Nuclear Subs 'Collide In Ocean' 622
Jantastic noted a BBC report saying "A Royal Navy nuclear submarine was involved in a collision with a French nuclear sub in the middle of the Atlantic. It is understood HMS Vanguard and Le Triomphant were badly damaged in the crash earlier this month. Despite being equipped with sonar, it seems neither vessel spotted the other, the BBC's Caroline Wyatt said."
Whoops (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Whoops (Score:5, Funny)
They drive on the opposite sides of the street. Maybe they give way differently was well?
Or maybe they were both in stealth mode.
Re:Whoops (Score:5, Funny)
They drive on the opposite sides of the street. Maybe they give way differently was well?
Actually, they were taking a page from NASA's book. Someone accidentally gave a measurement in SAE units, which didn't go over well on a metric boat. I told you using furlongs per fortnight was a bad idea...
Re:Whoops (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Whoops (Score:5, Funny)
Is it a nuclear sub? Because (based on a linear extrapolation from Ivy Mike; sorry, not a Nuclear Engineer) a hogshead of plutonium would generate around 40 gigatons of explosive force if detonated.
Perhaps your sub works by moving the Earth around it?
Re:Whoops (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm Irish, may I suggest something concerning Lucky Charms, or perhaps pots of gold? Alcoholism?
Re:Whoops (Score:5, Interesting)
1 hogshead=238.5 L
238.5 L in 1 hogshead
Plutonium 19.86 g per cm^3
1 liter=1000 cm^3
238500 grams/hoghshead
238500/19.86=12009 grams of plutonium(call it 12 kilos)
1 kilo plutonium, fissioned=20,000 tons tnt
240,000 tons tnt
1 ton tnt=4.184 Gj
1004160 Gj of energy per hogshead of plutonium
40 rods=201 meters
1004160 Gj/201 meters
or a hair under 5,000,000,000 kilonewtons
1 newton being the energy to accelerate 1 kilo to 1 meter per second and the earth being a bit under 6,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 kilograms, I don't think we'd notice much.
The british sub, weighing about 14,500,000 kilograms, would get something like 344 meters/second out of it. Or just about the speed of sound at sea level. I imagine that might be a first, for a sub, breaking the sound barrier and taking flight(plummeting glide, really) with those stubby dive planes.
Some one will now rip my math into shreds of sobbing uselessness, probably around the newtons to meters/second part.
Re:Supercavitation (Score:5, Funny)
If you are going to search for Supercavitation images on the web, make sure "safe search" is on...
Re:Whoops (Score:4, Funny)
That's 4.7 metric tons, not 12 kilograms - in other words, you're off by a factor of 400.
Which means if the rest of his math is in fact correct, that's a sub traveling at 400 times the speed of sound, ie. over 10x escape velocity.
The Air Force has monopolized space exploration long enough, now it's the Navy's turn to go to the moon!
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Even Brazil uses nautical miles. And we are a country were a good part of the population wouldn't tell the different between a mile and a file.
Re:Whoops (Score:5, Informative)
It's obvious you know nothing about nautical subjects. The nautical mile was defined as 1,852 meters in 1929, and every navy in the world uses this definition. It is approximately one arc minute of length along any meridian. All international treaties dealing with distances on water use the same nautical mile definition.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Sorry, we Americas drive on the right side of the road. There is no driving on the left side, only the WRONG side.
Re:Whoops (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Whoops (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Whoops (Score:4, Funny)
If two submarines crash in the ocean, and neither is running sonar, does it make a sound?
Re:Whoops (Score:5, Funny)
If two submarines crash in the ocean, and neither is running sonar, does it make a sound?
yes. it sounds like "crunch" followed by "oh, shit".
Re:Whoops (Score:5, Interesting)
Nuclear submarines, and especially ballistic missile submarines, don't communicate with anyone at sea unless it's absolutely critical. Communicating gives away your position, and for such submarines, the fact that nobody outside the hull knows exactly where it is is their number one means of survivability. In addition, ballistic missile subs don't have 'allies' - they treat even the surface and submarine forces of their own navy as 'potential hostiles' when at sea in order to maximize their survivability and to continually train to avoid such threats.
