Posted on 04/19/2006 8:44:57 AM PDT by inkling
PARIS (AFP) - The French navy made a red-faced admission that it had lost a multi-million dollar sonar navigation device after its cable ripped in stormy waters.
Defence Minister Michele Alliot-Marie confirmed a report in the satirical weekly Le Canard Enchaine, and said an investigation had been launched into how the three-million-euro (3.7-million-dollars) device was mislaid.
"An inquiry is underway to determine whether a technical or a human error is at the origin of this problem," she told reporters.
Le Canard Enchaine reported that the captain of the De Grasse frigate, decided against his lieutenants' advice to try out the 10-tonne sonar in rough seas, during an exercise in the southwestern Gulf of Gascony on March 24.
The top-of-the-range device -- one of the most sophisticated in the world, capable of detecting an enemy submarine at a distance of 150 kilometres (90 miles) -- was part of a 50-million-dollar underwater combat system.
La merde se produit.
Speaking an an old Oceanographer: If you put something over the side at sea, be prepared to loose it.
Actually, sonars don't function too well in rough seas (even when their cable doesn't part) because of the higher level of background acoustic noise from waves crashing, etc. The captain will be retiring very soon....
Why do Ze French have glass-bottomed boats?
So they can see their navy.
Ah, but the strawberries! That's, that's where I had them. They laughed at me and made jokes, but I proved beyond the shadow of a doubt, and with, with geometric logic, that, that a duplicate key to the wardroom icebox did exist. And I would have produced that key if they hadn't pulled the Caine out of action. I, I know now they were only trying to protect some fellow officer.
And so — voila! —Minister of Defense.
Yes, and doesn't the cable just love to enfold them.
Surrender monkeys lose another round in the war games.
Did they use hemp? I hear there is nothing hemp can't do.
Priceless. lol
Can't be any worse that the nookniks at NASA putting the mirrors on backwards on the multi-billion dollar Hubble when it was first launched years ago. Then it took at least a year or better to launch a fix-it shuttle at another multi-billion cost. Yep, dummies appear at all levels of inefficient governments.
Thats Chief Inspector
Probably the propeller from the Charles de Gaulle severed the cable as it sank to the ocean floor.
I wouldn't be too hard on the French for this. The US Navy has had multimillion dollar aircraft roll off elevator platforms when cables weren't correctly used. Ouch.
They didn't put the mirrors on backwards. they ground the lens for the wrong focal length (think down, not up).
LOL!
Sacre Bleu!
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