# Nuclear subs collide **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 16, 2009, 11:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuclear-subs-collide/486077 "2009-02-16T11:40:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2009, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuclear-subs-collide/486077/61 "2009-02-19T19:17:53Z")
I mean, can you enter the little room inside when submerged (or is it open to the sea)? Captain Nemo had a cool sail-with glass eye windows. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2009, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuclear-subs-collide/486077/62 "2009-02-19T21:26:51Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > I mean, can you enter the little room inside when submerged (or is it open to the sea)? Captain Nemo had a cool sail-with glass eye windows. In older submarines the conning tower is located within the sail, with the control room/bridge directly below in the pressure hull. More modern submarines have the conn within the pressure hull in the control room, forward of the combat information center, with an auxiliary conn up on the sail for surface operations. Most of the sail is empty space except for periscope, antennae, and (for boats that have them) fairwater plane mechanisms used for dive control. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Tranquilis](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tranquilis/32/3639_2.png) [@Tranquilis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tranquilis)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2009, 5:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuclear-subs-collide/486077/63 "2009-02-20T05:05:56Z")
> [@Icerigger](#): > > I seem to remember the sails on the DSRV and Alvin were fiberglass. Superstructure fairings on the Alvin, yeah - but not the underlying structure. DSRVs don’t _have_ sails. But none of those are in any way comparable to a combat sub, diesel-electric _or_ nuclear-powered. They’re _sloooow_, do not operate in any sustained mode, and do not need to contend with the knocks and whacks of life that a combat sub does, nor do their superstructures have to stand up to the hydrodynamic forces that a combat sub faces. For subs of that nature, weight saving is more crucial than the structural integrity of their superstructure fairings. ---
**Author:** ![FRDE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e68b1a/32.png) [@FRDE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FRDE)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2009, 10:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuclear-subs-collide/486077/64 "2009-02-24T10:28:05Z")
The Porton Down stuff was some time 1975 to 1980/1 The version of the sub story I heard was that they **inferred** that the subs collided. Actually as I recently learnt, submerged containers are a real danger to shipping - so in the absence of definative proof the chances that the subs **actually** collided with each other are pretty low. The chances of them separately colliding with clusters of submerged containers are pretty high. My guess is that the thing was some sort of p\*issing match to remind people that the French have subs of similar specs to the British - bear in mind Trident renewal is a current controversy in the UK. ---
**Author:** ![davekhps](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a5b964/32.png) [@davekhps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davekhps)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2009, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuclear-subs-collide/486077/65 "2009-02-24T15:16:01Z")
> [@Tranquilis](#): > > Well, _most_ US boats _did_ have re-enforced sails, at one point. I’m not current on the most recent boats, sao can’t say there. [Here’s a cite from a little while back about the new _Virginia_ boats](http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_6712/is_4_209/ai_n28820398): > [@](#): > > Also, the program office has proposed returning under-ice capability to the Virginia-class, a capability that was sacrificed early in the program to keep costs down. Sullivan said returning the capability to the class would not be prohibitively expensive. > > The Navy’s Sturgeon-class, a dedicated under-ice class, will retire from service this year with the decommissioning of the USS L. Mendel Rivers (SSN-686) this month. Though several of the Los Angeles-class (SSN-688) boats are capable of operating in the arctic, as are all three boats in the Seawolf-class (SSN- 21), the Navy wants this operational flexibility on the Virginia-class boats as well. > > “There are several design features that would need to be included into the ship,” Sullivan said. “But the ship that we have today can go under the ice. It is just that if you had to surface in an emergency you could do it but you might break a periscope or a mast or something.” Not sure if this ever got funded-- I stopped when Google hit this, figured it’s enough for the purposes of the thread. FYI, “under ice” ops require a strengthened sail not just because they may need to go up through the ice in an emergency/to communicate, but also because the Arctic ice goes down into the water above the boat. You don’t want to damage your sail while hugging the bottom of the pack ice. ---
