Ramming Speed Update
It has been confirmed that as the two subs were both just running passive sonar (the online story I read mistakenly called this 'for navigation') they ran into each other because they could not see each other.
In fact, the French had no idea they hit a sub until they returned to port 3 days later: they thought they hit a cargo container.
Just to point out exactly what is going on here - boomers are designed to be very very quiet, and the best way of doing that is moving slow. Both ships were just crawling along. Then, there are two types of sonar: passive and active. Passive = a fancy microphone for listening to the water and figuring out where stuff is. Works really well for boat and biologicals, not so well for other subs. Active = echolocation, with lots of pinging that no sub can hide from. The downside to active is it makes a ton of noise, tells the enemy where you are... and it kills whales (which is sad). Navigation is actually done by dead reckoning, with the occasional pop up to the surface (or sending a buoy up instead).
Thus, two subs using passive sonar and moving slow to be quiet simply cant see each other.
Still, the best part is that the French had no idea they had his a sub at all.
In fact, the French had no idea they hit a sub until they returned to port 3 days later: they thought they hit a cargo container.
Just to point out exactly what is going on here - boomers are designed to be very very quiet, and the best way of doing that is moving slow. Both ships were just crawling along. Then, there are two types of sonar: passive and active. Passive = a fancy microphone for listening to the water and figuring out where stuff is. Works really well for boat and biologicals, not so well for other subs. Active = echolocation, with lots of pinging that no sub can hide from. The downside to active is it makes a ton of noise, tells the enemy where you are... and it kills whales (which is sad). Navigation is actually done by dead reckoning, with the occasional pop up to the surface (or sending a buoy up instead).
Thus, two subs using passive sonar and moving slow to be quiet simply cant see each other.
Still, the best part is that the French had no idea they had his a sub at all.
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