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what would it look like? what would one see?

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franksolich:
I had a discussion recently with a veteran of the U.S. Navy, specifically in the submarine service, circa 1964-1984.  He told me all he did, but of course I didn't "hear" it all.

I brought up the fate of the U.S.S. Thresher, a big submarine that went down off the coast of Massachusetts back during the spring of 1963, losing all hands on board.

According to the history books, the submarine dived down to a depth too intense for what it was made to handle, and.....imploded.

We all know what explosions look like, and I believe we can even imagine what they look like under water. 

But an implosion--what would the eye have seen?

freedumb2003b:
From the inside or the outside?

franksolich:

--- Quote from: freedumb2003b on November 18, 2015, 05:09:48 PM ---From the inside or the outside?

--- End quote ---

If one were standing some distance away from it, and by some magic, able to watch it.

Ken8521:
I would think sort of like a controlled demolition on a building... where it just collapses in on itself.

DumbAss Tanker:
From the outside, an almost simultaneous collapse of the failed section combined with a large massive bunch of bubbles, it would look a lot like those scenes from WW2 submarine movies of depth charges going off underwater, except much bigger. 

From the inside, there'd be an millisecond or so of seeing a flicker of everything suddenly moving and then the observer would be dead.

IIRC, the Thresher was torn to bits and there was no major hull section surviving.  The Kursk, on the other hand, fell victim to an explosion that ruptured her structural integrity and part of the ship telescoped into another part almost instantly, but in water that was well above her crush depth, so that she wasn't torn to bits and at first glance her wreckage appeared surprisingly intact.  One of her compartments actually did hold for a time, with survivors inside, but failed itself in a short while and the unfortunate sailors in her died.

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