Nuclear Submarine facts
While investigating facts about Nuclear Submarine, I found out little known, but curios details like:
When Robert Ballard (professor of oceanography) announced a mission to find the Titanic, it was a cover story for a classified mission to search for lost nuclear submarines. They finished before they were due back, so the team spent the extra time looking for the Titanic and actually found it.
Modern nuclear submarines are so well cloaked that in 2009, two French and British nuclear ballistic missle subs collided in the atlantic ocean by pure chance. Moving very slowly, they were't able to detect each other just feet apart.
In my opinion, it is useful to put together a list of the most interesting details from trusted sources that I've come across. Here are 50 of the best facts about Nuclear Submarine I managed to collect.
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Submarine K-219, a nuclear submarine that sank in 1986 due to a missile silo leak. It sank in 18,000ft of water, and when located 2 years later, it's missile doors had been forced open and the nuclear missiles it carried were missing.
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A $350m drillship built in the early '70s by US billionaire, Howard Hughes, to collect 'mineral riches' from the ocean floor was actually a cover for the CIA to be used to lift a lost Soviet submarine, loaded with nuclear missiles, up from the floor of the Pacific Ocean, 3 miles deep
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A US nuclear submarine that sank in deep water in 1968 is still resting at the bottom of the sea at a known location. Its nuclear reactor and nuclear weapons have never been recovered.
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Vasili Arkhipov, a senior officer on a Soviet submarine, refused to launch a nuclear torpedo in October 1962 perhaps preventing WWIII
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Robert Ballard, the man who discovered the wreck of the Titanic, was secretly funded by the US Navy which wanted him to find their two sunken nuclear submarines first
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One of the checks which a British nuclear submarine makes to see whether the government is still functioning is whether BBC Radio 4 is broadcasting.
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The UK has 4 nuclear submarines as a nuclear deterrent, each has an identical "letter of last resort". These letters contain orders from the current PM should the government collapse due to nuclear attack. The PM has only four options to choose and they're destroyed unopened upon a new PM.
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100 crew members of the nuclear submarine USS Scorpion were scheduled to make its 1968 deployment. One sailor refused to go citing the sub’s dire need of maintenance. 99 sailors were killed when the sub sank in the Atlantic.
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Around half of the USA's nuclear arsenal is inside of 14 submarines.
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What is true about nuclear submarine?
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A Russian man named Vasili Arkhipov prevented WWIII after refusing his captain’s orders to launch nuclear torpedoes at US Navy battleships during the Cuban Missile Crisis. 2 out of the 3 officers on board the submarine wanted fire the missile, however a unanimous decision was required. - source
There is a "letter of last resort" on every trident nuclear submarine in the Royal Navy. They are hand written by the PM and destroyed unread every time a new PM is elected. They contain orders for an event where Britain is destroyed, but nobody will know what they are until that time comes - source
In the event of Britain being destroyed and her government wiped out, there is a safe on four nuclear equipped submarine that contains the Prime Ministers ‘Letters Of Last Resort’. Nobody except the PM knows what it says.
The British government accidentally published classified information about their nuclear submarines in a "redacted" report. The classified information had been "blacked out" in the document, but anyone who opened the document could copy and paste the "blacked-out" text in order to read it. - source
Submarines have become so stealthy that 2 nuclear armed & powered subs collided in the Atlantic Ocean without detecting each other
The Royal Navy's nuclear-armed submarines run on an outdated version of Windows XP called "Windows for Submarines"
In 1974 Howard Hughes helped the CIA raise part of a sunken Soviet submarine from a depth of 16,000 feet - all without the Soviets knowing. They recovered two nuclear torpedoes, documents, and the remains of 6 sailors - who they respectfully buried at sea.
When the USA decommissions a nuclear submarine, the reactor compartment will end up in a special submarine graveyard. It's an open trench meant to be visible for treaty verification by satellite.
When a Soviet research ship went to check on sunken Soviet submarine K-219 in 1988, it found several of the submarine's missile silo hatches had been forced open, and the missiles, along with their nuclear warheads, were gone.
