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.

Comments

Probably not the sub's fault

[Anonymous Coward]

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 ...

Re:Why so negative.

[tftp]

Deaf? Not to be too harsh, but please come back when you know what you're talking about.

Since you obviously know the subject, maybe you can comment on three items of my post:

1. Who has the primary duty to avoid such a collision?
2. Is it reasonable to expect a surface ship to see a submarine 30' below the surface at night?
3. Would it be expected that many sailors aboard the sub will hear 100,000 HP diesels of a surface ship a couple of hundred feet away?

In my opinion these answers, made by a competent person, would be far more useful than guessing about me and at the same time telling nothing on the subject of discussion.

Re:Before everyone joins the frenzy...

[CrimsonAvenger]

or do they keep sub routes a secret from some or all surface ships?

The only thing a surface ship would be told is that there is a submarine operating (or not) in a given area of the ocean - not exactly where in that area.

And the areas in question aren't small.

New Orleans prolly knew that there were boats in the region of the Persian Gulf, but no more than that.

Re:The Navy needs more men and ships.

[Shipwack]

As retired submariner, I can certainly get behind the idea of having more subs... The number missions they are tasked with every year never goes down (and usually goes up), but there are fewer and fewer submarines every year to do them (old subs are being decommissioned faster than new ones are being built).

I've also heard surface types saying we need more carrier battle groups, an I understand their reasoning. And the logistics corp can also talk about we don't have enough supply vessels to adequately take care of our ships -now-. But... Where does it all stop? We only have so much money... I think one of the greatest presidents of the 20th century said it best:

''Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children . . . This is not a way of life at all in any sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.''--Dwight D. Eisenhower, April 16, 1953, before the American Society of Newspaper Editors

Re:US sub locations kept secret from other countri

[Wonko the Sane]

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.

Re:The Navy needs more men and ships.

[DerekLyons]

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.

That's a fascinating claim, but one you completely and utterly fail to provide significant supporting facts for.
 
It's doubly interesting when you consider far more USN warships have been built in private yards than public, and that this has been true for at least fifty years. Even more interesting, both the largest and most complex warships (CVNs) and the warships needing the most specialized engineering and construction talent (SSNs and SSBNs) are solely built in civilian yards.
 
 

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.

You think civilian yards have cost overruns and red tape? You've obviously never dealt with a navy shipyard.

Re:metric reform

[Max_W]

We also had nicely sounding historical measurements, all European countries had them, and all differed. But in the 19th century most of the world decided to use a unit - meter, one ten-millionth distance from the equator to the north pole (or 10000 kilometers from the equator to the north pole). That's it.

1 kilometer is 1000 meters. There is no nautical kilometer, British kilometer, geographical kilometer, just kilometer. One and for all.

Introducing metric system was not easy in Eurasia either. Some people were trying to built political careers on defending historical systems, speculating on pseudo-patriotism. Sometimes guillotine or Gulag ended arguments, regrettably. Still in the end we got it right. We have got unified scientific system of measurements.