British and French nuclear submarines collided

Thanks guys, so it sounds like its going to be a big’ish dockyard job.

You’re welcome. 🙂

Ans, yes, I’m afraid it will be some big job. Meanwhile I wonder if the handfull of French/British subs are enough to insure the permanent deterring capabilities of their respective countries. That’s what happens when one consider it’s “enough” to keep the “strictly minimum level” in defense capabilities When one part is missing and there’s no spare, the whole system can stop altogether… :rolleyes:
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Cm Series

Thanks guys, so it sounds like its going to be a big’ish dockyard job.

The odds are even more astronomical for a Russian satellite to hit an Iridium satellite, but that happened.

Quote is from “Das Boot”, when they almost collide during the storm. 😀

Maybe Merlock could give us an update from the French perspective ?

Well, yes.

According to Ouest-France, the Ship is “More damaged than announced”
http://www.ouest-france.fr/actu/actuDet_–i-Le-Triomphant-i-plus-endommage-qu-annonce-font-size=2-INFO-OUEST-FRANCE-font-_39382-831191_actu.Htm

And from the Blog “Secret D?fense”:
http://secretdefense.blogs.liberation.fr/defense/2009/02/dautres-dgts-su.html

In short, the fact that the ship is to be repaired at the Cherbourg arsenal and not at its ?le-Longue home base is a clear clue that damage are more serious than expected…
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Holden kingswood

A French aquaintance tells me that AFP reported in France in the last couple of days that the French SSBN was also found to have damage to the Sail and to one of the fins once it got home. I have searched on the web but can’t see anything in English anywhere about additional damage.

Maybe Merlock could give us an update from the French perspective ?

I’ve seen a number of reports that have said the same thing over the past couple of days, Newsnow has been awash with them.

http://news.scotsman.com/latestnews/Submarines–39may-have-hit.5000298.jp

THE British and French submarines that collided in the Atlantic Ocean earlier this month while carrying nuclear missiles may have hit each other several times, it emerged yesterday.
It now appears the French vessel, with an arsenal 1,000 times more powerful than the atom bomb dropped on Hiroshima, suffered much more serious damage than officials have admitted.

The Royal and French navies claimed earlier this week that the two submarines, HMS Vanguard and Le Triomphant, “briefly came into contact at a very low speed while submerged”.

The French navy announced the damage to Le Triomphant was limited to the glass and composite domed structure that houses its Thales sonar at the tip of her bow.

HMS Vanguard was reportedly seen returning to base at Faslane with scrapes and dents to her hull.

But now it has been revealed that Le Triomphant suffered significantly greater damage, with impacts to at least three separate parts of her structure.

Le Triomphant is currently moored at its base of l’Ile Longue, near Brest in Brittany, where its conning tower and the starboard sail plane attached to the conning tower are visibly deformed by the incident, the French regional daily newspaper, Ouest France, reported yesterday.

‘Space War’ confirms the additional damage.

http://www.spacewar.com/reports/French_navy_looking_at_damage_from_nuclear_sub_collision_999.html

A French aquaintance tells me that AFP reported in France in the last couple of days that the French SSBN was also found to have damage to the Sail and to one of the fins once it got home. I have searched on the web but can’t see anything in English anywhere about additional damage.

Maybe Merlock could give us an update from the French perspective ?

Re: British and French nuclear submarines collided

While everyone talks about how quiet the latest generation of submarines, they are all playing catch to boomers! The Western countries might cry about how tight money is but, they have enough money to keep their boomers state of the art, in noise monitoring, sound isolation and, sonars. To much is at stake not to have the very best.
Some parts of the oceans have very bad conditions for passive sonar detection. I know the USN did some test where one boomer was submerged and returning home while another boomer were entering the area. The two Ohio class boats got within 1,000 yards of each other and neither knew of the presence of the other sub.

Still its a big ocean…………what are the odds!

The odds are even more astronomical for a Russian satellite to hit an Iridium satellite, but that happened.

God DAMNIT how can this happen?! 12 boats we have on the Atlantic! From Greenland to the Azores, a mere dozen! But still we, we almost collide with one of our own! Somethings wrong here…

Sheer bad luck. This year is jinxed.

From Time Magazine

Looks like there’s not so many places to hide in the big, wide ocean:

While the intersection of two sonar-equipped nuclear submarines in a vast ocean may seem an unlikely event even without communication, there are environmental anomalies in the Atlantic that make a collision more likely, according to Ferguson. Submarines on a deterrent mission, for instance, tend to congregate in places where they are unlikely to be found by other submarines and spy-planes. “There are oceanographic factors in which you can be on either side of an ocean front where the temperature is slightly different on your side than the others. Where the gulf stream comes across the Atlantic is a prime point of this. Sometimes these barriers can be quite hard – no sound penetrates at all. And if your business is hiding than you would hide in that vicinity. There is an added risk that given the environmental factors maybe you don’t hear another submarine in time to do something about it.”

Also this:

NATO operates a traffic control system that alerts allied nations to the deployment zones of friendly submarines. The system is designed to avoid collisions. But because France is not part of NATO’s military command structure, it does not provide information on the location of its mobile nuclear arms to that system, according to Julian Ferguson, who commanded one of Britain’s four V-class nuclear submarines until retiring in 2006.

From http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20090217/wl_time/08599187977700

Also, if Subs have the same kind of suction problem large ships have then they may have a much larger ‘danger zone’ than their actual physical size suggests.

You mean a birthing tug is something like a marine midwife? I bet it gives a powerful tug 😀

…The press got the wrong end of the stick coz the normal birthing tug was in attendance…

That’s an image to conjure with – a sub giving birth! 😀
I think you mean berthing. 😉

SSBNs on station cruise barely fast enough to counter currents and maintain some measure of maneuverability. They go slow because that is how they remain quiet. Even though they are slow, the momentum is huge because the mass is huge.

Re: British and French nuclear submarines collided

It really angers me the way the press spouts a lot of nonsense, sensationalizing in an effort to sell an article. Nuclear subs have sunk, nuclear warheads blown out of silos by exploding ICBMs and gee…. nobody was endangered by the radiation.

Adrian

the subs did exactly what they were supposed to do, avoid detection,

Right! 😀

Next step: avoid collision with French subs by navigating Right instead of Left, on the sub…ways !

Sorry, couldn’t help… 😮
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Volcano vaporizer

God DAMNIT how can this happen?! 12 boats we have on the Atlantic! From Greenland to the Azores, a mere dozen! But still we, we almost collide with one of our own! Somethings wrong here…

A few scratches and dents and the BBC call the entire nuclear deterrent into question

Ahh the good old BBC, never in recent decades has there been a worse news service when it comes to reporting matters such as this or indeed any military matters. After a while you come to expect this as this is what happens when an overbearingly left wing news organisation reports on military matters I’m afraid. Its happened hundreds of times before with the BBC and it will continue to do so as they get a real kick dumping allover those who people who protect them.

Apparently (from unnamed French sources) it was a “small-angle bow-to-bow collision, a glancing blow”.

They were traveling at slow speed, on nearly opposite courses. Thus, all noise-making equipment was masked from the other sub’s passive sonar by the bow of each sub.

Still its a big ocean…………what are the odds!

Apparently (from unnamed French sources) it was a “small-angle bow-to-bow collision, a glancing blow”.

They were traveling at slow speed, on nearly opposite courses. Thus, all noise-making equipment was masked from the other sub’s passive sonar by the bow of each sub.