Free Republic

It is highly likely the recent collision of a Chinese submarine and an underwater sonar array towed by a US warship in the South China Sea was due to misjudgment of distance, Chinese military experts said. The conjecture is in line with the United States view of "inadvertent encounter". The collision occurred last Thursday as the destroyer USS John S. McCain was sailing in the sea, CNN television reported on Friday. Its sonar array, used to listen and locate underwater sounds, was damaged in the incident, but fortunately the sub and ship did not collide, an unnamed military official told...

Link Only

Progressive creationist anthropology: many reasons NOT to believe A review of Who was Adam? by Fazale Rana with Hugh Ross Although mostly written by Fazale Rana, the book is said to equally represent the work of Hugh Ross. Their salvos against biblical creationists are mostly confined to the earlier chapters of the book, with the first shot being to blame us for the biblical perspective on human origins not being ‘at the high table of scientific debate’ (p. 12). Here they characterize the approach taken by creationists as largely attacking human evolutionary models, but seldom offering ‘a viable theory of...

BRITAIN’S nuclear defence HQ could be under threat from terrorists using Google Earth. Close-up aerial views of the top-secret Naval base are on the computer program — available for free over the internet. It even reveals the longitude and latitude of the facility in Faslane, Scotland — home to the UK’s Trident-armed nuclear submarine force. And pictures clearly show two vast Vanguard Class submarines — each capable of carrying 16 nuclear missiles. Military experts warn that would make it easy for terrorists to launch accurate mortar or rocket attacks. One told The Sun: "A strike on our nuclear capability would...

LONDON – Nuclear submarines from Britain and France collided deep in the Atlantic Ocean this month, authorities said Monday in the first acknowledgment of a highly unusual accident that one expert called the gravest in nearly two decades. Officials said the low-speed crash did not damage the vessels' nuclear reactors or missiles or cause radiation to leak. But anti-nuclear groups said it was still a frightening reminder of the risks posed by submarines prowling the oceans powered by radioactive material and bristling with nuclear weapons. The first public indication of a mishap came when France reported in a little-noticed Feb....

KEY WEST, Fla. -- The U.S. Coast Guard discovered 7 tons of cocaine on a homemade submarine that featured sophisticated navigation equipment. Coast Guard officials said the apparent Colombian drug runners were taken by surprise on the 70-foot vessel. The sub was stuffed with $187 million worth of drugs. Four people were taken into custody in international waters. The vessel and the people aboard were on their way to Key West Thursday. The bust happened off the coast of Costa Rica after a U.S. Navy airplane spotted the sub.

A homemade submarine packed with cocaine was seized Wednesday by the Mexican Navy off the Pacific coast. The 30-foot vessel was first detected as it made its way north about 200 miles off Oaxaca, but was intercepted hours later when it surfaced. The sub had a crew of four men who were arrested and flown by helicopter to the city of Huatulco. The suspects claim to be Colombian fishermen who had been forced to pilot the sub for drug traffickers threatening to harm their families. A Navy spokesman said the sub seizure is a first for Mexico. Other makeshift submarines...

The man who located the wreck of the Titanic has revealed that the discovery was a cover story to camouflage the real mission of inspecting the wrecks of two Cold War nuclear submarines. When Bob Ballard led a team that pinpointed the wreckage of the liner in 1985 he had already completed his main task of finding out what happened to USS Thresher and USS Scorpion. Both of the United States Navy vessels sank during the 1960s, killing more than 200 men and giving rise to fears that at least one of them, Scorpion, had been sunk by the USSR....

New class of submarine all about mission of stealth The Associated Press 02.17.2008 ABOARD THE USS OHIO — Capt. Andy Hale has just worked out and is still in a sweaty T-shirt and shorts as he stands in the battle command center. He is watching a flat-screen display that shows what's happening outside on the bow and the aft. His billion-dollar submarine — the U.S. Navy's newest twist on underwater warfare — is hovering just below the surface off the Pacific island of Guam as a submersible disappears into the dark waters, carrying a team of commandos. The USS Ohio...

PROVIDENCE, R.I., Sept. 4, 2007 – A light breeze rippled over the dark water of Providence Harbor as two divers sank below the water’s surface, leaving behind a long trail of air hoses and the sound of their breathing through the radio. Navy diver Petty Officer 2nd Class William F. Stetson III, right, gives the “OK” sign to let a fellow sailor know he is receiving proper oxigen flow. The U.S. Army Vessel New Orleans is serving as a diving platform for Navy and Army divers working on raising a Russian submarine in Providence Harbor on the Rhode Island...

Woman Wearing "I'm A Drunk" Tee-shirt Arrested For DUI New York - A woman identified as 'Jane Smith' was arrested last night wearing a tee-shirt that said "I'm not an alcoholic, I'm a drunk - alcoholics go to meetings." Police say they pulled over the woman's car after reports she was chasing another motorist at high speeds. Smith was release after posting $25,000 bail. Mysterious Submersible Almost Rams Queen Mary New York - NYPD Harbor Patrol officials arrested an individual piloting a small submersible that reportedly almost rammed the Queen Mary, docked at the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal. The unidentified woman...

