Submarine hits underwater mountain?

[Marek K]

Because the Brits, who developed the first tanks, rightly considered them to be a revolutionary military development. The "cover story" to maintain security was that they were researching and developing a naval weapon.

Yeah, I'd heard that too. But then the very word "tank" was supposedly a cover name for the weapon... which doesn't agree with your version...

 

[mike_s]

How did this thread dig up? This happened what, a year or two ago?

 

[letterboy]

http://ahoy.tk-jk.net/macslog/NuclearSubmarineUSSSanFra.html

 

[brutus_scuba]

...which puts being a submariner on my short list of professions you couldn't pay me enough to do...

As a proffession I would never want the job, but for the first month or so I think it would be awesome.

 

[rktman26]

I've been on ships above the water that have collided with each other. In broad daylight, during underway refueling operations.

 

[Charlie99]

As I recall, soon after it happened the USS San Francisco, a US sub limped into its port in Guam, they said that it had hit an undersea mountain range not on their maps.
Give me a break, am I supposed to believe that probably the most technical piece of submarine in existance failed to see a fricken mountain?

Running a fathometer or other sonar device is like broadcasting HERE I AM!!! HERE I AM!!!!!

Subs try to stay silent, and therefore are running blind.

=============

You'd be surprised what is possible.

The destroyer USS Frank Knox managed to run into an island during the Vietnam war while doing a transit from Vietnam back to the Phillipines. There was only one small island anywhere within dozens of miles of their intended track. Currents moved them off track. The lookouts spotted a big huge wave approaching the ship and the officer-of-the-deck turned the ship to take the huge wave bow on. Unfortunately, the huge wave was the surf line on Pratas Reef.

Real life is sometimes stranger than fiction.

 

[mike_s]

So... let me ask this.

First off I know that the Captain takes the blount of the responsibility if anything happens on his watch.

But.... the boat hit an uncharted underwater mountain. It seems that this was an unkown and a complete accident. yet he was relieved of his command and essentially his career is over.

why couldn't this just be chaulked up to an unkown accident?

 

[Charlie99]

So... let me ask this.

First off I know that the Captain takes the blount of the responsibility if anything happens on his watch.

But.... the boat hit an uncharted underwater mountain. It seems that this was an unkown and a complete accident. yet he was relieved of his command and essentially his career is over.

why couldn't this just be chaulked up to an unkown accident?

We don't know how close they were to the "charted" bottom, or why. I don't know anything about what accuracy or completeness that was claimed for the charts.

A prudent mariner doesn't have accidents. If you have an accident, you weren't prudent, and get relieved of command. It may not be fair, but it's life.

Nearly unlimited authority comes with nearly unlimited responsibility and accountability. It's a concept that has served Navies well over the last few centuries.

So far the US Navy has avoided going with the more modern "everything is relative" and "let's be kind and gentle with the Captain" sort of mentality. Strict accountability helped me to sleep at night, 120' from the core of a nuclear reactor, steaming along across the ocean -- at least until it was my turn to crawl out of bed and do my 4 hour watch as officer-of-the-deck.

 

[jphdiver]

Strange stuff does happen out there though. On a shake down cruise after a time in the shipyard at Mare Island, my submarine "hit" something that stove in a part of the outer hull. The story given to the press was that we probably hit a tree trunk or a shipping container. Back in drydock whatever we hit managed to put a crack in the outer hull dead amidships and about 5 feet below the waterline.

Tree trunk indeed. :no

 

[Charlie99]

Strange stuff does happen out there though. On a shake down cruise after a time in the shipyard at Mare Island, my submarine "hit" something that stove in a part of the outer hull. The story given to the press was that we probably hit a tree trunk or a shipping container.

I had a couple scary "big thumps in the night" while running a 11,000 ton surface ship around the Caribbean. In one case, sonar had reported hearing "biologics" (i.e. whales) shorty before the thump. In the other case, nothing.

Having seen way too many idiots sailing small sailboats around the Caribbean at night with no lights on and nobody at the helm, I've always prayed that it was indeed a container or tree trunk.