How to nuke a submarine

https://medium.com/war-is-boring/how-to-nuke-a-submarine-2f0bd50f39e

by vinnyglennon • 12 years ago

95 69 12 years ago

In keeping with the operation’s naming theme, the testers nicknamed the instrument subs for Native American women, using terms that aren’t very polite. We’ll refer to them as “tubs.”

Lets not redact history for modern sensibilities, history is dirty and does not conform to our wishes, they were called "Squaws", now continue reading the article.

The bang might have deafened every whale in the Pacific.

Now that is an interesting, and quite scary thought, talk about possible unforeseen consequences. What would have happened if sealife were to be deafened.

There is a short video of the test on wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Wigwam

rdl• 12 years ago

I actually didn't know that term was offensive before reading this article.

GauntletWizard• 12 years ago

See comments above you; It's not, unless you're hypersensitive.

Jun8• 12 years ago

As often said, I came to make a similar comment. The "history is dirty" part may not be totally correct, though: the controversy over squaw may be due to modern hypersensitivity. It is widely believed that this term is used to refer to female sexual parts, this simply is not true, e.g. see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squaw#Claims_of_obscene_meaning or http://www.nativeweb.org/pages/legal/squaw.html.

rurounijones5• 12 years ago

I actually meant dirty in the sense of "It is not clean and clear-cut" but that was interesting information.

hackuser5• 12 years ago

Lets not redact history for modern sensibilities, history is dirty and does not conform to our wishes, they were called ..., now continue reading the article.

Like many similar statements, the real message of rurounijones' comment is about aggressiveness. By intentionally behaving badly (being offensive, smug, etc.) they hope to intimidate others who would disagree but don't want a fight, or to be modded down. It adds nothing to the discussion and does not belong on HN.

Some situations in life can be complicated, but in this case it's simple to treat people with respect; the author did it and we should too.

rurounijones5• 12 years ago

History is history, it is written fact (usually), if someone is going to write about historical record, like in this article, then they should report it accurately rather than through a "Modern sensibilty" filter.

Feel free to clarify: For example "they were unfortunately called 'squaws' which is an offensive term" or something like that.

(A) educates (and means I don't have to go to wikipedia to find the missing information) and

(B) educates about why it might be better not to use this word (I certainly didn't know it is considered offensive by some)

instead of treating us like children.

When old episodes of Tom and Jerry were released on DVD featuring a "stereotypical" black housewife they did not cut them or alter them. They simply put a message before the episodes explaining that they are not appropriate nowadays but the environment they were created in is not the same as it is today.

Fun fact: When the Dambusters blew the Moehne Dam in WWII they transmitted "Nigger Nigger Nigger" on the radio to signal success.

* Did they do it because they were racists? No (Name of the squadron mascot dog).

* Would I recommend using this word in military operations now? Hell no.

* Would I expect an article about the raid to change or omit the word? No.

* Is the use of the dog's name causing controversy? Unfortunately yes.

ryan_j_naughton• 12 years ago

Here is a better video from youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ku7R1TSBfjI

blueskin_2• 12 years ago

Thanks for this. Redacting history for political correctness purposes is essentially Orwellian, no matter the intention.

grecy• 12 years ago

If you enjoyed this story, I recommend the documentary "Nuclear Dynamite" - detailing a time when the world thought nukes would be very handy to use as construction devices - i.e for excavating canals, building artificial lakes, etc.

At one point, they were planning to "dig" the Panama Canal using nukes...

It looks like you can find it in 5 parts on Youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMENC-qwkM8

toomuchtodo• 12 years ago

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Plowshare

peter_l_downs• 12 years ago

Pretty interesting article. Interestingly, they never discussed: how would you find a submarine to bomb in the first place? There's a great book called "Blackett's War" [0] that discusses how Patrick Blackett [1], an experimental physicist, helped the allies win WWII in a variety of ways, most notably by answering that question using statistics to better inform aerial bombardment of German U-boats. Blackett is the father of what is now known as "operations research" [2]. The book is absolutely worth reading if you have the time.

[0] http://www.amazon.com/Blacketts-War-Defeated-U-boats-Brought...

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Blackett,_Baron_Blacket...

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operations_research

jpolitz• 12 years ago

Reminds me of an Asimov story:

“But if they have thermonuclear power, where do they conduct the tests and detonations?”

