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 sales qualifying the bestseller lists from mass market paperback back to hardcover, a trend that other “brand-name” authors such as Stephen King, Clive Cussler, Michael Crichton, and Danielle Steel would later follow. On April 20, 2018, "The Hunt for Red October" was included in the list of 100 most-loved books in the U.S., compiled by PBS as part of their new series and multi-platform initiative "The Great American Read". The book appeared in a fake commercial ad serving as a teaser trailer for the third season of the Netflix web television series "Stranger Things", which was released on July 16,