How to nuke a submarine | Hacker News Reader

How to nuke a submarine

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95 pointsvinnyglennon69 comments

> In keeping with the operation’s naming theme, the testers nicknamed the instrument subs for Native American women, using terms that aren’t very polite. We’ll refer to them as “tubs.”

Lets not redact history for modern sensibilities, history is dirty and does not conform to our wishes, they were called "Squaws", now continue reading the article.

> The bang might have deafened every whale in the Pacific.

Now that is an interesting, and quite scary thought, talk about possible unforeseen consequences. What would have happened if sealife were to be deafened.

There is a short video of the test on wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Wigwam

I actually didn't know that term was offensive before reading this article.

See comments above you; It's not, unless you're hypersensitive.

Let's rename Squaw Valley! (http://squawalpine.com/) BTW, it hosted a Winter Olympic.

(just to make sure: this is a joke proposal)

It has been used as a slur by white people at least since the late 19th Century. Many native peoples say it is offensive. Are you calling them hypersensitive? Speak carefully now.

>Speak carefully now.

I really dislike this comment.

The implication is that: Only a racist would disagree with me. You're not a racist are you? Speak carefully now.

> The implication is that: Only a racist would disagree with me.

rquantz is stating clearly that the word is offensive and implying therefore it's wrong to use it. If that is an issue, I believe it certainly should be raised.

What's interesting is that drawing attention to such things is now what is 'politically incorrect'.

pie rouge, oui monsieur?

It _may_ be offensive to some, and not to others. "Niggardly" may be offensive to some, and not to others.

We should always be respectful of what might offend folks. But we should also strive to make sure the other folks aren't intellectually handicapped and unable to discern a slander from just a word. If the term has no negative connotation until 40-ish years ago, and all of the negative connotation was fabricated out of thin air? That's at least as notable as the fact that it might offend some. Probably more so.

Our mutual desire to live in a friendly society is always at odds with our mutual desire to know what the hell we're talking about. Each of us has an obligation to, in as kind a manner as possible, educate the other about what they might find truly offensive or not if they were better educated. Otherwise civil discourse is just a contest to see who can be offended the most.

PC is being a weasel and not having the discussion. PC is not trying to kindly point out that there may be another side to things. PC's definition has not changed.

On the other hand, no one has the right not to be offended.

I'm not sure where the assumption that "I'm not allowed to be offended" has somehow become implicit in society, but it's a false assumption. You have no such right.

While some people may think they have a right not to be offended, it is not necessary for it to be a right in order for us to avoid using words like this, which have been historically used to denigrate a class of people while simultaneously depriving them of life and property. We of the ruling class would do well to keep in mind the historical narratives that helped us solidify our power, and do our best to avoid them in the present.

Edit: The downvotes are very instructive. HN: your privilege is showing.

If you ask asses not to be asses, turns out they get really mad.

> On the other hand, no one has the right not to be offended.

It has nothing to do with legal rights. We have the right to say anything we want to each other and to our mothers (short of a death threat), but that doesn't mean we should.

Throughout the history of humanity, most would say you have a social 'right' (not a legal one) to be treated with respect. That includes not being insulted.

> If the term has no negative connotation until 40-ish years ago, and all of the negative connotation was fabricated out of thin air?

Don't dismiss the power of the "euphemism treadmill" to change the connotation of a word over time.

These are merely more disingenuous arguments. Not everything is worth discussing -- especially when all the other person offers is political posturing poorly disguised as rationality. At least if you want to posture, be open about it.

If we start to avoid every word because someone think it is offensive we better start building our own kind of Neusprech right away.

> If we start to avoid every word because someone think it is offensive we better start building our own kind of Neusprech right away.

Yet that is how humans always have communicated, avoiding saying offensive words; it's a tradition at least as old as the Ten Commandments and probably as old as human culture.

Stating that a word is offensive in some context doesn't in any way imply that it's wrong to use it in general.

A word - any word - is offensive when and if used to offend someone, but it doesn't make the words as such taboo. Various words such as 'squaw', 'nigger', 'faggot', 'retard', 'raghead', 'chink', 'kike' (did I miss some whole class of slurs? These come from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_pejorative_terms_for_p...) are the appropriate words to use in some contexts such as the meta-context of discussing political correctness, or historical literature (e.g. Uncle Tom) or descriptions of names as they were used back then - as in this topic, the original article about naming those submarine-like objects.

Yep. Have two friends call each other by "offensive" words and they laugh about it. but if a external party walks up and use the same term, they are liable rip him apart.

