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) the first page which set the story before Gorbachev's coming to power, when the events of the book would have seemed more plausible. He arrived in L.A. on a Friday and was supposed to start filming on Monday but he requested a day to rehearse. Principal photography began on April 3, 1989 with a $30 million budget. The Navy lent the film crew "Houston", , two frigates ( and ), helicopters, and a dry-dock crew. Filmmaker John Milius revised some of the film's script, writing a few speeches for Sean Connery and all of his Russian dialogue. He was asked