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2005-03-04 Home Front: Tech

More Detailed Photos of the Damaged USS San Francisco

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Posted by ed 2005-03-04 00:00:00 AM|| || Front Page|| [1 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 I can see why this was career-limiting for the captain and a fair number of the rest of the officers. It is a small miracle that the ship was not lost with all hands.

Posted by RWV 2005-03-04 12:16:59 AM|| 2005-03-04 12:16:59 AM|| Front Page Top

#2 The boat wasn't lost due to the efforts of the officers commanding and the crew. It's a devil miracle that the Captain was reliefed.

Posted by Shipman 2005-03-04 10:57:22 AM|| 2005-03-04 10:57:22 AM|| Front Page Top

#3 It's ironic that this would probably not have happened to a WWII boat. Active sonar would have spotted the mountain in time. (It also broadcasts your position to the world, but nothing's perfect.)

I think the captain got a raw deal, but I don't know enough to make an issue over it.

Posted by jackal 2005-03-04 11:23:31 AM|| [http://home.earthlink.net/~sleepyjackal/index.html] 2005-03-04 11:23:31 AM|| Front Page Top

#4 Jackal, you have been watching too many Hollywood movies. Active sonar on a submarine defeats the very purpose of being under water: nobody knows where you are.... Even during WWII the subs primarily listened. The only pinging is straight downwards for the fathometer.

The ironic thing is that you are right for the wrong reasons. A WWII sub wouldn't have bounced off the seamount because A) they didn't go that deep, and B) they couldn't do 20+ knots underwater for more than minutes at a time, much less days....

I am a Plank Owner on an LA-Class boat (the USS Omaha) and it is a *large* miracle to me they got back to Guam. They lost half their bouyancy forward (all three Port side ballast tanks appear to be open at the top)..........

Posted by Rick T 2005-03-04 4:21:29 PM|| 2005-03-04 4:21:29 PM|| Front Page Top

#5 WWII Fleet boats couldn't do 20 knots underwater at all. They were good for about 8 knots when running on batteries, about 21 knots when running on engines.

And I don't believe that they were even equipped with active sonar. They had radar, using a small antenna on top of the periscope, but sonar was pretty useless for them because it can't be used to track ships on the surface.

Posted by Steven Den Beste 2005-03-04 6:30:18 PM|| [http://denbeste.nu/Chizumatic/] 2005-03-04 6:30:18 PM|| Front Page Top

#6 Well, I'll bow to the experienced as to doctrine, but all Fleet subs definitely did have active sonar, whether or not is was used that often. If nothing else, there were standard recognition codes that could be used to say "Hey stupid! I'm one of yours. Stop depth-charging me!" It didn't work with the Seawolf, unfortunately.

I know that some of our subs killed a lot of Jap subs, but they may have been on the surface when it happened. I don't have the actual logs or anything, just books like Morrison and Blair.

Posted by jackal 2005-03-04 7:53:17 PM|| [http://home.earthlink.net/~sleepyjackal/index.html] 2005-03-04 7:53:17 PM|| Front Page Top

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