A Royal Navy nuclear submarine was involved in a collision with a French nuclear sub in the middle of the Atlantic, it has been reported. It is understood HMS Vanguard and Le Triomphant were badly damaged in the crash earlier this month.
Despite being equipped with sonar, it seems neither vessel spotted the other, the BBC's Caroline Wyatt said.
The UK's Ministry of Defence is not commenting on the reports, but insisted nuclear security had not been breached.
Our defence correspondent said HMS Vanguard, with "very visible dents and scrapes", had to be towed back into its home base at Faslane on the Firth of Clyde. The submarines were both "seriously-armed", she also said.
Would have been one hell of a Tsunami.
And in case you're wondering what she means by "seriously-armed".
One of Britain's four Trident submarines is always out there, somewhere under the Atlantic, carrying more destructive power than was unleashed in the entire campaign of World War II.It moves through the deep: silent, undetectable, untouchable.
And in case you're wondering what she means by "seriously-armed".
One of Britain's four Trident submarines is always out there, somewhere under the Atlantic, carrying more destructive power than was unleashed in the entire campaign of World War II.It moves through the deep: silent, undetectable, untouchable.
Pretty amazing that the stealth technology of these things is so good they can run into each other before they know eachothers whereabouts. The good news is we don't have to worry about other countries subs running into Canada's subs...they should be safe and sound in West Edmonton Mall.
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during a collision the nukes wouldn't go off, but you could end up spreading nuclear materials over the bottom of the ocean if the reactors were damaged, or the missiles were damaged.
Ballistic missile submarines are built to be extremely quiet, their mission is to hide until they need to launch missiles. During the cold war an American Ballistic missile submarine was tracked by a soviet sub once for less then 10 minutes.
A well built boomer radiates less noise then the ocean around them, in essence they're a black hole of noise.
And in this case I can see where sonar is useless since no submarine actually radiates sonar energy, they tend to use passive sonar which is equivalent to putting a glass up against a wall and listening for noise.
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What the hell is going on? Satellites are crashing. NASA is miscalculating trajectories by 3000 km. There's submarines out there under the ice, avoiding and courting collision - are actually colliding.
I think it would be incredibly cool to somehow see where these subs are at all times. Like a Google Earth for subs and other military vessels. Obviously the only way I'd get to know that is if I was some 5 star General in the US Navy, but I think it would be cool. What are the odds that this crash would happen? It's gotta be billions to one.
I think it would be incredibly cool to somehow see where these subs are at all times. Like a Google Earth for subs and other military vessels. Obviously the only way I'd get to know that is if I was some 5 star General in the US Navy, but I think it would be cool. What are the odds that this crash would happen? It's gotta be billions to one.
There are periods of time when even the top dogs don't know where these subs are, they know their patrol areas, but until the sub comes up to radio depth they don't have an exact fix on them.
When the subs come up they update their GPS positioning and target positioning.
Its important for their mission that they remain hidden from prying eyes.
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My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
What the hell is going on? Satellites are crashing. NASA is miscalculating trajectories by 3000 km. There's submarines out there under the ice, avoiding and courting collision - are actually colliding.
It's been a weird week.
Let's hope their math works a little better when they fire up the Large Hadron Collider again later this year. Although I guess with the false starts they've already had with it, one could argue that the LHC is working about as well as the stuff you mentioned.
Pretty amazing that the stealth technology of these things is so good they can run into each other before they know eachothers whereabouts. The good news is we don't have to worry about other countries subs running into Canada's subs...they should be safe and sound in West Edmonton Mall.
It might have happened on purpose accidently. I've heard and read that submarines like to play alot of cat and mouse games.
What the hell is going on? Satellites are crashing. NASA is miscalculating trajectories by 3000 km. There's submarines out there under the ice, avoiding and courting collision - are actually colliding.
I've always like subs. The whole idea of them alternates between incredibly cool and incredible crazy. I had the opportunity to board a dry docked WW2 sub (USS Drum) in Mobile Alabama. Hard to imagine anyone, much less a bunch of kids, fighting hostiles in something that small for months at a time.
British & French nuclear subs collide.
