Jump to content
GreaseSpot Cafe

USS San Francisco - Pix


markomalley
 Share

Recommended Posts

Zshot- the tarp is probably covering the sonar array (what is left of it) The Navy probably considers it classified- and doesn't want pictures of it distributed publicly.

They were very lucky in my opinion- If they had struck the object more directly or much faster they would have probably never been able to surface, and might have ruptured the pressure hull (where the crew is).

That hump between the two men on the deck was not there before the accident and it looks like there is a big chunk of what they hit behind the tarp.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Mark-

Very nice photos.

Which dry-dock is this one?

I have spent time in the Los Alamos a few times [to repair Ooops’] though to me dry docks all look about the same. Is the Dixon and land still there?

Zshot-

“why is there a tarp over part of the damaged area?”

duh :-)

When anything ‘inside’ is exposed we routinely cover it from satellite [over-head] photography. On the Delta-piers at Bangor they have railroad tracks running on both sides of the dry-wall, and on those tracks is a huge steel warehouse on rollers. So while in the dry-dock, a warehouse can roll over you, it also has broad-spectrum frequency transmitter antennas on their roofs to lessen the quality of multi-spectrum espionage.

Tom-

“that thing is huge! what is it three stories high? (see the people?) a lot bigger than the little WW2 subs I saw when I was a kid...”

yeah.

The Polaris class and the posiden class boats that I lived on were both greater than 3-stories inside. The Trident class that I was on was greater than 4-stories inside.

Picture a four-story parking garage just a hair under 2 football fields long. Why do you think we have problems since we can not fit them into many rivers.

When they converted the USS Kamahamaha and the USS James K. Polk both into brown-water troop-Transport boats, so they could safely suck mud and sift for their cooling, it gives you the capability of going into shallower rivers, before deploying troops. Imagine 16 vertical elevators of 8 feet in diameter each, all deploying troops. Wow what a capability.

“do they ever give tours of these things?”

Yeah.

I used to give tours of those that I was on.

Ckeer-

“Zshot- the tarp is probably covering the sonar array (what is left of it) The Navy probably considers it classified- and doesn't want pictures of it distributed publicly.”

That front part is an un-manned sonar dome [underneath the round smooth free-flood hull]. It is made to be easily crunched and yet not truly hurt the boat’s survivability. In case of Oops’

“They were very lucky in my opinion- If they had struck the object more directly or much faster they would have probably never been able to surface, and might have ruptured the pressure hull (where the crew is).”

Looking at this, I would not be surprised if they hit a rock ledge at over 15 knots.

I have seen really cool damage from surfacing underneath air-craft carriers. Taking off most of the conning tower and twisting it aft-ish.

The idea of a crunch zone, like in your car, to take the force while inside your roll-cage you are still ‘safe’, has become a universal theory in America.

Also keep in mind that our hulls are like a spring. They can squeeze and twist and poing back to their original shape and size. At great depths, the hulls compress a lot. So everything inside must be mounted on hinges and shock-absorbers, starting with the decks. To allow the hull to shrink down round us, or to expand again. Look at a big bridge with those stupid steal expansion joints in the pavement, so each section is allowed to shift around freely.

The Russian engineers were scared sh!tless of the idea of a hull shrinking down around you, so they designed their boats to all be ‘hardened’ and resist compression. Which is why they use Titanium. Which is why they caused a world-wide shortage of Titanium. Which is why they had terrible problems getting enough to furnish their fleet. All because their engineers formed like a consortium around the idea that boat hulls should be non-compressable, but that made them brittle. Hit them hard and they crack. Our hulls crack mostly from stress fractures which come from age and ‘usage’ [meaning we count how many times each hull has been fully compressed, because full-compression shortens its life and leads to stress-fractures.]

The people-tank is relatively safe, more so than earlier boat designs. We have had lots of boats crack their hulls, over the years, so long as our pumps can move more water at depth than how much comes in, then we are cool. When the water coming in exceeds what our pumps can put out, than we need to consider going up to a lesser depth.

I distinctly recall making a patrol in the Arctic circle and standing watch on our ESM stack [Electronic Surveillance System]. It was rough water and while going up to periscope depth we were rolling a lot. But while trying to operate my gear I was being dripped on. Icy salt water was dripped right onto my seat, and due to the rolling my gear kept tripping it’s internal breakers, so I had these electronic drawers open so I could reach in and reset the breakers, I used my knee to hold the drawer shut while operating the equipment. But that icy salt water kept dripping down my head and neck. Looking back I was lucky not to have be zapped by reaching into live equipment while dripping wet.

You said:

“… they would have probably never been able to surface, and might have ruptured the pressure hull … “

Keep in mind that each compartment can be pressurized to greater than sea-pressure, which kind of forces the water back out again, down to the level of the biggest cracks at least. And the Main Ballast tanks start a bit aft of the sonar-dome, so they are not really in much damage, so they can still be blown full of air to re-surface. So long as the crew did not waste that air on anything stupid.

