Credo
"Sign on, young man, and sail with me. The stature of our homeland is no more than the measure of ourselves. Our job is to keep her free. Our will is to keep the torch of freedom burning for all. To this solemn purpose we call on the young, the brave, the strong, and the free. Heed my call, Come to the sea. Come Sail with me." -- John Paul Jones
"Pardon him, Theodotus; he is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature" --George Bernard Shaw, "Caesar and Cleopatra"
"And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music."--Friedrich Nietzsche
"A kind Providence has placed in our breasts a hatred of the unjust and cruel, in order that we may preserve ourselves from cruelty and injustice. They who bear cruelty, are accomplices in it. The pretended gentleness which excludes that charitable rancour, produces an indifference which is half an approbation. They never will love where they ought to love, who do not hate where they ought to hate."--Edmund Burke
“You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours.”--General Sir Charles Napier
"Μολὼν λαβέ" -- Leonidas
"Blogito Ergo Sum" -- Neptunus Lex
Good Bloody Grief!
These are both boomers. Their job is to evade anything that even smells like a ship or sub. An underwater collision?
Something’s fishy here.
The boomers would not have been using active sonar, since their business is to be invisible. However, both subs should have been intently listening for prop noise. Even though the props are designed to minimize cavitation, it is hard to accept that both subs were unaware of the other at this close range— maybe one, but not both. The investigation is going to be brutal. The fact of no loss of crew or boat is good luck as astonishing as the bad luck of the collision itself.
From what I’ve read, it sounds like the French boat struck the British aft of her bow and skidded down the port side. The french boat had her sonar dome stove in, and there were dents and scrapes along the side of the british boat.
There will definitely be hell to pay for a LOT of folks over this one.
Guess the Brits were on the wrong side of the road.
What a Fuster Cluck. Wonder if we’ll ever get the real story.
Collisions between submerged submarines are typically less damaging than collisions between vessels on the surface (both surface ships and submarines), both to the ship itself, and to the careers of those involved.
Damage to the subs while submerged is less than on the surface because there are several more degrees of freedom of motion available for deflection of each vessel. This means virtually all submerge collisions are glancing blows rather that a ‘T-bone’ hull breaker.
Having crushable volume available outside the pressure hull at each end of the ship in the form of main ballast tanks means the pressure hull is protected from much of the energy of collision. This was a major factor in the survival of the USS San Fransisco in its submerged grounding a few years ago.
Submerged collisions have typically been less damaging to CO’s careers than surfaced collisions because it is recognized that passive sonar, even when operated correctly by a highly trained team, will not detect all submerged contacts in time to prevent a collision.
In this case, it is very unlikely that the Brits and French were coordinating their SSBN patrol areas in any way, shape, or form. I wouldn’t be surprised if they figure out a way to do so in the future.
@Mike M., Fishy? I don’t think so, it appears somebody tried to push the envelope but this time the envelope pushed back. The problem with technology is this, in your vigilance, you must really ‘mother’ this stuff. If you don’t, it’ll really ‘mutha’ you.
@Surfcaster, this reminds me of the perfectionist parents saying, “If you are going to do it right!” Parents, when it comes to a ‘Fuster Cluck’, rest assured, they did it RIGHT!
For the record, last time I checked, I’m a male. For the last 40 years, I’ve always received a ‘Mutha’s Day’ card on an annual basis, but with the advance of technology they have become emails. These have come from the people who know me.
Enjoy your Presidents’ Day Holiday and have a great week.
Grumpy
@H.S. Normal, there will come the the day, when you actually have an adversary with a submerged vessel. Are you suggesting everybody will be coordinating with each other under the surface? I wouldn’t plan on it or depend on it. They should be developing methods to gain situational awareness. These are the things they should be depending on rather than some coordination scheme. Figure everyday that you are at sea is a potential wartime situation. This is the way to build a well trained team. “Train as you Fight”.
Mike M. / Edward:
They were both boomers – and therefore, both very very quiet. Not all that surprising they didn’t hear each other. Trust me, even if you know one is near, it is darn hard to hear one.
H. S. Normal:
While the careers of sub COs sometimes survive collisions (including the damn good former CO of my old boat), that happens almost not at all anymore, at least in the US fleet.
Oh and “it is very unlikely that the Brits and French were coordinating their SSBN patrol areas in any way” is not entirely true, but we don’t always admit our trespasses until we are caught, do we?
Grumpy:
“They should be developing methods to gain situational awareness. ”
Trust me we try. But every time we get a new whiz-bang way of getting better SA, everyone else figures out a way to get quieter or fool it.
No matter what, though, good on the boys for all getting home in one piece.
Oh, H.S.? Maybe they could do it like we do it with airplanes. Say, French Boomers at odd thousands of feet depth (well, hundreds), Brits at even numbers.
