The Hunt for Red October (film) nuclear missile submarine with a stealth "caterpillar drive", rendering it undetectable to passive sonar. Ramius leaves port to conduct exercises with attack submarine "V. K. Konovalov", commanded by his former student Captain Tupolev. Once at sea, Ramius secretly kills political officer Ivan Putin and relays false orders that they are to conduct missile drills off America's east coast. At the same time, American attack submarine "USS Dallas", tasked with identifying and shadowing Soviet subs as they leave port, detects "Red October" as it begins its mission, but immediately loses track of it once the caterpillar drive is engaged. The next
The Hunt for Red October novel as "the most satisfactory novel of a sea chase since C.S. Forester perfected the form". Due to an extensive marketing campaign by the Naval Institute Press for their first published work of fiction, which was initially aimed on the military, the book sold 45,000 copies by March 1985. Clancy said in a 1991 interview: “I thought we’d sell maybe five thousand or ten thousand hardcovers and that would be the end of it. I never really thought about making money.” After Reagan's endorsement, "The Hunt for Red October" topped the national bestseller lists, particularly "The New York Times". It