When you say 1/23000 yrs, that would be with one sub each ? or for one given sub with two subs per navy ? then it's 1-(1-1/23k)^4 for all four subs ? Pierre
US boomers are all in the pacific now. russians are in the arctic along their own coastline. the chinese have only one 20-yrs old boomer, and there are so many us hk stalking it when it sets sails, that its position may be leaking to google placemarks near real time nowadays. This incident could only ever happen between france and uk in the present setup of strategic forces. Pierre
Now the following computation: average speed: 4knots = 4 nmi/hour ~ 7.5 km/hour effective "collision" section = 20 meters (ship breadth, all @600m depth) area combing speed: 0.15 sq km / hour, or over 3 sq km / day.
Total patrol area in the north atlantic + transit lanes = a few million sq km. Lets say there are constantly about 4 boomers in there (only boomers count, they dodge their own HK because they know where they are). That's two boomers of a different country for each boomer of first country (let's forget non existent russians, and assume boomers of one country are more or less boxed).
What is the average time between intercepts considering the entire fleet of 4 subs ? (we assume even if they detect the encounter, they don't deviate from current trajectory) Pierre
I get to about 100 000 days on average between collisions, which is 273 years. Not such a large number, but still, it comes a bit early when such patrols have been going on since "only" 40 years. Now, of course a little bit of "lets veer just a little bit toward this weird noise so we get a clearer signal" might help a lot in bringing the numbers down (boomers are not supposed to do this, but you know, it gets so boring down there...) Pierre
