SUBSIM Radio Room Forums - Next time your hovering above crush depth

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Next time your hovering above crush depth

Next time your hovering above crush depth, think about this.
http://www.fleetsubmarine.com/phorum...&t=20#reply_20

great info, will keep it in mind, Skip..:salute:

eww. :nope:

Very glad that, for me, it is only a game.

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In older boats, where the pressure hull might fail at a much shallower depth, you could get large breaches that would allow water to pour in and drown everyone, but not fast enough to implode the hull. Going by the results of tests, most American submarine losses during Japanese depth charge attacks probably resulted from the failure of hull fittings that allowed the sea to get in, rather than from the hull being crushed in. Hull fittings, in this case, might include things like torpedo tubes.

There were reports of underwater explosions of German U-boats during the war. At the time it was presumed that ordnance was somehow going off, but in retrospect it appears likely these boats, which were strong enough to hold together as deep as 900 feet (and survive), were probably imploding at extreme depth.

From reading this, it would seem to have been much much worse in an American sub to die at crush depth, than in a U-boat.:o

Especially since crush depth is the depth at which the hull crushes (of course) and, given that every construction is a one-off operation, it can only ever be calculated. You know you've reached crush depth when the hull crushes.

That's why I like the 'Randomized Crush Depth" mods. They're usually accurate to within a couple of hundred feet.:D

Quote:

Originally Posted by Admiral8Q (Post 1358688)

From reading this, it would seem to have been much much worse in an American sub to die at crush depth, than in a U-boat.:o

Those posts are quite old and are before there were wrecks found. The first US WWII sub wreck to be found was in May 2005, since then quite a few have been found (due in part to side scan sonar). The wreck of the USS Gudgeon which sank deep (one mile down) shows clear signs of the hull crushing, rather than flooding. If you start sinking in deep water, the hull will probably crush, unless the sub floods and equalises sea pressure before you reach the point at which the hull will fail, which would take some fast flooding.

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Originally Posted by Nisgeis (Post 1361135)

That would be a more humane way to go, rather than suffocation or drowning. 1 mile down is 5280 feet! :o I wonder what depth she "crushed" at?

Perhaps a pressure hull damaged sub would breach and drown more often than one who's pressure hull is still intact. :hmmm:

As bad as that is, i think i would prefer it to what may have happened to the 1st Sub we lost in WWII...

"Post-war, Japanese records showed numerous attacks on unidentified submarines in Shark's area at plausible times. At 01:37 on 11 February, for example, the Japanese destroyer Yamakazi opened fire with her 5 in (130 mm) guns and sank a surfaced submarine. Voices were heard in the water, but no attempt was made to rescue possible survivors."

Shells bouncing around inside the boat and then left for the Sharks. Ironic fate for the crew of the USS Shark. I'd rather it be fast and over quickly by deep water crushing, one way or another it won't take long.

The Silent Service was filled with gruesome ways to die, but still many volunteered, It says alot about the people of the time. :salute:

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Originally Posted by WarlordATF (Post 1361717)

The Silent Service was filled with gruesome ways to die, but still many volunteered, It says alot about the people of the time. :salute:

It still is. And it says a lot about all of those that continued to volunteer for sub duty to this day.

Always ready to blow the ballast tanks!

We had a big screwup one time. I can't remember the circumstances, but I believe we were running a Scram drill (emergency reactor shutdown) when something got screwed up with depth control and we took a steep up-angle. Except instead of going up, we started sliding backward into the depths since we had no propulsion. I was the Throttleman, and my buddy Alec was the Reactor Operator. He was starting up the reactor as fast as it would go, and I was waiting for it so I could start putting steam to the main engines and get the boat moving forward again. I remember looking at the digital depth gauge and watching the number go up way faster than I was comfortable with. It was horrible standing there with 35,000 horsepower in my hands but couldn't use any of it while we sunk deeper and deeper. Finally, Alec yelled the words everyone was waiting to hear: "The reactor is at the point of adding heat!" (the power level at which you can safely start to use steam). I don't think he even had half the sentence out when I started whipping the throttles open. After what seemed like hours (probably 30 seconds on a clock) the boat shuddered and we started moving forward again.

We never got anywhere near crush depth, and we still had our last leg... the Emergency Main Ballast Tank Blow system ready to shoot us up to the surface if we needed it, but I didn't like being one component failure away from death.

Strangely enough, it was always somewhat comforting to know that a major catastrophe like that would have been nearly instantaneous. I like the way it's described in the thread:

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You would simply and instantly go from being alive and wondering when it was going to happen to being dead and not knowing it had.

I couldn't have put it better myself.

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Originally Posted by jerm138 (Post 1364838)

Now that's some serious A-hole puckerage!