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First, it wasn't sunk by its toilet, it was sunk by a combination of operator error and allied bombs. Second, there's a lesson here for design. Correct operati
by i_am_proteus 7y ago
First, it wasn't sunk by its toilet, it was sunk by a combination of operator error and allied bombs.
Second, there's a lesson here for design. Correct operation was complicated and required special training, and the implications of failure were potentially fatal. The toilet failed because of operator error, but having a toilet that complicated and in a location where failure put seawater into the battery is a design error. The 'old' system was fine and something similar remains in use. I'm a former submariner-- I've seen myriad shitty things happen from sanitation tank operational errors, but an uncontrolled seawater leak is not one of them.
- michaelt 7y agoI'm sure all submarines have certain processes that can cause leaks if there's an operator error - diving with the hatch open, for example - but are there any that happen as often as toilet flushing?
- yakovdk 7y agoPer [1], it was a special toilet designed to support flushing at depth (I guess it makes sense that it's a tough problem to solve when the sub is under pressure). I guess previous iterations of U-boats had to surface to flush. It does seem like keeping it in a tank until the next surface would be a better solution though. I mean, they have to surface for other reasons too, right? [1] https://warisboring.com/the-high-tech-toilet-that-destroyed-a-submarine/ https://warisboring.com/the-high-tech-toilet-that-destroyed-...
- duxup 7y agoI don't necessarily disagree with your theory on design, but every complex war machine ... has some level of controls that if used improperly could be fatal. They are inherently dangerous systems. Designing fail safes for such things has to be a sort of balance between added complexity / options for failure, and safety. In the military there are plenty of "don't touch that, let the person who knows how to do it touch it" and I suspect that is often the right design.
- jupp0r 7y ago> don’t touch that, let the person who knows how to touch it Practically, how would that work for a toilet?
- raldi 7y agoIt could be designed in such a way that multiple people could use it with reasonable comfort with a small holding tank and then periodically someone comes along and flushes it.
- epicwhaleburger 7y agoThis.
- i_am_proteus 7y agoIndeed, that's more or less the current system!
- davidw 7y ago"So what did you do in the South Sea conflict?" "I was a submarine toilet operator, first class, serving aboard the USS Deuce"
- beering 7y agoSee the comment elsewhere in the thread about how (according to the German-language article) Schlitt ignored the requirement that the specialist flush the toilet, causing the incident: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20410849 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20410849
- magduf 7y agoI have to disagree to an extent about the "war machine" bit. This is about a toilet, not a torpedo. Every boat at sea needs a toilet; this is a basic need for supporting human life unless you want to have people relieving themselves over the deck railings (which of course isn't even possible on a submarine). If you have to have a specialist flush a toilet for you, the design is bad.
- omnimkar69 7y agobro you got somethig wrong info actually it had an accident near scotland and that's why it got sunk
- stcredzero 7y agoThis "what if this goes wrong" thinking is vital for large scale systems we use DevOps for. (After reading this, if I ever designed a submarine, I'd try to make sure that such spills wouldn't get into the battery.) That said, I bet a large amount of such "thinking" actually happens by investigating what goes wrong after the fact. The same sometimes goes for exception handling code.