Quote:
Originally Posted by ETR3(SS)
I had an aunt who would ask me about depth and speed of my boat repeatedly, saying "who was she going to tell, she was just curious, blah blah blah." It got to the point that if she asked me again I was going to report it to the FBI. Unless you're a submariner, you can't possibly understand our mindset and why we'd give you just such a response. Suffice to say that submarines and submarine operations are an intel gold mine for our enemies. I stand with my brothers on this one.
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There's the default physicist answer: use and abuse error bars.
"The submarine can dive 10,451,465 feet, plus or minus 10,451,464 feet. It can go 291,374,959 knots, plus or minus 291,374,958."
Layman's translation: its maximum depth is somewhere between one feet and the radius of Earth while its maximum speed is somewhere between one knot and the speed of light. Technically correct (best kind of correct) and it will satisfy idiotic curiosity with big numbers (someone who is silly enough to repeatedly ask questions to a submariner beyond "what is your name" is unlikely to realize the - lack of - value of the answer).