The Court Martial for this one is going to be interesting.
I presume the sub’s CO will get canned for parking himself in front of a ship, but I wonder if the ship’s CO will also get canned for not having detected the sub beforehand?
During naval exercises both crews (and so ultimately both skippers) would be responsible for checking on the positions of other vessels relative to their own, so it’s possible that both have a share of the blame. But it is very lucky that no lives were lost.
We should really make those subs show up better on sonar, then things like this wouldn’t happen…
A British boomer and a French boomer managed to collide with each other a couple of years ago. They are supposed to be undetectable, but tough if they use the same sneaky Atlantic routes.
The British Truculent was run down and sunk by a cargo vessel in the 1950s.
A modern sub shows up just fine at that range on a surface vessel’s obstacle avoidance sonar, if the operator is, you know, actually looking at it.
And with the sophisticated sonar systems on modern attack subs, they should’ve known the cruiser was right-freakin’-there.
Were all the sonar operators screwing off? Was the Tracking Officer not updating the board properly?
I’d like to hear from some of our former submariners how the hell a cruiser and sub get within 200 yards of one another without the sub at least knowing about it and taking evasive maneuvers.
It’s a big ocean, but these things happen - more often than you might think:
Both captains’ careers are, very likely, finished.
A question for the nautical types: why did the ship go into full reverse? You’re not going to stop in time. Wouldn’t it have been more sensible to try to go left or right (port or starboard)?
Thats what I was thinking. Not to mention the sub could have dropped down about 50 feet (though I guess at some point you don’t have enough time) and all would have been well.
This encounter sounds like that bad nautical light house vs big ship joke.
The sub popped up close enough that they could not have missed it if they tried to turn. By going full reverse, they lessened the impact of the inevitable collision.
In someone’s peripheral vision, the career expiration light is blinking red…
Isn’t that what the Titanic tried to do? And we all know how well that worked out.
A bump: it looks like they’ve put the majority of the blame on the submarine.
Vessels of virtually any size cannot turn on a dime to avoid something in the water. You’ve got a huge mass moving thru a low-friction environment - that’s a lot of inertia to overcome. And boats and ships don’t turn like cars - they pivot about a point on the hull so the bow will be moving in the desired direction of turn and the stern will be swinging in the opposite direction, so even if the front end managed to miss colliding, there’s still a chance that the back end would hit.
That’s why everything afloat should have a lookout or 10. Even with all the fancy electronics available today, eyeballs are still pretty good.
I have heard that even when it’s not the ship/sub captain’s fault, if something bad happens, it’s the captain’s fault.
If the situation was in any way analogous to my own pontoon boat exploits, both captains were hurriedly scuttling empty beer cans.
You do both. By going into full reverse you begin to slow the ship, but also make the rudder more efficient in turning. But understand it is a hail Mary play
Well it’s not like they used it.
“The English occasionally shoot a few Admirals to encourage the others”
-Voltaire
Jeez Louise. My son’s currently underway - thank God it wasn’t his sub! Talk about a :eek: moment!!