RN, FN SSBNs collide

[Lonestar]

The Mail

British and French nuclear submarines loaded with missiles collide underwater

By Ryan Kisiel, Tamara Cohen and Peter Allen
Last updated at 1:49 AM on 16th February 2009

* Comments (0)
* Add to My Stories

British and French submarines armed with ballistic missiles threatened a nuclear disaster after colliding in the Atlantic, it emerged last night.

The crash is believed to have occurred after state-of-the-art technology fitted in both vessels, which is designed to detect other submarines, apparently failed completely.

Each boat is a key part of their respective countries' nuclear deterrent, ready to unleash hugely destructive weapons at a moment’s notice.

While both countries claim that security was not comprised during the collision, wide-scale enquiries are currently underway on both sides of the Channel.

French Navy sources confirm that Le Triomphant, one of four strategic nuclear submarines of the ‘Force de Frappe’ (Strike Force), was returning from a 70-day tour of duty when it collided with HMS Vanguard.

During heavy seas in the middle of the night between February 3 and 4, French sailors heard a loud ‘bang’ that all but destroyed the submarine's sonar dome.

This part of the boat should have detected the Vanguard in the first place, but Le Triomphant’s crew of 101 neither saw or heard anything before the collision.

Between them the submarines had 250 sailors on board.

A senior Navy source told The Sun: 'The potential consequences are unthinkable. It's very unlikely there would have been a nuclear explosion. But a radioactive leak was a possibility. Worse, we could have lost the crew and warheads. That would have been a national disaster.'

As inquiries began, naval sources said it was a million to one unlucky chance both subs were in the same patch of sea.

A Ministry of Defence spokesman said: 'It is our policy not to comment on submarine operational matters, but we can confirm that the UK’s deterrent capability has remained unaffected at all times and there has been no compromise to nuclear safety.'

The French last night also tried to play down the collision, with a Navy spokesman saying: ‘The collision did not result in injuries among the crew and did not jeopardise nuclear security at any moment.’

Le Triomphant took at least three days to limp back to her home port, although she did not have to be towed.

HMS Vanguard, by contrast, apparently had to be towed back to her home base in Faslane, Scotland.

With a complement of 135, she is the lead boat of the Vanguard class of submarines which carry Trident ballistic missiles around the world.

Le Triomphant is also the lead ship in her own class of French nuclear submarines.

Both vessels boast 16 M45 ballistic missiles, weighing 35 tons each, which carry six warheads with a range of around 5000 miles.

France’s Atlantic coast is notorious for being a ‘submarine graveyard’ because of the number of underwater craft, mainly German U-Boats, sunk in the area during the Second World War. The story of one was immortalised in the classic 1981 film Das Boot.

Two sailors died from a blast on a British nuclear submarine in March 2007. An oxygen generator blew up as HMS Tireless cruised beneath the Arctic ice. The tiny compartment the men were in quickly filled with smoke, but rescuers could not open doors buckled by the explosion.

Operator Mechanic Anthony Huntrod, 20, from Sunderland, and Leading Mechanic Operator Paul McCann, 32, from Halesowen, West Midlands, were dead by the time their shipmates reached them.

The deaths led to Armed Forces Minister Bob Ainsworth issuing an 'unreserved' apology in the House of Commons, after it emerged that the oxygen machine which exploded had been contaminated with oil.

A Board of Inquiry heavily criticised the Navy and the Ministry of Defence blamed 'systematic failings' for the tragedy.

I wonder what this does to the RN's deployment schedules, what with only 4 SSBNs.

[MKSheppard]

How in living christ do two SSBNs collide with each other?

[Lonestar]

Probably the same way a SSN can surface and hit a fishing boat.

[K. A. Pital]

Either it's 1/1000000 chance, or someone was fucking with observing the other boat.

[Lonestar]

Either it's 1/1000000 chance, or someone was fucking with observing the other boat.

I kinda wonder if we just found out where the RN SSBNs go on patrol(despite being based in Scotland). I figure they were either transiting to someplace or that's the location of the their patrol box....would seem to be an odd place for a bog-standard exercise area.

[Vympel]

Don't forget the Project 945 SSN that surfaced with the SSN 689 USS Baton Rouge right above it. The latter was thoroughly wrecked and was placed into reserve then scrapped two years later, the Pr. 945 got off a bit more lightly and was repaired.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Think about it this way, gentlemen. Both France and Britain patrol to provide deterrent primarily against Russia, with almost identical SLBMs. Patrol areas are super-secret, even their own navies won't know where they are, let alone each other's. But basically identical SLBMs, nearby country, same target.