Kinda hard to miss all that pump noise, isn’t it, PigBoat? Unless these two were playing chicken, or heard each other and guessed wrong on depth and PIM.
Byron,
Obtaining accurate range information from passive sensors is not always possible. If those boats, for example, were maneuvering at, say, 20kts, then they’d have a closing rate of 40kts.
It takes a few moments to do the math, even with the computer doing the calculations, and depending upon whether they actually HAD contact with the other vessel, they may not have had time to avoid collision.
Of course, one might have been trailing the other, and the first one decided to clear his baffles just to see if anyone was back there.
We just don’t have enough info at this stage of the game, and probably aren’t likely to get much more for awhile.
Heck, even WE have trouble finding our own boats.
Byron: Submarine pumps are kept quiet by measures both classified and (to the uninformed non-submarininer) unapologetically fanatical.
Just this guy: periscope depth is pretty much the same for all. Out of operational necessity, submarines must change depth from time to time.
Everyone: rough seas are very very noisy in and of themselves. Particularly near the surface. Rough seas and the winter North Atlantic approach a union of sets as a limit. It’s hard to hear in a boiler factory. Ce la vie, nez pas?
Submarine pay=hazardous duty pay, all day, every day. Statistically, submarines are amazingly safe vehicles. Why?…submariners. Well done to both crews.
In my fantasies I can imagine myself strapping on an F/A-18 and landing it on a carrier. I think I could do that. Won’t ever find out but I really believe I could. At night? When the Wx is awful and the deck is pitching? I just don’t know but I do think I’d give it a good go but that is something I’ll never know either.
As for being a submariner – there is no way I could do that. Just no way. So even in my fantasies I’d never wear wear Dolphins but I’m glad we have those who can and do.
Aw1;
Back a decade + a few years ago, I was part of the CADRT development. Quite interesting what one can do with even a (now) lowly TAC-4 simultaneously doing all your passive ranging calculations off direct electronic sensor feeds, and recommending the best one to use, with operator voting/override. Sorta uncrowded to spots around the trusty 1929 dated DRT in Combat. I’m sure one or two or a bunch of these are out in the Fleet by now.
Speaking of technology, since there are many Mac-ers about on this board…did you know you can get a card counting app for your iPhone…Yep…but be careful…they’re on to you…
I can say that I’ve come within VERY close range of another sub (with depth separation like justthisguy mentioned) and never heard them.
Unless you’ve been down there you don’t realize how impossible quiet these ships are. This is why subs scare everyone… even other submarines have problems hearing them. It’s a tough problem.
and no Byron, there’s not a lot of pump noise. Sure, there’s stuff running inside the hull, but it’s all sound-mount isolated from reverberating through the hull into the water. And when they’re on patrol I’m sure they’ve got an equipment lineup meant to maximize silence.
Friendly countries usually coordinate waterspace assignments to prevent this kind of thing, so I’ll be interested to see how this all plays out in the following investigation.
I’ve been saying for YEARS that submarines need windows.
Duh
Taxi, don’t forget the screen door
“In May 1974 Pintado collided with a Soviet Yankee class submarine in the approaches to the Petropavlovsk naval base on the Kamchatka peninsula. The Soviet submarine surfaced immediately, but the extent of damage was not known. Pintado departed from the area at top underwater speed and proceeded to Guam where she entered drydock for repairs lasting seven weeks. The collision smashed much of Pintado’s sonar sphere, a starboard side torpedo hatch was jammed shut and diving plane was moderately damaged.”
from wikipedia
The CO survived the collision but didn’t do so well when the story AND photo appeared in the San Diego Union newspaper some time later when the boat was back in Dago.
I was on the boat and the voice recording from the sonar crew was interesting, an “AH SH!%” just seconds before the collision. A flank bell was rung up and kept on until we got to Guam where the boat was brought in after midnight and the drydock was covered with a canvas tent. The Marines were kept busy patrolling the area in and out of the water in armed patrols.
Speaking of Taxi1′s windows on subs, is it just my imagination, or was there an American sub back in the early 60s, maybe late 50s that had a small section of the forward top part (leading edge as it were) of the conning tower constructed of clear pressure glass as a seamless part of the tower? The image sticks in my minds eye–but maybe it came from a movie. Anyone??
No sub guy worth his salt is gonna comment on this, especially in light of the fact they were Boomers Byron. Let it lie.
‘Winders on subs? It’s not like they have anti-collision and position lights on! Leave it to the USAF to come with that one!
b2
Makes me think of the Ray Stevens song “Surfin’ USSR.” I doubt, however, their sonar operators went to sleep.
Is Taxi1 and AF type?
Virgil Xenophon:
Plexiglas in the free flood area. It helped see the dogs and the strong back on the dog house door, which went between the interior of the sail and the weather deck, which you had to open to pull out the brow and screw in its stanchions and rig its handrail and naugahyde sign.
