USS San Francisco Lost at Sea.

BlondieBC

Banned
I thought I remembered she was on her way home. That was one reason I suggested that there would be no announcement until after her due date. And if it was a steep slope and she had not been able to quickly recover positive bouyancy (for any of a number of reasons) she could have passed not only design crush depth but actual crush depth. What was the ocean floor in that region?


From memory, 10,000 feet deep. And the ship was described as "creeping" upward after the tanks were blown. So just a wee, wee little bit more damage, and it would be a complete loss of hands. I guess there is an automated distress beacon, so it would be found.
 

BlondieBC

Banned
What depth was it at when it hit, because those SEIE suits are good for about 100 fathoms.


I never saw a figure, but is was supposed to be a deep running deep, because sub run fast down there. Your best bet is to look for a source on the depth USA subs use when make long distance, yet fairly high speed runs. My impression at the time from newspaper articles was that if the blowing the tanks had failed, all hands would have been lost. A lot of this is based on my limited understanding of submarines. If you want to travel fast, it is easier for a nuclear boat to do that deep than shallow due to better propeller performance.
 
From memory, 10,000 feet deep. And the ship was described as "creeping" upward after the tanks were blown. So just a wee, wee little bit more damage, and it would be a complete loss of hands. I guess there is an automated distress beacon, so it would be found.

10,000 feet is really, really, really deep for a submarine. No one (who can talk about it) knows what the exact crush depth for US subs is, but it's a lot less than 10,000 feet. It was actually running at about 200 feet deep (according to Wikipedia), so around 33 fathoms. I guess the SEIE suits would work, then, although everyone is not likely to make it out alive (one person died in the original incident after all).
 
I believe 10,000 referred to the ocean depth. There's even less publicly available stuff about crush depth than actual top speeds on these boats.
 
From memory, 10,000 feet deep. And the ship was described as "creeping" upward after the tanks were blown. So just a wee, wee little bit more damage, and it would be a complete loss of hands. I guess there is an automated distress beacon, so it would be found.
Uh, the test depth for the Los Angeles was 950 feet, 10,000 feet is down in DSV territory.
 

Hyperion

Banned
Uh, the test depth for the Los Angeles was 950 feet, 10,000 feet is down in DSV territory.

950 feet may be the deepest operational depth, but from what I've read, official information on how deep US submarines can safely go is heavily classified, even on the Los Angeles class ships.
 
What is not classified is the hull metal. HY-100 hull steel yields at 100,000psi, or about 2250ft depth (Seawolf was the first submarine constructed of HY-100). Subs built from HY-80 will crush at 1800ft. and have a normal operating depth of 1300ft.

The old Soviet Alphas could survive 1300m, but incur damage.
 
Yeah, any official figure you see for submarine speed or crush depth is likely understating the case by a significant percentage. A good friend is married to a former submariner who was stationed out of Pearl Harbor in the Oughts. He still can't talk about specifics, but he allows that the operational numbers we see in the media are meant more to hide the truth rather than state it.

As for the impact, probably not a lot in the long run unless there is some sort of conflict among nations over recovering the wreck. If a Chinese warship sporting a deep-sea submersible shows up at the site, there might be a wee bit of international tension.
 
10,000 feet is really, really, really deep for a submarine. No one (who can talk about it) knows what the exact crush depth for US subs is, but it's a lot less than 10,000 feet. It was actually running at about 200 feet deep (according to Wikipedia), so around 33 fathoms. I guess the SEIE suits would work, then, although everyone is not likely to make it out alive (one person died in the original incident after all).

I believe 200 ft would be awfully shallow for a long high speed run. The only sources I have is conversations with folks I used to live near when I was stationed at Langley AFB and they were on new construction at Newport News. I don't have anything exact but I believe that would be shallow.

Published crush depth, tested crush depth, and actual crush depth are three different numbers. Even back in WWII German, American and British submarines all exceeded the tested crush depth at times so there is no reason to believe that a modern sub would not do the same. That said 10,000 feet is WAY DEEP and almost certainly (Like 99.9% sure) well beyond any operational sub.
 
950 feet may be the deepest operational depth, but from what I've read, official information on how deep US submarines can safely go is heavily classified, even on the Los Angeles class ships.
Crush depth might be 50% deeper than test depth (which is probably below normal operational depth), but I'm damned sure it's not going to be anything close to 900% deeper.

Published crush depth, tested crush depth, and actual crush depth are three different numbers. Even back in WWII German, American and British submarines all exceeded the tested crush depth at times so there is no reason to believe that a modern sub would not do the same.
Yeah, but they wouldn't be doing that if they weren't in trouble, any more than you'd red-line your car's engine unless you really needed it.
 
Top