[OT] Navy releases photos of U.S.S. San Francisco

On Sat, 29 Jan 2005 02:33:01 GMT, "James Nowotarski"
wrote:

I'd say that's a bump, and she's probably an ex-submarine.

"I would like to return this submarine. It is scratched."

OM

--

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his country. He won it by making the other | Sergeant-At-Arms
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- General George S. Patton, Jr

Reed Snellenberger wrote:

Pat Flannery wrote:

I'm still trying to figure out how you cave in the side of the sub's
bow when hitting a submerged mountain; the thing must have been shaped
like Devil's Tower with near vertical sides.


Maybe some of the forward structure got folded back onto the hull. It
doesn't look like an exactly head-on collision -- damage seems to begin
at the lower-starboard part of the bow just looking at the outlines of
the portion covered by the tarp. The area around the torpedo tube hatch
seems to have been flattened down.

I suspect that some of the hull may have been forced upwards and
backwards by the collision, thus causing the damage to the upper side
before it tore away.

Question for anyone who knows... there is what looks like a "hump" right
where the lubber lines are located... is that normal?

No. That's the hull deforming from the collision.

D.
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Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.

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Oct 5th, 2004 JDL

Pat Flannery wrote:
James Nowotarski wrote:


Compare this pic of her in drydock undamaged
http://www.navsource.org/archives/08/0871104.jpg

I'd say that's a bump, and she's probably an ex-submarine.

If it did actually distort the pressure hull, then I'd say you'd never
want her to go to sea again, that's just asking for it, especially at
any great diving depth. But I can't picture the hull distorting that
much without ripping open; and if it had ripped open, that would have
been it for the sub in a matter of seconds.

It's not pressure hull at that point... It's the skin over MBT3.

See:
http://www.globalsecurity.org/milita...-cut-away2.gif

D.
--
Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.

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"Reed Snellenberger" wrote in message
...
Pat Flannery wrote:


snip

Question for anyone who knows... there is what looks like a "hump" right
where the lubber lines are located... is that normal? I've never seen a
picture of a sub from this angle -- usually it's from below (if under
construction) or this area's covered by the bow wave when they're
underway. I imagine that the bulge here could act sort of like a
regular ship's breakwater when traveling on the surface... if the bulge
wasn't there before the collision, then I'm even more amazed they made
it to the surface.


As a former crew member of two 688 submarines, from two of the 4 different
"flights" (the Portsmouth was the same flight as the San Francisco), I can
tell you that by design, there is no "hump" on this part of a 688 boat. The
appearance of one in the referenced photo appears to be an optical illusion,
enhanced by the curved shadows of the lifelines. Laying a ruler along the
joints (the joints running fore to aft) between the anechoic tiles, one can
see that there is no evidence of deformation. That the capstan (the small
squat cylinder about 2/3 of the way between the two people) is extended
above the deck, and the reversible cleats (the horn shaped objects in two
pairs outboard of the guy walking at the bow) are rigged out is further
evidence the molded fairing is not bulged.

The pressure hull forms the visible outer hull of the boat right up to about
the point where the aft-most person is. From that point forward, the mold
line begins to curve towards the ogival bow dome. The visible hull surface,
from that point forward, is actually a light outer hull. It fairs the
forward end of the pressure hull, which is a truncated cone extending
forward to a point just about directly below the forward-most person, who is
seen walking past the underwater telephone fairing (the fin-like vertical
structure his left hand is on). An elliptical bulkhead closes the forward
end of the pressure hull. Both bow and stern of a 688 are faired with
structures called molded fairings; relatively light streamlined steel outer
hulls which are subdived into main ballast tanks, sonar domes, etc.
Truncated cones (the mold line of the aft one is a complex curved shape,
vice the forward one's simple conical mold line) and elliptical bulkheads
enclose both ends of 688s pressure hull, whose outer surface makes up the
entire cylindrical section of the boat's overall form.

The sonar sphere is located beneath the blue tarp. It is about 15 feet in
diameter, normally unmanned, but part of the pressure envelope, and extends
forward from the elliptical bulkhead on a "stalk", a meter-wide tube through
which people roll themselves along a little rope-towed trolley. A
normally-closed hatch at the elliptical bulkhead serves to protect from
flooding. The sphere is directly behind the ogival bow dome, suspended in
that flooded volume far enough from the noisy main hull to "hear" external
noises (via a huge number of transducers studding the sphere's surface)
through the acoustically-transparent done over a very wide aspect. If the
sphere was breached, crushed or simply knocked too far out of dimensional
tolerances, then the scope of the repair job will be vastly increased.
Obscuring the extent of this damage is probably the principal reason for the
tarp.

