I seem to remember a fairly famous accident with two cruise liners colliding because of the Venturi effect. A google search didn’t lead me to the one I was looking for but it sure made clear that the navy is no stranger to this type of accident, at least between surface ships.
15.8 knots sea speed according to this site.
The U.S. Navy is taking the recent incidents pretty seriously:
RMS Titanic, leaving the port of Southampton on April 10, 1912, nearly collided with the steamer New York, which was pulled free from its moorings by the venturi effect of the Titanic passing close by.
They don’t come more famous than that, I guess.
I bet that accident would have been seen as a blessing, now.
The linked article says the water averaged 320 feet, and the tanker drew 70.
Is 250’ plenty of room - or a tight squeeze - for a sub? I assume they would be at a depth deeper than any ships they expected to meet.
And while I’m asking questions - what exactly is a “stand down”?
I see it defined as “a relaxation from a state of readiness or alert”, but they can’t really mean all our subs (of that class) are kicking back for a week, do they?
A safety stand-down is a period dedicated to training, reviewing current policies and practices, identifying possible safety issues, and taking any corrective actions necessary. It is not uncommon for a military community, such as aviation, subs, etc., to conduct service wide stand-downs following a significant mishap or a string of similar mishaps.
The stand-down could be a few hours or several days, depending on issue and community.
That depth of water in and of itself is pretty tight for a submerged Los Angeles-class sub (of which the Newport News belongs to), even without the tanker being present.
The length of the boat is 360 feet, and the height of the boat is 50 feet from keel to the top of the sail. You don’t want to be too close to the bottom or the surface, so assume the sub is an ordered depth of 200 feet (measured from water surface to keel).
In that shallow water, it doesn’t take much of an up or down angle to broach the surface or hit the bottom. The sub would therefore try to keep a zero bubble, and would not be traveling fast.
If the tanker then came driving over the sub, the distance between the top of the sail and the keel of the tanker would be only about 80 feet. If the sub was any shallower, (maybe because of variations in the “average” depth), this distance would be further reduced. At some point a venturi effect situation could arise if you had a large enough vessel going directly over you at a high enough speed.
(All of this information that I’ve provided, BTW, is readily available unclassified info. In addition, I’ve never been through the Strait of Hormuz, nor even been in that part of the world, so I have no worry about inadvertently passing on any operational tactics or procedures.)
Well, the article states: “Submarines already at sea will continue operations but will review recent and planned operations. Submarine captains and crews will report their findings up through the chain of command.”
I can guaran-frickin’-tee that absolutely nobody will be relaxing or “kicking back for a week.” None of these so-called “stand-downs” have ever, to my knowledge, been allowed to interfere with operational commitments.
(Also, this stand-down affects the entire submarine fleet, not just that class of subs.)
This “stand-down” will consist of hours of extra training along with a massive review of policies and procedures, as well as going over “lessons learned” from the incidents that precipitated the stand-down. The brass will want a thorough review specific to each sub, as well as a thorough report detailing what each individual command comes up with. Commanding officers will want to impress their superiors, so they will be producing voluminous reports to send up the chain.
All of this will be done on top of the normal workload for submarine crews, who are already working their asses off.
On preview, I see that ** Scruloose** has already defined a “stand-down” perfectly.
Ship interaction of this sort is not uncommon. Vessel alongside will usually have their crew stand by at the mooring winches when another ship is going past (or at least one that is deep draft or going fast or close). We used to have a damage incident caused by ship interaction about every year or so on the Brisbane River till tighter guidelines were passed.
ok. I am really confused at the “stand down”. I believed the sub force was, by long and far, the tightest run of all our armed forced. I am having a hard time believing that they can really come to the point where they say “guys, we are screwing up too much, let’s think about this whole thing from the top”. I mean, it takes a lot of cojones to do so and I applaud them for it but is this a problem of faulty guidelines or a problem of faulty implementation?
Generally speaking, the problem is usually the latter, but it may be the former. Part of a stand-down is to tighten up on procedures, and part of it is to see if the policies and procedures are, in fact, the best way to conduct business.
Accidents happen. Yes, from what I understand, the U.S. Navy sub community is full of extremely squared away sailors who set the world standard for sub-surface operations. But there have been several high-profile sub mishaps in recent years, and that is evidence of problems somewhere. Safety stand-downs are only one of several tools used to identify problems and correct them. Those problems may be human error, equipment related, the result of poor practices, or some other cause. The point is - let’s find out and correct it now before we really screw something up.
One thing to remember, as robby points out, a stand-down will not slow down operations of those units already deployed. The daily routine of the crew will be altered a bit, but those boats will still patrol, the crews will still stand the watch, and the boat will still respond to any threats.
Thanks tons for the info, guys.
Tough for someone with no experience to grasp the dimensions and comparisons involved. And I was just a little confused re: the “stand down” - especially when it sounded like it applied to the entire fleet at the same time. I figured it had to have a more subtle meaning than I thought.
As I predicted:
Skipper of USS Newport News relieved of duty
No word on the OOD yet, but actions taken on subordinates is generally less well-publicized.
They even used the standard rhetoric:
From this article:
“Rear Adm. Douglas J. McAneny, commander, Combined Task Force 54, completed administrative personnel actions involving select members of the USS Newport News (SSN 750) crew, Jan. 29, including relieving Cmdr. Matthew A. Weingart of command due to a lack of confidence in his ability to command.”
Of course the admiral had complete confidence in the sub’s CO right up until the point at which he decided to relieve him of command. :rolleyes:
I was aboard the New-New for a short cruise in 2005 and met Cmdr. Weingart. Too bad, he seemed to be a great guy.
I am sure he is a nice guy. He is a dangerous sailor. The accident was minor, but it shows a disregard for safety that could have ended much, much worse.
His wrecked career will encourage the others.
I’m sure he was a great guy, and an effective officer in order to get command of one of our submarines in the first place.
There’s actually been a lot of debate over the years over the Navy’s zero-tolerance policy for screwups. Many people believe it tends to produce very cautious, over-conservative officers who would not fare well in a shooting war (as opposed to peacetime ops).
One example of how things have changed is the actions the Navy took over a young officer who grounded the first ship under his command. Today, he would have been relieved of command and ended his career right then and there.
The officer in question? None other than Chester Nimitz:
From wiki:
“While Nimitz was a young 22 year-old ensign in the Philippines in command of the destroyer Decatur, his ship ran aground on a mudbank. Nimitz was court-martialed and convicted of hazarding a Navy ship and received a letter of reprimand [citation needed]. This incident could have ended his career.”
Instead, he went on to become a five-star Fleet Admiral and Commander in Chief of Pacific Forces for the United States and Allied forces during World War II.
Not only that, the navy has just relieved perhaps it’s only sub commander who has first hand knowledge of the hazard of being overrun by a large, fast tanker. Had he kept his command, that officer would probably be the least likely to ever have a similar problem.
A close call teaches a lesson in a way that threats of discipline never will.