That's a big twinkie of a torpedo
Posted on 05/22/2005 2:27:06 PM PDT by demlosers
A FORMER British military official has backed a sensational claim that the Russian nuclear submarine, the Kursk, was torpedoed by US forces in August 2000.
An official inquest concluded that the disaster – in which all 118 crew drowned in the Barents Sea, 135km off the Russian coast – was caused by an accidental explosion of an onboard torpedo.
But Maurice Stradling, a former torpedo engineer and a key figure in the original investigation, believes a new French documentary, The Kursk: A Submarine in Troubled Waters, should change world opinion on the sinking.
"On the balance of probabilities, the Kursk was sunk by an American MK-48 torpedo," said Mr Stradling, formerly a senior member of the British Defence Ministry.
BBC editor Nick Fraser called the claim a "pack of lies" and has refused to air the documentary, which attracted a record audience of more than 4 million when it screened on French TV.
he BBC used Mr Stradling as its main authority for a documentary it made in 2001 – What Sank the Kursk?, in which Mr Stradling theorised that the sinking was caused by the malfunctioning of an old-fashioned HTP torpedo.
Mr Stradling, who also appears in the new French documentary, said: "At the time (2001), that was a perfectly reasonable film, given the facts as we knew them then, when there seemed to be no third-party involvement,"
The new explanation for the Kursk's downing is based on film footage of a hole in the side of the vessel, and evidence placing US submarines in the area at the time it was sunk.
The French film shows stills of the Kursk raised above the water after being salvaged, with a precise circular hole in its right side. The hole clearly bends inwards, consistent with an attack from outside the submarine.
A US military source in the documentary declares the hole to be the trademark evidence of an American MK-48 torpedo, which is made to melt cleanly through steel sheet due to a mechanism at its tip that combusts copper.
The film suggests the attack happened while two US submarines, the Toledo and Memphis, were shadowing the Kursk in a routine military exercise.
The documentary says the Toledo accidentally collided with the Kursk, at which point the Russian submarine opened its torpedo tubes, leading to an attack from the Memphis, which was protecting the damaged Toledo while it retreated.
The cause of the sinking was covered up at the time in an act of diplomacy between then US presidents Bill Clinton and Russian President Vladimir Putin – a deal that included the cancellation of $US10 billion ($12.5 billion) of Russian debt, the film states.
After the documentary received its only public broadcast in Britain, some claimed the Russian navy had drilled the hole and fed doctored footage to the film-makers to create a false impression.
Is this the guy who believes we never landed on the moon and Bill Clinton didn't rape Juanita Broaddrick?
The true story:)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1284127/posts?page=40#40
Clearly an explosion belw the ship.
Thats a surfaced launched MK46 torpedo, not a submarine launched MK48.
LOL!!! Priceless!
That's a big twinkie of a torpedo
and I know some people in lower ranks who would ... I mean there are too many people involved to keep it quiet ....
Let's say we did sink it, SO WHAT!
IF they get so close to us that we get nervous or either side bumps another, someone is going to pull a trigger and I say better then than us.
So if it was internal, again - so what. what's done is done, it's over and that's that.
Think of it like this, they just released this information? imagine when they release the UFO data or we get a visit one day and they fess up to having captured alien craft - imagine that uproar. Even better, imagine what would happen if the JFK files was opened and we knew the truth about who and what.
Every day we engage, there is a air to air incident on a daily basis and from time to time we get on the edge of downing a plane. This stuff happens so I can't see what the big dead is.
well neither do I - I'm not sure why you and that other person is so upset at me for just stating that people will talk for money ... as for the JFK thing, I'm still waiting for the book titled "How We Did It" ... I'm still not convinced that Oswald acted alone ... too many things that just don't add up ....
Sure and a few hundred American sailors will never say what happened. Give me a break.
It could also be post-disaster, i.e. from the salvage operation to get her back to the surface. Anyhow, it seems to me that any entry hole would be obliterated in the subsequent explosion and that the damage would be somewhat symmetrical to the impact location. Judging from your picture, it looks as if all the major damage is forward of the hole.
Also, I don't see the Russians giving us a pass regardless of how much debt we forgave. The bad PR for us would have been too tempting.
Great catch on the Brit 'abrasive water jet' site - I was able to steal it and repost over on a submariner's web site that is discussing the same story.
Demlosers might give you a break, but I sure won't! There's a reason submariners call ourselves 'The Silent Service' - we're expected (and have sworn) to keep our mouths shut, both with respect to the capabilities of our boats and about what we do with them. 99.99% take that oath quite seriously.
By my estimates, 10's of thousands of sailors have passed through the submarine service since the beginning of the cold war. There were many many gnarly events and missions over those decades, and the general public will never know any of the details because of the oath we honor.
Look up the history of any attack submarine on the net; if you believe the official navy version, none of them ever did anything more exceptional than make 'training cruises' and participate in 'fleet exercises'.
Uh huh. Sure.
I'm not saying there has never been a leak about a submarine 'event'; I'm just pinging on you for your cavalier assumption that the crews of a couple of boats wouldn't be able to keep a secret. That said, the original story that started this thread is so bogus in so many ways (many pointed out by fellow Freepers) that it's obvious that for the Kursk incident there's no 'US submarine' secret that needs to be kept.
Great! I hope FR gets full credit for nailing another bogus anti-US story!!
Hey I hope you're right! But it isn't the same Navy it was 20 or 30 years ago. Just look at the recent event involving the sub that crashed into the undersea mountain. The former Commander was on the Discovery Channel singing like a bird as were many of his shipmates. The Navy even released undersea charts, the media was all over it.
I concur. Those are MK46's. I once sat on a retriever boat for a week listening to half a dozen of those things pinging like mad after we picked them up. Very irritating.
Another anti-American lie fest torpedoed in just 36 posts. This has got to be a new record.
Make sure you post the story and picture links here. A sub tender going down should make some wild pictures.
You've been reading too many Tom Clancy novels. Russian and American subs routinely open their torpedo tube doors. It is not an open invitation to being destroyed.
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