The amazing things that you can find on the internet…
US submarines are designed for speed and stealth. The Navy takes great pains to keep this technology a secret. The most critical part of that secret is the design of the propellers that drive the subs and keep them quiet.
Whenever the submarine is brought into the graving dock for service, one of the first things that they do is cover the propeller with a tarp so that it can not be photographed. Evidently, if you know what they look like, you can figure out how to copy them and make your subs quiet too.
This photo shows the USS Georgia coming out of the water to be serviced. Note the shroud over the propeller to keep it from being photographed.
Now, click on this link to be taken to the Sub Base at Bangor, Washington. You may have to be in Internet Explorer to see this…
Exposed Propeller!!
The photo is of the graving dock on the “Delta Pier” and the propeller of an Ohio Class Ballistic Missile Submarine. Oops!! It really is an interesting design though. Seven blades with a “hook” in them. They actually look pretty fragile.
You can also use the zoom in and out keys and move around the Bangor Sub Base taking a close up look at the bunkers and magazines where they keep the nuclear weapons. You would think the US government would keep better tabs on this stuff.
I guess the Navy did not count on Microsoft’s Live Search Maps allowing the world access to the satellite images from orbiting cameras. As far as I know, images of this type should be classified. Instead, this information is available to anyone with an internet connection. I would think that Commanding Officers of military installations would have some person on their staff who takes a look at what is out there and makes recommendations on how to better provide security.
Technorati Tags: Submarine, propeller, classified, top secret, Bangor, ballistic missile, boomer, graving dock, nuclear submarine, nuclear missile, Global Security, SSBN, USS Georgia, Delta Pier, Microsoft Live Search, Google Maps
August 6th, 2007 at 5:16 am
Submarine Secret Exposed on Windows Map…
This photo shows the USS Georgia coming out of the water to be serviced. Note the shroud over the propeller to keep it from being photographed.
Now, click on this link to be taken to the Sub Base at Bangor, Washington. You may have to be in Internet E…
August 8th, 2007 at 7:08 am
That’s an interesting picture of the Delta Pier at Bangor that I posted on MonsterMaritime.com. I ran across it when I was using Microsoft Maps (Live Search) to look at a piece of real estate to purchase in Poulsbo, Washington which is just outside the Bangor sub base. Did you try zooming in on the bunkers for the Nuclear Missiles? Oops… Isn’t that one of those installations that they are supposed to “fuzz” out? Just North of Bangor is Naval Magazine, Indian Island. You can zoom right in on the doors to the missile bunkers there too. Microsoft maps “bird’s eye view” function even lets you look at it from all sides. You want to see some subs? Take a look at Bremerton Naval shipyard. There are a dozen subs sitting there. Take a look at Norfolk. There is no date on these pictures but you can see the tugs moving the ships onto and off the docks. Make sure you use the “bird’s eye view feature and look at these photos from all angles.
How many Harriers can you count on the deck at MCAS Cherry Point? How many F-15s at Elmendorf?
Maybe we don’t have a policy for “fuzzing” that stuff out. Maybe we should… For instance, did you know that you can use Google Maps to zoom right in on the pool behind the CENTCOM HQ building in Doha, Qatar? I was posted there during the run up to the “major hostilities” portion of the war in 2003. Take a look at the tarmac at Al Udied airbase. Do you think the bad guys don’t know how to use a computer and free software?
This stuff blows me away but then again, I read today that the military has “lost track” of 190,000 automatic weapons that we gave to the Iraqis. 190,000 weapons!!! I think that maybe somebody is dropping the ball… We used to have to fill out all kinds of paperwork when we misplaced a couple of bullets. Where is the accountability?
I am amazed by what you can find on the internet (if you look), but I am not so sure national security is being appropriately protected and the American public is being appropriately served.
August 10th, 2007 at 4:52 pm
Wow!
August 11th, 2007 at 3:45 pm
I received the following comment through the Maritime History Information Exchange Group from P.D. Hulme.
Ducted Pump Jet propulsors seem to be used by all the latest nuclear S/Ms
French SSBN ,US SSN ,and UK SSN .Not conventional multi-bladed
screws like this
There is a rotor turning within a duct with fixed stator blades .
Apparently this is a system only applicable to new hull designs as the extra
weight at the extreme of the stern ,has to be allowed for in the general hull
design .
The concept has been around for some years but there were various
problems to solve .I heard the later RN’s ‘T’ class SSN were designed for
ducted jet propulsors but were commissioned with conventional screws.
The propulsors were fitted later ?
A similar system is used in large air conditioning ducted fan units .
