Officials DIDN'T know about missing submarine until press reports

News just in...

The Argentinian submarine that vanished last month was being chased by a British helicopter and Chilean ship shortly before disappearing, one of the doomed vessel's sailors told his sister in a "strange" message that was one of the last sent from the sub.

Argentina submarine chased by British helicopter before vanishing, sailor's sister claims

a reply to: fluff007

That report has been denied by several sources and has its own issues, such as how he had access to WhatsApp while at sea.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Thank you for your reply Zaphod, I do understand.

However I don't fully trust what the MoD feeds us 'the public'. Obviously until any more actual info or evidence comes out we won't know for sure.

Hm well considering its the Navy I would imagine they could easily have wifi and therefore whatsapp, they def got the tech. It may be prohibited under on duty Navy rules or something, but that doesn't stop people.

What we all know is that its a bit odd..

a reply to: fluff007

It's more than just the MoD that's talking about it. There are multiple sources that aren't related to the MoD that have said things that add up with what's being said by other organizations. What's being said makes sense, and has been known to happen to subs since diesel electric subs were invented.

Subs don't have wifi at sea. They send short messages through the communications system to their families. The whole point of subs is to remain deep and undetected. Wifi doesn't work unless they're on the surface, or running it through their communications system. And no sub that's in trouble is going to do that. This sub was had already lost one of their two batteries. There is no way they were running wifi, if it was even available.

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: TrueBrit

The area the explosion occurred, and presumably where they went down has places that drop to 10,000 feet. If that's where they went down, and they were in one of those areas, the "explosion" was probably the hull crushing as they passed crush depth.

I agree, it was less an explosion and more likely an implosion. With knowing such had occurred...ahem, there is no reason to give away our technology too quickly.

My husband had just showed my grandchildren a science experiment right before this news came out on the implosion process.He simply used an aluminum can in a pan of boiling water to implode that can tight with steam!

He actually was telling the boys about the submarine and the search for it...and if it fell too far what would happen from the pressure of the ocean depths. What can I say, he was in the Navy!

Edit add: my point on topic...even if they discovered this implosion instantly with undisclosed technology...there was no longer a need to rush since there would not be any survivors in such a scenario. No reason to let the world in on technology that may be more useful to keep under wraps.


Edit add2 : my hubby just corrected me with his theory. This was a war game that went really bad. Individually the sub should have handled the individual issues...but it all compounded and in an instant it went wrong! The crew never knew about it, thankfully it ended quickly. He assures me that there is probably logs available but the world will never see the reality of such a F up!

originally posted by: CynConcepts
my hubby just corrected me with his theory. This was a war game that went really bad. Individually the sub should have handled the individual issues...but it all compounded and in an instant it went wrong! The crew never knew about it, thankfully it ended quickly. He assures me that there is probably logs available but the world will never see the reality of such a F up!

Or it is a smokescreen to protect government officials taking kickbacks from a company that did shoddy work overhauling the sub.

As tensions with Russia grows, the UK sends its subs to hide beneath arctic ice:

sputniknews.com...

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: ignorant_ape

In theory, the sub can use sonar that the corvettes don't have, or that's better than they have, to locate fishing boats where they aren't supposed to be, then the corvettes actually go after them based on the location given by the sub.

I am thinking while the fishing boats are watching the corvettes off in the distance on radar and trying to out maneuver them.
And surprise sub pops up along side and mans there guns ordering the fishing boat to heave to.

a reply to: ANNED


nice theory, but do they actually put guns on their subs? pretty much everyone stopped putting guns on submarines starting before ww2 ended, due to their not being overly useful in modern warfare. most guns on subs were rather small and not all that powerful to begin with. add to that issues like the low mounting of the weapons making it a rather close in weapon with little range due to the limited viability for aiming. the rolling of a sub on the surface making it difficult to aim well. and in fact almost useless in any but pretty calm sea conditions. and unprotected gun crew. other than i believe it was just one French sub prior to ww2 that actually had a decent pair of navel cannon mounted in a turret (as well as carrying an airplane that could be used for target spotting). i would have to go with using the sub to scout out targets for it's companions to deal with is much more likely.

a reply to: generik

Most subs have fittings for crew served machine guns. Even one of those will be enough to mangle a fishing boat, and it doesn't take but a minute or two to mount them after surfacing.

The gun is there to save torpedoes.

Against merchant shipping w/o escort, it's often possible to surface before conducting an attack.

Whenever some provocation of this sort happens to Argentina, there's no doubt about the fact that the main suspect has to be the UK, or Spain. Spain's submarines though are not suited for such a long trip in the Pacific Ocean.

a reply to: Flanker86

Because everyone knows that Argentine military equipment is perfect and doesn't suffer accidents and the EU is worse than the CIA.

Argentina submarine: ARA San Juan found

According to a tweet from the Argentine navy, the ARA San Juan had been positively identified under the water by a US company. The navy had earlier shared a picture from the seabed, suggesting a 60m-long object might be the missing submarine.

BBC news link

Argentine Navy Twitter link