Collisions between submarines were fairly common during the Cold War, and were indicative of the amount of time subs spent playing 'hide and seek' with their opponents - because in order to gain intelligence on other submarines, or even to follow them reliably, subs have to be quite close relative to how long it takes them to stop or turn. As a result, however, most collisions were between or involved attack submarines. For two SSBNs to involved in such a bump, either one or the other had to be involved in SSN-like games, or pretty astronomical odds were just surmounted in a random collision. It's a big ocean. It'll be interesting to see precisely where the damage to the two boats is, as it might tell us what aspect they collided at - I have heard it was a slight angle from head-on. Even that doesn't meant they weren't playing silly buggers - if one submarine turned to check its baffles and the other didn't maneuver out of the way, that could result in an angled head-on.
Re:Whoops (Score:5, Funny)
Do you know what you're talking about or did you just watch The Hunt for Red October?
Re:Whoops (Score:4, Funny)
Actually it was Crimson Tide.
Re:Whoops (Score:5, Funny)
I'm not a submarine warfare specialist, but I did burn down a Holiday Inn Express last night!
Oops, did I say that out loud?
Re:Whoops (Score:5, Funny)
the fact that nobody outside the hull knows exactly where it is is their number one means of survivability.
Does the fact that nobody inside the hull knows exactly where it is help too?
For two SSBNs to involved in such a bump, either one or the other had to be involved in SSN-like games, or pretty astronomical odds were just surmounted in a random collision
Considering that 2 satellites just collided, astronomical odds don't seem that great.
Re:Whoops (Score:5, Funny)
Considering that 2 satellites just collided, astronomical odds don't seem that great.
What's more, a million to one chance is pretty certain to happen at least nine times out of ten.
Re:Whoops (Score:5, Funny)
OK, now, tell me, which one of you was such a wag to steal all the entropy and think it's funny, eh? Put it back at once, before it turns out that we all have "1234" for a root password just by coincidence!
Re:Whoops (Score:5, Funny)
*** CaptainSpam quietly logs into his server and adds a 5
Re:Whoops (Score:5, Interesting)
Perhaps Sir Humphrey Appleby spoke the truth about the true purpose behind Britain's independent deterrent?...
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Would you trust the French sub? I know I wouldn't? One of two things would happen.
-The french sub realizes its being followed, at which point is surfaces, and raises a white flag of surrender, causing some embarrassment for capturing an ally. The French just used their natural instinct.
-Somebody mentions they are thinking of invading France, at which point the nation surrenders, and turns over all their information about where their forces and their allies forces are.
Neither is going to do England well.
Re:Whoops (Score:5, Insightful)
Funny how the US people started calling the French cowards for standing up to oppose them in the UN.
Re:Whoops (Score:4, Funny)
Haha, excellent! One of the very few Yes, Minister references on Slashdot, and so fitting, too. For those who haven't watched the programme (it ran in the 80s), an inexperienced Cabinet minister (later prime minister) is being "educated" by his Department's top civil servant, Sir Humphrey. Sir Humphrey tells the astonished minister that Britain's nuclear deterrent isn't intended against the Russians, but the French.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The Register has a decent analysis of this making similar points:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/02/16/subs_crash/ [theregister.co.uk]
Lewis Page consistently seems to write insightfully about nuclear submarines - I look forward to seeing how well he can rant about Wikipedia.
Oh James... (Score:5, Funny)
Nuclear submarines colliding, satellites colliding, 200 million Chinese [cnn.com] suddenly move inland leaving cities, US government giving away billions of dollars to banks...
Don't know about you, but lately I feel more and more like I am living in a James Bond movie.
Only I am not the one with cool gadgets, drinking problem and a girl with a sexual innuendo for a name under each arm.
Re:Oh James... (Score:5, Funny)
could be worse - imagine that you are in a tom clancy novel
Re:Oh James... (Score:5, Funny)
It would explain the terrible characterization of people around me!
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Only I am not the one with cool gadgets, drinking problem and a girl with a sexual innuendo for a name under each arm.
It was a collision between two big long hard things full of seamen.
You can not (Score:4, Informative)
France... (Score:3)
Saved the asses of the UK in the war against Argentina.
Francois Mitterand convinced the company that produced the Exocet missiles to give access to the UK to the designs of these weapons.
Argentina had these missiles and were using them successfully against British ships.
And France is there in Afghanistan, fighting a fight which many other countries are reluctant to fight...
And this is just for starters. The Brits have ground to be ambivalent about France, but the US?
Check the history about the US war of ind
Re:France... (Score:5, Insightful)
Check the history about the US war of independence.
Why? 300 years ago the US and Britain were enemies, and now they are friends. What happened 300 years ago has no bearing on how we should behave today.
