[Prof]

Originally Posted by Stealth Hunter

The Hood sank in waters not nearly 45,000 feet deep (45,000 comes from a tiny crack that continues to run downwards inside the trench bottom; nobody is sure where it stops). We're talking the deepest point on Earth here, not a couple of miles (like 2 or 3). The Trench is over 9 miles down. At the bottom, the water column above exerts a pressure of 108.6 MPa, over one thousand times the standard atmospheric pressure at sea level.

The deepest point on Earth is thought to be Challenger Deep in the Marianas Trench, which is just short of 36,000 ft deep. That point is a good 500 miles from where the Indianapolis went down. The best information I can find says that the Indianapolis went down in water no more than 20,000 ft deep. That's certainly deeper than Titanic, Bismarck or Hood but it's roughly the same depth as some wreckage of the Kaga which was found recently.

That's 8 tons PER SQUARE INCH, more than enough to cause a sinking battleship to implode, let alone destroy munitions inside.

Only unflooded, sealed areas would implode. Ships sink because they're full of water, so generally there aren't many areas left which could implode.

The speed that the Indianapolis would have gained during her fall probably would be what would set off the munitions inside. Assuming it wasn't smashed to pieces upon hitting the bottom like a wooden dollhouse falling off a 50-story building, then it's highly unlikely that anything survived the explosions of bombs and shells.

I have no numbers to back this up, but I would think that a sinking ship reaches terminal velocity quite quickly. There are many examples of virtually intact wrecks which have fallen nearly as deep at the Indianapolis would be, so I don't imagine this would be a problem.

Edit: Another consideration regarding the leakage of oil from the Arizona is that, at present, the leak is relatively small and the oil dissipates without any problem. If the Navy attempted to remove the oil and it went wrong, there is the posibility that a large quantity of oil could be released in one go, which would be bad!