Suppose a mid-ocean collision of the biggest honkin’, loaded up supertanker there is and the USS Nimitz, both at full speed., a right angle collision amidship. The tanker is going maybe 20 knots, the carrier 35.
Case A: the tanker is hit amidship
I’m guessing the tanker is dead meat, but would the carrier go down? What if it was an LNG tanker, could the explosion be big enough to take out both. How likely would a major fire or explosion be?
Case B: the carrier is hit amidship
would it survive the collision even without an catastrophic explosion?
Might the tanker survive?
The largest fully loaded supertankers are going to be far more massive than any aircraft carrier, and the double hulls the tankers use now are pretty tough. Unless the oil begins to burn I suspect the ACC might well suffer more than the tanker re fatal structural damage. ACC’s aren’t nearly as heavily armored as battleships re hull thickness.
Due to the disproportionately larger amount energy the tanker will impart to the ACC I suspect the ACC is the one’ that’s going to go ass over teakettle (nautically speaking).
An informational page on Supertankers specifically the VLCC, or Very Large Crude Carrier. It should be noted that this is not the largest class of supertanker. There is an ULCC, Ultra Large Crude Carrier that is even bigger.
Carriers aren’t really armored at all; the hull is just as thick as it needs to be for structural purposes, relying on the air wing (or a destroyer captain with a great sense of duty and somewhat smaller sense of self-preservation :eek: ) to prevent a threat from getting close enough to do damage. They are designed as a light honeycomb inside – the idea is to let the missile in, but contain the blast in a few compartments with the stretchiness of the bulkheads; two feet of solid steel to stop armor-piercing munitions is too heavy. Note that the top speed of a carrier is a vague “over 30 knots”; all the carrier guys I’ve talked to say it’s quite a bit over.
Ignoring the fire issue (which is significant, as one’s full of crude oil and one’s carrying an awful lot of kerosene and explosives), a carrier rammed by a supertanker would have a pretty big dent in the side, but I’m not entirely sure it’d be fatal. Cause for scrapping, I have no doubt, but it would probably stay afloat long enough to limp back to port. If the carrier hit the tanker, both would probably survive, but the local sea life probably wouldn’t.
Battleships, by the way, are only really thick in a box around the guns*. Bop 'em on the pointy end and things can get ugly.
*The last two classes, that is, including the only ones that stayed in service after WWII. They stopped armoring them all the way around so they could be light and therefore fast enough to keep up with the carriers but still have enough armor (19" in places) around the vital bits in the middle. Which was a good thing for the Eaton; otherwise, she would’ve been sliced in half.
The question assumes that the carrier group is somehow going to allow a tanker within say, 200 miles of an aricraft carrier.
Quite an assumption.
The explosion of a LNG tanker of the largest size is going to send everything nearby to the bottom. The fire potential of a tanker collision is potentially just as bad, only slower.
Combustion requires both oxygen and a fuel andI’m not sure you could get enough oxygen in to make any sort of decent explosion, even with LNG.
I suspect that while a carrier is heavily armoured and all, it’s not going to be able to withstand anything near 5 times its weight. I suspect that even if it were made out of adamantium, the tanker would have enough energy to roll over the carrier and entirely submerge it.
It’s conceivable a battle group would be traveling under EMCON. Maybe in very heavy weather, and no operating radar,… eh, maybe. of course, the civilian ship should have radar, but people are always doing dumbass things with with big tankers.