I believe that’s what they were doing - the trouble is, as others have pointed out these are Britain and France’s independent deterrent. I’m not sure we tell the USN where our SSBNs are - I’m pretty sure we would not tell the French :dubious:
On the BBC this morning I heard a retired Captain saying the SSBN captains look for certain conditions when choosing where to conceal themselves - quite area of ocean, particular thermal and acoustic conditions, etc. Presumably the French and British Captains followed the same line of reasoning and ended up in the same place at the same time. So not quite a total coincidence although amazingly unlucky.
France has been a part of NATO since the creation in 1948 and remains a political member of that organization, but withdrew its military forces from NATO command in 1959 and refused to allow basing of other NATO members on its soil since 1960 in disagreement with the positions that were being taken by NATO, specifically the perceived (and IMHO real) dominance of NATO by the United States and Britain, the refusal of NATO to assist and support continued French occupation of Algeria, and increasing US involvement in Southeast Asia. France also refused to place its nuclear forces under a NATO SIOP, preferring a completely independent force that would provide deterrent without escalating tensions between France and the East Bloc.
True. OTOH, France has continually maintained that should a NATO member be attacked, that they would uphold their military obligations under the NATO treaty. In effect, France has had the benefit of NATO membership without the burdens thereof, exceptiong in those situations where France would have been at some substantial risk anyway. Have cake; eat it too.
The latest report is that neither submarine’s crew realized that they had hit another sub at the time. It was only when France reported that their sub had hit something underwater that the British figured out their sub’s collision report was from the same incident.
And after a collision you’d think the first order of business would be to surface (or maybe not but I’d think so to assess damage rather than risk losing the boat). When both popped to the surface then the cause would be obvious.
Although apparently they did not do that…strange though.
If there’s no report of internal damage, or flooding, why surface? Especially in inclement weather? From what I understand, “subs on the surface” and “rough weather/bad seas” don’t go to well together. Since the majority of the hull is still underwater, even when surfaced, why add “heaving, rolling decks” to the problems a Damage Control Team might have to deal with?
Submarines are not designed for handling surfaced in rough seas, and will have a pronounced roll tendency in such weather. In addition, ballistic missile submarines typically do not surface during deployment for obvious reasons, and typically stay well below periscope depth except to receive orders or (on the older FBM subs) recalibrate their geospatial “fix” from stellar observations. (Modern subs have inertial guidance systems that allow them to remain submerged and maintain a good base fix for their entire patrol, plus GPS and stellar recalibration of missile trajectories in flight.)
This bears repeating. When you’re trying to avoid detection, not all parts/depths in the ocean are created equal. This vastly increases the chances of two submarines colliding. Since it was heavy seas, the background ocean-noise level would be noticeably higher than normal and make it that much harder to detect the other.
Oh sure, that’s what they say now, but the real explanation is that neither one wanted to leave a note on the other one because they were both afraid their insurance premiums would go up.
The version I read was that the French sub’s sonar kit was damaged by (probably) a submerged container.
Since both subs are designed for ‘stealth’, not being able to detect each other is what they are designed to do.
Why they were in the same place at the same time rather baffles me, as does the supposition that they actually collided but only figured it out later.
To me the story stinks of disinformation - or rather information repackaged to get attention.
It reminds me of the poor lab technician at Porton Down, who split his glove and got Green Monkey Disease. Shortly before, my father had been on a visit to Porton, he came back saying how they were doing peaceful research. My response was to jeer - after the GMD news story my father became a born again cynic.
Why should this be baffling? It’s quite straight-forward: The ocean is a big place but there’s a LOT of traffic in it - Sooner or later, this was inevitable; it just happened to happen now, instead of last year, or next week.
When you make statements like this, it helps to ask “Who would benefit?” And really - Who WOULD benefit from warping the facts behind this anouncement? What scary secret is being kept? Or alternatively, what advantage would be gained by “repackaging” the information?
I see none, either way, and I’m (relatively speaking) on the inside of the community. Tell me, from your outsider’s perspective, what would be gained?
