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 System. In addition, a board game, published in 1988 by TSR, Inc. became one of the bestselling wargames of all time. In late 2015, River Horse announced it had acquired the rights and intended to crowdfund another game based on the intellectual property. The 2017 Indiegogo launch failed. The fate of the project is unknown as of late 2017. "The Hunt for Red October" popularized the book genre of techno-thriller into the mainstream. “Tom Clancy defined an era, not just of thrillers but of pop culture in general," said Jon Land, an author and marketing chair for the International Thriller