I hate arguments like that single quoted sentence. It's like how some Koreans complain about Japan invading them over the past few hundred years and the domination from 1905 until 1945 as reasons to dislike Japan and Japanese today.
I don't even know where the anti-France thing comes from. I just view it as a funny running joke.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Yeah cause then we'd have to read that shitty story that somebody is bound to post.
Here you go: http://www.snopes.com/military/lighthouse.asp [snopes.com]
And for completeness' sake, here's the (amusing) video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-dwDhvHE_I [youtube.com]
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Wait, didn't it read that one was French? I didn't know that anyone there could do more than cower under a table?
Its the french. Of course they have small boats that can stay hidden under the water, undetectable during times of war.
Euphemism? (Score:5, Funny)
Is there a reason "collide in ocean" is in quotes? Could we also say they were "bumping their ballasts", "raising their periscopes", and so on?
Re:Euphemism? (Score:5, Funny)
It is in so called 'quote marks' because it is a quotation.
Re:Euphemism? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Euphemism? (Score:5, Funny)
"There are more airplanes in the ocean than submarines in the sky."
--old Navy reply to cocky Air Force pilots
collision crisis (Score:5, Funny)
Re:collision crisis (Score:5, Funny)
Apparently, the UK submarine was carrying red paint, and the French sub was carrying blue paint.
All the sailors are marooned.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Subs don't always use SONAR (Score:5, Insightful)
Despite being equipped with sonar, it seems neither vessel spotted the other, the BBC's Caroline Wyatt said."
That's not surprising. All that stealthy sub technology doesn't work well when you're pinging with active SONAR. When subs don't want to be found, they go quiet and depend on their sensors to pick up noise from other vessels. Of course, if you have two subs each of whicf has stealth technology that is better than the other sub's sensors, then you have a situation where two subs can't see each other. Which could lead to a collision.
Re:Subs don't always use SONAR (Score:5, Insightful)
It could also be possible one sub had detected the other and was shadowing it. The shadowed sub could have performed and unexpected maneuver and they collided. It's happened before.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I believe they collided almost head on so unless that manoeuvre was a handbrake turn I doubt they were shadowing one another (submarines not being well known for their manoeuvrability). I suspect that it's more likely a case of wrong place at the wrong time combined with good stealth technology). Actually, this does say a bit about how good the stealth technology must be since they weren't able to passively detect one another.
Stealth is good, detection is poor (Score:3, Insightful)
I believe they collided almost head on so unless that manoeuvre was a handbrake turn I doubt they were shadowing one another (submarines not being well known for their manoeuvrability). I suspect that it's more likely a case of wrong place at the wrong time combined with good stealth technology). Actually, this does say a bit about how good the stealth technology must be since they weren't able to passively detect one another.
While it says something about how good their stealth technology is, it also says s
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
US Subs at least, (can't speak to UK and French sub technology) are supposed to already have a pretty advanced array of non-emitting sensors, including very sensitive gravimeters capable of detecting and mapping gravitational fields around the ship (as I understand it, primarily for detecting and navigating around earthen features, but probably capable of detecting other vessels at shorter ranges), and a number of electromagnetic sensors for detecting things like mines, which probably work just fine for det
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Subs don't always use SONAR (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Subs don't always use SONAR (Score:5, Funny)
And to misquote Order of the Stick:
*bump*
"Sorry for knocking you over, I didn't see you there."
"Don't worry. Happens all the time. 'Cause, you know. Ninja."
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Subs always use SONAR. However, they use passive SONAR.
Right, and that's where I think people are getting the misconception, because they see SONAR as the active type - which you don't want to use when you don't want to be found. As you point out, stealth technology defeats sensors underwater these days.
So, this is not a surprise they were not able to hear each other. What is surprising is with all that deep, deep ocean out there, two of them just happened right into each other.
Methinks I detect some
All Alone (Score:3, Insightful)
Run silent - Run deep.
When you think you are all alone out there in the big ocean then there is no need for sonar which would just gives your position away... just in case someone is out there.
When two play the game it can only lead to problems eventually... sort of like driving at night without headlights.
Re:All Alone (Score:5, Funny)
Run silent - Run deep.
- Run into each other.
Stealth Technology is Too Dangerous (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Stealth Technology is Too Dangerous (Score:5, Interesting)
Being ex Royal Navy myself, I know just ho stealthy these SSBNs really are.