When running on the surface at any speed over a few knots in very calm seas
the main deck is not habitable; the bow wave flows down the forward hull,
often a couple feet deep, past the sail and down the length of the boat.

The feasibility of repair may be controlled by the damage to the torpedo
tubes and the torpedo room. If the dimensional tolerances of that room, or
the tubes, have been altered too much, it may not be economical to retain
the ship in commission.

--
Reed Snellenberger
GPG KeyID: 5A978843
rsnellenberger-at-houston.rr.com

In article edTKd.6$0u.1@fed1read04, Mr Jim wrote:
...If the
sphere was breached, crushed or simply knocked too far out of dimensional
tolerances, then the scope of the repair job will be vastly increased.
Obscuring the extent of this damage is probably the principal reason for the
tarp.

If memory serves, the USN makes a point of never showing the sonar sphere
and its dome -- not even intact ones -- in photos, presumably as part of
the security surrounding the sonar systems.
--
"Think outside the box -- the box isn't our friend." | Henry Spencer
-- George Herbert |

"Mr Jim" wrote:
As a former crew member of two 688 submarines, from two of the 4 different
"flights" (the Portsmouth was the same flight as the San Francisco), I can
tell you that by design, there is no "hump" on this part of a 688 boat. The
appearance of one in the referenced photo appears to be an optical illusion,
enhanced by the curved shadows of the lifelines. Laying a ruler along the
joints (the joints running fore to aft) between the anechoic tiles, one can
see that there is no evidence of deformation.

Take a look at the high res photo[1], and note the straight lines of
the individual lubber boards and the decidely unstraight line of the
total run of boards, and one can plainly see the deformed section.
(For reference, compare the lubber boards in way of the sail.)

D.
[1] http://www.navy.mil/view_single.asp?id=21183, click on 'download
high res'.


--
Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.

-Resolved: To be more temperate in my postings.
Oct 5th, 2004 JDL

(Henry Spencer) wrote:

In article edTKd.6$0u.1@fed1read04, Mr Jim wrote:
...If the
sphere was breached, crushed or simply knocked too far out of dimensional
tolerances, then the scope of the repair job will be vastly increased.
Obscuring the extent of this damage is probably the principal reason for the
tarp.

If memory serves, the USN makes a point of never showing the sonar sphere
and its dome -- not even intact ones -- in photos, presumably as part of
the security surrounding the sonar systems.

The dome is routinely shown. See:
http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ship/ssn-688_i.htm, or any of the
many pictures of a 688 in drydock published on the web. (The nose of
the sub is the dome.)

The sphere OTOH... I don't think I've ever seen a single
(unclassified) picture of an actual (USN) sonar sans it's
dome/window/fairing.

D.
--
Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.

-Resolved: To be more temperate in my postings.
Oct 5th, 2004 JDL

Derek Lyons wrote:

I suspect that some of the hull may have been forced upwards and
backwards by the collision, thus causing the damage to the upper side
before it tore away.



Assuming they bounced off of it after they hit it, the high forward
speed of the sub could have caused water pressure to rise in the
tapering space between truncated cone shaped pressure hull bow cap and
the external front hull plating, as it's tapering toward the bow ogive-
driving the thin plating of the exterior bow section outwards.
Do you know if the section around the sonar sphere is a free-flood area,
or is it just kept full of water or oil for sound conductivity from the
sonar gear to the outer water? I can't see it being a free-flood area
as aquatic organisms would get in there and foul the sonar gear (I can't
picture a hydrophone working well with a barnacle attached to it).

Pat

Pat Flannery wrote:

(I can't picture a hydrophone working well with a barnacle attached to
it).

Nor with a giant squid attached to it, as was the case with the USS Stein.

Derek Lyons wrote:

It's not pressure hull at that point... It's the skin over MBT3.

See:
http://www.globalsecurity.org/milita...-cut-away2.gif



How come you could find that, and I couldn't? That's similar to the one
from the "U.S. Submarines 1945-Present" book; I Google image searched
all over the web for it with no luck.
I was concerned about the damage to the main pressure hull from
everything in it experiencing such a rapid deceleration, and all the
heavy machinery being suddenly shifted forward from the force of impact
(if the people and and all the mess gear went flying across the room,
God knows how much energy the steam turbine and reactor mountings
withstood) and that shifting damaging the hull.
That large standoff between the bow and the front of the pressure hull
was probably what saved the sub; try this with a Permit class and it's
all over.

Pat