Post by torpedo on Feb 17, 2020 4:51:22 GMT
How to get out if a sub is going to be destroyed
Andrew Karam, MM1/SS (LELT), author of Rig Ship for Ultra Quiet
If a submarine is in the process of sinking then the crew will be working as hard as they can to keep it from going down. I’ve had shipmates who were on boats that exceeded their test depth by a considerable margin - they didn’t give up and abandon ship, they kept working the problem to get the boat under control and back to a safer depth. That is the very core of our training - to keep working the problem. And if somebody’s shooting at us, we’re not going to bail out of the submarine - we’re going to do our best to evade the torpedo and to return fire.
In addition, while we all know the test depth (the deepest we’re allowed to operate) and the crush depth (the theoretical maximum depth before the hull begins to lose integrity), these numbers are approximate - we don’t develop them by building a dozen submarines and taking them down until they break. So the submarine might break up before reaching crush depth - but more likely it will exceed even the crush depth before it actually breaks up. It would be really embarassing to abandon ship, only to have the submarine bob up next to you 10 minutes later.
But - more importantly - we could only make an escape down to about 400 feet, which was considerably shallower than our test depth. Which would mean bailing out when we still had a lot of time left to try to fix the problem and save the sub. Or - if we were working until the bitter end and then realized it could not be saved…we were far too deep to escape.
The only plausible option would arise if the sub sank - but in water that was shallow enough that the boat didn’t crush. If it was really shallow then we could escape on our own. If it was deeper than 400 feet, but shallower than crush depth, the DSRV (Deep Submergence Rescue Vessel) could be flown to almost anywhere in the world in a day and brought out to rescue the crew. And - in case you’re wondering - most of the ocean is far too deep to survive sinking to the bottom, and most of the shallower parts are not too far from the nearest airport.
Andrew Karam, MM1/SS (LELT), author of Rig Ship for Ultra Quiet
If a submarine is in the process of sinking then the crew will be working as hard as they can to keep it from going down. I’ve had shipmates who were on boats that exceeded their test depth by a considerable margin - they didn’t give up and abandon ship, they kept working the problem to get the boat under control and back to a safer depth. That is the very core of our training - to keep working the problem. And if somebody’s shooting at us, we’re not going to bail out of the submarine - we’re going to do our best to evade the torpedo and to return fire.
In addition, while we all know the test depth (the deepest we’re allowed to operate) and the crush depth (the theoretical maximum depth before the hull begins to lose integrity), these numbers are approximate - we don’t develop them by building a dozen submarines and taking them down until they break. So the submarine might break up before reaching crush depth - but more likely it will exceed even the crush depth before it actually breaks up. It would be really embarassing to abandon ship, only to have the submarine bob up next to you 10 minutes later.
But - more importantly - we could only make an escape down to about 400 feet, which was considerably shallower than our test depth. Which would mean bailing out when we still had a lot of time left to try to fix the problem and save the sub. Or - if we were working until the bitter end and then realized it could not be saved…we were far too deep to escape.
The only plausible option would arise if the sub sank - but in water that was shallow enough that the boat didn’t crush. If it was really shallow then we could escape on our own. If it was deeper than 400 feet, but shallower than crush depth, the DSRV (Deep Submergence Rescue Vessel) could be flown to almost anywhere in the world in a day and brought out to rescue the crew. And - in case you’re wondering - most of the ocean is far too deep to survive sinking to the bottom, and most of the shallower parts are not too far from the nearest airport.
(Source: By United States Navy, Photographer's Mate 1st Class Daniel N. Woods - Navy NewsStand Photo ID: 040429-N-7949W-003Navy NewsStand Home, Public Domain,
