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Nuclear Subs 'Collide In Ocean'
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."
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.
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.
And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make
It's my understanding subs tend to listen for what's out there because using one's own sonar would broadcast your own position to the enemy. If both these subs were running in this way I can see how a collision would occur. It's happened before and is bound to happen again.
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.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
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.
The world is made by those who show up for the job.
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.
USS Agusta vs. Russian nuclear submarine: It's true, trust me
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....
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What are the odds that two advanced SSBN submarines would collide in a vast ocean accidentally ?
100% apparently
Except, one thing puzzles me -- if your Sonar is switched on, the other sub should pick that up. So the sonar systems of both subs must've been running quiet. So the anti-sonar systems have nothing to do with the collision. So why does the article mentions them? Did I miss something?
Yes you did :) You can't detect passive sonar.
...a fact which for the sake of a quiet life most people tend to ignore ~H2G2
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 something about how much more work needs to be done on passive detection systems. What I mean by passive detection systems is anything like an optical camera which does not need to emit anything to see something. I am not sure what technologies could be used, but while hiding is a good thing, being able to 'see' is just as important.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
Sorry, we Americas drive on the right side of the road. There is no driving on the left side, only the WRONG side.
We're all hypocrites. We all have hidden parts, it's the contrast between them that make us more a hypocrite than others
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.
I may agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to face the consequences of saying it.
What faux pas! This is a thread calling for prejudicious jokes, not generic insults.
I'm Irish, may I suggest something concerning Lucky Charms, or perhaps pots of gold? Alcoholism?
Your war of independence for example ?
WWI?
WWII?
First Gulf War?
Afghanistan invasion?
Should I carry on?
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
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.
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)
Why are you dividing there? If you've got 238500 cm^3 (that is, ml - not grams) per hogshead, and plutonium has a density of 19.86 g/cm^3, you'd arrive at
238500*19.86 = 4736610 grams of plutonium
That's 4.7 metric tons, not 12 kilograms - in other words, you're off by a factor of 400.
Extremely low sound. The ocean waves above them and other natural sounds would be louder than they were if they were running quiet.
Like space, as vast as it is, collisions do still occur just like the two satellites last week.
Funny how the US people started calling the French cowards for standing up to oppose them in the UN.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.