machine is curiously ungripping. Like an overfilled kettle, it takes far too long to come to a boil". Vincent Canby, writing for "The New York Times", opined that "the characters, like the lethal hardware, are simply functions of the plot, which in this case seems to be a lot more complex than it really is". "The Hunt for Red October" was nominated and won several awards in 1991. In addition, the film was also nominated for AFI's