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British & French Nuclear Subs collide.

mogzieee said:
How hard can it be to avoid a submarine!!?
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The problem is the subs are a little too good at what they're supposed to do. They are practically invisible to all sensors if they want to be.

Apparently the US and the UK have an agreement in place to stop this sort of thing happening between them. We don't know exactly where each others subs are, but we have a huge block of ocean that we each know each others subs are in, and so we don't stray in to those areas.

Evidently no such agreement exists between the UK and France. bump!
 
My theory is that one of the subs caught "sound" of the other sub, by chance, and was playing a game to see if it could sneak up on it. It was trying to get close without detection, and then would have revealed itself. Essentially, one sub was pretending to be a hunter, and the captain would have considered it a feather in his/her cap to be able to sneak up on the "prey". Bet it happens more often than we know.

Someone miscalculated, and instead of being a harmless game, at least one if not several careers have just been flushed.

My understanding of ballistic subs is that:
1) They are immensely quiet. They pride themselves on being as quiet as a black hole.
2) However, the hunter subs are also quiet, otherwise they couldn't sneak up on their prey, including ballistics.
3) So ballistics also have incredibly sensitive passive sonar so that they can hear the hunter subs.
4) Spending a month or 3 being a black hole can get tedious to the nth degree. So, if your sonar just happens to pick up the sound signature of another ballistic, the temptation to sneak up on it must be immense. You rationalize it as testing your own readiness, and testing the limits of the other sub's systems.
5) There is probably a case of scotch or french wine on the table as the prize.
6) But, really - I don't think bumping the other sub is considered the proper way to signal "Tag, you're it".
7) Unless there was a Canadian in command, in which body-checking is just part of the game.

Just my theory....
 
How far the technology has come from the days of playing Crazy Ivan during the cold war.


I am guessing the French will have the larger maintainance bill,seeing as their sonar dome got the biff in the snout.
 
Phazotron said:
Why the Roast-Beefs (English), of course. And zee Germans. Can never forget zee Germans.

Actually, while it may be hard to believe considering their dismal performance in WW2, the French have a long history of having a strong military. While being a NATO member they've insisted on being quite independent (not fully participating in its command structure).

And if you ever get in trouble you can always join the Foreign Legion:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Foreign_Legion
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hi phazotron,

Welcome to Macrumors btw. I must jump in here to stick up for the French with a small history lesson :)

Their performance wasn't 'dismal' in WW2 - it was the same as every other country the Germany Army faced except for the British and that's because they had a massive moat (English Channel) b/n them and the Germans.

At the time, the German armed forces were the strongest in the world. No one army could stand up to them so the French weren't dismal at all....they were normal for an army at that time. The Germans were simply a very advanced army. Did the French get their butts kicked? Yup...and every other army until the Battle of Britain.

They obliterated anyone they faced. Even the Russians were being steam rolled as well until Mother Nature came in with a winter which destroyed the advancing German Army.

It was the Battle of Britain which was the start of the end of the war b/c it allowed Britain to host Canadian and US forces, which allowed the latter to mobilize very quickly from a country not at war to becoming very powerful.
With no air force to attack them, Operation Sea Lion was cancelled (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Sealion) which allowed the Allied to build their forces for the invasion.

Hope you don't take offense to this - just trying to ensure others don't think the French were dismal.

Onto the subject of subs crashing, I could see it - quiet subs and yes it's a big ocean, but if they were in a tight spot where there was a smaller channel between deep ocean mountains, then for sure.

Glad it wasn't catastrophic.

Cheers,
keebler
 
Hi Keebler

Sorry - have to say - I'm not completely convinced by your history lesson. There was nothing magic about the German army in 1939 - they used a combination of new tactics, single minded purpose and an economy on a war footing that was set to go broke if they didn't start the war when they did.

I think the early victories were more due to an ill prepared enemy and incompetence on the part of the British, Russians and the French. (The French collapsed with more tanks in the field than the Germans) When the German army met a throughly prepared (tactically and in terms of weapons) enemy they often came unstuck.

The classic example of this is the Battle of Britain - the fiction is that a few plucky British (and commonwealth) pilots managed to defeat a technically superior enemy through pluck and and the magic abilities of the Spitfire. In fact a tactically ill prepared (albeit with with better individual fighter tactics) airforce met a truly modern air defence system (central control, radar, air sea rescue boats etc etc) and got put through a meat grinder.

If you're interested check out these books - A Very Dangerous Enemy and The Wages of Destruction on Amazon. They're the best history books I've ever read.

Subs - Mind you I wouldn't be to surprised to find we've (the English) always been more worried about the French than the Russians !;)
 
mkrishnan said:
Against whom is France guarding itself, pray tell, with it's most important-to-national-security nuclear deterrent?
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They are part of an alliance. The theory is that an attack on any member is an attack on al of them. They are defending western Europe and North America

Whatever they are doing it seems to be working. So far we have enjoyed the longest period in history without a war between major powers.
 
Actually my dad was SCUBA-diving once and almost got hit by a submarine. :eek: Thankfully he was able to get out of the way. Apparently it wasn't a huge one.

He said they are so quiet they can't be heard until they are right near you. They also can be hard to spot if the water is at all cloudy.
 
I don't want to sound dismissive of the environmental concerns (and any incident with these most dangerous of weapons should be taken very seriously indeed), but the reactors used in nuclear subs are built so that even an accident that totally destroys the submarine may not result in a radiation leak. For example, the USS Thresher's reactor remains intact after a catastrophic accident and subsequent exposure to the sea for 45+ years. Same with the Kursk and the older K-129.

