Unthinkable - British and French Nuclear Submarines collide

I would assume they were following the same or similar patrol route? Which is worrying, france and the UK were extremely vulnerable to nuclear attack just prior to, and following this incident.

The role of these subs is to eliminate an entire country or continent with overwhelming force in the event their home nation is eliminated by a sneak attack, they have to carry huge amounts of nuclear weapons because their home port would likely not even exist any more if the time came for them to retaliate. They have to ensure they have the firepower to carry out their role at any time.

The commanders of these vessels have to know that if a genuine order to fire is processed, its probable their homes and families have already been destroyed or their destruction is imminent and assured.

MAD is exactly that, hope none of us live to see it.

Originally posted by LatentElement
Niall117 - I'm sure the Brits rang up their US liaison and the USN put a boomer already in the European Theater in place to cover it's patrol.

I doubt that very much, pretty certain the Brits have had two SSBN's at sea. Just a hunch. It's do-able, they've got four SSBN's in total.

Vigilant is currently in Devonport for a refit, Victorious is just out of refit & presumably joins Vengeance as being the two boats available right now.

[edit on 15/2/09 by Niall197]

this is most likely a load of rubbish. These high tech subs do not just bump into other subs.

What is more likely is that this whole release is a way for them to say, "Hey we got over 30 nukes swimming around ready to obliterate you"

I find it very hard to believe they were on COMPLETELY separate missions...

The collision is believed to have taken place on February 3 or 4, in mid-Atlantic. Both subs were submerged and on separate missions.

The Atlantic is MASSIVE!!!

You know they say you can literally fly a plane blindfolded and the chances you'd hit another plane are very very small (unless your flying in close formation of course) and the skys are full of planes... The Atlantic is not full of subs at all in comparison. They MUST of had simular missions albeit those missions required them to be in that very precise bit of water at that very time

Like another poster said, the MOD etc could of jumped on this story to (somewhat oddly IMO) reiterate the point 'we have nuke armed subs.

IDK.... that spot of water must of been interesting for some reason.

Originally posted by duffster
Some thing is very very fishy

first we have 2 satellites crashing into each other now we have this ...Some thing is going on people and we will be the last to know about it

Aah, not a big fish to fret about -- just a 100-year anniversary observation nailed to a maritime tradition:

en.wikipedia.org...(1909)

In terms of loss of life, the destruction of the Vanguard remains the most catastrophic accidental explosion in the history of the UK, and one of the worst accidental losses of the Royal Navy.

en.wikipedia.org...(S28)

The British sailors believe that if the name of their ship or boat is the same as the name of a ship from the past that was lost at sea, then ramming some vessel on the 100th anniversary of that doomed ship or boat making a maiden voyage brings plenty of luck. Winston Churchill tried to discourage acting upon this superstition, but when faced with hard-hitting German U-boats during WWII, he looked the other way.


[edit on 2/16/2009 by stander]

In total agreement with you, on all counts.
Sucks being at the bottom of the information food chain.

Hmm I admit it sounds like an excuse to remind Russia of the UK's MAD capability.

But maybe, just maybe, this has something to do with Russia claiming most of the North sea, seabed for themself, due to the suspected massive oil and gas reserves there?

Maybe the Russians sent a sub to do some surveying, then the British sub decided to trail it and see where they surveyed etc, maybe by chance the UK sub collided with a French sub doing the exact same thing? Not impossible given both would be in passive mode and therefore hard to detect the other.

Then again, it does show how crappy, passive sonar systems really are!

But yeah as the Op said, the chances are soo high, that two subs, in such a vast and open sea, could collide, the odds are greater than winning the lottery 3 weeks in a row!

.......but then again, they could have been on a joint operation to hunt down a USO that was threatening there " water space "?

......the USO, having to defend itself, caused damage to both the Subs in an attempt to free itself as it may have been cornerd......resulting in the Military having to come up with a story to cover the damage......

......just saying


Ill get my coat


IP

reply to post by Lasheic


Yes, lies, lies, and more lies.

Can anyone trust government anymore.

Seems like a lot of debunkers on this site don't question authority.
Maybe because they work for the authority, and are psyops agents.

Despite being equipped with sonar, it seems neither vessel spotted the other, the BBC's Caroline Wyatt said.

news.bbc.co.uk...

Well that's what happens when you have to nations that dont drive on the same side of the road

I think this was no accident and we ( the UK ) simply gave our french fiends a little nudge, A bit of "mine is bigger than yours" camaraderie.

Extremely suspect, or better "fishy" is the word.

