In 2003, a Chinese Submarine Sank Mysteriously

[Rip]

http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-bu ... crew-24547

On April 25, 2003 the crew of a Chinese fishing boat noticed a strange sight—a periscope drifting listlessly above the surface of the water. The fishermen notified the People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) which promptly dispatched two vessels to investigate.

At first the PLAN believed the contact to be an intruding submarine from South Korea or Japan. But when Chinese personnel finally recovered the apparent derelict they realized it was one of their own diesel-electric submarines, the Ming-class 361.

When they boarded on April 26, they found all seventy personnel slumped dead at their stations.

[Pyperkub]

Creepy.

[dbt1949]

Crew farting will do that.

[Rip]

I am pretty certain the snorkeling intake valve malfunction theory is the correct one.

You would be amazed at just how fast a sizeable diesel engine will suck the air out of a boat when the intake is closed. The automatic engine shutdown is a key safety feature when snorkeling at periscope depth and one that will be exercised probably more than any other emergency safety protection. I've probably witnessed it being needed two dozen times. Thankfully ours always worked as advertised.

[Daehawk]

Strange there would be no alarm for the snorkel malfunction or breathable air. Or even emergency air things around.

[Rip]

Strange there would be no alarm for the snorkel malfunction or breathable air. Or even emergency air things around.

Oh there are alarms, the issue is how to do anything about it. A running diesel engine doesn't like to shutdown. Which is why there is a high vacuum auto-shutdown. Shuting one down manually if that fails takes an extreme level of awareness and training to pull of before everyone on board loses consciousness. Even then you are left in a closed environment that has had most of the oxygen removed and you would need to ventilate rather quickly to recover and avoid dying anyway.

That isn't even half of the dangers of snorkeling. You have the other issue of the auto valve that detects water at the headvalve and shuts the valve. If it closes you suck this vacuum but if it fails to close then you have a crapload of seawater coming inside at an alarming rate. Then there is the noise which interferes with your ability to detect others as well making you more detectable. Not to mention how much more visible you are with this damn big pipe sticking out to suck in some air.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Submarine_snorkel

The solution at least on many modern diesel boats is AIP.

http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-bu ... 245?page=2

[Holman]

Don't subs have masks and emergency oxygen tanks for this kind of emergency (or at least in case of fire)? I would think something would be reading the air composition and then sound the alarm.

Tell me our subs have these, at least.

[Rip]

Don't subs have masks and emergency oxygen tanks for this kind of emergency (or at least in case of fire)?

Yes, ours do, although I have no idea about China. But you might only have 60 seconds and would be leaning on a well maintained/trained sub and crew. Something I would have doubts about an ancient sub in the Chinese navy. They tend to value quantity over quality.

You get into the same issues with that Argentine sub that vanished. It would seem that was also a snorkeling related incident where the headvalve didn't close properly and the seawater coming in reacted with the battery to produce toxic gas. These operations are very risky and depend upon a high level of crew training and equipment maintenance, Something I am happy to say we always had. I doubt the Chinese have that level of support and I am quite certain the Argentinians don't.

http://www.coha.org/praetorianism-and-a ... submarine/

[Holman]

Thanks.

[Kasey Chang]

Don't subs have masks and emergency oxygen tanks for this kind of emergency (or at least in case of fire)? I would think something would be reading the air composition and then sound the alarm.

But in a highly regimented society, following orders is more important than self-preservation. If there was no order to don masks, nobody would dare to be the first.

At least in the US Sub Navy, the priorities are "save the sub, THEN save the men", based on what I've read.

[Holman]

Don't subs have masks and emergency oxygen tanks for this kind of emergency (or at least in case of fire)? I would think something would be reading the air composition and then sound the alarm.

But in a highly regimented society, following orders is more important than self-preservation. If there was no order to don masks, nobody would dare to be the first.

At least in the US Sub Navy, the priorities are "save the sub, THEN save the men", based on what I've read.

There's no conflict between saving the sub and saving the men here. In fact the former depends on the latter.

Do you really think Chinese sailors are suicidal automatons?

[Kasey Chang]

Food for thought:

There is no mention of the displacement of the 6E390ZC-1 diesel engine, but the Ming class has two of them. No idea on internal volume either. Not even American diesel engines mention displacement. *sigh* But American diesels are HUGE. Old WW2 "fleet boats" have 4 engines, each can do up to 1600 bhp, and I can't make heads or tails of the literature, but a GM-Winton like the 16-248 has bore of 8.5 inches (21.6 cm) and stroke of 10.5 inches (26.67 cm) per cylinder. That's ... 3.1416 /4 x 21.6 squared x 26.67 * 16 cylinders = 157 L (?!)

So, if these engines run at about 750 RPM, that's 750 * 157L amount of air needed per minute? (117750L) (These are two-stroke engines)... Maybe my math is a bit off. And a US fleet sub of WW2 has FOUR of these (!)

So yeah, they'd suffocate in minute or two if they really ran their system with closed valves.

[Rip]

This is the one we had, just one because it is purely for backup power.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairbanks ... sel_engine

[Isgrimnur]

War Is Boring on AIP subs

[Grifman]

Do you really think Chinese sailors are suicidal automatons?

Reading accounts of the Red Army in World War 2 (same type of training/command system), yes, it's entirely possible.

[Holman]

Do you really think Chinese sailors are suicidal automatons?

Reading accounts of the Red Army in World War 2 (same type of training/command system), yes, it's entirely possible.

