Fear the French: How a Nuclear Submarine 'Sunk' a U.S. Navy Aircraft Carrier in 2015

Kyle Mizokami

Security,

This is what happenned. 

It’s important to remember that “sunk” is in quotation marks for a reason. The French F17 torpedo has a 551 pound HBX-3 high explosive warhead. It can also only fire a salvo of four torpedoes at a time, due to having only four torpedo tubes. A 551 pound torpedo warhead would probably not sink a Ticonderoga or Burke-class escort, and though it would undoubtedly damage, it would definitely not sink a Nimitz-class supercarrier. Also, given a screen of four escort ships and Roosevelt’s onboard anti-submarine warfare helicopters, a single salvo of four torpedoes was all Saphir was going to get before it was forced to withdraw.

In March 2015, one of the largest nuclear-powered warships in the world was “sunk” by one of the smallest.

The Saphir, a French nuclear attack submarine, reportedly penetrated the defenses of the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt and scored simulated torpedo hits on her. The incident, originally reported by the French Navy, was later suppressed.

(This first appeared several years ago.)

On March 4th, 2015 the French Navy announced in a blog post that the submarine Saphir (“Sapphire”) had simulated stalking and killing the carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt. Not only was the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier simulated sunk but an unknown number of her escorts. The post was later removed without comment from the blog.

Here’s what the world knows: according to the French navy blog post (saved and reproduced by the RP Defense blog), the exercise between Saphir and the USS Theodore Roosevelt Carrier Strike Group took place before an operational deployment. According to the French navy, the carrier strike group included several Ticonderoga-class guided missile cruisers and Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, and a Los Angeles-class nuclear attack submarine.