Originally published at: Submarine carrying 53 crew members and very limited oxygen submerged yesterday and hasn't been seen since | Boing Boing
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Submariners are brave sailors. I hope they’re alive and found in time.
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Watching Das Boot as a 10 year old pretty much cured me of ever wanting to set foot on a submarine.
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Fingers crossed for these poor guys.
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The deep six is no way for anyone to go. May they find them safe & sound.
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Don’t forget that in addition to being the most badass ex-President the US ever had, Jimmy Carter also served on several Navy submarines.
President James Earl “Jimmy” Carter graduated from the Naval Academy in 1946 with distinction, after which he was assigned to USS Wyoming (E-AG 17) as an ensign. After completing two years of surface ship duty, Carter applied for submarine duty. He served as executive officer, engineering officer, and electronics repair officer on the submarine SSK-1 . When Admiral Hyman G. Rickover (then a captain) started his program to create nuclear-powered submarines, Carter wanted to join the program and was interviewed and selected by Rickover. Carter was promoted to lieutenant and from 3 November 1952 to 1 March 1953, he served on temporary duty with the Naval Reactors Branch, U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, Washington, D.C., to assist “in the design and development of nuclear propulsion plants for naval vessels.”
From 1 March to 8 October 1953, Carter was preparing to become the engineering officer for USS Seawolf (SSN-575), one of the first submarines to operate on atomic power. However, when his father died in July 1953 Carter resigned from the Navy and returned to Georgia to manage his family interests. Carter was honorably discharged on 9 October 1953 and transferred to the retired reserve at his request with the rank of lieutenant. The Seawolf -class submarine Jimmy Carter (SSN-23) is named for the 39th president.
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isn’t stealing a sub the intro plot of one of the James Bond movies?
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Paging Elon Musk! Paging Elon Musk!
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They want to save these sailors lives, not condemn them.
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I was wondering what anyone could do to help those sailors even if they found the vessel before the air ran out, but the article pretty much covers it. I didn’t realize Submarine Support and Rescue Vessels were even a thing that existed. Hope they succeed.
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Does anyone know what use Indonesia has for a submarine? (They have four other ones besides, this, apparently.)
To be clear, I don’t mean that as in “what’s even the use of a military,” or that a country as large as Indonesia somehow doesn’t rate one. Given that it’s a country of 60 kajillion islands in a navally… interesting part of the world, I’d expect them to have tons of ships, military and otherwise.
I’m just not sure what a submarine gets you as a non-nuclear power in today’s world. I know part of their navy’s job is to remind their neighbors that they can put up a fight; I just don’t know how a submarine fleet plays into that, if at all.
Attack submarines still serve as a deterrent against hostile surface ships up to and including aircraft carriers.
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Military submarines have been a critical component of naval forces for a lot longer than nuclear weapons have. Germany’s U-Boats were one of their biggest military strengths through two World Wars and they never even got to finish developing the technology for submarine-based missiles.
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Sure, I know that. But it’s hard to imagine present-day Indonesia fighting either a nuclear war or an open-sea campaign against merchant ships and troop transports.
But there is the deterrent effect that @Jesse13927 mentions, which I guess would make economic sense for a large, mostly non-aligned country with an huge amount of water to patrol.
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If you can conceive of a situation where Indonesia would have to defend its territorial waters it shouldn’t be that hard to imagine a role for a military submarine.
Remember, part of the point of having a submarine isn’t that you can patrol everywhere at once; it’s that your adversaries can’t be sure of which areas you’re patrolling at any given time.
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Apart from being a large country covering many islands, Indonesia straddles the Indian and Pacific oceans with the Malacca Straits being an important strategic choke point for world trade. If you wonder why a country as large as Indonesia (pop 270 million) has submarines you will be amazed that the tiny island nation of Singapore (just short of 6 million) has a navy and also submarines. Not all wars are nuclear, thank fuck.
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Submarines also aren’t as expensive as you might expect. There are still diesel powered submarines (many hand-me-downs from the Soviet Union, etc.) in service to this day.
This is why
There’s a lot of naval bang for your buck in a submarine
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Indonesia has 5 submarines (including the missing one). Walt Disney had a fleet of 8 for decades. A local (to me) tourism company has 10 in active service.
I expect all to get called into the fight when a giant radioactive lizard emerges from the Pacific.
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