Russia to launch new nuclear submarine Sunday - Ivanov 15:43 | 09/ 04/ 2007 MOSCOW, April 9 (RIA Novosti) - A fourth-generation strategic nuclear submarine will be launched during a special ceremony at a shipbuilding yard in northern Russia Sunday, a first deputy prime minister said Monday. The Yury Dolgoruky, a Borey-class nuclear missile submarine, was built at the Sevmash plant in the northern Arkhangelsk Region. It will be equipped with the Bulava ballistic missile, which is adapted from the Topol-M (SS-27). Sergei Ivanov said at a government meeting that the submarine will undergo sea trials in 2007 and will...

3/22/2007 - ELMENDORF AIR FORCE BASE, Alaska (AFNEWS) -- Airmen in Alaska came through for a wounded British Sailor March 21 when he was injured during a deadly explosion aboard the Royal Navy submarine HMS Tireless operating in Arctic waters north of Prudhoe Bay. The submarine experienced an explosion of a self contained oxygen generation candle that killed two Sailors and injured the third late March 20 while conducting a joint U.S. United Kingdom exercise. A civilian helicopter contracted by exercise organizers transported the injured Sailor from the scene to the town of Deadhorse, where an Alaska Air National Guard...

An American nuclear submarine runs up against a Japanese tanker TOKYO - a submarine with nuclear propulsion American and a tanker Japanese entered in collision the sea of Oman, with broad of the coasts of the Arabic Peninsula, confirmed Tuesday the Japanese ministry of the Foreign Affairs. "the ministry received information early this morning. We currently try to obtain more details ", indicated on its side a spokesman of the ministry. According to the news service nippone Jiji, the accident did not cause any major damage and the tanker was Tuesday in a port of the plain Arab Emirates....

061102-N-5677B-002 Mayport, Fla. (Nov. 2, 2006) – Cmdr. Gustavo Angel, Columbian Armada, Colombian foreign liaison officer to U.S. Naval Forces Southern Command (NAVSO), awaits the arrival of Colombian Armada submarine A.R.C. Tayrona during a port visit to Mayport. NAVSO sponsors foreign military visits to promote relations with partner nations in Latin America to support Theater Security Cooperation. U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Holly Boynton (RELEASED)   View Larger Download HiRes   U.S. Navy, Colombian Sub Train Under DESI Story Number: NNS061123-01 Release Date: 11/23/2006 2:06:00 PM By Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class (SW) Holly Boynton,...

On November 2nd, a Russian Akula (Bars, in Russian) nuclear attack submarine caught fire while undergoing refurbishment in a north (Arctic) coast shipyard. The sub did not have any nuclear fuel aboard. The fire started when a welder's torch ignited some rags, which quickly spread to temporary wood planking, laid down to protect the compartment floor during reconstruction. The fire spread quickly, and the workers fled. The compartment was no longer airtight, because of the construction work, so sealing it off did not work. Eventually water and foam had to be used. Several firemen were injured from toxic fumes, created...

KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - A U.S. defense chief called for closer military ties with China and for the two powers to shed "Cold War" thinking on Tuesday as he highlighted a recent naval encounter that could have gone wrong. The chief of U.S. forces in the Pacific, Admiral William J. Fallon, was asked to confirm a U.S. newspaper report of an uncomfortably close encounter between U.S. warships and a Chinese submarine in the Pacific last month. Confirming the gist of the Washington Times report, Fallon said the submarine had been detected at close quarters by an aircraft carrier and its...

The day Bermuda escaped becoming a Chernobyl By Sam Strangeways It happened 20 years ago today and has spawned films, books and numerous articles – but the reason for the sinking of Soviet submarine K-219 600 miles from Bermuda is still not known. The Yankee-class ballistic missile vessel, laden with nuclear warheads and 200 tons of radioactive plutonium, plunged 18,000 feet beneath the waves on October 6, 1986, after an explosion on board three days earlier. The Soviet Union claimed at the time that the explosion and a subsequent fire – which killed four crew members – was due to...

Lots of people worry what the neighbors think. Brad Braastad isn't one of them. First, he installed a mailbox shaped like a yellow submarine at the end of his driveway. Now the 84-year-old Navy veteran and his pals are building a replica of a nuclear sub in the backyard of his South Side home. "The neighbors think he's crazy," joked Braastad's buddy, Carle Blackwell . "They think I've spent too much time underwater," chimed Braastad, who actually spent much of his 25-year military career below the sea. Beyond the mirth, serious work is under way for the group of former...

CHARLESTON, S.C. - The U.S. Navy U.S. Navy has approved plans to conserve the hand-cranked Confederate submarine H.L. Hunley by soaking the sub in high pH water to remove corrosive salts from the iron vessel. The Hunley sank the Union blockade ship Housatonic in 1864, becoming the first sub in history to sink an enemy warship. But it never returned with its crew of eight. The current plans call for soaking the submarine in high pH solutions such as sodium hydroxide or sodium bicarbonate to remove salts from the iron. The Navy had to approve the conservation plan because, under...