Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: GreenCloud on January 27, 2005, 05:26:17 PM
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holy sheite...did you guys see these damage pics!!!!!!??
suprised it didtn sink..or set torpedos off...
wow...amazing more did not die..
http://www.navy.mil/view_single.asp?id=21182
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(http://www.navy.mil/management/photodb/webphoto/web_050127-N-4658L-030.jpg)
http://www.navy.mil/management/photodb/webphoto/web_050127-N-4658L-030.jpg
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thnk u sand..
frikn amazing..they hit so hard..no explosions set off?..
that had to be one hardazzzzz hit...i really did not expect to see such damage
I dotn get it tho..they already releived the commander of his duty...wasnt thsi an unmapped mountain in the sea?..or did they ram a chinese sub while chasing it?
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It's a different angle than the one you posted. Thanks for the original link.
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How many died? The caption did not say.
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That is one strong submarine manned by an excellent crew...
Well Done.....
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Otto said it. I really didn't think there were THAT tough.
Charon
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what i want to know is how they are keeping it upright in drydock.. the blocks underneath it dont look very sturdy
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They hit an uncharted undersea mountain called a sea mount while poking along at 30 Knots... L.A. class boats don't run much faster than that. I'm amazed it even came home.
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check out the hull wide scrape along the side.
Thats a tough nut for sure but it makes sense. Water is dense.
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Originally posted by VWE
They hit an uncharted undersea mountain called a sea mount while poking along at 30 Knots... L.A. class boats don't run much faster than that. I'm amazed it even came home.
bet its not uncharted anymore LOL
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One dead and several injured in that accident. All of the damage shown happened to the ballast tanks and sonar dome. Nothing penetrated the personel cell.
Wow... sounds like I know something about subs there. I don't... a friend just told me that.
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Damage To Submarine Believed Severe
USS San Francisco Back In Guam Homeport
By ROBERT A. HAMILTON
Day Staff Writer, Navy/Defense/Electric Boat
Published on 1/11/2005
Photographs of the USS San Francisco returning to Apra Harbor in Guam Monday show the submarine's sonar sphere and forward ballast tanks were heavily damaged when it hit an undersea mountain, experienced submariners said. One man was killed in the collision, and 23 others, about one of every six crewmen on board, were injured and evacuated from the submarine, making the incident one of the most serious undersea accidents in memory.
"This is the first time in my memory that anyone was ever killed in one of these accidents," said retired Navy Capt. John W. "Bill" Sheehan of Waterford, who commanded a submarine in the 1970s.
The bow of the submarine normally rides high in the water, but the San Francisco's was steeply angled down as the submarine passed the Orote cliffs in Guam, Navy photos showed. That indicated it was carrying many extra tons of water. Sources said the sonar sphere was cracked, which would allow in about 20 tons of water. The ballast tanks were cracked and flooded as well, the sources said, and portions of the hull near the bow were buckled.
Retired submariners said the sonar dome, which is always flooded, probably absorbed enough of the impact to keep the pressure hull from cracking, allowing the crew to save the ship.
The reactor, located amidships, and the rest of the propulsion plant in the rear of the ship were undamaged, the Navy said.
Navy sources said the ship was traveling more than 500 feet below the surface at more than 30 knots, about 35 mph, when it collided with the sea mount about 350 miles south of Guam.
Retired Navy Capt. John C. Markowicz of Waterford said the injuries were not surprising. "Put yourself in an automobile going 35 mph and you hit a brick wall without even having a seat belt on," he said.
The crewman who was killed, Machinist Mate 2nd Class Joseph A. Ashley, 24, of Akron, Ohio, died from a head wound he sustained when he was thrown against a pump in the machinery spaces.
...During the Cold War, the Navy focused on charting the Atlantic because of the threat the Soviet Union posed from that direction. Submariners said that until recently some of the Pacific Ocean charts carried warnings based on soundings made by Captain Cook in the 18th century, and even modern charts can be based on soundings taken 20 miles or more apart.
