The story about the collision goes as follows: The Kursk was testing experimental weapons. US subs were nearby monitoring the tests (apparently, this kind of monitoring happens all the time). At the time of the explosion, there were two shockwaves detected: A small one, and a few moments later a much larger one. Soon afterwards, a green-and-white emergency buoy was seen in the area. The Russian Navy does not use green and white buoys. The US and (IIRC) UK and Norway do use green and white buoys. Two days later, an American submarine (I heard it was the Memphis) limped into a Norwegian naval base with extensive bow damage. You can see how people might think these events could be related. Supposedly, Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed to not officially blame the Americans because nobody wants a major international incident. Awhile back someone posted a link to a webpage that listed all known collisions between NATO and Soviet/Russian warships. (Anybody remember where that webite is?) Collisions between naval vessels happen alot more often then you probably think! There’s been one every few years from WW2 all the way up until today.
*Originally posted by Diceman *
** US subs were nearby monitoring the tests (apparently, this kind of monitoring happens all the time). At the time of the explosion, there were two shockwaves detected: A small one, and a few moments later a much larger one. Soon afterwards, a green-and-white emergency buoy was seen in the area. The Russian Navy does not use green and white buoys. The US and (IIRC) UK and Norway do use green and white buoys. **
Nope, we (US Navy Submarine Force) DO NOT USE green and white buoys. We use ORANGE buoys, and we weld them down, so they can’t be accidentally deployed, when going on ‘sensitive’ ops.
**Two days later, an American submarine (I heard it was the Memphis) limped into a Norwegian naval base with extensive bow damage. You can see how people might think these events could be related. **
Never happened.
** Supposedly, Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed to not officially blame the Americans because nobody wants a major international incident. **
A nice theory spouted about by conspiracy types, because it can’t be proved, but if one checks the rhetoric coming out of Russia the last few years, you’ll quickly realize that the Russians would rather enjoy an incident of this sort right about now, when there is little chance of it turning into a shooting war.
**Collisions between naval vessels happen alot more often then you probably think! There’s been one every few years from WW2 all the way up until today. **
Yup, which is why we stand clear of manuevers of this type. Name me one submariner that’s gonna take his billion $$ boat into a weapons testing zone, where it might be sunk. Yeah, right. Not a @#$@ chance.
Less so now that we supposedly trust each other, but during the Cold War US attack boats and Russian boomers would scrape hulls quite often in the process of hunting/hiding from each other.
That, and the fact that the sub force is run by Rickover proteges now. During the ‘wild west’ days of the force, we were commanded by combat veterans. Now accountant-minded Nucs run the Force, and needlessly damaging your expensive boat is a one-way trip to an early retirement. I’ve seen it happen to too many good officers, while that prick (Admiral) Smilin’ Ed Giambastiani keeps on working his way up the ranks.
Gung-ho tactics, like banging hulls, are a thing of the past. Just as well: That’s a good way to die.
This is an interesting contradiction.
Also, I hope you’ll understand if I don’t take the USN’s word unquestioningly. It was one of their boats accused of causing the accident, after all. Of course, Russia isn’t a disinterested party, either. So you have to look at both Russia and America’s lies and try to infer the truth.
Perhaps I’ve mis-remembered a few details, but the article was quite specific that the buoy was of a color not used by the Russians (hence it couldn’t be from the Kursk) but it was of a color used by a few NATO nations, including the US. And if the American sub did sustain heavy bow damage, it’s entirely reasonable that they might have deployed a buoy intentionally. We’re not at war with Russia, so it’s not like they would have fired on the American sub.
See my above comment about not taking the US Navy’s word unquestioningly. Could you supply, say, a Norwegian source that can attest that there was no US submarine in a Norwegian naval port for emergency repairs a few days after the Kursk accident?
Could you supply a source that can attest that there was a US submarine in a Norwegian naval port for emergency repairs a few days after the Kursk accident?
I was thinking more along the lines of the hunter getting bumped by the huntee, because the huntee didn’t know the hunter was there…just an accidental scrape from getting too close while “watching” them.
Here ya go. It’s from a websource known as “Venik.” He’s a fan of the Russian military, so he’s obviously bias towards the Russians, but his information is usually pretty good. For example, during the Kosovo War he reported the loss of that F-117 days before the USAF abmitted that it was lost. And he knew the total number of unmanned drones destroyed months before NATO published the official figures. His website is http://venik.way.to It’s an interesting site, if for no other reason than to look and see what the “other side” thinks about the West.
