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US Nuclear Sub Crashes Into US Navy Amphibious Vessel
Kugrian writes "Showing that it's not just the British and the French who have trouble seeing each other on the high seas, a US Nuclear submarine yesterday crashed into a US Navy heavy cruiser. The USS Hartford, a nuclear-powered attack submarine, was submerged as it crashed into the USS New Orleans in the strait of Hormuz, resulting in the spillage of 95,000 litres of diesel fuel. Both vessels were heading in the same direction when the collision occurred in the narrow strait and were subsequently heading to port for repairs. A spokesman for the 5th Fleet said that the USS Hartford suffered no damage to its nuclear propulsion system." According to the USS New Orleans' Wikipedia page, it's actually an amphibious transport dock.
This is the cover story, but what *really* happened?
Dude, I think I can see my house from here.
You guys are so negative.
The headline should be "US Navy perfects underwater stealth technology."
Dual Opteron < $600
I'm an ex-submariner who served with some of the guys on the Hartford (not my boat, but I went to school with them). This kind of thing is extremely unfortunate, and it really sucks for the whole community when accidents like this happen. I was relieved to find out that nobody was killed, and my thoughts are with the crew as they deal with this mess.
Yes, this is the result of human failure. That's not up for debate, and I'm not trying to excuse the mistakes that led up to this event. I'm trying to reinforce the idea that this kind of work is inherently dangerous, and that the men who serve on these vessels accept a lot of risk to do their jobs. Please consider this before launching an overly heated reply. Thank you.
512 MB RAM, 20 GB disk, 200 GB transfer, five datacenters. $19.95/month.
I think we should start putting lights, rubber, and foam walls on these ships so they stop hitting each other. It's not like their radar tells them anything like... when going to port do it in single file... this sounds like the same thing as speeding in a marina... there's a reason you don't pass ships in small areas.
The New Orleans hasn't been a shining example of anything. She was late and over-budget. She had a million deficiencies when they tried to commission her.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uss_new_orleans
She reminds me of another cursed ship, the Great Eastern. ...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Great_Eastern
The Great Eastern was a disaster from day one. To be fair, the New Orleans has a long way to go before she is that unlucky. Even so
Am I the only one who smells something fishy? Million dollar machines crashing into eachother? For the second time in a month? Somethings up.
"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has it's limits" - Albert Einstein
USS New Orleans (LPD-18), a San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock, is the fourth commissioned ship of the United States Navy to be named for the city of New Orleans, Louisiana. She is designed to be able to deliver a fully-equipped battalion of 700 Marines. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_New_Orleans_(LPD-18) and not the old USS New Orleans USS New Orleans (CA-32) (formerly CL-32) was a United States Navy heavy cruiser http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_New_Orleans_(CA-32) as suggested in the article. A fair account of what happened in the Strait of Hormuz can be found at http://informationdissemination.blogspot.com/2009/03/navy-ships-collide-in-strait-of-hormuz.html
The New Orleans looks pretty badass. Wiki says it carries a frickin' battalion of Marines. Must cost a fortune!
I wonder if Uncle Sam'd be willing to part with it at a discount, given the current economic climate :)
usually Slashdot is pretty quick to get the news but his happened yesterday folks - I guess the admins didn't think it was newsworthy yesterday
I think it is safe to say that right now the Navy needs both more men and ships. The problem is that the Navy is trying to do way too much with too few ships. Not only is the Navy tasked with enforcing Pax Americana, it must also provide air support to troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, be prepared to stave off North Korean ballistic missiles, monitor the Chinese, stop the pirates and by the way win the war on drugs. These sailors are going out to sea for six months to a year at a time. Those who wonder if astronauts could hang in a mission to Mars should simply hire sailors - they are out in a ship for nearly as long.