Well, I can tell you the implication I intended: saying that a group of people who was hunted to the brink of extinction by the ancestors of the people who now live here are being oversensitive is a dangerous line of thought, which, yes, has the potential to reveal racism. So if you're going to pursue that argument, you better think, and speak, carefully.

a group of people who was hunted to the brink of extinction by the ancestors of the people who now live here

Human history in a nutshell, really. Just about every country's founding has a history of blood and conquest. They're just pieces of land, after all. Their ownership always has and always will change.

As often said, I came to make a similar comment. The "history is dirty" part may not be totally correct, though: the controversy over squaw may be due to modern hypersensitivity. It is widely believed that this term is used to refer to female sexual parts, this simply is not true, e.g. see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squaw#Claims_of_obscene_meaning or http://www.nativeweb.org/pages/legal/squaw.html.

I actually meant dirty in the sense of "It is not clean and clear-cut" but that was interesting information.

> Lets not redact history for modern sensibilities, history is dirty and does not conform to our wishes, they were called ..., now continue reading the article.

Like many similar statements, the real message of rurounijones' comment is about aggressiveness. By intentionally behaving badly (being offensive, smug, etc.) they hope to intimidate others who would disagree but don't want a fight, or to be modded down. It adds nothing to the discussion and does not belong on HN.

Some situations in life can be complicated, but in this case it's simple to treat people with respect; the author did it and we should too.

History is history, it is written fact (usually), if someone is going to write about historical record, like in this article, then they should report it accurately rather than through a "Modern sensibilty" filter.

Feel free to clarify: For example "they were unfortunately called 'squaws' which is an offensive term" or something like that.

(A) educates (and means I don't have to go to wikipedia to find the missing information) and

(B) educates about why it might be better not to use this word (I certainly didn't know it is considered offensive by some)

instead of treating us like children.

When old episodes of Tom and Jerry were released on DVD featuring a "stereotypical" black housewife they did not cut them or alter them. They simply put a message before the episodes explaining that they are not appropriate nowadays but the environment they were created in is not the same as it is today.

Fun fact: When the Dambusters blew the Moehne Dam in WWII they transmitted "Nigger Nigger Nigger" on the radio to signal success.

* Did they do it because they were racists? No (Name of the squadron mascot dog).

* Would I recommend using this word in military operations now? Hell no.

* Would I expect an article about the raid to change or omit the word? No.

* Is the use of the dog's name causing controversy? Unfortunately yes.

TBH I'm sure the military nowadays hasn't improved in that respect; "sand niggers" is a term I've heard a few times, and I'm sure there's more terms like that used to refer to 'enemy combatants'.

What's your point? That anecdotally you've heard that someone in the military used a term that's offensive, and you then therefore conclude that the military is just as racist now as it was then?

You're wrong. The US military used to be segregated back then, now it's not and actually desegregated before the rest of the country. As proof of a watershed change, the former chairman of the joint chiefs was African American, there are many minority generals and admirals in the US military, the military has a robust EEO program and outright quotas for leadership positions, including for officers. And much more.

It's not helpful to assert nothing's changed based on an anecdote, clearly a lot has changed.

"Military service" is correlated with "conservative politics" which is correlated with "racism".

If they weren't racists they would have given the dog a different name.

You are making assumptions of others motives based on your knowledge and emotions regarding the word which is different from people in the UK 60 odd years ago.

"Nigger" was a reasonably common name for black dogs then. There are a few other notable examples on the wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigger_%28dog%29

People in the UK were racist as fuck back in the 40s (not as much as, say, white US southerners, of course)

Ok, let me put it another way. Prove the dog was called "Nigger" because Guy Gibson was racist... and "He must be racist otherwise he wouldn't have called the dog that" does not count since that is circular reasoning.

Unless the dog's name came from racist motivations the name itself (and the word) loses racial overtones UNLESS the listener decides to add them again in which case it is the listener who is at fault for assigning motivations the speaker (namer) in this case, didn't have.

Here is a better video from youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ku7R1TSBfjI

Thanks for this. Redacting history for political correctness purposes is essentially Orwellian, no matter the intention.

Meanwhile, the British had a fascinating series of anti-submarine weapons.

The problem with depth charges dropped off the stern was that you had to pass over the target before firing, telegraphing your shot, losing sonar contact and firing nearly blind.

The British came up with the "Hedgehog" system to fire mortars forward. It was also a shotgun approach, firing several at a time in a spread, those that hit exploding on contact (rather than by depth).