Here’s the relevant excerpt from his Kursk information:
He also has this statement:
Diceman, the cite you provide is, as you admit, biased. Tranquilis, who seems to have intimate knowledge of sumbarine operations, points out an error in the report: namely, the colour of the rescue bouys. If your cite is wrong about this, could it be wrong about the collision?
The cite says that the SSN went to Bergen, therefore it “proves” it required repair. I am not an expert on sub ops, but doesn’t it only “prove” that the SSN was docked at Bergen? There are still spies about. Where are the damage reports?
As has been noted, U.S. submarines have single hulls. Any collision that would sink a huge double-hulled Russian boomer would probably sink a U.S. attack sub.
As for Memphis being lost by its trackers, that’s what submarines do. They are specifically designed to be stealthy. The U.S. military regards submarines in particular to be “top secret”, so the denial of a request from a former enemy to inspect one is not unusual.
As you pointed out yourself, there were two explosions. A small one would tend to indicate and explosion that was contained within the pressure hull and the larger one would indicate the fatal explosion that ripped apart the submarine. Russian submarines are notoriously ill-maintained. (“How can you tell a Russian submariner? He glows in the dark!”) I’ve heard several reports on National Public Radio about the state of the Russian Navy that indicates that several vessels are effectively “mothballed” because their aren’t enough funds to maintain them. It does not stretch the imagination to suppose that there was a problem with a poorly-maintained weapon or that there was a “glitch” in a new experimental weapon. Remember the U.S. lost a submarine when a faulty torpedo “cooked off” aboard the boat. Surely something similar could happen to the Russian Navy.
All of the reports I read on MSNBC after the tragedy mentioned that the Russians were alledging a collision, but as the story progressed the most likely scenario (as evidenced by the two explosions) is that there was an internal explosion that resulted in the sinking of the Kursk.
According to CNN:
Given the Russian penchant for paranoia and unwillingness to admit mistakes, it is reasonable for the Russian commission to blame something other than a malfunction aboard a submarine in a force that is beset by budget and maintenance problems.
This CNN page focuses on the torpedoes as the cause of the sinking. Here are some relevant quotes:
Given the available evidence, and once again unsheathing Occam’s Razor, I’d say that the Kursk was sunk by an internal explosion and that “collision theories” are an effort to turn away criticism from the Russian Navy.
In the area doesn’t mean in the line of fire: 10,000 yards or so will do, on the off chance that the observed boat does something unexpected, like fire a ‘snapshot’ (Shooting from the hip, so to speak. A fairly standard drill). 10,000 yards==5 miles (This is well within any nation’s sonar capabilities, and actually, for submarines, 10,000 yards is quite damn close, and would risk counter-detection if our boats aren’t really carefull). That’s well clear. There are times when we’ve been closer, but for these kind of observations, ‘in the neighborhood’ is the standard operation. As I’ve noted before, the climate in today’s Nuclear Navy will end an officer’s career instantly, should they needlessly violate proceedure. By definition, all US submarine commanders are ambitious (you don’t go through what they’ve gone though to reach command without ambition).
I submit that an ambitious skipper isn’t going to risk his career just to play cowboy (especially the kinds of officers that Nuc skippers have become): There’s just nothing to be gained.
I submit that it’s hard to collide from 5 miles away.
This doesn’t mean that our skippers are hide-bound incompetents, just that they know when to take a risk, and when not to. This kind of op is clearly and fully understood: There’s nothing to be gained by hazarding your vessel.
You’re mixing reality with Hollywood again. Do you honestly think the military could keep this sort of thing secret, do you?
Either the Navy is so incompetent that they run around the ocean slamming into other people’s ships, or is so completely competent that they could keep a monumental collision (in the shallowest waters a submarine can safely dive) secret from the whole world. Pick one: you can’t have it both ways.
Note: The Nav couldn’t even keep the Glomar Explorer secret.
As I’ve previously stated, when going on these kinds of ops, the bouy is welded down. You’ve no idea what you’re saying when you suggest it might have been accidentally released by any kind of dammage that didn’t sink the boat outright.
See ‘snap-shot’, above. Our boats, despite being thin-skinned and shallow-diving, are real damn stealthy. putting a silent boat into the middle of weapons testing excercise is an expensive way of playing Russian Roulette (pun intended).
Satellite photos show an undamaged submarine inport at about that time, I’m not able to give informed information to the actual name or national origin of that boat, but the photos are out there, and available. Of course, proving the provenance of those photos is damned hard, and without detailed provenance, a photo proves nothing, one way or another.
