Soviet Titanium Aircraft Program (Docket 3) / Soviet Alpha-class submarine

The technical story: Soviets built titanium subs that outran U.S. destroyers and dove below depth-charge collapse depth. But they hadn't solved (or known about) creep-fatigue interaction — the phenomenon NRL had studied, where titanium under sustained compression develops rapidly-growing fatigue cracks. A submarine hull in deep water is exactly that compression case. The Soviet subs cracked and were noisy.

In 1980 I'm coming back from my first trip to Europe, I'm on the plane, and they hand out a copy of the International Herald Tribune — or maybe it was the international Wall Street Journal, whatever it was — and on the front page it announces that the Soviets now have a titanium submarine. This was the Alpha sub. The U.S. Navy may have known a little bit earlier, but it was now on the front page of an international newspaper.