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

Re:Oh sure...

[Joolz50]

The navigator was constantly refreshing /. trying to get first post

Why so negative.

[rackserverdeals]

You guys are so negative.

The headline should be "US Navy perfects underwater stealth technology."

Re:Why so negative.

[Fenresulven]

The USS New Orleans isn't equipped with a sonar suite, perfecting underwater stealth technology sufficiently to hide from her isn't much of an accomplishment.

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:Why so negative.

[Wonko the Sane]

We rely on nuclear-powered submarines which are fundamentally un-stealthy because of the noise of the hot water running through the pipes

Just quit while you're behind

Re:Why so negative.

[Anonymous Coward]

Also, in the straits of Hormuz the water is sufficiently shallow that you don't get any thermal masking. While the 100,000 HP diesels aren't standard ICE motors (they are turbines), and surface ships do have significant noise masking technologies, the sub should have been able to hear them. Further, the transits are supposed to be coordinated and executed via preplanned-intended-movement (PIM) track. One of the skippers is going to get fired of this.

Re:Why so negative.

[palegray.net]

I'll be happy to help with your answers, to the extent that I'm permitted. I hope you understand that there are things Sailors can't talk about, and my statements in no way reflect the official position of the U.S. Navy on any matter related to fleet operations. I'm not even in the Navy anymore, but I just got out at the beginning of March, so I'm still pretty close to a lot of folks who are serving.

Now that we're done with the disclaimer, here's what I can say about your questions:

1. Ultimately, the CO is responsible for anything the vessel does. This is a big job, and involves years of training and study. Typically, submarine COs are Commanders or Captains. Down the line, the Navigator is indeed accountable for the vessel's movement. However, the Navigator depends on accurate input from multiple departments in making real-time decisions. Small mistakes in any area can result in large problems. This stuff is hard work, and inherently dangerous.
2. Yes and no. Depends on what ships we're talking about, but the answer is mostly no in the vast majority of cases. Submarines are built for stealth, an attribute they excel at most of the time (people get in trouble when that's not the case). This puts big limitations on what subs can do to keep tabs on their environment, however.
3. There's a big difference in knowing that something's out there, and knowing precisely where that vessel is. It's an imperfect science that depends heavily on rapid analysis of a whole lot of variables at once, and operating conditions and mission requirements sometimes make it necessary to operate in close proximity to other vessels. It's just part of the job, and 99.9% of the time there are no problems. Factors like sea state, water temperatures, and other considerations can make the job of monitoring proximity more difficult. Seafaring civilians understand a lot these issues, too.

I hope these answers help give you an appreciation of the complexity of these operations. My initial reply was intended to get you to stop and think; sorry if I came across too hot. Thanks for your interest.

Re:Why so negative.

[CrimsonAvenger]

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?

Both parties, actually. But the Sub will be held to a higher standard. Because the surface ship is expected to not see the boat.

2. Is it reasonable to expect a surface ship to see a submarine 30' below the surface at night?

30' below the surface isn't nearly far enough down to make the sub invisible, even at night. But, in general, we don't expect surface ships to see our subs unless they're snorkeling.

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?

Two things:

New Orleans only has 40,000 HP engines.

The anechoic coating on a submarine makes it pretty hard to hear anything going on inside from the outside, and pretty hard to hear anything going on outside from the inside.

On the other hand, we usually expect the sonar guys to hear this sort of thing.

On the gripping hand, you won't be trailing your tail in the Straits of Hormuz, and aren't likely to hear something overhauling you until it gets really close. By which time dodging is impossible in restricted waters.

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.

Probably. The real question in the business is who was overhauling, and who was being overhauled. There's no excuse for a sub bumping a diesel-powered LPD from behind. There's a lot more excuse for the boat being run over by the LPD in tight waters, which these were.

I should note that the last couple paragraphs of TFA were completely unnecessary, and serve no other purpose other than to contribute to anti-nuclear hysteria - the presence or absence of nuclear weapons had no effect on the collision between the French and Brit boats, and there was ZERO chance, even if both boats had been sunk by the collision (basically impossible unless both boats were running at flank speed, and damn unlikely even then), of any of the nuclear weapons on board being a "catastrophe narrowly averted".

Re:Why so negative.

[Ethanol-fueled]

I hope you understand that there are things Sailors can't talk about

What goes on in the fan rooms, for example ;)

Re:Why so negative.

[Anonymous Coward]

From the hi-res pics published by the Navy, its seems the New Orleans struck the sail of the Hartford at an extreme angle (60-90 degrees) from the port side. The sail has been kinked by at least 10 degrees. Reports from the sub indicate an 82 degree roll was taken at the time of impact.

