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The Argentine Navy has called off rescue efforts to find 44 crew members aboard a missing submarine, effectively acknowledging that there's no hope they'll be found alive. The ARA San Juan disappeared a few hundred kilometers off Argentina's coast on November 15, and despite an extensive air and sea search no sign of the sub has been found. Balbi wouldn't speculate on the fate of the crew, but said the search for the missing sub will continue until it's found. "Despite the magnitude and efforts made it has not been possible to locate the submarine. Information was received from two...

Water entered the snorkel of the Argentine submarine ARA San Juan, causing its battery to short-circuit before it went missing on Nov. 15, a navy spokesman said on Monday as hope dwindled among some families of the 44-member crew. The San Juan had only a seven-day oxygen supply when it lost contact, and a sudden noise was detected that the navy says could have been the implosion of the vessel. Ships with rescue equipment from countries including the United States and Russia were nonetheless rushing to join the search. Before its disappearance, the submarine had been ordered back to its...

putnik has claimed that the sinking of Argentine submarine ARA San Juan was caused by a British deep-sea mine deployed during the Falklands War. The problem? Britain didn’t lay any mines. Sputnik News is a successor to Russian state-owned RIA Novosti’s international branch which became defunct in 2013. The agency is wholly owned and operated by the Russian Government. The article, which can be found here, suggests that the explosive event registered in the area of ​​operations of the Argentine submarine ARA San Juan was caused by a deep-sea mine “installed at the time of the Falklands War in 1982.”...

A sound detected in the hunt for a missing submarine is "consistent with a non-nuclear explosion", Argentina has said. The ARA San Juan has been missing in the South Atlantic since the middle of November and dozens of planes and boats have been involved in search. Some 44 people are on board and the operation has entered a "critical phase" because the crew's oxygen supply could be running low. Navy spokesman Enrique Balbi said relatives of the crew members have been told about the development and the search will continue until the fate of the crew is known. He described...

Complete Headline: Missing Argentine submarine 'is located by US Navy and a new sonar signal heard' as rescuers race to the spot with oxygen due to run out imminently Search for missing Argentine submarine intensifies as the crew said to run out of oxygen today US Navy aircraft reportedly detected a 'heat stain from a metallic object' at a depth of about 230ft Separately, a rescue vessel allegedly reported hearing an infrasound sonar signal late Tuesday night Sub with 44 crew went missing last Wednesday while sailing from Ushuaia to naval base in Mar del Plata They sailed on Monday,...

Commercial satellite imagery of the Sinpo South Shipyard from November 5 indicates that North Korea is on an aggressive schedule to build and deploy its first operational ballistic missile submarine. The continued movement of parts and components into and out of the parts yards adjacent to the construction halls indicates an ongoing shipbuilding program. The presence of what appear to be sections of a submarine’s pressure hull in the yards suggests construction of a new submarine, possibly the SINPO-C ballistic missile submarine (SSB)[1]—the follow-on to the current SINPO-class experimental ballistic missile submarine (SSBA).[2] A probable launch canister support, or launch...

A US Navy P-8A Poseidon aircraft, also known as a submarine hunter, is now assisting in the search area. The official said that the waters of the Atlantic Ocean where the sounds originated are extremely deep. The official stressed that search efforts thus far have yet to locate the submarine. The Argentinian military has been working with a US company that specializes in satellite communication to determine the location of the submarine. The ARA San Juan submarine and its 44 crew members were traveling from a base in southern Argentina's Tierra del Fuego archipelago to their home port in Mar...

Argentina's Navy could not confirm Sunday if seven brief satellite calls received a day prior were from a lost submarine with 44 crew members onboard. ... Navy has intensified its aerial search off the country's southern Atlantic coast after adverse weather conditions spurred waves up to 26 feet and made a maritime search difficult. ... Enrique Balbi said the low-frequency satellite signals received Saturday lasted a "few seconds," but had not connected with a base, partly due to inclement weather. The communication attempts were originally thought to indicate that the crew was trying to re-establish contact. On Sunday, search units...

Chinese companies were out in force at Defense & Security 2017 in Bangkok, including the China Shipbuilding and Offshore International Company (CSOC). Most prominent on its stand was a new family of submarines displacing 1,100t, 600t and 200t. Scale models of these submarines were displayed alongside a model of the 2,550t S26T (pictured above) currently being built for the Royal Thai Navy (RTN) under a $385 million order lodged in May. Perhaps the most interesting aspect was a video indicating countries currently interested in procuring Chinese submarines. In addition to Bangladesh and Pakistan that have already ordered Chinese platforms, those...

SEOUL: South Korea is negotiating with the United States to buy nuclear-powered submarines to guard against threats from Pyongyang, local reports said Tuesday, as President Donald Trump said Seoul would buy "billions of dollars" of US weapons. Nuclear-powered submarines can stay submerged for months, giving them a far greater range than their diesel-powered counterparts, and are also crucial to any seaborne nuclear deterrent. Such a purchase would redraw the balance of power in northeast Asia, and could trigger a regional arms race. Japan -- another US ally -- does not have nuclear-powered submarines, and is barred from having a military...

