I seem to remember this happening quite often (yearly, maybe?) during the Cold War in the North Sea and around Norway.
> In a demonstration for some VIP civilian visitors, Greeneville performed an emergency ballast blow surfacing maneuver. As the submarine shot to the surface, she struck Ehime Maru. Within ten minutes of the collision, Ehime Maru sank. Nine of the thirty-five people aboard were killed: four high school students, two teachers, and three crew members.
As for keeping their distance... well, they are a nuclear submarine, why should they be polite?
I assume Aaron Aamick (Sub Brief) and H.I. Sutton will make a video about this incident in the coming days, and we’ll get a credible answer to whether there’s any fault here on the part of the sub crew.
To nitpick, you absolutely are. The military reports to the civilians; that is who they are accountable to.
That said, I don't know anything about submarines. But it has nothing to do with being a civilian or military. It's the trick of management, oversight, responsibility - we need to oversee and make responsible decisions for things where we lack expertise. I need to hire a plumber even if I know nothing about plumbing. Other people need to hire IT professionals, and IME some of them know nothing about IT!
Yes, they do, but we don't want the civilian leadership criticizing captains for their operational decisions. Strategic, yes, absolutely. "Do we do this mission or not?" is absolutely up to civilians (Secretary of the Navy, Secretary of Defense, President) to decide. A captain making in-the-moment decisions about the running of the boat or ship can be handled by the military - up to and including loss of command or even court martial. If they are operating within their orders and official regulations, civilians should stay out of it or risk having a military that doesn't work when we need it.
It's generally not a good idea for the CEO or board member to directly manage the painter, because there is so much they don't know about the person, situation, paint, etc; that's why they delegate. Also it undermines all the managers in the chain. On the other hand, sometimes those costs are worth it, and it's better than the alternative - sometimes the bureaucratic rules get in the way, or the structure is malfunctioning, and you need to get things moving.
But none of that is not special to militaries.
> civilians should stay out of it
While it may be true practically in many cases, I think that phrase is antithetical to democracies and freedom. A big threat to democracy is a military that is above civilians in status, power, etc. And one big advantage of a democracy is an open society, where citizens can see and respond to issues; sunlight disinfects corruption.
It might seem like a technicality, but my point is that civilians are entitled to question anything they want about the military - that's necessary for democracy. I would agree that it's usually not wise.
> If the captain is within both of them and still commits a war crime somehow, you don't hang the captain, you hang the admiral.
You hang both. Captains are officers, not automatons; they are responsible for their actions. But I agree that the admiral is the biggest issue, or maybe the secretary / minister of defense.
Because you'll fight like you train. Accidentally snagging a trawler in unfriendly waters after having just tapped a seabed cable would be a problem.
That said, there's a fine line between maintaining good standard procedure and getting absurd with it.
Dodging a trawler in the middle of nowhere, fine. Dodging a trawler in a crowded channel, probably not worth it.
It’s like a ninja being seen by a guy taking a piss in the three he’s hiding at. That’s a shitty ninja.
Are you saying that because you know that the net makes noise?
Edit: or be instantly capsized and dragged below water, jfc: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FV_Antares#Inquiries_and_recom...
Would the sub typically have to surface to manually clear the propeller? Or, does it have enough torque to just (noisily) obliterate most entanglements?
Sub propellers have a lot of torque. There's no way that one would really get entangled by seaweed. But thick ropes, cables, and heavy fishing tackle are a risk. Every military sub carries qualified divers who could manually cut it free as a last resort.
The same divers who occasionally "inspect" undersea cables. :)
The sub's standing crew would typically have a few qualified divers trained in just the basics. They would only use open-circuit gear on shallow bounce dives for inspections and light maintenance. Anything more complex would require bringing in a dedicated dive team.
If you’re somewhere you aren’t supposed to be, and you have to dive to fix or inspect something, you don’t want to be sending bubbles up.
You’re on your own in the ocean, whether civilian or military, sub or surface. You have to be able to handle any and all potential issues.
