john@hp-pcd.UUCP (john) (12/10/84)
<<< During WW-2 we did capture a German U-Boat ( Now sitting at the Chicago museum of Science and Industry). It was damaged in battle and the crew set timed explosive charges and abandoned her. There was enough time for a US crew to board and deactivate the charges. The wealth of code books and information from that sub was very valuable in winning the war. John Eaton !hplabs!hp-pcd!john
wanttaja@ssc-vax.UUCP (Ronald J Wanttaja) (12/11/84)
<I would feel offended... but Vulcan reindeer do not GET offended> > But what if the purpose of the self-destruct mechanism was simply > to protect classified information (including design details) ? > I can think of a few reasons for not setting off the engines (which, > we learn from The Doomsday Machine, would make a bigger bang than > any nuke ever tested. For one thing, if the ship were evacuated first, > the crew might not survive a matter-antimatter blast nearby. > Does anyone know of analogies from Earth's navies? Does any country > have contingency plans for scuttling its major combat vessels? If > so, I doubt that such plans involve using onboard nuclear weapons. > Fred Wamsley I feel Fred has hit the nail right on the noggin. Naval (and for that matter, army and aviation) history is full of examples. A ship is scuttled, a diabled airplane is burned, a cannon is spiked for one reason... to deny value to the enemy. Not to make a big flash and a lot of noise. Admittedly, scuttling a space vehicle is a little different from scuttling a sea vessel... the sea vessel will disappear (sink) leaving no trace, while the wreckage of a spaceship remains. But there are other reasons for a minimal-violence scuttling: Take a modern day analogy... Say the USS Nimitz is involved in large scale battle and takes a fatal hit. Offhand I cannot think of a single US first line carrier that has actually sunk under enemy fire. We did lose some escort carriers that way (Gambier Bay) but after the battles such as Coral Sea and Midway, critically damaged US carriers were still afloat... and were given the coup de grace by US destroyers to prevent them from falling into enemy hands. So, we can be reasonably sure Nimitz is still afloat. However, Nimitz NEVER sails alone- it is surrounded by a large task group, some of which are sunk, but some will survive. Would the Captain of Nimitz order a nuclear scuttling? NO! in addition to the loss of the crew, the remaining ships of the task group would be damaged. OK, the Nimitz could be nuclear scuttled on a long delay timer, but who knows? The enemy could retake the ship and disconnect the timer. No US warship has been captured afloat since at least the Civil War. The Nimitz would be conventionally scuttled, within sight of the fleet to ensure destruction. Space fleets should operate the same way. At the moment a Federation starship might need to scuttle to prevent capture, another federation vessel might be within the danger range of a matter-antimatter destruct. Standard self-destruct would be at most, a low order explosion. Another argument is the vulnerability of a massive-destruct system to accidental triggering. Commander J. Murphy, famed naval strategist, once said, "If it will cause grevious harm when impacted by enemy shot or shell, a large percentage of concievable enemy threats will be capable of penetrating any given layers of protection." No single hit should be capable of destroying the vessel, and, while any type of destruct system is vulnerable, one would prefer a more complex method of destruct rather than mixing matter and antimatter, just on the basis that a complex system may be easier to stop if triggered accidentally. This is not to say that the engineering staff would be incapable of concocting a matter/antimatter self destruct if the need arose... It's just not the sort of thing you would leave lying around! Ron Wanttaja (ssc-vax!wanttaja) "Of course, the transporter is fixed, Ensign... and wipe that smile off your elbow!"