Daily Archives: March 19, 2013

Colombian submarines getting German periscopes

Leave a reply

 

Colombian navy submarines undergoing overhaul and modernization are receiving  new periscopes from Germany’s Cassidian Optronics.

The periscopes are the company’s SERO 250 search periscope, which features  state-of-the-art sensors, including infra-red. The Sero 250 was specifically  designed for the submarine refit market to replace legacy systems with minimal  platform adaptation.

“This contract is the first in a series of contracts aimed at the final  replacement of all current optical systems on board the existing Class 209  submarines of the Colombian Navy,” Cassidian said. “These submarines were  commissioned in 1975 and are now in an overhaul and upgrade phase.”

German shipbuilding company HDW is conducting the overhaul and upgrades to  the submarines and Cassidian said Colombian companies would be involved in  activities to integrate the SERO 250s onto the vessels.

Colombian Navy Type 209 submarine Pijao (SO 28) pulls into Naval Station Mayport, Florida

Cassidian Optronics was formerly known as Carl Zeiss Optronics.

Source – UPI . com

 

Submariner Day in Russia

Leave a reply

09.11.2008 АПЛ подлодка подводная лодка судмарина Акула Нерпа

March 19th marks Submariner Day in Russia. 107 years ago, on March 19th 1906, Emperor Nicholas II issued a decree declaring submarines a separate class of warships and including ten submarines in the Russian Navy.

Russia’s first submarine – the Dolphin – rolled off the Baltic Shipyard in 1904.

At present, submarines make up the backbone of the country’s naval strategic nuclear forces.

Naval mariners, Navy veterans and cadets will lay flowers to the monuments of submariners and shipbuilders who took part in the creation of submarines.

Floral tributes will also be laid to the Kursk Submarine Memorial outside the Central Museum of the Armed Forces in Moscow.

Source – The Voice of Russia

First nuclear submarine disaster marks 50-year anniversary – Video Clip

1 Reply

USS Thresher sank in Atlantic in 1963

USS Thresher

Click on picture for Video Clip – USS Thresher

Bob Miller – USS Thresher Veteran

 Fifty years ago next month, the U.S. Navy suffered one of the worst disasters in submarine history when the USS Thresher sank, killing all aboard. A North County man still feels the impact of that disaster on that day in April 50 years ago.

“It was one of a kind,” said Bob Miller of Vista. Miller was among a handful of sailors who was actually aboard the USS Thresher during its launch on July 9, 1960.

Three years later, the nuclear-powered submarine sank in the Atlantic, killing the 129 people aboard.

The USS Thresher was designed to go faster and deeper than anything that came before it.

Miller had been to sea on the submarine at least 40 different times but in 1963, the electronics technician made a decision to advance his career and go to school. It was a decision that saved his life.

“I was driving back from school with three others in the car,” he said. “When I heard the news that Thresher had sunk, I blacked out.”

It was later determined that a weld on a pipe or valve gave way, which flooded the engine room and ultimately doomed everyone on board. The submarine sank in about 5,000 feet of water.

Initially, Miller was haunted by what had happened.

“I kept thinking that maybe if I was there, I could’ve done something to help save her,” he said.

Miller said he has since come to realize that those who were aboard that fateful day were as skilled as anyone who ever sailed and that did all they could.

Miller is preparing to attend the 50-year memorial in Maine next month. A second nuclear-powered submarine, the USS Scorpion, sank five years later under different circumstances.

Source – ABC 10 News