No amount of kit can make up for rotten seamanship.

Remember the other A-boat which was run aground on a well known gravel bank near the Skye bridge?

Just a small serious point for the sake of it.

We are belatedly buying maritime patrol aircraft to protect the submarine fleet. So it needs protecting. I don't buy the stuff about the oceans being transparent or the Russian "underwater drones" having magical powers. But I also don't buy the notion that it is always impossible to detect our submarines given how much bragging we hear about tracking Russian submarines.

Why can't we have a discussion along the lines of "nothing is certain, nothing is for ever, this is the best option for now, on the basis of the information we have".

Is there an English nickname for the manoeuvre known as the "Crazy Ivan"?

It used to be called The Navy Lark.

It'll buff out..........

How does an attack submarine manage to run into a ship? It reminds me of the Chinese fighter pilot who managed to run into an Orion off the coast of Hainan.

Too much automation, not enough brains.

My guess is that they were already very close to it on purpose.

Read Hennessy's book for an idea of some of the things these attack submarines get up to. If you're going to get up close and personal with someone else's naval vessels, not a bad idea to have practiced against a few merchant ships first...

Nutloose wrote

That is HMS Ambush which is an SSN and does not carry Trident.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astute-class_submarine

SSBN

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanguard-class_submarine

"Close to it on purpose..." Really? While it doesn't directly bear on the thread since neither of the accidents mentioned here involved ballistic missile submarines, still, Far East Drivers question is entirely valid. How on earth..?

Lots of reasons you might want to get very close to another ship; a couple of examples might be to gather intelligence (photographing bits of it through the periscope) or using it to conceal yourself.

Remember the waters around the Straits have very different properties from open ocean. Not know any of the circumstances it is there is no point in blaming the submarine. Maybe the other ship made a sudden manoeuvre not knowing the presence of the submarine. I am sure it will come out in the court martial.

Yes indeed PN, that was my very next question....it's a very expensive chair - and is almost certainly bought at the cost of reducing our defensive capacity elsewhere.

KR, the cost of being a global player rather than a regional one?

according to something in the Times it was "training officers" - possibly a Perisher type operation

Hennesy details some really hairy training there

"No point blaming the submarine" ..As you say, we don't know the circumstances but it would be stretching things to blame a merchant ship for colliding with a submerged submarine!

In Nutty's photo, is that the sonar team standing on the naughty step?

You know how people on Pprune hate it when non aviators in the press for example talk utter rubbish about things they don't understand?

How ironic.......

As many have said already, go and read about the things that they get up to. Yes when they hit things it is a mistake, an error.

There is a big difference between an error made by very professional people doing something astonishingly difficult, and the incompetence espoused by the herd on here.

welllllllllllllll

they're not always "very professional" - they court-martialed and removed Andy Coles, Captain of HMS Astute for running aground off Broadford...................

Anybody remember when our deterrent patrol V- Boat collided with the French deterrent patrol boat???

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Va...rine_collision

Mainjafad, clearly not possible as no one knows where our boats patrol. Now if the French boat hit one of ours then it would know where ours patrolled. But from the first premise, as no one knows, it is clear it didnt happen.

PN,

See from 0:20. The First Sea Lord Admiral Sir Jonathon Band confirms the collision took place.



See video at following link during another conference. The First Sea Lord Admiral Sir Jonathon Band confirms the collision took place.

BBC NEWS | UK | Nuclear subs collide in Atlantic