We had a two week exercise with the US Navy to hunt for a Vanguard class sub. The sub said its goodbyes, we gave it a couple of hours then we went hunting. Two weeks later we didn't find it. The sub surfaces, only for them to tell us they have been sitting under one of the destroyers hulls all the time.
Re:Stealth Technology is Too Dangerous (Score:5, Funny)
They were pulling your leg. In actual fact they dry-docked it and spent two weeks in the pub.
in the immortal words from Star trek.... (Score:5, Funny)
Or in a /. reference.. (Score:3, Funny)
Someone should have spent more time Naval Gazing.
-Rick
Odds ? (Score:5, Interesting)
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Odds ? (Score:4, Informative)
Russians used to do what were called "Crazy Ivans."
Yes, we all saw The Hunt for Red October [imdb.com].
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
What are the odds that two advanced SSBN submarines would collide in a vast ocean accidentally ?
FTFA:
"Both navies want quiet areas, deep areas, roughly the same distance from their home ports. So you find these station grounds have got quite a few submarines, not only French and Royal Navy but also from Russia and the United States."
So probably not quite as unlikely as one would have been more comfortable thinking :-)
Re:Odds ? (Score:5, Interesting)
"The middle of the Atlantic OCean" is a big place. However, "that maneuverable spot between the underwater mountains that shield you from sonar and doesn't have any currents that will smack you into rocks" is not perhaps such a big place, and it's less surprising that such places might be more frequented by submarines playing hide and seek.
In fact, it makes me wonder if _both_ subs were hiding from a Russian vessel nearby and pulled the same tricks of concealment.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The odds are quite good, because the subs don't cruise the ocean at random.
Even the best stealth technology won't help much in clear, open, stagnant sea. It's the background noise you hide in.
The borders of oceanic currents of various temperature and salination water create zones that neatly reflect noises, create quite a bit of background noise themselves, and in short, for a submarine, are what a bunch of seaweed is to a fish - a great place to hide in. Plus they often run for many, many miles along the c
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I'd imagine that it is made more likely by the topology of the ocean floor itself; there are probably good corridors through which to travel undetected (especially in 'friendly' water where it's unlikely that the enemy have detector arrays). If both sides are using the same ocean floor map, it seems that the odds of a collision go up considerably if there's an obvious corridor to traverse/hide in.
Topography, not topology (Score:4, Interesting)
I'd like to respectfully correct a very common and understandable error in your terminology. I think you mean "topography" when you talk about the peaks and troughs of the ocean floor. "Topology" is a mathematical term describing the connectivity of sets of points: for example the surface of s sphere has one kind of topology while the surface of a donut has a different kind, because continuous transformations that don't break the 2D surface of a sphere can't morph it into a shape with a hole in it. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topology [wikipedia.org] for more if you're interested.
That aside, your point is well-taken that subs might tend to congregate in the same areas due to favorable underwater geological features.
Thank god for BBC (Score:3, Funny)
Despite each being equipped with sonar? (Score:5, Insightful)
That was the most retarded thing that could possibly have been added to that summary. You don't use active sonar unless you want to be found. Passive sonar won't find everything. It's entirely possible that both subs detected each other, both went silent, and both coasted right into one another. The FA is hilarious though:
No, Nick. It wouldn't be, because nuclear weapons have to be detonated. A lot of careful work goes into making sure they don't go off accidentally. If two subs crash hard enough to destroy them, there will be a lot of bubbles, and dead crewmen.
Well, (Colonel?) Angus, it's called physics. See, two objects with mass cannot occupy the same space...
No, a nuclear nightmare of the highest order is scores of terrorists running around with suitcase nukes. (you know, like the USA)
The collision of two submarines would actually be unlikely to release vast amounts of radiation, although it could scatter scores of nuclear warheads across the seabed. This is actually enormously unlikely since the weapons are stored in the most structurally secure portion of the vessel, in their own launch tubes. Most likely they would stay in the tubes in all but the most severe impact. Remember, submarines are not made out of porcelain. They are made out of various metals and in a collision (as opposed to an explosion) they would not likely separate into many pieces. Just think of the physics involved - when two cars collide head-on at over 50 mph they do not typically disintegrate. The total energy is vastly higher here, but the relative speed is much slower, and a lot of the energy involved will be absorbed by the water in the way that air doesn't.
I'm as put off by the fact of WWIII in a can being writ across our oceans many times over as the next guy, but I prefer to skip the bullshit rhetoric. I guess that's why I'm not a politician.