Guess what? I think their patrol boxes have overlapped for decades, and because SSBNs are so stealthy they've just never detected each other endlessly circling the same area of water.

That vastly increases the likelihood of the collision, as it would have just required a bit of drift to bring them in range of each other, and with both subs running as silent as they can on ballistic missile patrol duty, neither would have detected the other until it was to late.

I bet it's very likely that if the French and British compared their patrol box maps right now they'd find out they more or less overlap or are indeed exactly identical, so this has just been waiting to happen for the past thirty years.

[K. A. Pital]

Yeah, they could've blown their patrol areas with this incident. SSBNs are quite stealthy, so it's possible they never detected each other. With a higher patrol intensity it could've happened faster.

[Sea Skimmer]

Don't forget the Project 945 SSN that surfaced with the SSN 689 USS Baton Rouge right above it. The latter was thoroughly wrecked and was placed into reserve then scrapped two years later, the Pr. 945 got off a bit more lightly and was repaired.

Its not clear how much damage she really took. If she was going to be repaired, she’d have also had to be refueled, and with Navy budgets being slashed at the time that wasn’t going to happen. A couple of other early (she’s just the second one built) Los Angels class submarines were retried at the exact same time for the same reason as part of a general drawdown of the USN. It didn’t help that the early LA’s also had inferior sonar and combat systems.

Honestly the damage couldn’t have been all that massive, simply because Baton Rouge would have just plain been sunk. Several other collisions occurred with similar one boat surfaces into the other accidents, and did not result in damage that placed the boats beyond economical repair. The Navy tried to be as quite as it could on the whole matter and released no details because Clinton kicked up a whole storm of protest at the navy taking ‘unnecessary risks’ after the Cold War was over.

I wonder what this does to the RN's deployment schedules, what with only 4 SSBNs.

The RN expected to be able to keep 2 boats at sea back when the plan was for 5 SSBNs. So even if this damage takes a while to repair, the RN should at least be able to keep one boat armed and ready to fire in the interim abet they may have to make short stops for more supplies while stretching out the length of each patrol. The bigger problem will be that British political opposition will use this incident for years to undermine military efforts to maintain a British nuclear deterrent and come up with a replacement for the V-boat/Trident Missile system.

[Vympel]

Its not clear how much damage she really took. If she was going to be repaired, she’d have also had to be refueled, and with Navy budgets being slashed at the time that wasn’t going to happen. A couple of other early (she’s just the second one built) Los Angels class submarines were retried at the exact same time for the same reason as part of a general drawdown of the USN. It didn’t help that the early LA’s also had inferior sonar and combat systems.

Well the only other submarine to be decommissioned that year was the Omaha, and that was in October 1995. Other ships of th early LA's weren't retired until later - heck, a lot of them are still around.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Another advantage to bombers. Don't get many BUFFs or Bears ramming one another, heh.

[Vehrec]

Another advantage to bombers. Don't get many BUFFs or Bears ramming one another, heh.

Well, you won't unless they're low observability and the first hint you have that there's another bomber in the area is when it comes out of the clouds a thousand feet in front of you.

I have to concur with Duchess, this is probably just an unfortunate accident that was allowed to happen simply because neither boat could hear the other. 'Holes in the water' is how some of these ships are described if I recall correctly. If they were both navigating a restrictive area at the same time, it's very easy to see how they could accidentally attempt to violate the exclusion principle.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Even bombers are not immune to fuck ups. The time when the US bombers loaded up real nuke rounds on their bombers for some training exercise I think comes to mind.

[Captain Seafort]

Plus, wasn't there one occasion when a B52 rammed its tanker and dropped four nukes on Spain?

[Starglider]

Plus, wasn't there one occasion when a B52 rammed its tanker and dropped four nukes on Spain?

Yes, in 1966; the devices went into the Mediterranean and were recovered by submersible. Another B-52 with the same loadout was lost over Alaska in 1968. SAC was maintaining a 'continuous airborne alert' system back then, using hundreds of bombers, and the huge amount of flying hours made accidents pretty much inevitable. That said aircraft reliability and avionics have improved a lot since then, so a similar operation today should have a lower accident rate (not that it would make any strategic sense to resume such operations).

[Sky Captain]

It seems February comes with freak accidents, we a had satellite collision and now sub collision both very unlikely events. Even if both subs had roughly similar patrol routes it`s still very unlikely that both of them happen to cross each others course at the same time.

[K. A. Pital]

Hahah. We were spot-on! Russia demanded to unclassify and publicize the location of collision due to "ecological surveys which are required in the place". It seems they really blew the cards. Oh well. Gotta change that patrol box then.