Anyway, he was dive-rated. Closed-circuit breathing is the basis of anesthesia machines and has been for ages (at least 60 years). So for us, a closed-circuit system isn't new - it's something we do every day at work. You just have to account for depth. I'd be shocked if he hadn't done it.
Columbia-class is electric drive, which is absolutely wild to me. Those are monstrous motors.
Source: I ran a reactor on a Virginia-class (not USS Virginia, the subject of the article, but in the same class).
I would guess they test props against real-world commercial fishing nets as part of some qualification process.
I assume enough nets have been run over by various vessels over the centuries that they can simply predict performance by looking at the design and plugging key parameters into a formula or table.
They do have divers which can get out without surfacing to deal with some problems, but Nuclear subs can move forward without the propeller.
Water is so dense those stubby wings you see on the side can when angled properly create forward thrust when the sub moves up or down which they can do repeatedly by adding and removing water from a ballast tank. Essentially acting like gliders who can swap gravity to keep going.
So a little less oomph than 2 out of the 5 fuel pumps on a Saturn V, just for an irrelevant comparison ;)
Everything I think about them. As you state, just the fuel pumps (that pump fuel at cryo temperatures) are hundreds if thousands of horsepower and are amazing fears of engineering on their own. Each piece of that engine is like that.
I had the immense privilege of seeing a few F1s in person recently in DC and I was not let down.
Thank you for bringing them up.
Also, subs now are a lot more capable than they were then.
Second reason why now limited usage, WWII submarines was very limited power, many experts consider them as just high-speed boats with extremely limited underwater capabilities, but modern submarines are really powerful, especially nuclear.
Anti-submarine nets are far, far heavier.[2]
MESH ROPES: - flexible steel galvanized wire rope
This is a single strand, flexible steel galvanized wire rope consisting of 70 wires and 21 hemp yarns. It is one-inch in diameter, has a breaking strength of 98,280 pounds and is internally lubricated and protected against the action of salt water by saturating the fiber cores with a preservative composition. It weighs 1.8 pounds per running foot and is supplied on reels carrying 3,000 feet of wire and weighing 5,000 pounds packed for shipment.
The top support line of a submarine net looks like a bridge cable. The floats are the size of cars or larger.
Usually a date and year are useful details to include in a story.
On April 25, 2003 the crew of a Chinese fishing boat noticed a strange sight—a periscope drifting listlessly above the surface of the water. The fishermen notified the People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) which promptly dispatched two vessels to investigate.
https://www.chieftain.com/story/news/2018/06/07/in-2003-chin...
Every one of the submariners died.
There was another reported Chinese sub accident in 2023, but it's not clear how it was discovered (https://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/china-submarine-death...).
They would also bring up proof, usually something that could be tied to the vessel, which could be a piece of military-grade equipment or even silverware engraved with the names of the ship or the enemy seal.
This is what the suits looked like:
My grandfather was a submariner in the Pacific during the war, they were even inside Tokyo bay during wartime. He had many stories, one of them was that the batteries always got the priority in regards to water. Especially on patrol and missions, they would often go days between wiping themselves down with hand towels from a basin of shared water, all to preserve the fresh water for the batteries.
He was on the Saury
When I replaced the AGM battery on my German car, I learned that, even though they don't vent under normal conditions, still have a vent hole. But that's paired with a pressure regulator and not for normal conditions.
Which makes me wonder: did BMW start to use AGM so they can move the heavy battery to the trunk, which helps with weight balance? Or was it an emissions thing that enabled them to move it to the trunk.
I believe traditionally, a diver will bring up a ship's bell for this purpose, if they are able. But maybe I'm off base about about, particularly when it comes to an enemy ship.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship%27s_bell
https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2024/02/20/bell-ship-....
> "No use getting riled up about it" says young fisherman after sub ruined fishing gear worth 50.000 NOK (4.500 USD)
I am surprised the other sources left it out; 5Ws an'all.
Can someone explain this to me? Does the US Coast Guard have a (radio) base in Norway? Do they phone them?