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) participated in the Pacific Fleet-supported filming. The crew of "Houston" called their month-long filming schedule the "Hunt for Red Ops." "Houston" made more than 40 emergency surfacing "blows" for rehearsal and for the cameras. Baldwin was approached in December 1988, but was not told for what role. Klaus Maria Brandauer was cast as Soviet sub commander Marko Ramius but two weeks into filming he quit due to a prior commitment. The producers faxed the script to Sean Connery who, at first, declined because the script seemed implausible in portraying the Soviet Union as an ambitious naval power. He was missing