The other biggest problem with the Navy is the foolish insistence on having private shipyards build warships. The idea of having private shipyards is certainly sound - but ultimately, Naval warships are rather nothing like their civilian counterparts and so its not really right to say that privatization makes any sense. The Navy really does need to operate its own yards, take on its own construction, and just clear out some of the cost overruns and red tape as contractors want projects to overrun, but the Navy wants its ships sooner rather than later.
But in the meantime I would say that Navy needs to build really rather a lot more frigate / destroyer type of ships and have them operate in ports. Having something like a battleship would be good largely just to show the flag... but I would build something new and leave the Iowas in the museums where they belong.
This is my sig.
This reminds me of an old story:
Radio conversation released by the Chief of Naval Operations 10.10.95
Americans: Please divert your course 15 degrees to the north to avoid a collision.
Canadians: Recommend you divert YOUR course 15 degrees to the south to avoid a collision.
Americans: This is the captain of a U.S. Navy ship. I say again: divert your course.
Canadians: No. I say again: divert YOUR course.
Americans: THIS IS THE USS MISSOURI. WE ARE A LARGE WARSHIP OF THE US NAVY. DIVERT YOUR COURSE NOW!
Canadians: This is a lighthouse. Your call.
I'm a Programmer. That's one level above Software Engineer and one level below Engineer.
These incidents show that submarines stealth technologies are inspired from ostrich strategy.
Bury your head in the sand and expect not beeing seen.
I have discovered a truly marvelous proof of killer sig, which this margin is too narrow to contain.
Am I the only one who was imagining a big ship with big-ass wheels that could roll up the beach and conquer all that stood before it?
"I think it would be a good idea" Gandhi, on Western Civilisation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amphibious_transport_dock
From the name, it sounded like the ship was actually "land and sea" capable. In fact, it ferries copters and truly amphibious vehicles close to shore. This is a ship only and does not appear to intentionally embrace the beach.
Live Long and Prosper - Thanks Leonard. You are missed.
man, I sure hope the US Navy doesn't insure their ships with A.I.G. ...
What if our sub slammed into an Iranian vessel?
From the song "Ninety Nine Crunch Berries"
I'd go on a Vegan diet but the delivery time from Vega is too long. --brownkitty
While it is understandable how vessels from different nations may become uncoordinated and end up in occasional accidents, it seems quite impossible for this to just happen to such an impeccably organized organization like the U.S. Navy. This is clearly an awakening of the machines and a convergence towards The Singularity.
It's surprising, almost amazing, that the US even tries to run subs through the Straits of Hormuz. Look at the shipping lane map. That's one of the world's busiest shipping lanes (half the world's supertankers go through there), it's shallow, there are narrow spots and islands, there's a sharp turn at the narrowest spot. and there's no organized traffic control.
The real question is whether the US should be running subs through there at all. It might be worth it in wartime, but unless the sub had a job to do in the Persian Gulf, questions will be asked about the policy of doing this.
The sub driver will lose his command, of course.
This is the boat's second accident; the previous one was a grounding due to a navigational error. The ship's motto, "Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead", may need changing.
Was it parked in water or on land?
If this was a NASA issue, they would give the cost of the hardware involved. Why don't they do this for military issues? Then the public would realize how expensive the military is. I bet those subs burn through $100K a day and cost $1B.
I hope you understand that there are things Sailors can't talk about
We won't ask, and you won't tell.
You can't take the sky from me...
Being named "USS New Orleans," I would have assumed the vessel was some type of catfish. But I guess if it walks like an amphibious transport dock, and quacks like an amphibious transport dock, it probably is an amphibious transport dock.
... and then they built the supercollider.
The sub was shadowing directly underneath the surface ship to mask its presence to active sonar buoys and other ships. It is very narrow and shallow there, they have to use such techniques. In case the loons (that would be ya'all following wall street orders-you do know that, right?- and the Israhell mobsters) decide to light up Iran to distract from the economy they completely borked from their massive ripoffs, they want the subs to be close to get some 'hawk shots off fast and close to take out Iranian silkworm and such like sites situated right on the coast there. You fail at that, you are going to lose surface ships by the dozen, including some big mamas. You know it, they know it, it ain't even close to being a secret.
