[Bill Nichols]

Originally Posted by tycho102

That is an amazing article. Thanks for pointing it out, Bill!

I've only read about 2/3's through it, but I have to say that, although it was a horrible disaster, it was also a f*cking amazing feat!

If you're out of torpedos and you need to drop a boat, this is how you do it. And here they hit this boat, out of all the square kilometers in the ocean, without "significant" damange to the sub. That is like trying to shoot a gnat with a rifle from 400 meters. Just incredible. Terrible luck on the humane side, and amazing "luck" on the Silent Hunter 3 side.

If the OOD had waited just ten seconds before ordering the ballast blow, or if the civilians had just been ten seconds late in turning the valves, it would have been a near miss rather than a perfect hit.

The ocean is a big damn place, even 50km off the coast. If you knew exactly what you were doing, I bet you couldn't hit a boat (on a perpendicular course, at that!) during a ballast-blow, at periscope depth, 50% of the time. Even less to do it aft of the sail. And thousands of times less to do it unintentionally. Most of us struggle to hit a boat with a torpedo, on purpose.



This was just a horrible accident, like Apollo 13 or Titanic or being struck by lightning. It's terrible, but amazing. Very interesting to read.

You have an interesting perspective...