**Author:** ![MarcusF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/67e7ee/32.png) [@MarcusF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MarcusF)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2009, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuclear-subs-collide/486077/66 "2009-02-24T16:03:37Z")
> [@FRDE](#): > > The Porton Down stuff was some time 1975 to 1980/1 > > The version of the sub story I heard was that they **inferred** that the subs collided. > > Actually as I recently learnt, submerged containers are a real danger to shipping - so in the absence of definative proof the chances that the subs **actually** collided with each other are pretty low. The chances of them separately colliding with clusters of submerged containers are pretty high. > > My guess is that the thing was some sort of p\*issing match to remind people that the French have subs of similar specs to the British - bear in mind Trident renewal is a current controversy in the UK. I still can’t find any reference to a lab tech at Porton catching “Green Monkey Disease” even on a range of sites that generally believe the worst in any story about the government/military. As to the idea that the story of the subs colliding was "some sort of p\*issing match to remind people that the French have subs of similar specs to the British " - what are you suggesting? Why on earth would either navy want to say they had had a collision with another sub if it hadn’t happened? What has Trident renewal got to do with it? Is the story - apparently kicked off by the Royal Navy - meant to make replacing Trident more or less likely. I really don’t think this idea makes any sense. ---
**Author:** ![Nametag](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nametag/32/406_2.png) [@Nametag](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nametag)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2009, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuclear-subs-collide/486077/67 "2009-02-24T17:04:39Z")
Geoff Platt, who was either a scientist or a technician at Porton Down, was infected with Ebola Zaire by a needle stick. According to [this](http://zeltus.eu/mre/index.html) anonymous reminiscence, “…at the time, it looked like Green Monkey/Marburg Disease.” I don’t see what studying Ebola or Marburg viruses has to do with not being “peaceful research,” but whatever. ---
**Author:** ![FRDE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e68b1a/32.png) [@FRDE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FRDE)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2009, 12:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuclear-subs-collide/486077/68 "2009-02-28T12:28:16Z")
Apologies about the late post. In the UK there is considerable controversy about replacing the Trident Deterrent system - the conventional armed forces reckon that the money would be better spent on conventional equipment (we Brits are rather noted for supplying our forces with kit that is not up to scratch) while others just reckon that nuclear response is a waste of effort. There is a line of thought that the UK is competitive with France, so I would not be surprized if the ‘collision’ was an opportunity to hold a beauty pageant in which Miss France was shown to have slightly smaller dimensions than Miss UK. Certainly I’ve so far seen no evidence that they actually did collide with each other, and even if they did, it seems odd to make a song and dance about something that could be construed as incompetence - and would be known to very few people. The Green Monkey stuff might have been the Ebola thing you found, but at the time it was definitely reported as GM - and it followed immediately after a release that the USSR was messing with Green M. Personally I would not doubt the veracity of a recollection because it cannot be found on the Web - the late 1970’s are not that well documented. I remember the incident vividly as my father was a member of a Govt body that visited Porton just before the fuss. If I really wanted to search for it then I would go for the archives of The Times and possibly The Financial Times. For additional humour, perhaps you remember the release about the Israelis working on a genetically based ‘weapon’ targeted at those of Semitic ancestry. Some jokers have a neat sense of humour ! ---
**Author:** ![robby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robby/32/11048_2.png) [@robby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robby)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2009, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuclear-subs-collide/486077/69 "2009-03-02T19:08:11Z")
> [@davekhps](#): > > FYI, “under ice” ops require a strengthened sail not just because they may need to go up through the ice in an emergency/to communicate, but also because the Arctic ice goes down into the water above the boat. You don’t want to damage your sail while hugging the bottom of the pack ice. These are referred to as “ice keels.” You don’t want to hit them if the submarine has any significant forward velocity–they can do significant damage to a submarine, even if the sail is hardened. Also, realize that under-ice capable submarines can’t just break through the ice wherever they want. More often than not, the ice is simply too thick to break through. Submarines surface through open areas (polynyas) or thin spots resulting from a polynya that has recently refrozen. P.S. I’ve been reading this thread with interest, but until now I haven’t had anything that I could really add that hasn’t already been stated. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuclear-subs-collide/486077.md?page=3)