And they just screwed up, got too close together. Stuff happens.
Because the surface ship is expected to not see the boat.
Rosencranz: "I've frequently not seen the boat."
Guildenstern: "No, no. What you've seen is not the boat."
Come on, do you think the US would share its submarine locations with other countries? That would be the only way to avoid collisions like this. Wait, there was no other country's vessels involved? Hmmm...
Caterpillar drive by any chance?
Who care about the men who serve on the vessals? They know and accept the risk
What everyone is worried about is a nuclear submarine sinking off the shore of Iran and either causing an environmental disaster or being salvaged by the Iranians. Those not acceptable things to risk.
While I admire your enthusiasm and loyalty this is a very brain dead statement embodies what makes many people think "military intelligence" is an oxymoron.
Chuck Yeager, USAF, First American to break sound barrier
Alan Shephard, US Navy, First American in Space
Neil Armstrong, MS, US Navy, first man to walk on the moon.
Buzz Aldrin, Phd, US Army, US Air Force, perfected space walking for USA, 2nd man to walk on moon.
to name but a few... we can skip ahead a few years and find the same sort of people today:
Eileen Collins, MS/MA, USAF... pilot of first shuttle mission post Columbia. veteran shuttle astronaut.
by the way, all of these men of Mercury and Apollo fought in wars... Yeager fought in WWII and Korea, and Armstrong and Buzz and Shepherd all fought in Korea at least. While the current group of astronauts came of age prior to America's current wars, it is safe to say that they trained in preparation for it and some flew missions in Desert Storm 1991 or Kosovo after that...
I think you underestimate the intelligence of our people in uniform. In fact, I would say that the military has plenty of people with advanced degrees, has people that function well as a team, are proved in the most extraordinary pressure test - which is combat, and, you aren't going to find a better crew to go to Mars with than them.
This is my sig.
Every time time something happens to a nuclear powered warship the Navy always mentions than "the nuclear propulsion system was not damaged", mainly to comfort hysterical tree huggers.
Naval nuclear reactors are not made from balsa wood and duct tape. Any kind of impact strong enough to damage the reactor by has already destroyed the rest of the submarine.
Maybe that is why I wasn't a bubble head. Both ends of the boat are ROUND! How the hell can I tell which way it is pointed? I stuck with destroyers. Up there, on the surface, there really is a pointy end, and there is a square end. (Well, sometimes, the square end is sort of rounded, but you get the idea.) Of course, the REAL reason I stayed on the surface, is that Destroyermen are in demand everywhere you go. There isn't a woman in the world who doesn't dream of having her own Destroyerman!
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
You should see who goes down in the radio room. Ba-dum-ding. Submarine jokes: there's a million of 'em :).
--
Submarines: the only ships in the Navy where 100 men go out, and 50 couples come back.
Sorry, fellas, I had to.
Signed, an ex-Airedale
PS- My cousin, a retired Master Chief, has a scar on his scalp from telling that one in a Yokosuka club years ago. The bubbleheads sitting behind him didn't think it was very funny.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
I thought they had 60 couples on board?
Got Code?
Current plans call for a fleet of 314 ships or so in a few years... up from our current fleet of 280.
The problem is that the number is a pipe dream because of rising costs. A number of new and current ship programs have simply gone off the rails in terms of costs, and the Navy is going to have to make some hard choices. All dollar figures below are referenced from the CBO when possible, and reputable news outlets otherwise.
The Littoral Combat Ship program; originally the Navy's "cheap" solution to getting more ships in the fleet, these controversial (lightly armed, aluminum hulls) have doubled in cost per unit, from $225 million apiece, to over $500 million per piece.