“On their own planet, sir.”

http://supernovacondensate.net/2012/06/23/isaac-asimov-silly...

gizmo6863• 12 years ago

Why is conducting thermonuclear tests tests on our own planet so dangerous. The physics is simple enough that we can have a good enough idea of how large an explosion it will be. The explosion is small enough that it can be safely conducted over a large uninhabited region (such as the ocean). It does not cause a runaway chain reaction that would spark fusion in all of our atmospheric or oceanic hydrogen.

The only civilization level danger of thermonuclear is that if it becomes weaponized, mass produced, and used as a weapon. However, in this case, it does not matter where we conduct the tests.

lobster_johnson• 12 years ago

Nuclear and thermonuclear tests have left areas of land radioactive and uninhabitable. Trinity and the many later tests blew radioactive dust across the U.S., and there is no reason to believe that this did not have any health effect on the population [1]. The Bikini Atoll and nearby islands were evacuated with the promise that the population could return, and are still uninhabitable to this day [2]. There are probably other examples.

[1] http://online.wsj.com/articles/decades-after-nuclear-test-u-...

[2] http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_testing_at_Bikini_Ato...

ZanyProgrammer• 12 years ago

Nuclear-tipped torpedos were commonly used for ASW during the Cold War. In fact, I think the P-3s that flew out of Moffett Field on ASW patrols almost certainly carried nuclear warheads. I imagine Steve Jobs tripping on acid in the orchards of Santa Clara County, with nuclear armed P-3s going off on patrol overhead.

The_Fox• 12 years ago

Sailors and scientists needed to know the range and lethality of underwater nuclear explosions. Would they harm the crews, ships and planes delivering the weapons?

This reminded me of the Mark 45 nuclear torpedo exhibit at the USS Bowfin mueseum at Pearl Harbor. The targeting procedure was for the torpedo to be "aimed in the general direction and to the far side of the target, in order to place as much distance as possible between the submarine and the nuclear explosion." Yikes. See http://svsm.org/gallery/mk45/IMGP6756

danjayh• 12 years ago

Yikes indeed. I have to wonder if the sailors aboard the victory ships closest to the blast in the linked article knew the level of danger they were in. Absolutely terrifying.

brownbat• 12 years ago

Meanwhile, the British had a fascinating series of anti-submarine weapons.

The problem with depth charges dropped off the stern was that you had to pass over the target before firing, telegraphing your shot, losing sonar contact and firing nearly blind.

The British came up with the "Hedgehog" system to fire mortars forward. It was also a shotgun approach, firing several at a time in a spread, those that hit exploding on contact (rather than by depth).

Hedgehog "destroy[ed] the target in about 20 percent of attacks in the Atlantic (versus 6 percent of depth charge attacks in the same theater.)"[1] There were few reloads, though, and sometimes the smaller charges failed to sink the target.

Then someone realized that if you set off explosions on opposite sides of a sub, you create a pressure wave that just collapses the target like an empty can of soda. That's how "Squid" worked. Its charges also sank about twice as fast as the hedgehogs, speeding up resolution. There was a single and a double squid system, the double system brought the success rate up to around 40 percent.[2]

Loading and firing munitions can be difficult in a storm or a battle. So the natural improvement in "Limbo" was to automate all that, with sonar officers pointing the system to a target and pulling the trigger.[3] There's some stock footage of Limbo out there.[4]

[1] http://pwencycl.kgbudge.com/H/e/Hedgehog.htm

[2] http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WAMBR_ASW.htm

[3] The Squid and the Limbo automatically corrected for pitch and roll, but the Limbo ensured that the munitions would enter the water at the same angle, which simplified the detonation timing. The Limbo system was in use up to the 1990s.

[4] http://www.criticalpast.com/video/65675054412_NATO-Operation...

blueskin_2• 12 years ago

Read about Hedgehog before (and IIRC, the russians copied it but it might not have worked or reached active service), but not Squid. Very interesting.

imaginenore• 12 years ago

30 kilotons is tiny.

Both US and USSR tested hydrogen bombs in the 48-50 megaton range.

arethuza• 12 years ago

The largest US test was Castle Bravo at 15Mt and that was far more than the expected yield of ~6Mt (which caused a lot of problems):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_Bravo

The Soviets did test a 50Mt version of a 100Mt design - the "Tsar Bomb":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsar_Bomba

The US did have a 25Mt weapon which was a real "3 stage" design (i.e. primary/secondary/tertiary - presumably both the secondary and tertiary being fusion/fission).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B41_nuclear_bomb

The USSR had SS-18s with very large warheads (20-25Mt) - presumably to hit deep bunkers (Cheyenne Mountain, Raven Rock Mountain etc.).