Local submariners say the area where the sub was traveling is notorious for no-warning sea mounts; the water depth can change 1,000 fathoms in seconds.
"We know more about the backside of the moon than we do about the bottom of the ocean," said retired Navy Capt. James Patton, president of Submarine Tactics and Technology in North Stonington.
The area in which the San Francisco was traveling, through the Caroline Islands chain, is one of the worst, with dozens of islands rising out of the water and many more uncharted seamounts between them.
"It's just bad water," Patton said.
Submariners said that if the navigation team was operating a Fathometer, the San Francisco probably would have had time to change course no matter how steep the seamount. But if it thought it was in deep water, it might not have been running that piece of equipment.
"The Fathometer sends a signal out, and you can be tracked when you're sending that signal," said retired Navy Capt. Raymond D. Woolrich of Waterford, a previous commander of the Undersea Surveillance Program in the Pacific.
"One of the things I found running the undersea surveillance system is that earthquakes happen all the time in the Pacific, and that's how the earth changes," Woolrich said. "Could there have been an unknown, uncharted seamount? Sure there could have been."
Markowicz recalled that during a transit to the North Pole, passing near Iceland, where a lot of volcanic activity occurs, the water depth could shift hundreds of fathoms in four or five seconds, which would not have been enough time to turn a 7,000-ton submarine traveling at 35 mph.
"The slope comes up very quickly," Markowicz said. "You have very little reaction time, and you may not even have as much warning in the Pacific (where the slopes can be even steeper.) I'm sure that the board of investigation will look at the situation very carefully."
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gear adrift.
that pea green color gives me the shivers.
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The sailor who died lived just a few miles away.
Separate news, a 19 year old paratrooper from my area also just died in training; chute malfunction.
eskimo
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Thank God the US has the best built, best crewed subs in the world. Unfortunate that the skipper lost his command, but it is SOP.
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That is amazing.
only one dead.
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Originally posted by rpm
Thank God the US has the best built, best crewed subs in the world. Unfortunate that the skipper lost his command, but it is SOP.
Did he lose his command?
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Originally posted by moose
what i want to know is how they are keeping it upright in drydock.. the blocks underneath it dont look very sturdy
The blocks are built by Lockheed Skunk Works.
That's all I can say, further information is classified.
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I think Hblair is going to get a call for some body work...
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Originally posted by NUKE
Did he lose his command?
Yep. Its kinda like rear ending a car. No matter what the circumstances its your fault. Run several million dollars worth of sub into a immovable object. and your next job is managing a mcdonalds...if your lucky
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Originally posted by NUKE
Did he lose his command?
Was going by Green Cloud's post, but to be honest I have not seen an official statement. Grounding a ship or a collision normally results in loss of command. The Captain is always held responsable for the actions of his ship and crew, but there have been a very few exceptions.
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The Captain was "reassigned pending investigation"
Satellite images of the area where the submarine ran aground showed a wedge shaped undersea mountain stretching more than a mile along the ocean floor which was not on navigation charts used by the U.S. Navy.
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The Fathometer sends a signal out, and you can be tracked when you're sending that signal
Any sub running at 30+ knots is already creating so much noise that your could probably track it over a 1,000 miles away so running a fathometer aint going to make that much more of a difference.
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Originally posted by VWE
Any sub running at 30+ knots is already creating so much noise that your could probably track it over a 1,000 miles away so running a fathometer aint going to make that much more of a difference.
You must not be aquainted with modern subs. Unless they cavitate, they are uber quiet. Just a hole in the water.
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I had read somewhere a few years ago that the Soviets had developed something that could track changes in the background noise. That allowed them to track US missle subs and fast attack subs. The basis to it was similar to the dopler effect for engines from what I remember.
So theoretically a hole in the sound when you know its a constant means that it would be possible to track something like a US missle or fast attack sub.
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Originally posted by Holden McGroin
The Captain was "reassigned pending investigation"
Satellite images of the area where the submarine ran aground showed a wedge shaped undersea mountain stretching more than a mile along the ocean floor which was not on navigation charts used by the U.S. Navy.