Right now there's a huge thread on the conspiracy speculation surrounding that prop plane crash near Buffalo NY, but the odds of this event are truly phenomenal--they're keeping mum about whatever it was that brought those odds down so far that this collision occurred in the first place.

One or both of the subs was not on a normal mission; clearly one was trailing the other, likely as a drill, but which is unknowable.

It's also possible that the sub being trailed had a mission larger in purpose that warranted being followed, and it was not an accident during a training exercise that caused this. Again, we'll never know.

My initial thoughts when I read the headline to this article in the paper was "oh no, this is going to be a potential missing nuke scenario like at Minot."

That would be pretty bad ...

Interesting story. As for why these two submarines were in the same area, the BBC story sheds some light onto the issue:

Nuclear engineer John Large told the BBC that navies often used the same "nesting grounds". "Both navies want quiet areas, deep areas, roughly the same distance from their home ports. So you find these station grounds have got quite a few submarines, not only French and Royal Navy but also from Russia and the United States."

BBC News

An area that's good for a British submarine is also good for a French, American or Russian sub too. Seems logical.

As to why they didn't detect each other... well, they are designed to be virtually invisible under water. That's the whole point of them. However, it can't be ruled out that they were part of a joint exercise that went wrong or something like that. It's very unlikely that we'll know until the documents are released 30 years from now.

Originally posted by gottago
Extremely suspect, or better "fishy" is the word.

Right now there's a huge thread on the conspiracy speculation surrounding that prop plane crash near Buffalo NY, but the odds of this event are truly phenomenal--they're keeping mum about whatever it was that brought those odds down so far that this collision occurred in the first place.

One or both of the subs was not on a normal mission; clearly one was trailing the other, likely as a drill, but which is unknowable.

It's also possible that the sub being trailed had a mission larger in purpose that warranted being followed, and it was not an accident during a training exercise that caused this. Again, we'll never know.

SSBN's are not hunter killers, they have one mission only. Remain undetected at all costs so they can unleash fury as a last resort. They are not used, and are not equipped for trailing another sub. It would practically be treason for either captain to entertain the idea of doing anything other than running away as quickly as possible!

reply to post by gottago

clearly one was trailing the other

Not true. The whole point of a ballistic missile submarine is stay away from other subs so that they can complete their mission (missile launch) without being attacked by enemy subs.

You certainly wouldnt trail another sub with it.

Thats what attack subs are for.

CT

Sounds like a whole loda BS!

They probably decided to have a race or something cos they were bored outa their butts and when the french tried overtaking the sperm whale they banged into the Brits.

It wouldn't have been funny if the warheads got damaged.If nothing else we could have definetly expected a nice huge tsunami.

I just read about this on this side of the pond.

I have have guessed the odds were more then a million to one.
A fender bender in the middle of the Atlantic.
My Grandpa used to work radar on a sub in WWII and he said you have to have freaking hawk ears and be really good at what you did back then.

Imagine the leaps and bounds in making the subs even quieter.
It's not surprising that they didn't know the other was there, I'm surprised that they were even in the same location.

Thanks for the thread.
S&F

Originally posted by Ridill
I would assume they were following the same or similar patrol route? Which is worrying, france and the UK were extremely vulnerable to nuclear attack just prior to, and following this incident.

Like someone posted, they were probably assigned to the same "bastion",
areas of the ocean where the conditions are good for remaining undetected.
Once in their massive patrol areas, I think the routes are completely random.

SSBNs do have the capability to track other submarines, but I agree that would likely be against operating procedure. Their posture is defensive. There is nothing to gain for an SSBN Captain tracking down and closing with an unknown submerged contact, risking counter-detection, and the compromise of his primary deterrent mission.

It's a testament to the absolute stealth of these beasts. As unlikely as it seems, I think this was a coincidental accident. I wonder how many millions of miles have been steamed on SSBN deterrent patrols since the early 1960s ? Like commercial air travel, the odds of a collision are astronomical, but log enough time and anything can happen.

reply to post by Conspiracy Theorist


I stand corrected, thanks for the clarification, but all the more bizarre then.

So we are to assume they happened to run into each other in one of these "lurking grounds"? I'd imagine they are minimally the size of any given state, and even if it's as small as Rhode Island or even Delaware, you must also consider the odds they were cruising at the same depth.

Something else was going on they're not telling us; the odds are astronomical.

Great. Now the US Navy has one more SSBN away from the motherland due to the Brits needing one to complete the scout/defensive routes. Oh well, I highly doubt we will know what actually happened. I am going to go with the person that said maybe they were trailing another sub such as a Chinese or Russian sub? But then again...they are SSBN's or "Fat Cats" as they call them in the navy. Im stumped.