Warspite collision

[Linton]

I dont't know if any of you saw this:
http://www.nwemail.co.uk/news/viewar...9&imageindex=1
Warspite had a collision which did a lot of damage.Can any of you with information on what she hit(russian submarine) please tell me?

[Linton]

Come on somebody must know something about a collision between an RN SSn and a Russian boat!
http://www.nwemail.co.uk/news/viewar...9&imageindex=1
It would appear that various members of the crew are coming out of the woodwork!

[Drebbel]

Originally Posted by Linton

Come on somebody must know something about a collision between an RN SSn and a Russian boat!

Yes, Colin Paton does !

[Linton]

Drebbel ,thank you for your useful,entertaining and witty post.If I wasn't wearing a corset my sides would surely have split!This is obviously how you amuse yourself in the land of the tulip when you are not moderating!
You didn't look at the other link that gives the story of another crew member!I would like to hear from anybody who has knowledge of the russian side of this incident,unless it was a giant ocean-going clog they hit!!
Drebbel I think that your humour warrants the deduction of at least 6000 posts from your total!

[Kapitan]

Theory:

I think the only reason this whole incident is so covered up is because warspite was carrying nuclear tiped torpedos, plus the echo she crashed into most likely K40 (dont know yet) was also carrying nuclear tipped cruise missiles (normaly they carried only conventional).

[Linton]

Finally some common sense and informative posting rather than sarcasm.Kapitain what was the damage to the russian boat?

[Drebbel]

Yep, sometimes I feel witty. Sometimes it is appreciated and sometimes not.

I just missed your point probably because I found it somewhat strange to ask for inside info about something that secret overhere, because even most crew members kept their mouth shut, and the government does the same. But you are right, maybe someone hear did hear a rumour from the Russian side, did not think of yet.

humour warrants the deduction of at least 6000 posts from your total!

That is totally ok with me. I never understood the reason for coounting the number of posts. Is like counting the number of conversations one makes in real life, totally useless imho :-) So feel free to ask Neal to add them to your balance.

Drebbel

PS: This collision news was also posted at the SubSim frontpage several days ago, Seems too few people read that page :-(

[Kapitan]

Few scrapes and dents, id highly doubt anything major seeing as most echo captains never took thier boats past 10 knots because they were so loud.

Head on probably looking and a middle of the road crumple probably a tube or two sonar tips (the bits on front of boat) made useless, some damage to the sail maybe.

Hit the hull definate dent but not enough to pierce the presure hull (theres a huge gap i can stand inside them!) i suppose a loss in ballast control making the submarine list to one side a fraction, but not enough to make the submarine unable to dive.

Should collission occur the submarine would have gone straight back to port or failing that a port of friendly oragin, full inquest help with out come that captain might have been dissmissed.

Reactor damage id strongly doubt it, especialy as these submarines and all russian submarines have shock absorbers on them.

[Linton]

Drebbel ,well I suppose this is still meant to be secret but there have now been two articles about this in an english regional newspaper.The paper happens to be the one that covers Barrow,where RN submarines are constructed!
Kap,if you can find out for definite what boat it was and any other detail I would appreciate it.The damage to Warspite was mainly to the fin but it took a lot of rebuilding!
Kap,I was googling and found this:
http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/nucl...251h-ussr.html
It shows K40 as an Hotel submarine.

[Linton]

A listing of cold war submarine colissions can be found here:
http://everything2.com/?node_id=944314
Note the one in the list in 1968,I think this is the Warspite incident.

[Kapitan]

Most possibly is but warspite is a nuclear boat, so it be doubtful they would head for norway should anything like that happen.

[Drebbel]

Originally Posted by Kapitan

Most possibly is but warspite is a nuclear boat, so it be doubtful they would head for norway should anything like that happen.

Right, she went to Lerwick

............Warspite barely made it back to the international harbour of Lerwick in the Shetland Islands, under the escort of an American fighter plane. Warspite suffered serious damage to her central fin, which the Russian submarine had basically ploughed through the centre of. In order to deny the Russians a chance to see the damage caused to Warspite's central fin, a Royal Naval repair team were sent out by helicopter to join the submarine at Lerwick, and overnight they hastily constructed a wooden scaffold over the damaged central fin, over which they secured a large black tarpaulin, making it seem to any passing Russian spotter plane that no damage had actually been caused to one of the few nuclear submarines Britain possessed at that time. The Warspite then made its way back to Faslane on the Clyde............

[Kapitan]

Not bad for an educated guess!

[Linton]

Kap,have you had chance to ask any of your friends about this incident yet?Do you know when they started crazy ivans?Was this one or was the RN skipper getting too ambitious?

[Kapitan]

So far nothing you see accidents like these have a tendancy to be forgotten and dissmessed so dont count to much on anything, my personal view would be this:

Warspite captain wanted to get in close to moniter and track the soviet submarine, however warspite became very ambitious and lost the contact for a few hours, in which time the warspite franticaly searched for it again only to collide with it.

(he must have been doing a fair rate of knots to make such damage)