S. Korea: Cheonan's Bow Salvaged(many photos)

Yonhap News ^ | 04/24/10

[TigerLikesRooster]

S. Korea: Cheonan's Bow Salvaged

[DTogo]

Great post, that’s one heck of a crane ship!

[UCANSEE2]

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[Jet Jaguar]

Thank you for the ping.

[Dr. Bogus Pachysandra]

I believe they brought the stern up a few days ago.

“The front fell off!”

[TXnMA]

My compliments to the South Koreans: that was a very skillful and professional recovery job.

As I wrote earlier, (based on review of the Pohang class, and on stern section damage alone) the blast was placed (fore-aft) beneath the stack, possibly toward its forward end. And it was almost centered under the keel.

It's particularly useful that they recovered and photographed the stack section. I'll try piecing together a composite photo to see what that shows. If anything illuminating is revealed, I'll share it here......

My guess is that even the largest carrier would have difficulty surviving an explosion of that magnitude and placement.

~~~~~~~~

I hope the missing sailors' remains were all recovered.

[TXnMA]

Revision: Aft end of the stack....

[GeronL]

This was no boiler explosion then. right?

The explosion happened under the ship if you are correct.

[BIGLOOK]

Captain Cook's assessment sounds good. The explosion was near midships and engineering.....everything above is most likely secondary damage caused by an exploding power plant.

Too bad there isn't a clear photo of the hull below the waterline or any of the internal areas showing the cascade effect of the explosion.

I'll leave damage assessment to resident engineers and targeting to our resident Bubbleheads.

Meanwhile I'm going to check on the type of power plant on that ship.

[TXnMA]

External explosion -- well-placed for maximum damage to a ship of this class...

Torpedo or directly placed contact charge... Getting that precise placement with a static mine is highly unlikely (more like pure, rotten luck...).

This was a controlled and deliberate attack.

[BIGLOOK]

The propulsion unit was a gas/diesel engine.....which explains the raging fires.

[RushIsMyTeddyBear]

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[Robert A Cook PE]

Fiberglass?

Sure. All of today’s plastic “turrets” (good enough for spray and water protection) are “not armored” against anything but the environment.

Don’t get fooled by “Well, it’s just a Korean (small) corvette - “our” USN ships are really tough.”

USS Cole was destroyed - put completely out of action by a smaller bomb exploded against its side carried by a outboard-motor fishing boat.

An underwater mine blew a USS destroyer nearly in half i the Gulf - They had to carry it back on a submersible freighter or it would have broken in two Mid-Atlantic.

Since WWII, NO cruiser-destroyer-frigate sized ship of ANY Navy, ANYWHERE worldwide, has “survived” (still able to fight, flee, AND float”) after EVEN one missile, mine, shell, or anti-radar hit.

Once hit one time - by anything - every frigate-destroyer-cruiser (up to CG-47/Spruance sized) ship has been put out of action.

Used to be, we’d brag about “Wooden ships and Iron men.”

Then it became “Steel ships and electronic weapons ...”

Now? “Aluminum boats and wooden men, led by lawyers and bureaucrats, reading procedures to fire blanks.”

-—...-—...

Chains and dragging effects are visible as the rough vertical scars parallel to the chains holding the ship in the air. Chains and lifting forces could have done some of the topside damage, but the impact on the bottom is want “cut off smooth” all of the upper electronic masts and gear.

[Robert A Cook PE]

I’d use a single torpedo, passively guided with no active sonar = no warning except the “swish” of the torpedo screws.

Noisiest, most vulnerable part of the ship is the engine room = best target for a torpedo homing in on a noise source.

Alt? Lay a mine with a torpedo attached. Program it as follows: “At noise level xxx decibels, Doppler increasing (range closing), launch torpedo towards noise. After launch, open air flotation valve.” With no buoyancy, the launching mine and its anchor sinks to bottom, giving no trace for the attacked Navy to locate except by a long and expensive and probably unsuccessful sonar search.

[tet68]

Incredible recovery job, the divers deserve every
accolade their country can give.
Imagine being underwater with those chains moving
around!
This will be studied for a long time.
Moving the USS.Cole was impressive but this is just
mind blowing.

[TXnMA]

Here is a quick attempt at overlaying the three recovered sections of Cheonan on a silhouette elevation photo of the Pohang-class.

None of the recovery photos of bow or stern sections were directly abeam. The bow view I used was viewed from the port bow, and the stern view was port stern. This necessitated considerable image warping and stretching to "rotate" them to approach the silhouette view. The stack section was viewed from directly port abeam, and required only scaling to fit the silhouette.

There is obvious, massive below-waterline upward thrust, and the entire stack section was, apparently blown upward and separated. My original blast placement of forward of the stack appears to be the correct one.

Torpedo -- or (quite likely) a directly-placed contact charge...

[TXnMA]

That is the way you or I would do it, for sure. OTOH, the NKs are rumoured to be fond of sending crews on suicide missions for such attacks. Given their noted low regard for human life, I wouldn't write that off as unlikely.

The Cheonan's powerplant was gas turbine/Diesel. Probably plenty of noise there for audio homing -- and that appears to be right where the explosion occurred.

[Candor7]

Watch for the Obama announcement of friendly fire during the Naval exercises at the time.

[jonascord]

There is no point in loading up a gun mount with useless armor and topside weight. During WW2, it was found that even the thickest armor was almost entirely useless. The fiberglass shell is just there to blunt the impact of the sea.

Even the Black Shoe Navy had to admit this unpleasant fact.

[MarineMom613]

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[driftdiver]

IMO the fact they are covering up the damaged end is key. There must be something there they don’t want the world to see.