Re:Despite each being equipped with sonar? (Score:4, Insightful)
Allies should not be crashing nuclear reactors into each other by accident.
Drivers should not be crashing containers of flammable liquids into each other by accident. Let's ban cars!
If extra precautions are necessary to prevent a recurrence, then they should at least be considered, even if there is some impact on e.g. the realism of training exercises.
You'd prefer they used unrealistic training exercises which will leave them unprepared in the event of an emergency?
There is a history of nuclear warheads being lost due to crashed subs and bombers, and it's definitely something we want to avoid.
While I agree in principle, in practice the only way to win is not to play.
Until that day comes, we're going to have a need for stealth.
In practice, the only people who can afford to retrieve nukes off the bottom of the ocean are people who already have them, so I'm not sure it's as serious a problem as you make it out to be.
Anyway, like I said, the ONLY way to stop this from happening is to get rid of the nuke subs. The whole point of them is to avoid detection, so things like this WILL happen given a long enough timescale. Forget about the issue of joint training exercises, all first strike subs have the same purpose, so they will by definition be occupying similar spaces. Just like most mid-air collisions happen near airports, most mid-ocean collisions will happen where everyone else wants to be.
We're not getting rid of the nuke subs or compromising their stealth, so if you want to get rid of nuke subs, work for world peace. Don't work on nuclear disarmament, because it's a misguided goal. Nuclear stockpiling is a symptom, not a disease.
Re:Despite each being equipped with sonar? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, but it's not like they were actually at war, right? There's no reason to use passive unless you're trying to sneak around,
A SSBN that doesn't "sneak around" during peacetime survives exactly as long as it takes a torpedo to cross a few hundred meters once peacetime ends.
Re:Despite each being equipped with sonar? (Score:5, Informative)
Ok, so I'm wrong, but that makes me a troll?
Christ, all moderators are total idiots.
^- that's a troll.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
That's the same logic that the DC government got spanked on with Heller - Since you only need a gun when your house is being invaded, and it is so dangerous otherwise, it should remain locked or inoperable until immediately needed. Of course, by the ti
More information but still speculative (Score:5, Informative)
Well, duh. (Score:5, Interesting)
FTFA
"The Ministry of Defence needs to explain how it is possible for a submarine carrying weapons of mass destruction to collide with another submarine carrying weapons of mass destruction in the middle of the world's second-largest ocean," he said.
See the statement above...
Nuclear engineer John Large (braggart) told the BBC that navies often used the same "nesting grounds".
"Both navies want quiet areas, deep areas, roughly the same distance from their home ports. So you find these station grounds have got quite a few submarines, not only French and Royal Navy but also from Russia and the United States."
It doesn't matter if the parking lot is large, but if the situation is as if Sony is giving away flatscreen televisions, maybe the respective Defense Departments need to find other parking lots.
Ya think?
bound to happen (Score:5, Funny)
Same side (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Same side (Score:4, Funny)
"A head on collision was bound to happen even if they knew the other sub was there. The French drive on the right, the British on the left."
What retard modded this Insightful? Funny, sure. Even Redundant. But FFS, Insightful?
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
It's just like that one place in the chunnel where all the English have to suddenly veer over to the right to keep from hitting the French, and vice-versa. Lots of accidents there.
Bright Thinking (Score:5, Insightful)
The bit I find hilarious about every showing of this story that I've seen on the net, is that everyone says "How can this have happened?"
Do *you* want to tell the French where all our nuclear subs are at any moment in time?
Do the French want to tell us where all their nuclear subs are at any moment in time?
Do *you* want to be in a country where all our nuclear subs light up the sonar of any passing ship like a Christmas tree?
No. Therefore, it's an INCREDIBLE show of the power of the anti-detection capabilities of these subs that they BOTH manouvered close enough to each other to collide without EITHER of them detecting the other. That's bloody fantastic. A technology used by the military that actually works in production and has an incredibly relevant use.
As to what happens in a collision... if ANY country in the world truly has nuclear weapons that can be set off without being ARMED first, then we have a bigger problem than what happens if two tiny ships in a vast, three-dimensional ocean might happen to accidentally collide. These things NEED to withstand just about anything, or else the enemy just fires one shot in the right place and "Blam!"... nuclear detonation without ever having owned a nuclear weapon.