Hedgehog "destroy[ed] the target in about 20 percent of attacks in the Atlantic (versus 6 percent of depth charge attacks in the same theater.)"[1] There were few reloads, though, and sometimes the smaller charges failed to sink the target.

Then someone realized that if you set off explosions on opposite sides of a sub, you create a pressure wave that just collapses the target like an empty can of soda. That's how "Squid" worked. Its charges also sank about twice as fast as the hedgehogs, speeding up resolution. There was a single and a double squid system, the double system brought the success rate up to around 40 percent.[2]

Loading and firing munitions can be difficult in a storm or a battle. So the natural improvement in "Limbo" was to automate all that, with sonar officers pointing the system to a target and pulling the trigger.[3] There's some stock footage of Limbo out there.[4]

[1] http://pwencycl.kgbudge.com/H/e/Hedgehog.htm

[2] http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WAMBR_ASW.htm

[3] The Squid and the Limbo automatically corrected for pitch and roll, but the Limbo ensured that the munitions would enter the water at the same angle, which simplified the detonation timing. The Limbo system was in use up to the 1990s.

[4] http://www.criticalpast.com/video/65675054412_NATO-Operation...

Read about Hedgehog before (and IIRC, the russians copied it but it might not have worked or reached active service), but not Squid. Very interesting.

Pretty interesting article. Interestingly, they never discussed: how would you find a submarine to bomb in the first place? There's a great book called "Blackett's War" [0] that discusses how Patrick Blackett [1], an experimental physicist, helped the allies win WWII in a variety of ways, most notably by answering that question using statistics to better inform aerial bombardment of German U-boats. Blackett is the father of what is now known as "operations research" [2]. The book is absolutely worth reading if you have the time.

[0]: http://www.amazon.com/Blacketts-War-Defeated-U-boats-Brought...

[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Blackett,_Baron_Blacket...

[2]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operations_research

Reminds me of an Asimov story:

“But if they have thermonuclear power, where do they conduct the tests and detonations?”

“On their own planet, sir.”

http://supernovacondensate.net/2012/06/23/isaac-asimov-silly...

Why is conducting thermonuclear tests tests on our own planet so dangerous. The physics is simple enough that we can have a good enough idea of how large an explosion it will be. The explosion is small enough that it can be safely conducted over a large uninhabited region (such as the ocean). It does not cause a runaway chain reaction that would spark fusion in all of our atmospheric or oceanic hydrogen.

The only civilization level danger of thermonuclear is that if it becomes weaponized, mass produced, and used as a weapon. However, in this case, it does not matter where we conduct the tests.

Nuclear and thermonuclear tests have left areas of land radioactive and uninhabitable. Trinity and the many later tests blew radioactive dust across the U.S., and there is no reason to believe that this did not have any health effect on the population [1]. The Bikini Atoll and nearby islands were evacuated with the promise that the population could return, and are still uninhabitable to this day [2]. There are probably other examples.

[1] http://online.wsj.com/articles/decades-after-nuclear-test-u-...

[2] http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_testing_at_Bikini_Ato...

Hence why I suggested conducting the tests over the ocean, or perhaps under the ocean. Notwithstanding, the radioactive fallout and uninhabitable land do not seem to come close civilization dooming effects. They do not even necessarily suggest a propensity for us to do stupid things, as we may very reasonably choose to allocate a certain region for scientific testing of things that would leave a large region uninhabitable (be it nuclear/chemical/other).

Of course, this is all assuming that all species are like us in terms of the dangers of nuclear testing. I am fairly confident that we would be very simmilar in terms of the direct effects of the explosion, but I would expect the effect of the radioactive aftermath to vary between species from different planets. Assuming that other species have the same basic mechanisms as we do for radiation problems, they might come from planets where with higher radiation (or higher radiation events/regions) than Earth, and have evolved more aggressive defensive/reparative measures for it.

It is difficult to get an intuition about the consequence of radiation. Half life times are too long, radiation is invisible and the effects on organisms subtle.

So in conjunction with speculation about aliens, maybe you are taking this issue a bit too lightly?

Worth noting that the concept of building nuclear weapons is stupid to begin with, sacrificing large regions to radiation, possibly for a looong time is clearly unreasonable and weather something has a "civilization dooming effect" is not a valid criterium in any decision.

>Worth noting that the concept of building nuclear weapons is stupid to begin with, sacrificing large regions to radiation, possibly for a looong time is clearly unreasonable

It's not unreasonable in context. If the US had decided not to build nuclear weapons, the Soviet Union would have eventually.