You’re still asking me to prove a negative. Better course: You provide objective, credible evidence that it did happen, and I’ll take a look at it. Should you be correct, I’ll eat my words in the Pit.
I still shave with Occam’s Razor.
Cool link. Thanks!
A quick review shows that his info is an interesting mix of real facts, and real goofs. That’s (mostly) a subject for another thread
Mebbe the ‘Peter the Great’ did find a buoy, but it sure as hell wasn’t US. Ours are orange, and don’t ‘disappear’: They float until removed from the water, all the while broadcasting “sub sunk” over the airwaves. They also have a plaque on them, stating ‘below lies the wreck of USS xxxxx’
I wouldn’t place too much on that: The Russian Navy has damned little experience in sonar work of late (a skill that requires constant practice), and scores of ships were sunk in the area during WWII.
Meaningless in this context: Akin to saying ‘police cars were seen in the area, so the fire must’ve been arson’.
Completely useless, and almost certainly purest BS: The kinds of messages we’re talking about are encrypted. What this ‘information’ from an un-named Naval source means, if true, is that the Russian Navy has broken NATO codes (remotely possibile), and is revealing this fact to NATO for the purpose of embarasing the US (completely unbelievable).
Proves nothing of the sort. Rampant speculation. Akin to saying ‘He was in the store, so he must’ve used a credit card’.
Well DUH! Like we’re going to give that kind of intellegence oportunity to the Russians, asuming they even asked in the first place.
No such vessel.
Meaningless speculation.
I think that’s enough on this one. The source is critically flawed, and barring (much)better evidence, I’m calling this one closed.
Well now, that’s an interesting claim.
Especially since I found this on the US Navy’s own online resources after a two-minute websearch:
How sure are you about the rest of those denials now, Tranquilis?
I wouldn’t believe either government any further than I could throw their fattest politicians, but I did manage to find some facts about the Kursk and the Memphis:
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The Memphis, a Los Angeles-class sub, is a 6900-ton boat submerged.
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The Kursk, an Oscar-class sub, is 18,000 tons submerged. And has a stronger pressure hull.
If these two submarines collided and one sank and one sailed away, the one sinking would be the Memphis. I cannot imagine how, if these two submarines collided, the one that’s almost three times larger and has a stronger pressure hull would be destroyed while the other could limp away.
IMO, this is all BS. There’s no evidence for it happening, there’s no logical explanation for how it could happen and how the smaller sub got away okay, and Occam’s Razor holds a very good alternate explanation.
Ok, I missed that one. I was using my copy of Janes ‘Warships’.
Surface ships are rather less my specialty, except as targets. Diceman’s info is correct. I went a little deeper, once my copy of Janes’ ‘Warships’ was proven incomplete. ‘TAGOS’ refers to an ‘auxiliary’ vessel, with the dedicated purposes of intelligence and research gathering. They’re about the size of a large trawler.
It’s presence still has damn-all to do with the desperate theories offered by certain Russian admirals whom are responsible with their careers for the crappy condition of the Russian fleet.
I, of course, can’t educate anyone on the realities of submarines in an abreviated enviroment, such as this forum, so you can take my word for it, or not. I’ve given it my best shot, and whether or not anyone listens, it won’t change the facts any. Believe what you will.
Tranquilis, that was a pretty major mistake, claiming that the Loyal doesn’t exist. It’s understandable though. If you have a recent copy of Jane’s, it still may not (as you discovered) list all of the ships. But Jane’s* is considered the authority on the world’s weapons systems. Loyal seemed to me to be a British name (the Brits seem to like to name their vessels with adjectives: Indefatigable, e.g.) so I didn’t look into it. If I had bothered to do a web search, I would have entered “uss loyal”. But it is “usns loyal”, so I don’t know if I would have found it. You are to be commended for your prompt mea culpa.
In a previous post, I questioned Diceman’s accuracy specifically because of one mistake: the colour of the rescue bouy. To be consistent I should question your accuracy because of your mistake about the ship.
But having held high clearances, and coming from a Navy family, and having been in an environment that encouraged at least some knowledge about how the Soviets thought, I still have to support your view that there was no collision with a U.S. vessel. This view is backed up by the focus of investigators on faulty torpedoes.
Blind Man’s Bluff details the loss of the Scorpion on pages 118-131 of the softcover printing. Unless someone is really interested, I won’t go into the details (anyone that interesed should buy the book), but the gist of it is that there were two companies that contracted to manufacture the torpedo batteries. There were so many failures that a third company was brought in.
