AHC: Worst Cold War Naval Disaster

To move the conversation in a different direction, what would be the probability of a Boomer (a ballistic missile submarine) suffering a crippling accident while in the territorial waters of a different nation? And what might some of the results be?

How about something like the Vanguard/Le Triomphant collision with the loss of one or both subs?

Or depending on who you believe a collision in the Irish Sea between a sub and a surface ship. (considering the number of surface collisions that the USN has had over the last few years it's not impossible)
 

Genghis Kawaii

Gone Fishin'
Is is possible for a crash on the deck of a busy carrier in, say, the late Sixties to spread a fire all the way to the magazine? That would be the worst naval disaster I can think of that doesn't involve a nuclear launch. Potentially, over a thousand could be killed if the magazine goes.
 
Is is possible for a crash on the deck of a busy carrier in, say, the late Sixties to spread a fire all the way to the magazine? That would be the worst naval disaster I can think of that doesn't involve a nuclear launch. Potentially, over a thousand could be killed if the magazine goes.


While I suppose it would be possible, I do not think that it would be likely. The Post-WWII USN carriers, designed with Kamikaze attacks in mind, were built with armored flight decks. If you take away the element of intentionality, a carrier fighter pilot with a plane full of ordinance plunging straight into the deck of a carrier is not different than a Kamikaze attack.

The Essex-class carriers did not incorporate a significantly armored flight decks, at least not in their original designs. I believe the USN did not retire the last of these carriers until around 1969. So I suppose if a pilot carrying full ordinance, on approach had a heart attack, brought his plane into a sharp dive, and crashed into the deck of an Essex carrier, the resulting explosion/fire could potentially make it to the munitions locker if enough hatches were left open and the fire spread fast enough.

But you are probably more likely to lose a carrier to a Rogue Wave than through one of its pilots accidentally crashing into the deck.
 
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Nick P

Donor
9th November 1970: HMS Ark Royal is being closely followed by a Soviet Kotlin-class destroyer during NATO exercises in the Mediterranean. OTL they collide as they turn, scraping sides and damaging equipment, 2 Soviet sailors are lost overboard.

1) The Soviet ship is rammed amidships, breaks in half and rapidly sinks with the loss of many lives. Soviet fleet goes to full war footing.

2) HMS Ark Royal is rammed amidships and sinks after some hours of damage control. Loss of life is low but the Royal Navy and NATO have lost an aircraft carrier. Could this be seen as a deliberate attempt by the Soviet Union to start a war?

3) The ships collide and damage to a Soviet missile causes a large explosion that sinks both ships with major loss of life.
 
It was the fear of precisely the scenarios outlined in the previous post which led to the 'Incidents at Sea' agreement between the US and USSR. While the politicians talked Cold War rhetoric the leaders at sea were seriously concerned about the naval game of chicken that had grown in the 1960s & early 1970s.
 

nbcman

Donor
The event itself occurred in WW1 but what if an explosion due to the collision of a vessel with a load of highly explosive material which occurred in Halifax (that was the largest man made explosion on earth prior to nukes) occurred in a major port such as NYC, London or the like.

At 9:04:35 am, the out of control fire aboard Mont-Blanc finally caused her highly volatile cargo to explode. The ship was instantly disintegrated; the remains of her hull launched high into the air. The blast travelled at more than 1,000 metres per second. Temperatures of 5,000°C and pressures of thousands of atmospheres accompanied the moment of detonation at the centre of the explosion.[40] White-hot shards of iron rained down upon Halifax and Dartmouth.[41] The barrel of one of Mont-Blanc's guns landed approximately 5.6 kilometres (3.5 mi) north of the explosion site near Albro Lake in Dartmouth, while part of her anchor landed 3.2 kilometres (2.0 mi) south at Armdale.[42]
A resulting cloud of white smoke rose to over 3,600 metres (11,800 ft).[43] The shock wave from the blast travelled through the earth at nearly 23 times the speed of sound and was felt as far away as Cape Breton and Prince Edward Island.[44] An area over 160 hectares (400 acres) was completely destroyed by the explosion,[42] while the harbour floor was momentarily exposed by the volume of water that vaporized. A tsunami was formed by water surging in to fill the void,[45] which rose up as high as 18 metres (60 ft) above the harbour's high-water mark on the Halifax side.[46] Imo was carried onto the shore at Dartmouth by the tsunami.[47]
Over 1,600 people were killed instantly while 9,000 were injured.[48] Every building within a 26 kilometres (16 mi) radius, over 12,000 total, was destroyed or badly damaged.[45
 
IIRC, the worst OTL disaster was the sinking of the Soviet battleship Novorossiysk (ex-RM Giulio Cesare), which capsized and sank with the loss of 608 of her crew while anchored at Sevastopol in October, 1955, nearly 3 hours after an underwater explosion equivalent to over a ton of TNT tore the bow apart, with poor judgment by the ship's captain held to be a major factor in the heavy loss of life
 
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