July 20, 2020

UK Nuclear Missile Submarine Vengence in Near Collision With Ferry

Nuclear missile carrying HMS Vengeance submarine allegedly almost collided with a 30,000 ton ferry MS Stena Superfast VII.
---

Following my July 18, 2020 article a UK online newspaper, known as "London Loves Business"  reported on July 19, 2020:

"It has been confirmed that a Royal Navy submarine that almost hit a Stena Line passenger ferry [the 30,285 ton MS Stena Superfast VIIin British waters, was a nuclear [missile armed] Vanguard class [SSBN].

[The UK Express, July 19, 2020 reveals"analysis of pictures taken by ferry passengers revealed its true identity as a Vanguard class sub. They show a unique optronics mast, and also visible to the trained eye was a specific radar, attack scope, communications node, and exhaust system - all unique to the Vanguard class." See Richard W. Stirn Tweet with diagram below
The antennas, radar, attack scope, communications node, and exhaust system identifying the sub as Vanguard-class (Diagram courtesy Richard W. Stirn at @mrdickstirn )]
---


[The London Loves Business article continues] Experts have claimed that it was almost certainly armed with nuclear missiles at the time of the near miss, [a collision] could have resulted in the loss of the Vanguard submarine.

The nuclear submarine....is thought to have been the HMS Vengeance... 

The Marine Accident Investigation Board (MAIB) filled in their report, which has only just been released, said the passenger ferry was carrying over 200 passengers and crew.

The Stena Line ferry was literally yards away from being hit by the 17,500-tonne nuclear submarine, which would have ended with devastating results.

The MAIB stated, “This incident happened because the submarine’s control room team overestimated the ferry’s range and underestimated its speed.”

The submarine has a crew of around 130 and can carry a pay load of up to 16 Trident-II D5 [submarine launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) with nuclear warheads], which have a range of over [7,200] nautical miles.

...The near miss incident was only averted when a [ferry] crew member spotted the ferry whilst on lookout.


4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Pete

The incidents in four years! Is it worth a try of the Perisher?

Regards

Pete said...

Hi Anonymous

I've read Perisher student-commanders have had near or even scraped-periscope collisions with the hulls of naval ships hunting them.

Of course the UK Royal Navy would be crazy if they had a Perisher student "commanding" a Vanguard-class SSBN.

Cheers

Pete

Anonymous said...

My sonar is so advanced and sensitive, it was overloaded by the Ferry's diesel noise so I could not hear it coming.
KQN

Pete said...

Hi KQN

It could be the "sonar is so advanced and sensitive, it was overloaded by the Ferry's diesel noise so I could not hear it coming"

And/Or

I wonder if there was a sonarman shift change which caused an interruption in observation.

Or

Mabye the sonar setting was optimized for 10+ km out rather than 100 meters or less.

Cheers

Pete