The Virginia Class Submarine; a "cheap" alternative to the $2 billion apiece Seawolf class, the Virginias... smaller, and less capable than the Seawolfs in most respects... are now even more expensive than the ships they replaced, at $2.3 billion a pop.
The Zumwalt Class Destroyer; the Navy's White Elephant. An all-things to all-people design with cutting edge tech in every nook and cranny, and the price tag shows... $7 billion per ship (that's per unit cost, folks, not including development costs). The Navy orginally wanted 7, canceled the program, and Congress is forcing them to build 2 anyway, and possibly 3. To put this price into perspective, these destroyers cost more apiece than a Nimitz class carrier.
The VH-71 Kestrel Helicopter; the Navy's replacement for the President's current Marine One fleet, the Kestrel is as effed-up a defense program as you'll ever find. It's basically a European helicopter built in America... except the prime contractor (excuse me, systems integrator), Lockheed Martin, has precisely zero experience building helicopters. After all of the subcontractor price markups, this helicopter now costs more per unit than Air Force one. That's a right, a helicopter that costs more than a tricked-out 747.
The Joint Strike Fighter; again, supposedly a "cheap" way to put airplanes on Navy and USMC decks, most realistic estimates put the cost for the Navy and USMC versions at over $100 million apiece and climbing. One CBO report claims the initial production run will be closer to $200 million apiece because of production line start-up costs. This for a plane that in many cases is inferior in some modes of performance to some of the planes it'll be replacing (the F-16, A-10, F/A-18C).
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
I think the captain should be applauded for trying to save tax payer money! Why wait for it to anchor up and stuff when you're just wasting time!
is related to current performance. A ship's character is determined early in it's career. I served aboard an outstanding destroyer, and I served aboard a garbage scow of a frigate. Everything was different - it was almost like two different navies. One example: In two and a half years aboard the destroyer, we went dead in the water ONE TIME, and the snipes had power back up in about 15 minutes. THEN, heads rolled. In two and a half years aboard the frigate, we went dead in the water routinely, sometimes for as long as an hour. No heads ever rolled. This may be due in part that the destroyer regarded itself as a combat unit, while the frigate seemed to regard itself as a support unit. I lived through it, and I can't explain it.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
The funny thing is I remember seeing a story in the Navy Times about a "Surface Standdown" to address and hopefully correct any underlying problems resulting in the large number of surface mishaps that have been occurring lately. Looks like that might just be extended to the sub community as well (just my own speculation). *Disclaimer: I'm not a submariner, but most of my instructors going through my training pipeline were.
I read this and thought at first that tjstork was arguing in favor of a socialist policy of nationalisation, on the grounds that the government can run a large project with less bureaucracy than private industry. But that just can't be right, can it?
My next sig will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush
I still claim that it is impossible to make safe dynamic technological system with the imperial system of measurement, or even worse, with a mixture of Imperial and Metric systems.
An engineer would know that after some level of complexity things become often unpredictable, that is why testing and debugging is half of a development.
But when one throws into it measurements which relate to one another as crazy figures like 158.9871, or when an engineer is to be constantly aware that there are not only US gallons, but UK gallons too, that there are several kinds of a mile, with different length(!), and so on and so forth, it is asking for trouble, no, it is begging for trouble.
I know at least several loud cases when an obsolete system of measurements was the reason behind a technological catastrophe. We do not hear about smaller daily catastrophes, which do add to the fabric of economical life.
The US engineers do their best, trying hard, but they are not Gods. Sooner or later, when their systems become complex enough it all will begin to fall down, like a proverbial house built not on the rock, but on a sand. The system of measurement is the foundation on which we built.
as in the rule of the road, which also covers submarines.
Rule 13
Overtaking
(a) Notwithstanding anything contained in the Rules of Part B, Sections I and II, any vessel overtaking any other shall keep out of the way of the vessel being overtaken.
