Sub collision off Holy Loch 40+ years ago?

[em2nought]

Long long ago, I was a midshipman on Von Steuben for one patrol, and later, as a petty officer(yeah direction up the ladder I know lol) I strung lights over submarine screws at Holy Loch so that WE didn't run into them ourselves with LCMs. lol

[Bilge_Rat]

I found the two sub collisions I was thinking of:

1. USS Baton Rouge and B-276, february 11, 1992:

that one seems to have been a pure accident:

At the time of the incident both vessels were equipped with only passive sonars,[13] creating too much ‘noise.' Miasnikov maintains that the submarines of the Los Angeles class are unable to detect acoustic signals from targets located within a cone of 60 degrees astern, thus the most probable scenario was that Kostroma approached Baton Rouge from behind. Indeed the collision took place when the Kostroma was surfacing, hitting the US submarine underneath on her aft section. The Sierra class sonar is also ‘deaf’ to the aft direction; her usual pattern of acoustic search is moving along a loop course. The incident, however, implied that Russian attack submarines are capable of avoiding passive acoustic detection, at least under certain conditions.[7]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Submar..._Kildin_Island


2. USS Grayling and K-107, march 20th, 1993:

This one is more interesting. Grayling was trailing K-107, lost contact and while trying to regain contact ran into her. It seems the Russian sub never knew it was being tailed. K-107 is a Delta IV "boomer" with 16 ICBMs (64-160 nuclear warheads) on board.

Novomoskovsk, commanded by Captain First Rank Andrei Bulgarkov,[11] was performing combat training tasks at a site 105 nautical miles (194 km) north of Murmansk.[12] Having reached the northern border of the designated area, she turned back, making between 16 knots (30 km/h) to 18 knots (33 km/h).[11] Twenty-five minutes later, while submerged at 74 meters,[13] Novomoskovsk felt an impact followed by screeching noises. Immediately afterwards, her sonar reported noises of a foreign submarine close by. Before clearing the area, the Grayling checked that the Russian submarine had not sustained serious damage.[12]

An investigation revealed that Grayling had been tracking Novomoskovsk from a position between 155 and 165 degrees to port and from distances of between 11–13 kilometres (5.9–7.0 nmi). Grayling lost contact with Novomoskovsk when the Russian submarine changed course to 180 degrees. To reacquire the target, Grayling sped to the location of contact loss at 8–15 knots (15–28 km/h).[14]

The breaking waves created in the shallow waters of the Barents Sea generate background signals, so that when two submarines approach one another head-on, each detects the other when the distance between the two vessels is just a couple of hundred meters.[4] Grayling's passive sonar detected Novomoskovsk at a distance of about a kilometer (0.54 nautical mile). With the distance closing and Grayling's Combat Information Center still trying to decide on the best way of avoiding a collision, Grayling's commanding officer, Captain Richard Self, tried to change course and to surface, but the attempts were thwarted by Grayling's momentum. Grayling collided with the upper structure of Novomoskovsk,[14] which suffered a large scratch on her starboard bow.[15] The American submarine limped away also with minor damage

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Submar...Kola_Peninsula


Both collisions occurred in the Barents Sea where sound conditions seem to be fairly poor for tracking on passive sonar.