Posted on 02/16/2009 8:11:43 AM PST by Sub-Driver
French sub unaware it rammed Royal Navy vessel in mid-Atlantic nuclear crash
Charles Bremner in Paris, and David Brown
A French submarine was unaware it had rammed and damaged a British nuclear sub in a mid-Atlantic collision until it was informed by the Royal Navy.
HMS Vanguard and the French submarine Le Triomphant were both carrying nuclear ballistic warheads when they crashed in the Atlantic earlier this month.
Both navies said today that the collision had been unavoidable because the vessels were “running silently” to avoid detection by sonar.
Official inquiries have started in Britain and France into the incident which has raised concerns about the sharing of information between the allied navies.
The First Sea Lord, Admiral Sir Jonathon Band, said the incident happened at low speed and none of the 250 crew on board the submarines were injured.
“Both submarines remained safe and no injuries occurred,” he said. We can confirm that the capability remained unaffected and there has been no compromise to nuclear safety.”
The French Navy claimed earlier this month that Le Triomphant’s bow sonar dome was probably damaged in a collision with a submerged shipping container while returning from patrol.
It only discovered it had hit British submarine after one of their regular exchanges of information with the Royal Navy.
HMS Vanguard returned its base in Faslane, western Scotland, on Saturday with dents and scrapes on its hull following the collision reported to have occurred on February 3 or 4.
Le Triomphant took three days to limp home to port in Brest, northwest France, with extensive damage to its Thales DMUX 80 sonar.
(Excerpt) Read more at timesonline.co.uk ...
conforming = confirming
I have to think that they wouldn't want anyone knowing where they are at any time because then an enemy could shadow the sub to gather acoustic signature data. Of course I could be wrong.
Ensure that they didn't require assistance to prevent loss of life. That is the norm when ships collide.
I'm going to assume nuclear missile boats are under orders to avoid conforming their location to anyone, even allies when at sea. If there were enemy attack boats lurking about and the captain uses the sea phone to contact the froggie, he has just identified his boat and the enemy can now identify by name the boat by its sound profile.
And you're assuming that the sound of two large vessels colliding went unnoticed. If an enemy SSN was in the area he heard the collision and had the position. If he couldn't hear anything accept for the underwater phone, then he still wouldn't have anything would he?
Operational security trumps all other concerns.
Actually, it usually doesn't during peace time. Its not like the Captain was having to "give up the ship". He would have at most given away a position that was already compromised by the collision.
One of us was qualified to deliver nukes, and I'm thinking it wasn't you.
if the captain indentified himself and his boat, then he has just told the third boat who he is, who the ship is and put a confirmed name to the sound profile the enemy boat would be generating.
The Russian SSN that waits just off shore in international waters to pick up the SSBN as it comes out already has that opportunity.
During peace time, no ship commander is going to have a collision with another friendly ship and knowingly leave the scene.
1. Having a Russian SSN trail one of their SSBNs during normal ops.
2. Leaving a U.S. or French submarine crew to die after fleeing the scene of an accidental collision?
I'm going with #2, and sticking with the assumption that the British were just as clueless as the French as to what the other party in their collision was.
Good for you. Did they also offer classes in being a prick or is that natural talent?
To be consistent, I'll stick with the second choice on that one too. I apologize, I've been doing fairly well on keeping it under wraps lately, and I broke one of my own rules in throwing the background info out as an Ace. It is not uncommon that a well read, intelligent individual has a better grasp on things than someone that has more experience, but less knowledge.
Looking for a sunken oldsmobile..............
One might need to look at the end of some long pier’s.
Or along some piers with highways running alongside them! LOL.
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