RD, Thank you for your service, and for sharing your experience. I don't think I maligned submariners and vets, other than to say if standing orders for a boomer were to leave the area 'undetected' after accidental contact with unidentified surface craft, that would be an illegal peacetime order. It was an uneasy peace/cold war, but whatever justification for underwater roulette back then should be rethunk now.

Can you confirm that SSBN's were authorized to 'uncloak' in order to render or call for assistance in the 1980's, or at some later point? In the case of a sinking, help delayed 24 hours would be help denied.

The reports on the Greenville sinking a Japanese cruise-classroom vessel detail a lot of carefully stated surface craft avoidance procedure that could and should have prevented the accident. Civilians present and engaging the drivers during unusual maneuvers was... unusual.

As a student I used to commercially photograph USN craft arriving and leaving port at Pt. Loma, San Diego, and sometimes would 'surf' a good wake into photo position. I could see from my tiny outboard that a sub hull and scary skiff-eating suck-hole wake made for peculiar hazards, and poor rescue potential. That figures into the tragic Greenville incident off Hawaii, when the sub could only report and observe, but was unable to render active assistance. A sub chief of boat once told me that on patrol the exterior safety lockers were often welded shut, to reduce 'rattle' underwater, making the gear inaccessible.

The collision reports document incidents ranging from fowling nets thru dragging to 'dragging and sinking' to hard collisions and sinkings. As you say, a fishboat snagged and drug for 15 minutes was undetected by the sub crew, in an incident that very well could have killed all the fishermen. That confirms what you say, that subs have limited awareness of their effects. And that approach to periscope depth ops are inherently dangerous to third-world fishermen (yachters or smugglers) who shut down at night, with no engine noise, and maybe no safety lights.

In the 1981 GW fatality-sinking of a steel-hulled Japanese freighter, I have to maintain reasonable doubt that the USN report left some important details out. The lack of post-collision surface contact should suggest the possibility of a sinking and survivors in distress. No good news in that case was bad news, and should have mandated a rapid civil report. Assuming her comm gear was usable, did GW have to exchange 24 hours worth of coded communication to get a message to Japan? Based on my open-source reading, I don't think that incident was unique, in terms of slow reporting of a collision with unknown fatality potential.

Without specific knowledge, it seems to me that even if the breakup and sinking of a first-world freighter can occur undetected by passive sonar, use of active sonar to help clear the forward track until a periscope search can be made should be considered for peacetime ops. My suspicion is that use of active radar and sonar that would increase sub safety has been avoided in favor of 'remain undetected'.

"Didn't see him, never even knew we hit him...' may be the reality in the majority of past collisions and draggings. But there's no reason to accept that going forward, for peacetime ops in friendly and neutral waters. The sub fleet needs to operate to the same peacetime standards as the surface combatants, in terms of taking responsibility for safe navigation and collision response with legally operating civil craft.

That's my 'thesis.' Stealth is not an inherent right, for us or the many countries now operating subs. Open up the submerged collision record, evaluate by accepted standards, adjust gear and procedure as needed, press other operators to comply. We're no longer in a MAD stalemate, faced off against Russian first-strike capability.