Posted on 04/12/2015 9:33:46 PM PDT by nickcarraway
This time lapse, shot at Naval Base Point Loma in San Diego, of the Los Angeles class nuclear fast attack sub USS San Francisco entering drydock is pretty awesome. Not only do you get to see how they bring in one these amazing machines for repairs, but you also see some pretty cool ship traffic in the background.
I can see a cruise ship, a Joint High-Speed vessel, some destroyers, a car carrier, the brand new USS America, and a bunch of civilian boats in the video. Not to mention a gaggle of security vessels and a couple of force protection helicopters to attend to all the heavy military gear coming and going from San Diego Bay. Just across the channel in the distance from where this was shot sits the sprawling Naval Air Station North Island and beyond that beautiful Coronado.
San Diego is a great city, I love spending time there, and if you have a thing for military hardware or transportation it is a daily candy store of sights to behold.
The San FranLulu....
That’s the boat that hit an underwater mountain at near flank speed, and lived to tell about it.
The Euros can preach about their sneaky diesels, but I’d like to see one pulverize an underwater mountain like a Los Angeles class.
>> The Euros can preach about their sneaky diesels
“sneaky diesels” gotta breathe... and then they lose their sneak.
The new AIPs breathe a lot less than the older sneaky diesels...
So effective, the Navy rents them out to train the nukes against.
Later
Youch! I’m sure that didn’t buff right out. I assume the bulge just behind all the visible damage is structural damage?
ouch,
That’s gotta hurt.
They cut the front end off the USS Honolulu and used it to replace the damaged front end of the San Francisco. Yes, the whole front end of the Frisco was warped and buckled.
One crewman died, and most everyone else was injured in one form or another.
Wow. Sounds like a pretty terrifying experience based on your description and the pictures. I’m fascinated by subs, but the idea of worst case scenarios sound horrible to a claustrophobic like me.
Amazed to see photos of the spherical phased array sonar. We used to make a part for that system, back in the 80’s. We weren’t supposed to know what it was.
Thanks for the info re: USS Honolulu. I know the ship well. The degree of damage can’t be determined solely by the photo at FR. Some of the bulge may be just the acoustic tiles that you see on the hull. The adhesive bond between the tiles and the hull may have been broken, allowing those tiles to scrunch back, like the paper envelope of a soda straw when you slide it off the straw. The engineers involved in the repair would have found the internal extent of the damage, and then defined the cut lines for the hull, piping systems, and electrical/combat systems, which would not all have been at the same longitudinal point in the hull.
Cause for an instant change in “captain” aboard that sub.
The Navy has some experience on this score...
The deductible must have been really high before the insurance kicked in for that repair.
Yup. Ship COs usually only get one collision or grounding. Halsey and Kennedy got second chances - One did well, the other got his PT-boat cut in half.
Tell me about JFK’s pre-PT109 grounding. I don’t think I’ve heard of that before.
The pre-PT 109 event occurred on the East Coast, and may have been when he was still officially in training. It’s hard to find details on the grounding.
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