I'm guessing that the sailors operating insanely expensive modern Chinese subs are trained and commanded differently from the mass-conscript human-wave riflemen of the WW2 Red Army.

[Grifman]

Do you really think Chinese sailors are suicidal automatons?

Reading accounts of the Red Army in World War 2 (same type of training/command system), yes, it's entirely possible.

I'm guessing that the sailors operating insanely expensive modern Chinese subs are trained and commanded differently from the mass-conscript human-wave riflemen of the WW2 Red Army.

No, the point is that Communist militaries have usually beentop down organizations. Individual initiative is discouraged and orders were followed, even when the situation had changed and no longer made sense. Political officers assigned to watch over officers encouraged this attitude. If you took your own initiative and failed, then you were to blame, but if you followed orders, it wasn’t your fault. I’ll also note that I said nothing about conscript riflemen but the training and command system so you are making things up when attributing that to me.

[Holman]

Do you really think Chinese sailors are suicidal automatons?

Reading accounts of the Red Army in World War 2 (same type of training/command system), yes, it's entirely possible.

I'm guessing that the sailors operating insanely expensive modern Chinese subs are trained and commanded differently from the mass-conscript human-wave riflemen of the WW2 Red Army.

No, the point is that Communist militaries have usually beentop down organizations. Individual initiative is discouraged and orders were followed, even when the situation had changed and no longer made sense. Political officers assigned to watch over officers encouraged this attitude. If you took your own initiative and failed, then you were to blame, but if you followed orders, it wasn’t your fault. I’ll also note that I said nothing about conscript riflemen but the training and command system so you are making things up when attributing that to me.

Yes, I've read about the Soviet military all my life. I know this stuff too.

My point was to presume that sailors trained to operate--and protect--extraordinarily important military equipment would also be trained to take such emergency steps as existed. Even the most top-down Commissar-driven command system would recognize that dead sailors are a risk to the Motherland's Glorious Submarine. SOP's involving emergency equipment would be in place.

I can see the sailors dying if the disaster happened extremely quickly and they had no time to react or if the alarms malfunctioned. I can't see the People's Liberation Army Navy *not* having standard emergency procedures about donning your mask when the "No Air" klaxon starts blaring.

[Rip]

Do you really think Chinese sailors are suicidal automatons?

Reading accounts of the Red Army in World War 2 (same type of training/command system), yes, it's entirely possible.

I'm guessing that the sailors operating insanely expensive modern Chinese subs are trained and commanded differently from the mass-conscript human-wave riflemen of the WW2 Red Army.

"insanely expensive modern Chinese subs"

I LOLed.

[Rip]

Do you really think Chinese sailors are suicidal automatons?

Reading accounts of the Red Army in World War 2 (same type of training/command system), yes, it's entirely possible.

I'm guessing that the sailors operating insanely expensive modern Chinese subs are trained and commanded differently from the mass-conscript human-wave riflemen of the WW2 Red Army.

No, the point is that Communist militaries have usually beentop down organizations. Individual initiative is discouraged and orders were followed, even when the situation had changed and no longer made sense. Political officers assigned to watch over officers encouraged this attitude. If you took your own initiative and failed, then you were to blame, but if you followed orders, it wasn’t your fault. I’ll also note that I said nothing about conscript riflemen but the training and command system so you are making things up when attributing that to me.

Yes, I've read about the Soviet military all my life. I know this stuff too.

My point was to presume that sailors trained to operate--and protect--extraordinarily important military equipment would also be trained to take such emergency steps as existed. Even the most top-down Commissar-driven command system would recognize that dead sailors are a risk to the Motherland's Glorious Submarine. SOP's involving emergency equipment would be in place.

I can see the sailors dying if the disaster happened extremely quickly and they had no time to react or if the alarms malfunctioned. I can't see the People's Liberation Army Navy *not* having standard emergency procedures about donning your mask when the "No Air" klaxon starts blaring.

The only way a "no air klaxon" goes off is if someone pulls it. Alarms about O2 levels would be a local console alarm. The only way everyone not at the console is made aware is by someone sounding a ships alarm (which are NEVER automatic). By the time people see unsafe reading, report them, and get told to sound the alarm takes time. To respond and recover to an incident like this is like putting on your seatbelt once you lose control of the car. Sounds easy from afar but in reality it is extremely difficult.

[Holman]

Do you really think Chinese sailors are suicidal automatons?

Reading accounts of the Red Army in World War 2 (same type of training/command system), yes, it's entirely possible.

I'm guessing that the sailors operating insanely expensive modern Chinese subs are trained and commanded differently from the mass-conscript human-wave riflemen of the WW2 Red Army.

"insanely expensive modern Chinese subs"

I LOLed.

Perhaps I should have said "valuable." They're valuable assets to the PLAN, obviously.

[Rip]

Do you really think Chinese sailors are suicidal automatons?

Reading accounts of the Red Army in World War 2 (same type of training/command system), yes, it's entirely possible.

I'm guessing that the sailors operating insanely expensive modern Chinese subs are trained and commanded differently from the mass-conscript human-wave riflemen of the WW2 Red Army.

"insanely expensive modern Chinese subs"

I LOLed.

Perhaps I should have said "valuable." They're valuable assets to the PLAN, obviously.

The modern part was the funniest. They are a little expensive when you consider how old the tech is. They just sold Bangladesh a couple of them in 2013 for over $200M that won't get delivered until 2019. Talk about used car salesmen.

If you want modern look to Jimmy Carter is what I always say.

http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-bu ... know-24603