Oh, what could you possibly know about submarines.... oh, what's that, diving officer you say... and on the San Francisco itself?
OK, maybe I'll grant that you might know just a touch more about it than someone who's claim to knowledge about submarines comes from old movies.... but only by a little bit! ;^>
Seriously, I agree that "hyper accurate survey maps" (there's one of my sources, "Hunt for Red October") is something for long term survey, likely by ships. However, I think that some of the radar mapping stuff that was proved out on the Shuttle should be able to spot something like a new sea mount in a region that is supposed to be open ocean with 6,000 foot depth. I mean, you don't have to have more than something like 100 meter resolution to get that.
We ought to be able to launch a program to put a radar satellite in orbit in short order, from off the shelf parts, to do that kind of gross survey of all of the oceans and have the survey completed relatively quickly. I think the main reason we haven't done it is international politics. The high res satellite based radars can easily do things like pick out buried missle silos and sensitive bunkers. After all, that was apparently the acknowledged intent of the first such Shuttle mission, the one where they picked out the buried river beds in the Sahara, to tell the Soviets that "we see you," that if we can pick that out we can pick out where they hide their missles.
Well, if we can open up the data and demonstrate that it's relatively low resolution I bet we can convince lots of folks that it's a good idea. Give the UN huggers free and unfettered access to the data stream. It won't show anybody anything we don't want them to see (unless we've got a secret underwater city somewhere we need to hide) and it might just turn up some interesting things.
(P.S. my son's an Aggie with 18 months left and has signed his contract for the Marines - so I guess he'll be butting heads with squids, particularly bubble heads, unless he gets stationed on one of the retasked Ohios, that is)
Great initial syory based on the info at hand. The two drydock fotos released by the Navy are extremely instructional tho. In a former life I used to build/rebuild/repair these things and there is reason in the pics to wonder about the Navy's story version.
Who believes that the entire seafloor has not been mapped to the last square yard at least 500 miles out and for 360 degrees around Guam? For half a century, since the days of Ed Beach and Dudly Morton the boats have been turning in their completed Nav charts and the info , including depth soundings, has been incorporated into the maps. Guam has been a subhub nearly forever and the navy's claim there is something new out there is not credible.
Besides the ships'voyage charts other agencies have been seismically, satelitely, sonically, and by direct survey mapping the oceans for the same half a century (no spellcheck please.) The Woods Hole guys keep track of new islands forming as in the new island forming in east Hawaii.
Vertical cliffs probably don't really exist deep underwater---erosion, etc. "The Abyss"was fiction. But just look at the actual damage! I don't see any rocks, coral, mud, or fish in the hi-res pics(2.5MB) and ships that hit bottom always bring home pieces of what they hit. True in had a "slow wash" coming home but it all never comes off.
The cupped hull plates on the ballast tank look more like depth charge damage than collision. The entire nose cone is GONE! Repeat GONE! The roundy shape under the tarp is the sonar sphere---the only piece in the bow that might be classified info so that the ship is now about six feet shorter than design. Note also the bolting ring, sort of yellowish, just forward of the cat walk. The port side UPPER Quarter of the ring is missing. This ring mounts the nose cone. The only reasonable way that could have been jerked loose is if the ship tried to drive into a cave or at least drive under a severe overhang which might explain why the ship intially was slow to rise.
The damage that I see could have as easily been from bows-on ship-to-ship as ship-to-rock reminiscent of the Russian "crazy Ivan" maneuvre. Is someone else missing a sub? The only reason we've heard about this is that a sailor died---the Navy just doesn't normally talk about ship dings.
And try the math: They said the ship took 30 hours to get home at 8 knots === 240 miles. But they say the "magic mountain" is either 350 or 400 miles out. That's a large error! Someone else will hit the same mountain before the Navy finds it again.
Bottom line is I'm just not buying the story about our billion dollar, newly refueled, sub heading south one sunny day for a winter cruise, being quiet for 400 miles, then cranking it up to "nine"and steep diving into a rock. On its face if the Navy's story is true then the Captain, his helpers, and all his bosses ought to be in a safe padded cell. Give me a call if you do and want to buy some really special real estate. thanx for humoring me, RS