DCoder• 12 years ago

Meanwhile, in Soviet Russia... http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/nuclear/radevents/1954USSR1.... - "can we nuke an area and then send troops into it?"

waps• 12 years ago

Thanks for pointing this out. So the US is not, in fact, the only nation to have fired nuclear weapons at people. The USSR did it too, except it fired it at it's own people and soldiers.

nisa• 12 years ago

The US did something similar through: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desert_Rock_exercises

dredmorbius• 12 years ago

The US did this as well: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWSMoE3A5DI

British exposed military to a hydrogen bomb test on Christmas Island, Grapple-X

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhnjbkDotYI

GigabyteCoin• 12 years ago

Surplus real subs weren’t cheap enough or pristine enough to use as instrumented targets, so the Long Beach Naval Shipyard built three identical 4/5-scale sub hulls to hold instruments while submerged.

This seems incredibly scant by today's U.S. Military standards.

Why not build the sub hulls exactly to scale?

Hell, why not build real submarines to perform the test on?

bronson• 12 years ago

You say surplus subs weren't cheap enough but you think new subs would be?

diltonm• 12 years ago

Interesting read. I'd say one thing, bring back diesel boats, the Rickover experiments proved only how noisy and expensive submarines can be. Good men (or women if fully manned male/female - no mixing, it will not work), great batteries and ... Stirling Engines. I'd put to sea today with that, no more nukes. All of that to mean, you can't sink what you can't find.

rotten• 12 years ago

You don't need to find them if you are using nuclear depth charges. You just need to know they are "in the area". The old "close enough for horseshoes and grenades" adage applies - although even less precision is required.

VLM• 12 years ago

I got an alternative interpretation by reading it in minutes and torpedo ranges.

All the real specs are classified but the pessimistic public stats indicate a nuclear sub can be out of destruction range within five or so minutes, assuming your detection is perfect to the foot.

Also the destruction distance makes it a nearly perfect ASW weapon against WWII submarines equipped with WWII torpedoes, because the range of an old Mk18 is a mile or so, so if a WWII submarine came thru a time warp and got in close enough to attack a modern carrier, the destroyer screen could pretty much one-shot the sub without serious damage to itself.

The problem comes from modern torps and modern subs. So a nuke running at 20 kts fires a Mk 48 at comfortable-ish 10 miles (eh, maybe half its unofficial range). First of all being 10 miles away you can't just drop the depth charge and expect it to destroy a sub 5 times further away than the official limit. Secondly, at 20 knots for the nuke sub and 20 knots for the ASW destroyer, that 10 miles is 30 minutes to get over the launch position for a destroyer at which time the sub is 10 miles away in a random direction, far out of range. Third even if a destroyer or ASW plane is overhead and drops the charge on a sub, from the testing they detonated at 2500 feet down, and that half mile is going to take awhile. Not that long, but awhile. Meanwhile the sub floors it and at (classified) top speed its going to take well under 2 minutes to get out of the destruction zone.

Its not exactly fish the barrel if you try to wargame it out. The TLDR is drawing a one mile radius circle of destruction isn't necessarily effective if your target takes substantially less than 3 minutes to go one mile.

1qaz2wsx3edc• 12 years ago

OT: I honestly pictured a subway sandwich in a microwave when saw the title.

Aoyagi• 12 years ago

Well, too bad it's all in imperial units.

Otherwise a nice read, although I'm not sure if the conclusion means "modern subs" at the time or modern subs today. (I'm assuming the two are different)

excpt• 12 years ago

For further information about the atmospheric test years topic I'd recommend the movie 'Trinity and Beyond' (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqaq59whOa0). It's build upon declassified military material. Years: 1945 to 1963, Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.

Finding good and solid information about the russian test program is very hard. There's no "complete" documentation about the whole programm. Most documentaries focus on the ~50MT device the USSR built and detonated.

gadders• 12 years ago

Well, today I learned that "squaw" is now considered offensive, but apparently incorrectly.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squaw#Claims_of_obscene_meaning

jedc• 12 years ago

Former US Navy submarine officer here. First, this article clearly shows how nuts the US military was acting in the height of the cold war. Just... wow.

On a more practical note, when I was on board my boat I read some of the studies/papers/results that were done quite a few years ago now where the Navy exploded torpedos at increasing ranges to a relatively modern nuclear-powered submarine. From what I remember, the point was to better understand both failure modes of equipment as well as unexpected interactions between systems as potentially unexpected failures occurred. I don't remember the details (and couldn't share them if I did) but was really glad a) that the Navy had done this testing, and b) that I hadn't been on board when it had happened!

How to nuke a submarine

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