Doubtless this incident will be used as ammo for groups opposing the presence of nuclear ships in the British or French fleets, but I think the real risk in a collision of this kind is loss of life rather than an environmental issue. In fact, had these been diesel subs it might have been worse because their fuel tanks could have been pierced.

mkrishnan said:
Against whom is France guarding itself, pray tell, with it's most important-to-national-security nuclear deterrent?
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The Russians, mostly, and to the lesser extent the Chinese. You might throw Iran and North Korea in there as nations that make strategic planners want to maintain their boomer fleets as a strategic deterrent. And I doubt the French trust us 'mericans overmuch either.

Plus, being French, they are unlikely to get rid of their nuclear missile subs so long as the British have them (and you could say the same about the Brits ;)).

jeremy h said:
Mind you I wouldn't be to surprised to find we've (the English) always been more worried about the French than the Russians !;)
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As an American, I'm amused by this thousand-year-old Anglo-Gallic mutual antagonism - it produces some excellent humor! ;)
 

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Mr. Giver '94 said:
Actually my dad was SCUBA-diving once and almost got hit by a submarine. :eek: Thankfully he was able to get out of the way. Apparently it wasn't a huge one.

He said they are so quiet they can't be heard until they are right near you. They also can be hard to spot if the water is at all cloudy.
Click to expand...

A friend of my father's was on a sailboat that was in a bay/river mouth (possibly near Groton), when a surfaced boomer radioed everyone to clear a path. He was quite a distance away, and the bow wake still got water on the deck.
 
mkrishnan said:
Against whom is France guarding itself, pray tell, with it's most important-to-national-security nuclear deterrent?
Click to expand...

You could say the same about UK, Russia, China, USA....

mogzieee said:
I laughed when I heard this!

How hard can it be to avoid a submarine!!?
Click to expand...

I suggest you read this:

http://www.purinchu.net/wp/2009/02/16/nuclear-subs-collide/

It can be very, very hard to avoid a submarine since their number one design-goal is to make them as invisible as possible.

And yes, Atlantic Ocean is huge. But subs usually patrol among certain established routes (due to currents, seabed-formations etc.), and often those routes overlap each other. So the actual area subs use is only a fraction of the total size of the Atlantic.

Phazotron said:
Actually, while it may be hard to believe considering their dismal performance in WW2, the French have a long history of having a strong military.
Click to expand...

Their performance wasn't that "dismal" in the WW2. Yes, the Wehrmach crushed them. Wehrmacht also crushed the British Expeditionary Force. Only thing that saved UK back then was the Channel, France didn't have that luxury.

Back then Wehrmacht was the most capable fighting force in the world (well, maybe second to the Finnish Army ;)). They crushed France, BEF, Poland, Balkans, Norway, and they came very close of defeating USSR as well. To single France out of those and lambast their performance is quite unfair, IMO. In the end, it took combined force of USSR, UK, France and USA to defeat them.
 
Evangelion said:
You could say the same about UK, Russia, China, USA....
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At this point it is considered strategic madness to divest one's self in the presence of nuclear-armed countries with different political philosophies and especially when there is a history of mutual antagonism.

Evangelion said:
Back then Wehrmacht was the most capable fighting force in the world (well, maybe second to the Finnish Army ;)). They crushed France, BEF, Poland, Balkans, Norway, and they came very close of defeating USSR as well. To single France out of those and lambast their performance is quite unfair, IMO. In the end, it took combined force of USSR, UK, France and USA to defeat them.
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...helped along by the fact that Hiter was a useless general (thankfully).
 
jeremy h said:
Hi Keebler

Sorry - have to say - I'm not completely convinced by your history lesson. There was nothing magic about the German army in 1939 - they used a combination of new tactics, single minded purpose and an economy on a war footing that was set to go broke if they didn't start the war when they did.

I think the early victories were more due to an ill prepared enemy and incompetence on the part of the British, Russians and the French. (The French collapsed with more tanks in the field than the Germans) When the German army met a throughly prepared (tactically and in terms of weapons) enemy they often came unstuck.

The classic example of this is the Battle of Britain - the fiction is that a few plucky British (and commonwealth) pilots managed to defeat a technically superior enemy through pluck and and the magic abilities of the Spitfire. In fact a tactically ill prepared (albeit with with better individual fighter tactics) airforce met a truly modern air defence system (central control, radar, air sea rescue boats etc etc) and got put through a meat grinder.

If you're interested check out these books - A Very Dangerous Enemy and The Wages of Destruction on Amazon. They're the best history books I've ever read.

Subs - Mind you I wouldn't be to surprised to find we've (the English) always been more worried about the French than the Russians !;)
Click to expand...

hey no problem. i wasn't saying it was 'magic', but the strongest at the time. ie. the polish used horses against German tanks.

And I agree with you regarding the BOB - technology and aerial combat techniques is what did the Luftwaffe in.

Thanks for the links. I'm checking out my local library right after I type this out.

Cheers,
Keebler
 
Evangelion said:
Back then Wehrmacht was the most capable fighting force in the world ... [snipped]... In the end, it took combined force of USSR, UK, France and USA to defeat them.
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And Canada. At the end of WW II Canada had the 3rd largest navy, similar sized air-force, and Canadian troops were - as in WW I - often used break deadlocked fronts. Don't mess with the Canucks! :eek:
 
Yes, we were once proud and fearless.

My Grandfather was gassed in WWI, and lived to tell the tale, and my Uncle served WWII, and also survived.

Now we send children half-way around the World, to be killed for someone else's "issues".

:eek:
 
There goes the no claims bonus!



I blame the French!!


And I love the excuses we've been hearing, that the submarines are too good!
 
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