Rumor has it satellite photos were taken in 1988 that showed the ridge, but it never made it into the charts.
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Originally posted by moose
what i want to know is how they are keeping it upright in drydock.. the blocks underneath it dont look very sturdy
That's what I first thought when I first saw one of them in drydock. Walking under and around such a sight gives you a good appreciation for how well the people that work to dock the ship do their jobs.
About the fathometer, a sub ET1 explained it this way on another BBS:
... fast attack submarines typically have several basic types of sonar; passive search, active search, fathometer, and IIRC under ice. The fathometer and under ice would be what you're thinking of, unfortunately the fathometer is a narrow-beam which only identifies directly under the ship, and the under ice is for extremely short range searching for weak spots while surfacing under ice. Neither would have been of any use in that situation because there was obviously no ice and the fathometer would only show a dangerous situation quickly enough if it were not a steep cliff face and the equipment was being run continously.
I was surprised the Navy released that photo. I would've thought that all the public would see are the above-water pics and video from earlier.
mauser
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Originally posted by moose
what i want to know is how they are keeping it upright in dry-dock.. the blocks underneath it don't look very sturdy
the blocks are 12" timbers stacked and held together with steel. I've walked under ships that would make that sub look like a bathtub toy. they were on the same blocks, never heard of one failing.
usually the only trouble is when you are taking the ship in or out of the water.
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this whole thing sounds so strange to me..
1) you really can hit a mtn in ur sub?..in this day of age?
2) they showed the damage?
I guess satelite pics would of showed it but
wow...very strange i think
maybe they rammed a chinese sub?
wheres the chinese sub?
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I spent 6 years on that same type Sub back in the '80s. The damage you see is basically to the sonar dome and its flooded already.
The pressure hull is still intact. The La class attack subs have 2 compartments separating the aft section of the pressure hull from the front.
If the forward section of the pressure hull flooded then there would have been many more deaths.
The crew didn't have to do much to 'save' the boat after the impact, just get up off the deck and surface.
FYI,
The Sub is 'held up' by wooden blocks. I never one 'fall over'...
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Right on Wotan, but if the front end flooded they would of went down! Damage is sort of close to the people tank but the Sonar dome and MBT took most of the impact. A 637 class might of went down, even though the USS Ray hit a sea mound and survived.
They will propably decommission her. She is the 711. I think the 712 (Atlanta) has already been decommed. Mainly depends upon when her last major overhaul was.
When I was on the Groton, we ran aground twice, but no damage on the first, but damaged our sonar dome on the second.
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Somehow it's still amazing that after all the years of submarining and the trillions of dollars spent on submarines that the latest and greatest can still cruise right into a big fat stationary obstacle.
Not a confidence builder.
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Originally posted by Halo
Somehow it's still amazing that after all the years of submarining and the trillions of dollars spent on submarines that the latest and greatest can still cruise right into a big fat stationary obstacle.
Not a confidence builder.
Halo, there's a common saying that 'We know more about the surface of the Moon than we know about the Oceans's floor" It's probablity correct...
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Do you and the Ruskies still have most of your boomers cruising around these days?
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I was an AW in the Navy, I flew on a patrol plane hunting submarines, I enjoyed it, lot's of real cool "toys" to play with. US subs are amazingly quiet and the part of the sub's exterior they are most sensitve about are the propellors. They usually cover them with a tarp before removing the sub from the water.
AKwoody
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Originally posted by Charon
Otto said it. I really didn't think there were THAT tough.
I've been on and in 688s, and the one thing that impressed me the most was the absloute "solidness" feeling you got... like standing on a granite mountain. Not at all like standing on a dumpster or anything else like that.
Most of the damage shown above is to the sonar dome, which is a heavy composite structure, mostly plastic.
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Admiral Nimitz ran his 1st command aground.
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'Why is it not falling over??'
my geuss would be the natural center of gravity makes the sub practically glued to the floor.
upright bouyancy and all that.
wouldnt be a good thing if underwater subs rolled onto their backs here and there. they are designed to stay upright.