Similarly for the onboard reactor. Nuclear subs are not fragile, and their designers not stupid (as has been proved by the anti-sonar technology!)... if a sub is really that easy to sink / destroy and leak radiation enough to matter, then they become nothing more than timebombs. When they next dock for repairs etc. (which cannot really be hidden from satellites, etc.), just blow them up and you've set off a nuclear warhead / contaminated the seas inside your enemies own country.
This is nothing new (Score:5, Insightful)
USS Agusta vs. Russian nuclear submarine: It's true, trust me [wikipedia.org]
Big 8 military always play little war games with each other; sometimes there are accidents. There is absolutely NO reason to think the British and French don't play war games. If the USA and USSR couldn't get sonar navigation good enough for playing chicken, there is no reason to think the British and French would.
Meh, shit happens....
Passed like ships in the night (Score:3, Funny)
Looks like we'll have to alter the age-old saying "passed like ships in the night" to include "... except French and British nuclear submarines".
The French response: (Score:5, Funny)
"Now go away or I shall bump you a second time!"
Chicken of the sea! (Score:5, Interesting)
This is not likely. I have served in the Navy and am familiar a lot of how this stuff works and happens and ultimately, I believe this came down to a game of chicken where neither wanted to change course. Why they didn't want to? Who knows exactly, but acknowledging that you know that someone else is there reveals a lot about yourself that you wouldn't otherwise want them to know....such as that you have the capability to know where they are which is a useful secret in war-time. After all, if they don't know they can be seen, they will think they are invisible.
Keep up with politics (Score:3, Funny)
Final transmission: (Score:5, Funny)
"This is a lighthouse. Your call."
Badly damaged? (Score:4, Funny)
I heard the front fell off!
Boomers don't play games... (Score:4, Interesting)
Been there, done that. When you are in your patrol area typically you are making turns for 3 knots or less. If you get a contact you try to avoid it without either leaving your patrol area or being detected yourself.
Occasionally your are either unable to estimate the range to a contact due to a technical reason or sonar just blows the estimate. That's what happened to us. We had him on sonar: a weak sound level with a zero bearing rate -- sonar told us he was far away.
Our collision was with a Russian boat. We had just started to clear baffles to port when he hit us on the starboard side just forward of the sail. He took out all the forward ballast tanks on the starboard side. If we hadn't just started to clear baffles to port he would have T-boned us and it would have been a lot uglier for us.
He had no clue that we were there -- he thought he had hit the bottom (immediately he lit off his fathometer on the short scale) --- the water was 6,000 feet deep. His reactor plant scrammed, he started flooding and had to surface. We just went deep and snuck away.
I know the U.S. boats and systems are much tougher than many think and I am certain the British and French boats are comparable.
Re:Crazy Ivans? (Score:4, Informative)
Both were ballistic missile submarines. For those, following other submarines at distances where crashes are a significant risk is not SOP.
Re:Like where else were they going to collide? (Score:4, Funny)
The dessert?
I find it hard to find an ice-cream dish with sufficient room for one nuclear missile submarine, let alone two.
Re:Video Cameras (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Video Cameras (Score:5, Insightful)
Because light of just about any sort and whole swaths of the rest of the EM spectrum don't travel very far under water, and even if it did the hulls of the submarines are going to only be marginally higher temperature then the surrounding ocean.
I have a good thinking strategy that I go through before I open my mouth and say things like this. It basically figure that if I managed to think of this in only a few minutes there's probably a good chance that the many thousands of engineers from around the world over the past 30 years who are far more knowledgeable about this then me have also probably thought of it and have a good reason for not using it.
A bit of factness. (Score:3, Informative)
Ya need to read your Tom Clancy. The article is wrong to talk about using SONAR. The thing in submarines is to NOT use your SONAR because it gives away your position. In World War II, the allies had no problem pinging for u-boats while submerged, but, for a submarine to ping something else is entirely a different matter. As soon as you ping, the enemy knows where you are.
So, just about all submarine driving these days is done through passive listening. You listen to the ocean to hear stuff that might b
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Ya need to read your Tom Clancy. The article is wrong to talk about using SONAR ... just about all submarine driving these days is done through passive listening.
Which Tom Clancy, and everybody else, calls passive sonar [wikipedia.org].
Re:A bit of factness. (Score:4, Interesting)
Remember, a few years ago, when Google's satellite view showed a US Submarine in drydock with its propeller fully visible? That was a huge, huge deal.
Actually, it was Microsoft's mapping service that had this: Here's the picture. [live.com]
And yeah, apparently it was a big deal [google.com].