Peter
August 31st, 2007 at 11:13 am
[…] Well, if you look online, you probably can find it. That’s what Dan Twohig did- he was just poking around looking at real estate, and found a picture of the not-so-secret-anymore submarine base at Bangor, Washington. So he posted it on his blog. […]
September 2nd, 2007 at 6:27 pm
You know… just as a “by the way”… Nowadays its not the propeller that keeps a sub quiet… it’s the turbines that pump cool water from the outside of a nuclear submarine to the inside to cool the reactor.
Propellers are just kept hush hush so that the least amount of stuff can be copied as possible. Propellers of that “hooked” variety, I would think keep down the amount of cavitation (the blistering of air bubbles when propellers spin too fast at certain depths). Caviation was and is still a large part of noise on a submarine, but given that a lot of modern nations are going back to Electric/Diesel subs… Electric subs are just THE quietest… period.
September 2nd, 2007 at 7:11 pm
[…] The image was originally reported at MonsterMaritime. The Navy Times reported on the problems raised by this image. The Department of Defense replied: […]
September 2nd, 2007 at 7:45 pm
[…] The image was originally reported at MonsterMaritime. The Navy Times reported on the problems raised by this image. The Department of Defense replied: […]
September 2nd, 2007 at 9:22 pm
Metagg is tracking this post…
Find out what Social News Sites are discussing this post over at metagg.com…
September 2nd, 2007 at 11:18 pm
[…] Here is an extract from the article I found on MonsterMaritime.com. […]
September 3rd, 2007 at 6:08 am
[…] Give people the services they ask for… I came across a story this morning about the interesting things you can find using online mapping services. Twohig discovered that what should be a highly secret submarine propeller design was freely available to look at using Microsoft’s “Live Search” equivalent to Google Maps. Just in case they take it down later here it is: […]
September 3rd, 2007 at 2:13 pm
[…] Some guy found this at the Bangor Naval Yard while looking through Microsoft virtual earth. If the USN considered it a secret, why didn’t they cover it up with a small wooden shack while it was in drydock? MonsterMaritime | Maritime Community, Knowledgebase, News and Chandlery » Blog Archive » The amazing things that you can find on the internet… Live Local Search Attached Images […]
September 3rd, 2007 at 6:24 pm
[…] Recently some controversy has been stirred up by the fact you can use Microsoft Live Search Virtual Earth to view the usually covered and highly secret propeller from a US Ohio-class nuclear submarine. This was first reported on Monster Maritime. You can view the photos here. […]
September 4th, 2007 at 6:09 pm
[…] [Continue Reading at MonsterMaritime] […]
September 4th, 2007 at 10:24 pm
Looks just like the propeller on the new Chinese HAN class boats…
September 5th, 2007 at 4:37 am
[…] A Washington State man was using Microsoft’s Virtual Mapping site to help him with a house hunt when he came across a satellite image showing the exposed propeller from an Ohio Class nuclear powered sub in dry dock at the Bangor Naval Ship Yard. Some are using the photograph as an example of why web mapping sites should not be allowed to take images of military installations. I on the other hand would think that this should be used to question our military on why they allowed the propeller to be left out in the open. […]
September 5th, 2007 at 6:44 am
[…] [via MonsterMaritime] […]
September 5th, 2007 at 9:16 am
[…] Update: Only days after this photo post, a story appeared on Ars Technica linking a post at Monster Maritime which links to an image on Microsofts’s Virtual Earth which shows an Ohio-class nuclear submarine in dry dock at a navy base in Washington state. Interesting details such as propeller design are visible. […]
September 7th, 2007 at 2:48 am
Spy versus Spy…
Used to be the CIA spied on the KGB, and vice versa. In the post Cold War world, the black and white mantles appear to have falling to Microsoft and Google.
……
October 7th, 2007 at 3:03 am
[…] Dan Twohig, a deck officer with the Washington state ferry service was using Microsoft Virtual Earth to review real estate on the west side of Puget Sound. Instead he found a state secret, a photo showing the secret propeller design of an Ohio-class ballistic missile submarine. He posted the publicly available image on his web site, which was picked up by search engines, and automatically distributed to readers interested in the key words used in his description. […]
October 24th, 2007 at 4:46 am
[…] Read the rest of this great post here […]
October 28th, 2007 at 2:23 pm
[…] read more | digg story […]
November 26th, 2007 at 6:56 pm
[…] The photo was first posted «www.monstermaritime.com» called MonsterMaritime.com. […]
November 27th, 2007 at 11:46 am
[…] The photo was first posted «www.monstermaritime.com» called MonsterMaritime.com. […]
December 13th, 2007 at 1:39 pm
For baying at the moon…
The small fleet of kayaks leave Foundry Dock Park in Cold Spring and paddle up the Hudson, cutting through the…
December 29th, 2007 at 1:47 pm
petroleum refining…
Man i love reading your blog, interesting posts !…