Also sacrificing large parts of your enemy's land to radiation in many circumstances could be a perfectly rational decision. You could argue that it's an immoral decision but not necessarily an unreasonable one.

That whole cold war thing is of course also a textbook case of human boneheadedness. That conflict was unneccessarily escalated by both sides and way too many wars and crimes from that era are summarily excused as neccessary and inevitable.

Regarding your last paragraph - I heard that kind of pseudorational many times before. "The Russians are invading, Commander, what do we do? Start Nuclear War? Awaiting orders now."

While military was of course a factor, in the end the Cold War ended through something outside of this narrow minded view. The USSR could have gone on forever, North Korea style, but Gorbachev let go. Was that rational within your framework?

Sure you can use that kind of rationale to justify immoral and stupid actions, but in this specific context it was a completely rational action.

Someone else was going to build a nuclear bomb eventually (at the time time the Manhattan project began, the US was worried Germany would). Unless the US wanted someone else to have a massive advantage over them, the only rational choice was to build nuclear weapons.

Do you believe that no other country would have developed nuclear weapons if the US didn't?

Let's say Russia had nuclear capabilities and the US didn't? Would Russia have used them as leverage against the US? Of course they would have.

>but Gorbachev let go. Was that rational within your framework?

First, this isn't really relevant. Gorbachev kept his nuclear arsenal and military mostly intact, and thus was protected against potential foreign aggression.

Second, that's a very simplistic view of what happened. Gorbachev didn't want to completely dissolve the USSR, he just realized that in it's current form it wasn't working. He wanted to modernize communism, but he completely lost control of his reform. His eventual plan was to form a new union, but the Ukrainian Referendum made that unlikely, and then Yeltsin forced him out of power.

It's also very unlikely the USSR could have evolved into anything like North Korea--mainly because Russia was much more developed than North Korea, much larger, and had a much larger population.

it was actually the nazis they were scared of. they thought Germany might make an atomic bomb and win WWII. There was discussion about giving the Russian's the secrets to prevent an arms race. Churchhill vetoed it though.

Shitting on the other side of the bed is still shitting in your own bed. What about marine life? What about effects of radiation on their natural evolution cycles?

You might want to read on effects of ship noises on whales.

If your concern is about wildlife, you should nuke populated areas, the radioactive wasteland will become a de-facto wildlife preserve (as happened with Chernobyl). This won't help marine life, as they live in water which is amazing at blocking radiation. Also, the radiation emitted by a bomb is tiny when diluted across the entire ocean. I would be much more concerned about the other crap we dump into the ocean on an industrial scale.

>natural evolution cycles Evolution has dealt with things far worse than a few nuclear bombs.

>You might want to read on effects of ship noises on whales.

I am not suggesting that we bomb the ocean on a commercial scale.

If you enjoyed this story, I recommend the documentary "Nuclear Dynamite" - detailing a time when the world thought nukes would be very handy to use as construction devices - i.e for excavating canals, building artificial lakes, etc.

At one point, they were planning to "dig" the Panama Canal using nukes...

It looks like you can find it in 5 parts on Youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMENC-qwkM8

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Plowshare

Former US Navy submarine officer here. First, this article clearly shows how nuts the US military was acting in the height of the cold war. Just... wow.

On a more practical note, when I was on board my boat I read some of the studies/papers/results that were done quite a few years ago now where the Navy exploded torpedos at increasing ranges to a relatively modern nuclear-powered submarine. From what I remember, the point was to better understand both failure modes of equipment as well as unexpected interactions between systems as potentially unexpected failures occurred. I don't remember the details (and couldn't share them if I did) but was really glad a) that the Navy had done this testing, and b) that I hadn't been on board when it had happened!

> Sailors and scientists needed to know the range and lethality of underwater nuclear explosions. Would they harm the crews, ships and planes delivering the weapons?

This reminded me of the Mark 45 nuclear torpedo exhibit at the USS Bowfin mueseum at Pearl Harbor. The targeting procedure was for the torpedo to be "aimed in the general direction and to the far side of the target, in order to place as much distance as possible between the submarine and the nuclear explosion." Yikes. See http://svsm.org/gallery/mk45/IMGP6756

Yikes indeed. I have to wonder if the sailors aboard the victory ships closest to the blast in the linked article knew the level of danger they were in. Absolutely terrifying.