We learned from both the USS Ben Franklin and the USS Lafayette that we want to keep most of the bigger cracks down low so that when we do pressurize the people-tank it blows the water out better.

Ooops, I did run on there sorry.

I hope I do not bore anyone too much.

”That hump between the two men on the deck was not there before the accident and it looks like there is a big chunk of what they hit behind the tarp.”

That ‘hump’ looks like when a car wrecks in a head-on collision and some of the force is transferred back along the frame to the doors, so the door alignment is whacked.

I do find it interesting how much junk fell off. Usually it is crunched in like that but the hull’s ‘skin’ is still covering it mostly.

:-)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Galen- I think I read the dry dock is in Guam and is not normally used for Subs. the Blogger Bubblehead Has info on this and other submarines- His jan 27 post links to HiRes pictures of the sub.

One report he links to says the sub was making 23 knots (about 25mph)when it hit.

When I was in High School in Groton (late 70's) my dad took me on base to see the Nautilus after it had a close encouter with a surface taget (Carrier?). A very big dent at the top front of the sail.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

ckeer:

"One report he links to says the sub was making 23 knots (about 25mph)when it hit."

It is hammered into us to never reveal more about what subs can do, than the un-classified documentation admits to. Few bubbleheads would ever say how fast or how deep their boat goes. On occasion Congress has 'leaked' information about the 'Silent Service', and in cases like "Hunt for Red October" where Clancy revealed so many secrets. The bubblehead who talked [LCdr Ralph Chatham] was careful to ensure that each individual secret had already been leaked seperately by Congress by way of the congressional records. So in this way he was not procescuted, though obviously it ended his career.

I would rather just say that they were doing 15+knots and leave it at that.

Deep? Yeah we go deep, all the way.

At one time the Nautilus' entire conning tower was flayed open, bashed down and twisted aft. It looks better today.

Ship571.gif

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Krys-

Yes an okay flick, book was better.

Das Boot was best followed by K-19:widowmaker

Sorry.

How can you beat a seaman diving the torpedo room bilge to repair a leak knowing it will kill him.

And the blue-glowing water kracks me up. "Oh no glowing blue water is not bad for you" LOL

Edited by ET1 SS
Link to comment
Share on other sites

quote:
Originally posted by Jim:

Galen, what's your guess on how long to fix it?


Depending on how long investigators want to take pictures and radiography film of the stress patterns in the hull.

Normally they might delay the work for as much as two days before they cutting-torch off the bad and 500 men will work around the clock, flying in from everywhere. It might be done in a month. Or like the Florida if the hull was not flexed right when it took the shock, or if the hull didnt resonant the right way there could be hundreds of stress micro-fractures running along the hull lengthwise.

1. Some boats can be fixed right away and they seem good as new.

[we destroyed a screw and it's shaft once. The shaft was bent, cracked and it's filling material leaked. The screw's blades were shredded. We wobbled in the water, it was bad. But they sank the dry-dock while we were yet steaming into port, lifted us ... and by the following night the dry dock was sank again to allow us get out into the game. We had a new screw and a new shaft. I never thought that much about it, until years later I had to do some work near the screw while we were in a dry dock. A screw laid out flat on the ground is still taller than I am, solid brass and as big around as a small house.]

2. Others have 'limited-depth' restrictinos placed on them. They go back into the fleet, but they are limited in what capacity they can play with the big boys.

3. Other boats cause an issue, if their class is not scheduled for decomm this decade, then the more 'permanent' problem boats will kind of sit around pierside waiting. If repairs become too extensive it is cheaper to build a new one [which congress will never agree to]. We do have boats that sit for a long time, waiting for those in control to decide, all because they are too damaged.

But looking at the outside it is hard to tell how much damage was done to the hull through-out it's length. I'll guess 4 months.

We also have boats that have been decommed, but due to their extra special abilities, nobody wants to cut them up. At Bremerton Shipyard, last time I was there, between two long piers they had 8 boats crammed in there and in 'moth-ball' status. I spotted the Triton. Metzger who was me spotted one of those skip-jack class the twin-screw counter-rotating things [think of one screw mounted on the end of a second screw both turning in opposite directions]. Regulus' were there. By now they should have the Kamahamaha and Polk tucked in there.

Some real oddities, but with cool twists. We dont normally moth-ball boats. Only surface targets get mothballed, usually.

:-)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

quote:
or if the hull didnt resonant the right way there could be hundreds of stress micro-fractures running along the hull lengthwise.

Hah. I have a friend whose job involved running some sort of resonance test on submarines. He'd never tell me anything about it except that they would cover everything up when he came out to do the test.

quote:
[we destroyed a screw and it's shaft once. The shaft was bent, cracked and it's filling material leaked. The screw's blades were shredded. We wobbled in the water, it was bad. But they sank the dry-dock while we were yet steaming into port, lifted us ... and by the following night the dry dock was sank again to allow us get out into the game. We had a new screw and a new shaft. I never thought that much about it, until years later I had to do some work near the screw while we were in a dry dock. A screw laid out flat on the ground is still taller than I am, solid brass and as big around as a small house.]

