CNN: Nuclear Subs Collide

[Turborama]

Run time: 01:47 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_Nc3rLzlvE   Posted on YouTube: February 16, 2009 By YouTube Member: Views on YouTube: 0   Posted on DU: February 16, 2009 By DU Member: Turborama Views on DU: 717

 
Not sure what to make of this, how hard would they have to hit each other for the nuclear warheads to go off?

[Shipwack]

1. So hard there would be nothing left of the sub...

It couldn't happen. Detonating a nuke isn't like the Bugs Bunny cartoon where he's hitting the shells with the mallet. It takes a precise timing of very high explosives in close proximity to the warhead to make a nuke go off.

As for hitting hard enough to breach a tube and spread around radioactive material... Very, very, very, hard.

If it was a T-bone collision, you'd have to break through the outer hull, the water tight hull, go through a couple of dozen feet of space, then hit the water tight (up to deep sea pressure) missile tube and breach -that-.

If the collision was head on or a rear-ender, it would be even more difficult since you would have to go through a third of the sub AND another watertight/sea pressure resistant door.

When I served on missile subs, the missile getting hit via a collision was not on the list of things to be worried about.

Top of that list? Fire in the laundry room.

(Well, actually, top of the list was Captain Rusty killing us all through his utter stupidity and incompetence, but that's a whole 'nother story)

[Turbineguy]

3. Fire in the laundry room

The top cause of ship's fires.

[Captain Hilts]

4. I thought the deep fat fryers were the biggest problem on boomers.

[Shipwack]

8. Nope, unless something has -really- changed in the past few years...

I've heard many laundry fire stories (and went through one myself*), but I think I've only read one report of a fryer fire (my memory is a bit hazy on actual numbers)

The deep fat fryer is in a space that is almost continuously manned (especially when it is being used), and there's a extinguishing system right above it, with both remote and automatic actuators.

Laundry room is -supposed- to be continuously manned when he dryer is going, but... junior sailors (and slacker senior sailors) sometimes wander away.

Of course the lint in the dryer can ignite whether someone is there or not, but if a body is present he can quickly kill the power, yell "Fire in the Laundry Room", and grab the CO2 extinguisher that's across the way.

*It happened with a tour group on board, too... they were tickled pink at the "demonstration" we arranged for them...

[Turborama]

6. Thanks for helping clear that up, I thought it might be something along those lines.

BTW was the fire in the laundry room thing because that's where everyone skulked off to for a sneaky smoke?

[Shipwack]

9. Not from smoking,,,

The smoking area, believe it or not, is in a machinery room, next to the diesel engine and its local fuel storage... ;)Besides, not only is there no space to hide in the laundry "room" (more like a cubby hole), it is only a few feet away from the office of the most senior enlisted person (the "Chief of the Boat"), so you'd quickly be caught. At least nowadays... smoking rules were more relaxed (or non existent) in the past, if pictures from the sixties are any indication.

The dryers in the laundry are commercial grade, and get very hot. Drying clothes creates lint, which if not frequently removed accumulates. High heat+dry tinder = fire hazard. With about 110 men on board (not to mention their linen, blankets, etc), and only two washer/dryer sets (if they are both working), they are running a good portion of the day, giving plenty of opportunity for something to go wrong.

To complicate matters, sometimes laundry duty is assigned to one person, often the one most junior or in disfavor. These individuals sometimes aren't as dedicated as they should be, and wander down the passageway to see what movie is playing, or get an ice cream from the galley, etc.. This is where Murphy's Law kicks in, and things go wrong.

[Captain Hilts]

10. Wasn't the whole point of poopie suits to elminate lint? I know that ...

in the early 60s they even designed 100 polyester Polaris scanties but no one wore them and kept their standard scanties.

[Shipwack]

11. Possibly, but all mine were cotton...

Never saw a polyester one.

Polyester would be bad for two reasons: Static electricity (which plays havoc with delicate electronics) and the nasty habit polyester has of melting to your skin during a fire.

[Captain Hilts]

12. You must be post-HMS Sheffield. I'm not sure when they made the suits...

a poly-cotton blend.

Yours is really all cotton?

Anyway, the point was to keep seafarers out of the dryers. They took forever to dry.

[Shipwack]

13. Yep... Post Sheffield by a couple of years...

1986-2006..

Poly poopy suits might have been nice in that they'd wrinkle less but then again, we were at sea so who cared? :)

[Captain Hilts]

14. I volunteer on an historic sub...

and I'm thinking of having someone get me a poopie suit because jeans absorb so many diesel odors. I could immediately put it in the sink when I get home and it would hang dry in a reasonable amount of time.

[pleah]

2. They are embarrassed?

You'd think they would be more than embarrassed. 16 warheads, couldn't that wipe out all of Europe?

[Captain Hilts]

5. That's not how they work. An ignorant piece of reporting. nt

[Hyper_Eye]

7. It takes more than a simple collision to set off a nuke.

People think it is as simple as impacting hard enough to break the shell to cause a nuclear bomb or warhead to explode. It isn't. It is a very precise process. If the weapons is not properly detonated you won't get a nuclear explosion. There could be dangerous waste but no explosion or dispersion.