Nuclear-tipped torpedos were commonly used for ASW during the Cold War. In fact, I think the P-3s that flew out of Moffett Field on ASW patrols almost certainly carried nuclear warheads. I imagine Steve Jobs tripping on acid in the orchards of Santa Clara County, with nuclear armed P-3s going off on patrol overhead.

Meanwhile, in Soviet Russia... http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/nuclear/radevents/1954USSR1.... - "can we nuke an area and then send troops into it?"

Thanks for pointing this out. So the US is not, in fact, the only nation to have fired nuclear weapons at people. The USSR did it too, except it fired it at it's own people and soldiers.

The US did something similar through: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desert_Rock_exercises

The US did this as well: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWSMoE3A5DI

British exposed military to a hydrogen bomb test on Christmas Island, Grapple-X

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhnjbkDotYI

Well, today I learned that "squaw" is now considered offensive, but apparently incorrectly.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squaw#Claims_of_obscene_meaning

For further information about the atmospheric test years topic I'd recommend the movie 'Trinity and Beyond' (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqaq59whOa0). It's build upon declassified military material. Years: 1945 to 1963, Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.

Finding good and solid information about the russian test program is very hard. There's no "complete" documentation about the whole programm. Most documentaries focus on the ~50MT device the USSR built and detonated.

Well, too bad it's all in imperial units.

Otherwise a nice read, although I'm not sure if the conclusion means "modern subs" at the time or modern subs today. (I'm assuming the two are different)

30 kilotons is tiny.

Both US and USSR tested hydrogen bombs in the 48-50 megaton range.

The largest US test was Castle Bravo at 15Mt and that was far more than the expected yield of ~6Mt (which caused a lot of problems):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_Bravo

The Soviets did test a 50Mt version of a 100Mt design - the "Tsar Bomb":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsar_Bomba

The US did have a 25Mt weapon which was a real "3 stage" design (i.e. primary/secondary/tertiary - presumably both the secondary and tertiary being fusion/fission).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B41_nuclear_bomb

The USSR had SS-18s with very large warheads (20-25Mt) - presumably to hit deep bunkers (Cheyenne Mountain, Raven Rock Mountain etc.).

>Surplus real subs weren’t cheap enough or pristine enough to use as instrumented targets, so the Long Beach Naval Shipyard built three identical 4/5-scale sub hulls to hold instruments while submerged.

This seems incredibly scant by today's U.S. Military standards.

Why not build the sub hulls exactly to scale?

Hell, why not build real submarines to perform the test on?

You say surplus subs weren't cheap enough but you think new subs would be?

OT: I honestly pictured a subway sandwich in a microwave when saw the title.

Interesting read. I'd say one thing, bring back diesel boats, the Rickover experiments proved only how noisy and expensive submarines can be. Good men (or women if fully manned male/female - no mixing, it will not work), great batteries and ... Stirling Engines. I'd put to sea today with that, no more nukes. All of that to mean, you can't sink what you can't find.

You don't need to find them if you are using nuclear depth charges. You just need to know they are "in the area". The old "close enough for horseshoes and grenades" adage applies - although even less precision is required.

I got an alternative interpretation by reading it in minutes and torpedo ranges.

All the real specs are classified but the pessimistic public stats indicate a nuclear sub can be out of destruction range within five or so minutes, assuming your detection is perfect to the foot.

Also the destruction distance makes it a nearly perfect ASW weapon against WWII submarines equipped with WWII torpedoes, because the range of an old Mk18 is a mile or so, so if a WWII submarine came thru a time warp and got in close enough to attack a modern carrier, the destroyer screen could pretty much one-shot the sub without serious damage to itself.

The problem comes from modern torps and modern subs. So a nuke running at 20 kts fires a Mk 48 at comfortable-ish 10 miles (eh, maybe half its unofficial range). First of all being 10 miles away you can't just drop the depth charge and expect it to destroy a sub 5 times further away than the official limit. Secondly, at 20 knots for the nuke sub and 20 knots for the ASW destroyer, that 10 miles is 30 minutes to get over the launch position for a destroyer at which time the sub is 10 miles away in a random direction, far out of range. Third even if a destroyer or ASW plane is overhead and drops the charge on a sub, from the testing they detonated at 2500 feet down, and that half mile is going to take awhile. Not that long, but awhile. Meanwhile the sub floors it and at (classified) top speed its going to take well under 2 minutes to get out of the destruction zone.

Its not exactly fish the barrel if you try to wargame it out. The TLDR is drawing a one mile radius circle of destruction isn't necessarily effective if your target takes substantially less than 3 minutes to go one mile.

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