(b) A vessel shall be deemed to be overtaking when coming up with another vessel from a direction more than 22.5 degrees abaft her beam, that is, in such a position with reference to the vessel she is overtaking, that at night she would be able to see only the sternlight of that vessel but neither of her sidelights.
(c) When a vessel is in any doubt as to whether she is overtaking another, she shall assume that this is the case and act accordingly.
(d) Any subsequent alteration of the bearing between the two vessels shall not make the overtaking vessel a crossing vessel within the meaning of these Rules or reliever her of the duty of keeping clear of the overtaken vessel until she is finally past and clear.
I'm guessing the sub was overtaking the surface ship.
Officer Of The Watch has *full* command when he - or she - is on watch. However, the OOW is supposed to call the Old Man whenever traffic gets busy. If a ship is in busy waters, the Captain should be on the bridge *anyway*, particularly if the OOW is a junior officer.
Patriotism is a virtue of the vicious
Which goes along with my adage: You can always find a cheap low-tech means to thwart expensive high-tech. And to get around that, the high-tech becomes even more expensive and more elaborate, creating even more areas of vulnerability.
I am sure defense contractors downplay this obvious fact to the warmongers all the time. The fantasy of "my balls are bigger than your balls" works fine for the defense contractors, but in the battlefield, the battlefield, a different story emerges.
I can't help but see the scenes of "The Return of the Jedi" in my head, where the "simple-minded", "primitive" Ewoks managed to thwart the very high-tech and very destructive Empire technology.
And on top of it all, there is no protection for Common Stupidity. Spend all the billions you'd like. Stupid wins every damned time.
Ruby Neural Evolution of Augmenting Topologies
Q: What is long and hard and full of seamen?
From your link:
You say "a fair account", like the summary here is "unfair" in some way, but the site you linked to seems to be your typical blog full of self-important drivel.
What "did happened"? Somebody fucked up. End of story.
Anyone notice that the Executive Officer's name is Michael Phelps? Could he possibly have had the CON on the sub during the "driving" accident after some bong activities??? :-)
Q: What is long and hard and full of seamen?
And has a crack on it's tip?
CowboyNeal!
Made the rounds years back:
The following is the transcript of an actual radio conversation in October 1995, between a US Navy ship off the coast of Newfoundland, and some Canadians.
The transcript was released by the Chief of Naval Operations on 10/10/95.
CANADIANS: Please divert your course 15 degrees to the South, to avoid a collision
AMERICANS: Recommend you divert your course 15 degrees to the North, to avoid a collision
CANADIANS: Negative. You will have to divert your course 15 degrees to the South to avoid a collision.
AMERICANS: This is the Captain of US Navy ship. I say again, divert YOUR course.
CANADIANS: Negative. I say again. You will have to divert your course.
AMERICANS: THIS IS THE AIRCRAFT CARRIER USS LINCOLN. THE SECOND LARGEST SHIP IN THE UNITED STATES' ATLANTIC FLEET. WE ARE ACCOMPANIED BY THREE DESTROYERS, THREE CRUISERS, AND NUMEROUS SUPPORT VESSELS. I DEMAND THAT YOU CHANGE YOUR COURSE 15 DEGREES NORTH. THAT'S 15 DEGREES NORTH, OR COUNTER MEASURES WILL BE UNDERTAKEN TO ENSURE THE SAFETY OF THIS SHIP.
CANADIANS: We are a lighthouse. Your call.
The tyrant will always find a pretext for his tyranny - Aesop
My dreams, sir. My dreams... :-)
declare @minimumSilentCruiseDepth int
set @minimumSilentCruiseDepth = (select max(hulldraft) from USNavy.dbo.FleetStatistics)
URGENT PATCH TO ALL COMMANDERS. TO BE INSTALLED IMMEDIATELY:
set @minimumSilentCruiseDepth = (select max(hulldraft) from USNavy.dbo.FleetStatistics) + @FUDGEFACTOR
they must have been bound for home and a bit off course.