ZUOYING NAVAL BASE, Taiwan — The Hai Pao, one of Taiwan’s four navy submarines, began its service as the Tusk, an American vessel launched in August 1945 at the end of World War II. Its sister submarine, the Hai Shih, is a year older. Neither can fire torpedoes today, though they can still lay mines. The submarines, said Feng Shih-kuan, Taiwan’s minister of national defense, “belong in a museum.” The Hai Pao — with its paint-encrusted pipes, antiquated engines and a brass dial with a needle to measure speed in knots — will instead remain in service past its 80th...

WASHINGTON: A massive maintenance backlog has idled 15 nuclear-powered attack submarines for a total of 177 months, and the Navy’s plan to mitigate the problem is jeopardized by budget gridlock, two House Armed Services Committee staffers told Breaking Defense. That is almost 15 submarine-years, the equivalent of taking a boat from the 2018 budget and not adding it back until 2033. While only Congress can pass a budget and lift caps on spending, the staffers said, part of the solution is in the Navy’s hands: outsource more work to private-sector shipyards, something the Navy does not like to do. As...

Nine British servicemen have been thrown off a nuclear submarine at the centre of a sex probe, after testing positive for cocaine while on duty. In one of the worst scandals to hit the Navy, the crew from HMS Vigilant – which carries the Trident nuclear deterrent – were sent home and kicked out of the service after the class A drug was found in their blood. They are alleged to have had drug-fuelled parties while the submarine was docked in the US to pick up nuclear warheads. One man is said to have had sex with a prostitute in...

Future modernization plans for China’s Navy have been disclosed in unprecedented detail in a lecture by a former Chinese rear admiral, according to an analysis by the Center for International Maritime Security (CIMSEC). The Washington DC-based think tank says retired Rear Admiral Zhao Dengping of the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) revealed key programs such as a new medium-size nuclear attack submarine; a small nuclear auxiliary engine for conventional submarines; ship-based use of anti-ship ballistic missiles (ASBMs); next-generation destroyer capabilities; and goals for PLAN Air Force modernization. Author Richard D. Fisher, Jr. said collections of PowerPoint slides from Zhao’s lecture...

The Iranian military has long planned for a defensive naval war in the Persian Gulf, in which it would leverage its large fleet of fast attack boats toting anti-ship missiles to launch swarming hit-and-run attacks on adversaries in along Persian Gulf, with the ultimate goal of shutting down passage through the Straits of Hormuz. Supporting this naval guerrilla-warfare strategy are 21 indigenously produced Ghadir-class mini submarines, derived from the North Korean Yono class. The 120-ton vessels can poke around at 11 knots and each carry two 533-millimeter torpedoes. All in all, shallow littoral waters are very favorable for mini-submarine operations,...

BERLIN (AP) — All of Germany's six submarines are out of action, and the country's defense minister isn't happy about it. The Kieler Nachrichten newspaper reports that four U-boats are being serviced in boatyards while two others are waiting for a berth. Asked how Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen views the temporary loss of the underwater fleet, her spokesman said Friday that "this is obviously not a good situation." Jens Flosdorff told reporters in Berlin that "we would hope the mission readiness was higher, but sometimes with technology the devil is in the detail."

The Krasnodar, a Russian attack submarine, left the coast of Libya in late May, headed east across the Mediterranean, then slipped undersea, quiet as a mouse. Then, it fired a volley of cruise missiles into Syria. In the days that followed, the diesel-electric sub was pursued by the aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush, its five accompanying warships, MH-60R Seahawk helicopters and P-8 Poseidon anti-sub jets flying out of Italy. The U.S. and its allies had set out to track the Krasnodar as it moved to its new home in the Black Sea. The missile attack upended what had been...

The Navy's new stealth submarines might not be so stealthy after all. A top executive at the company building the subs has thrown doubt on whether cutting-edge pump-jet propulsion technology will be used as planned. The ultra-quiet technology was a key selling point for the French design that won the Government's competitive evaluation process to build the new submarines at a cost of $50 billion. Jean-Michel Billig, Executive Director of Naval Group, was asked at a naval conference in Sydney earlier this month whether pump-jet propulsion "remained viable" for the Australian submarine. He said it "could" be viable, but also...

An Akula-class Russian submarine of the Northern Fleet on the surface. Russian MoD. In late 1984, when the first Akula submarine of the Soviet Navy put to sea, it immediately changed the way anti-submarine warfare would be conducted. With the Akula’s arrival the American submarine fleet would no longer enjoy the dramatic undersea advantages they had possessed since the end of the World War II. The Akula, which is Russian for shark, stunned NATO with its high-level of stealth, especially compared to any Soviet submarine before it. That’s because in the battle for undersea supremacy, silence is the key to...

A new report says that Israel asked Germany to extend the length of the submarines it planned on purchasing, spooking the Germans, who surmised that Israel wanted the submarines retrofitted to be compatible with nuclear missiles. The report, which was the result of an investigation between Ronan Bergman from Yediot Aharonot and the German Die Zeit newspaper, said that German Chancellor Angela Merkel opposed the request and even demanded the opinion of the German intelligence services, which eventually approved the request. Israel was not aware of the behind the scenes drama. Bergman wrote that the change to make the submarines...