Re:Why so negative.

[Dachannien]

Reports from the sub indicate an 82 degree roll was taken at the time of impact.

Now that's what I call a waste of perfectly good coffee!

Re:Why so negative.

[bitrex]

Everybody knows that the keys to successful submarine navigation - first you activate the passive sonar on the hull, then you deploy the towed array, and then you watch the waterfall display and try to figure out which one of the tracks is the true bearing and which is the false bearing, then you gotta play around with the Fourier transform of the screw noises on the other display and fiddle with it a bit because the computer is alternately suggesting that the contact is either a fishing trawler, a supertanker, the USS Ronald Reagan, or an Udaloy class destroyer, and where ARE those active sonar pings coming from? And then you get frustrated, hit "Display All Real" from the tactical map screen and discover you've frantically fired five torpedoes and a cruise missile at an active sonar buoy dropped from a low-flying plane an hour ago.

Re:Why so negative.

[INT_QRK]

The Naval services (Navy and Marines) have a great yet harsh and unforgiving tradition of holding its officers accountable, more ruthlessly and consistently than their sister services. It is both laudable and unfortunate that the Captains and their key Officers and Petty Officers will be held to account. Some will be relieved of command (or their duties/qualifications) and their career truncated or stalled. In some cases justice will have been served and in others unfairness may be gleaned. The truth is that sea duty is harsh, exhausting, and complex. Sometimes shit just happens, but that's never allowed as an excuse. There but by the grace of god may go, or have gone, any of them. Good luck and god bless them all. (USN, Ret.)

Re:Why so negative.

[Runaway1956]

A Chief Petty Officer aboard any destroyer will NOT spill one drop of his coffee, even when the ship executes a 360 degree roll. If he did, he would be banished to a carrier.

Re:Why so negative.

[Casual Maritime]

Quiet diesels? Have you ever been in a diesel engine room? Evading submarines is also pretty low on the design priority for LPDs, as evidenced by the fact that they went with diesel engines over almost any other propulsion option. Diesel plants are many times noisier than gas turbine plants, and significantly louder than even a conventional steam plant. Amphibs still get diesel engines because they get good fuel economy compared to the other options.

Re:Why so negative.

[Macgruder]

Yeah:
Here's #1 and
#2 and
#3.

Before everyone joins the frenzy...

[palegray.net]

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.

Re:Oh sure...

[narcberry]

It sounds serious, I mean 95,000 gallons of oil spilled into the ocean.

Oh wait, it was litres? Oh well that's like monopoly oil, we'll be alright.

The Navy needs more men and ships.

[tjstork]

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.

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:they weren't the only ones asleep at the switch

[oldhack]

"usually Slashdot is pretty quick to get the news but his happened yesterday folks"

That was true back when slashdot was in paper edition, but since they switched to this new-fangled website thingy, it just haven't been the same.

One day, my lawn will have a real grass instead of this painted-over green dirt.

Re:Passing in the Night

[d0mokun]

I believe that's fake, or at least drawn out since the dawn of time. http://www.snopes.com/military/lighthouse.asp Still amusing I guess.

Re:Oh sure...

[PhrostyMcByte]

The captains were trying to re-enact the Battlestar finale.

amphibious?

[squidinkcalligraphy]

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?

Re:Oh sure...

[MrKaos]

This is the cover story, but what *really* happened?

They were re-charging their di-lithium crystals from the nuclear wessel so they could save the whales.

Amphibious transport dock?

[managerialslime]

Wiki has not only a good explanation but a great cut-away illustration of "Amphibious transport docks."

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.

Re:Oh sure...

[shogun]

I'm guessing the above should probably be modded -1 (Spoiler).

wink wink; nudge nudge; say no more, say no more

[Scrameustache]

I hope you understand that there are things Sailors can't talk about

We won't ask, and you won't tell.

An aside:

[mblase]

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."

Re:Oh sure...

[maxume]

It's merely unfortunate.

95,000 liters is 95 cubic meters, which is less than 5 meters on a side. In the ocean, that counts as small. Very, very small.

(It is still not something that we should make happen everyday, but it isn't something to worry about when it only happens occasionally)

(Also, 95,000 gallons would still only be just over 7 cubic meters on a side)

Re:Oh sure...

[dgatwood]

I can't believe Gaius Baltar is Admiral Adama's father!

Sorry. It had to be done. :-D

More ships are planned, but...

[DesScorp]

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).

I might argue that past performance

[Runaway1956]

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.

Re:wink wink; nudge nudge; say no more, say no mor

[Eighty7]

Q: What is long and hard and full of seamen?