Damn. Damn. I'm impressed. I spent a little time in the engine compartments of cargo ships in my youth and have a little appreciation of the scale of things...

quote:
At Bremerton Shipyard, last time I was there, between two long piers they had 8 boats crammed in there and in 'moth-ball' status. I spotted the Triton. Metzger who was me spotted one of those skip-jack class the twin-screw counter-rotating things [think of one screw mounted on the end of a second screw both turning in opposite directions]. Regulus' were there. By now they should have the Kamahamaha and Polk tucked in there.

Some real oddities, but with cool twists. We dont normally moth-ball boats. Only surface targets get mothballed, usually.


When I was about 12, my dad took me to Bremerton to see the battleship Missouri. I think he wanted to see it as badly as I did. I got to walk on the deck and see the plaque where the Japanese surrendered. Lots of history there.

Thanks for the info.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Jim:

"Hah. I have a friend whose job involved running some sort of resonance test on submarines. He'd never tell me anything about it except that they would cover everything up when he came out to do the test."

They do a lot of exotic tests on the hulls.

Strapping big magnets and iron filings to photogragh the magnetic flux patterns, and x-raying [the amount of radiation required just to x-ray that thick of a sheet of metal, is a lot].

"When I was about 12, my dad took me to Bremerton to see the battleship Missouri. I think he wanted to see it as badly as I did. I got to walk on the deck and see the plaque where the Japanese surrendered. Lots of history there."

They are impressive.

Four big aircraft carriers next to each other, and the bows sticking out almost over the fence. Driving by on the highway, your in the shadow of those carriers, looking up a them. Man they are big. It is hard to imagine that something so big can be taken out with just one modern torpedoe. Technology is really something.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I read in today’s paper [here near the Groton Subase these things are included in the local newspaper], that the Boat’s CO has been canned.

He [Cmdr Kevin Mooney] was formally relieved of command and received a ‘letter of reprimand’ [which will stop all chances of advancement, and likely require that he ‘quietly’ resigns]. Such was the outcome of his Admiral’s Mast.

The article said they had been pulling a Flank-bell [close to 35 knots], “when the sub struck what experts believe was an uncharted mountain topped by a large coral reef … described the area the sub had been moving through as a submerged ‘moving haven’, an underwater passageway thought to be free and clear of obstacles.”

“Several critical navigation and voyage planning procedures were not being implemented aboard San Francisco. By not ensuring these standard procedure were followed, Mooney hazarded his vessel.”

“… officials have decided to temporarily repair it and sail the sub off the island to a nuclear capable shipyard in the US, where a more detailed assessment can be made.”

“The temporary repairs will take about three months and will allow the sub, now resting in a Guam dry dock, to transit the ocean”

They did say in the article that the decision has not been made whether to decommission the boat, or to fully repair her.

:-)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Nice to read some nautical stuff. Thanks for the submarine information Galen. Really interesting. Especially the info about the Soviets using titanium hulls without the capability of expansion and contraction. It also seems so "typically Russian".

I have been a merchant seaman since I was sixteen, and have spent lots of time in drydocks and aboard merchant ships. Whenever we get ex submarine guys aboard, we would always refer to them as "SubMariners, just to rib them of course. But as is always the case, some are good hands, while others are not...

Nice pics fellas, and thanks!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Jonny Lingo:

"Whenever we get ex submarine guys aboard, we would always refer to them as "SubMariners, just to rib them of course. But as is always the case, some are good hands, while others are not..."

Hmm, Submariner / bubblehead / troglodyte / sewer-pipe-sailor

We call each other these things. You meant it as an insult?

Hmm, just keep in mind a sub's fire-control system tracks you as soon as it holds your hull's as a contact. Our databases grow from ever sound a hull ever makes, we know exactly what equipment is running, when your laundry machines are running, how well lubed your engine's bearings are, and sometimes even things about the menu your serving in your galley. Some screws we hear and begin tracking from over 1,000 nm away. Our FC systems track every target and maintain 'solutions' on every target. Torpedeo's brains are automatically updated every second with exactly how to properly introduce itself to it's designated target. When you make fun of that bubblehead serving with you, just keep in mind that his buddys 'see' you.

:-)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

Yeah that sounds about right.

Right before it happened the ocean floor dropped off to deeper depths, so you would 'logically' think that you have more leg room, but no. that dern old lady slaps you in the face, witha sea mount that just was not there the last time anyone came through this area to map things.

:-)

Guys slammed into equipment and panels so hard that they break their legs, papers, books and blood everywhere. But no equipment broke lose. LOL

Milspec on most equipment requires that equipment mounts must withstand 6Gs.

Can you imagine what the messdecks looked like?

It also sounds like they managed to get up to the surface without pulling any huge angles, that is good. When a boat looks like such a total mess, then pulling a 40 degree up angle, really tends to slide things around and make a lot more injuries.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

 Share

×
×
  • Create New...