SHIPWRECKS Depth Comparison (3D)

quote:

---

How deep are some of the best known sunken ships?

Some of them are shown in this 3D animation, including some submarines and airplanes.

---

quote:

---

A quick explanation on what these ships actually were:

SS Winfield Scott- A steamship that transported passengers and cargo between Panama and California during the California Gold Rush. It crashed off Middle Acanapa Island and sank with no casualties.

Mary Rose- A Tudor-era carrack. Sank during the Battle of the Solent, apparently when she heeled too far and her open gunports were dunked in the ocean. Her wreck has been raised and is currently in a museum.

Ray of Hope- a freighter sunk purposefully as an artificial reef. A nice diving site if you're in the area.

USS Kittiwake- A submarine rescue ship (meaning a ship that rescues submarines, not a submarine that rescues ships), also sunk as an artificial reef.

Dokos Shipwreck- A shipwreck site off the island of Dokos, presumed to be a sunken Ancient Greek trader. The ship isn't actually there any more, having rotted away, but its cargo remained.

RMS Rhone- a steam/sail cargo and passenger ship that sunk due to a hurricane in the Caribbean.

Superior Producer- A costal cargo ship and one of the best-known diving sites in Curacao. She sank in rough seas due to being overloaded, though the crew abandoned ship safely.

SS Thistlegorm- An armed cargo steamship sunk in the Red Sea by German aircraft.

Vasa- A Swedish Ship of the Line. Sunk a few minutes into her maiden voyage due to being poorly balanced. Was raised and is now a museum, much like the Mary Rose.

SS Yongala- a cargo and passenger freighter that sank off Bowling Green, Australia, in a cyclone. She was lost with all hands, and no one realized she'd sunk until debris started to wash up on shore.

SS Umbria- Italian cargo ship caught carrying war contraband and scuttled by the British.

U-352- German submarine sunk while on patrol off the coast of South Carolina by depth charge from the coast guard cutter Icarus.

Sea Tiger- A Chinese-owned vessel confiscated by the US Coast Guard when it was found to be carrying illegal immigrants, and later sunk as an artificial reef off Oahu.

Costa Concordia- a cruise ship that ran aground and tipped over. Big news story when it happened.

Kronprinz Wilhelm- A WW1 German battleship, scuttled in Scapa Flow after the end of the war.

RMS Empress of Ireland- A Scottish passenger liner that sunk following a collision with a collier in a heavy fog.

USNS General Hoyt S. Vandenburg- US Navy transport sunk as an artificial reef.

Bristol Blenheim Bomber- Not technically a shipwreck. This is actually a crashed Bristol Blenheim, a British light bomber plane of early WW2, off Malta.

Wilhelm Gustloff- German military transport sunk by a Soviet submarine while evacuating civilians.

Nippo Maru- Japanese freighter turned munitions transport that sank after being bombed in WW2. If you want the Nippon Maru with an extra N, she's a museum ship.

Black Jack B-17 Bomber- Another crashed aircraft, this one at Papa New Guinea.

USS Saratoga CV-3 - An aircraft carrier converted out of an unfinished battlecruiser. Saratoga survived the war and was sank by an atomic bomb as part of the Operation Crossroads teets.

SS Andrea Doria- An Italian passenger liner that collided with another liner off Massachusetts and sank, though most of the passengers and crew survived due to good handling of the disaster.

MS Estonia- A cruise ferry that sank in the Baltic Sea, apparently because the bow door failed under waves pounding it.

RMS Republic- A White Star Liner that collided with the SS Florida in heavy fog. The ship was equipped with wireless, and its distress call saved all of the passengers and crew except the six who died in the collision.

RMS Lusitania- A Cunard liner sunk off Ireland by a German U-boat due to her use as a munitions transport vessel. As she was not armed and was carrying a load of passengers when she was sunk, nobody bought the Germans' claims and it was a significant factor in the United States joining the war later. For the record- yes, she was absolutely carrying munitions, which is a bit of a problem for salvage efforts.

HMHS Britannic- Titanic's younger sister, co-opted by the Royal Navy and turned into a hospital ship, later being sunk by a mine.

RMS Carpathia- A Cunard liner famous for coming to the rescue in the aftermath of the Titanic's sinking. It was later turned over to the Royal Navy and used as a troop transport and armed merchant cruiser. being torpedoed while escorting a convoy by a German U-Boat, though most of the people onboard were able to leave safely.

Yolanda- A Cypriot cargo ship that grounded on a reef. It's so deep nowadays because it actually fell off the reef in a storm and had to be re-discovered.

Yamato- A massive battleship belonging to Imperial Japan, sunk during Operation Ten-Go (Yamato was to beach off Okinawa and act as gunfire support for the island) by as many American aircraft as would fit in the sky.

Dona Paz- A Philippine passenger ferry that sank following a collision with an oil tanker. Her loss is the world's deadliest peacetime maritime disaster.

USS Independence (CVL-22)- A light aircraft carrier converted from a light cruiser, serving the USN. She survived Operation Crossroads, but was later scuttled off the Farallon Islands.

SS Robert E. Lee- Passenger steamship torpedoed by a U-Boat on its way to New Orleans.

K-278 Komsomolets- A Soviet nuclear attack submarine that sank off Norway due to a fire onboard.

USS Thresher (SSN-593)- A USN nuclear submarine that sank during deep diving tests.

SS La Bourgogne- A French passenger liner that sunk during a collision with a sailing ship during a heavy fog.

USS Scorpion (SSN-589) - A US nuclear submarine. Lost with all hands and no one knows exactly why, being one of four mysterious submarine disappearances in that year.

RMS Titanic- A White Star Liner that rather famously struck an iceberg in the middle of the Atlantic and was lost with a good chunk of her passengers and crew.

K-8 Project 627A- A Soviet nuclear submarine that sank due to onboard fires in the Bay of Biscay.

KMS Bismarck- A German battleship that sortied to attack Atlantic convoys, sunk HMS Hood, and was then chased and sunk by pretty much the entire Royal Navy for destroying their flagship.

K-129- A Soviet submarine that vanished after setting off on a patrol from the Kamchatka Peninsula, in the same year as the Scorpion's loss. It might have been something with her batteries, human failure, or she might have collided with the USS Swordfish, another submarine that collided with something (officially ice) and broke its periscope.

USS America (CV-66)- A USN supercarrier used in weapons tests.

USS Indianapolis- A USN heavy cruiser that was sunk by a Japanese submarine after returning from a mission to deliver critical components for the Little Boy bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

SS Rio Grande- A German blockade runner sunk by USN destroyers. Held the title of deepest shipwreck in the world until shipwrecks from the Battle off Samar (which took place over the Philippine Trench) were discovered.

USS Johnston- A USN destroyer sunk during the Battle Off Samar after seeing away a force whose largest gun turrets outweighed the Johnston in its entirety. Deepest shipwreck in the world until Samuel B. Roberts, a destroyer escort sunk in the same battle, was discovered.

---