The USS Holland SS1 class had glass ports in the top of the pressure hull to let light in when on the surface, but that sort of thing went away when depth charges came in. This is why sub sailors have a two inch diameter sun tan under one eyebrow, if they are lookouts.
Thank you H.S.Normal, pigboatsailor, Torpedoist Emeritus, Fast Nav and Agesilius for the education. I guess things have gotten even better since the times covered by “Deep Black.”
And I think b2 is right— we should all let it lie. A boomer is safe only so long as it is hidden.
[...] Blackfive and Neptunus Lex have also reported on this story. The comments at Blackfive are more amusing, but the ones at [...]
FWIW,
This accident is akin to a mid-air collision. Folks always wonder how, in clear skies, with so much space, two aircraft can try and occupy the same small bit. It happens, as anyone who ever studied statistics will tell you. No matter how small the odds appear, it is still a demonstrable fact that it is POSSIBLE to have a collision, and so it can never be ruled out.
People also forget just how much noise is in the water. between surface ships, and marine animals there are a whole host of sounds vying with each other to make the water rattle. then there’s the water itself.
The speed of sound is measured at the surface at a specific temperature. It then gets modified based upon temperature, salinity, and depth. Basic oceanography. It can get trapped in a temperature layer and literally not be heard by a sensor 100 yards away, or it can bounce off the ocean floor and up to the surface and back down again like the devil’s own roller coaster.
It can reflect off of deposits or ridges and sea mounts and send you on a wild goose chase, or just play straight out till it runs out of energy and turns to mush.
It’s no wonder that ASW is as much art as it is science, and many times it’s more black arts than anything else, with the devil being in the details, and tactics based upon gut instincts vice actionable data.
I’m literally thrilled that the boats and their crews got back safely. These days, it’s small blessings that mean so much.
respects,
Tim: Recent ‘Miss Mid Air’ in UK on video: “Tornado and a Tucano just 30ft away from tragedy.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HaLjPjLTyDA&e
This accident is akin to a mid-air collision.
Reminds me of the recent collision between two satellites is space. Another failure of the big space-little thing theory between two objects that had no awareness of each other.
Can you imagine just sitting down to chow on the boat a few hundred feet down in the briny deep and feeling the impact? They probably thought they hit a whale.
Is Taxi1 an AF type?
The horror…
“Is Taxi1 an AF type?”
“The horror….”
Wait a minute! I resemble that remark! In fact, I highly represent it!
(The AF type, not the horror…tho others might argue to the contrary)
I’d be curious as to what might be hidden by this story.
Cheers
I think S-boats had glass windows in the conning tower. And, yeah, there was one weird boat, recently scrapped, which I think had a window or two.
AW1/All,
Remember that mid-air collision over the S. Atlantic a decade or so ago? It was between two heavies (one AF tanker I remember) flying IQAO rules, off any air routes. No other aircraft withing a 1000 nm radius from either aircraft….
An act o”God sorta. Big sky theory.
Now consider this: there are even less submarines than aircraft operating undersea at any one time by a factor of 10′s of thousands I’ll bet. Go figure the odds….
However, away from the ‘winders comments, if’n I wanted a visual forward look underwater I’d look into a laser of some type. Something hard to counter detect and narrow enough- constant bearing, decreasin range- only to prevent collisions. An underwater TCAS sorta,.The color and power to be tailored to meet the above criterion.
b2
b2,
There was a lot of playing around with that over the past 3 decades or so. The big problem comes from refraction of the light in water, which, to overcome, requires a LOT of energy.
Now, the boat could provide the energy, what with it’s reactor and all, just need to ramp up the generating capacity, etc.
However, when you raise the energy to the levels required, then you can start to turn water into steam, and that makes noise, and also leaves a detectable heat signature.
It’s not that it CAN’T be done, it’s dealing with the side effects.
Wouldn’t that lead to a “what you emit, I can detect” problem? As well as giving my torpedo something to follow back to you?
Whoa fellers.
I ain’t offering a high powered look & see visual display laser, just a low (value x) powered source in a narrow beam (beauty of laser) out to detect and avoid range (1000 yds maybe?) on a constant bearing/ decreasing range search. In other words design it so an alarm goes off only when a collision is imminent- say 20-30 seconds out. Lasers can be powered to dissipate, especially in water. Who knows? maybe you could avoid a pod of whales, too.
For Badger- Obviously, if tactical considerations dictate- turn it off.
I’m turning off now- I usually get paid for my thinking-LOL.. Look. Bubble-heads are geniuses. let them figure it out; however, i’ll bet you 100-1 that if you did a risk analysis based on millions of operational hours in transit and only x-number of near incidents you would find likelihood of catashrophic incident remote to improbable and the risk manangeable and assumable by authority.
That is the reality gentlemen.
b2