As I noted earlier, “The upgraded [Russian] torpedoes required liquid fuel to generate a burst of gas which propelled them… The system was abandoned in the 1980s amid fears of an explosion, but the Russian navy had revived it because it was cheaper than the alternative.” Torpedo explosions have caused losses in the past. The Russian military are known to be short of cash. The Russians chose to use a certain propulsion system because it was a cheaper alternative, even though they knew there was a risk of explosion.
All other things being equal, the internal explosion theory (of a weapon) is the most likely explanation for the loss of the Kursk.
Everyone has good info, but Tranquilis and others are arguing under a misconception. Noone is saying that the collision sank the Kursk. What they say happened was that the collision initiated events that caused the experimental toredoes to explode a few moments later. It was the explosion that sank the Kursk. I agree that these torpedoes sound like damn dangerous things to have around, and I’d probably rather be on a boat with nukes than one with these things.
No, actualy, I fully understand the the concept of first the ‘collision’, then the explosion. My argument is that the ‘collision’ is a red herring intended to point away the finger of blame.
The amount of energy needed to impart sufficient impulse to the Kursk to set off a weapon, even a badly maintained and dangerously unstable one, would have created catastrophic results to a Los Angeles class boat. A Sturgeon class boat could likely have stood up to it, albeit with considerable damage.
Some years ago, a Sturgeon boat was glancingly struck by an Oscar class boat (the Kursk is an updated boat of the same general class). No weapons went ‘bang’, and no one sank (although each nation thought the other boat had gone down, due to the severity of the percieved forces), yet still, the US boat came away with a sail permenantly twisted (uneconomical to repair). This was the heavily re-enforced ‘ice busting’ sail, designed to crack through thick artic ice. There’s no way a flimsy (read “Running Critical” for info I’m not allowed to give) LA boat is going to survive a far more energetic collision (based upon the siesmologic data) with a much heavier updated Oscar such as the Kursk, without glaring, obvious, damage. The kind that calls for a visit to drydock lasting years. You just don’t ‘patch up’ that kind of damage: It requires massive rebuilding (and that would be for the tougher SSN-637 boat. A 688 would likely be written-off).
Oh, and another BTW: No one, not even the Russians with their limited practice in sonar work, is going to lose track of a submarine that badly damaged. It’d stick out like a brass band at vespers.
Johnny L.A., DicemanYou should always question accuracy, even from acknowleged experts (I only play one on TV). Everyone can screw-up.
My problem here is that I can’t even begin to give the whole picture of the events in question within the limits of this forum. You’ve no idea how frustrating it is to me, to have fact, unfounded speculation, distortions, and wild claims bearing no resemblence to the real world, all mixed together and accepted at face value by other-wise well informed and highly intellegent people, simply due to their disconnect from the enviroment of the events.
In short, it’d take me about a month to educate the average bloke sufficiently for them to glimpse the major implications, and even then, without actual hands-on they’d still lack the frame of reference to fully understand. Things like understanding just how tough submarines are, and yet how critically vulnerable they can be, and under which conditions they are either (or both), takes a long time to grasp.
Tranquilis: I see your point, and it’s a good one, but my problem is that I don’t trust the US Military as far as I can throw an M1A1 tank. All through the war in Kosovo, the NATO forces lied out their asses about what they were doing. They turned the Tomahawk cruise missle into a modern-day V2, firing all too many of them at civilian targets of no military value (and don’t get me started about that aspirin factory in Sudan). They said that they weren’t considering sending in ground troops, while a friend of mine was sitting in a troop ship off the coast of Croatia waiting for orders to invade Kosovo (orders that never came, thank God). And lastly, they’ve lied about NATO losses during the war. At first, they insisted that no NATO aircraft were lost, but since then they’ve admitted to more and more losses. The “official” count currently stands at around six manned aircraft lost, but they still insist that there were no casualties. Other sources, including the Greek and Italian media, say we lost several dozen aircraft, and there were plenty of casualties. The generals and admirals that run the military these days don’t deserve an iota of my trust, and that’s why I’m automatically skeptical about their statements.
And you shouldn’t. The US military has a bad record on that level (albeit rather better than that of most other nations). That’s why the military reports to civil authority, not the other way around. The point here is that it’s not the US military making the assertions about collisions, but the Russian Navy, which has far fewer oversights than ours.
The bottom line is this: If it were reasonably likely that we had collided, I’d be digging harder than most (especially since some of my buddies would likely be involved), but in this case, specifically, it’s extremely unlikely: Proceedure, circumstance, and the physical chacteristics of the vessels in question strongly argue that the Russian’s are grasping at straws.