The Bedford Incident as an ATL

[oscssw]

One of my favorite movies is The Bedford Incident.  The story takes place aboard a DLG;  I served aboard one but of a very different class.  It takes place in 1962 Five years before the early January I went to boot camp at Great Lakes.  That said, some of the gear, all of the uniforms accept for the long foul weather coat and the absence of Watch caps is the same as was in my initial Sea bag.  The Lifers and young enlisted were not much different from my shipmates 5 years later.   The story takes place in the Atlantic; I spent almost my entire career in PacFleet.  LantFleet and PacFleet are both USN but there were a lot of subtle and some not so subtle differences in the way we did things. 

Lastly the production was made without the help of the USN, for obvious reasons.   However, the RN seemed to be more than willing to provide as much help as the film crew could use.  For example, Bedford was suppose to be a Farragut class, early DLG type, but the topside, below decks scenes, and some of the open ocean views of Bedford were obviously taken of and aboard HMS wakeful F-159 a W&Z class conversion of a Type 15 FF.  Her hull number F-159 was plainly visible in the opening shot.  

In summary for those who never saw the movie or not in a long time:

It is an early '60's Cold War flick that draws heavily on Herman Melville's classic Moby Dick.   Reporter Ben Munceford played by Sidney Poitier, is aboard a U.S. Navy ship sailing near the Arctic Circle, on assignment to write a profile of Capt. Eric Finlander, (IMO Captain Ahab), played by Richard Widmark, a hardened anti-communist Cold War Warrior.  Despite the concerns of Munceford, medical officer Chester Potter played by Martin Balsam, and others on the ship, C.O. Finlander/Ahab is shadowing a Soviet submarine on patrol in the same area, hoping to make to force Big Red/Moby Dick, to surface in Nato waters. The cat-and-mouse game, however, turns deadly serious when a young Ensign Ralston/Ishmail played by James MacArthur fires on the Soviet foxtrot SewerPipe.

Commodore Wolfgang Schrepke/1st Mate Starbuck , played by  Eric Portman, a former Kriegsmarine U-boat officer serving as a NATO technical adviser aboard the Bedford.

Since there never was a USS Bedford DLG-113, to the best of my knowledge the USN did not sink a Soviet Foxtrot in the Denmark Straight in 1962 and that DLG was not vaporized by three nuclear tipped Torpedoes, I think the story qualifies as an ATL.  That said, I will of course leave it to our skipper to decide if this thread is acceptable for our Site.  I really hope it is because I got a lot to bounce off you folks.

  

[lordroel]

Sept 27, 2022 15:35:18 GMT oscssw said:

One of my favorite movies is The Bedford Incident.  The story takes place aboard a DLG;  I served aboard one but of a very different class.  It takes place in 1962 Five years before the early January I went to boot camp at Great Lakes.  That said, some of the gear, all of the uniforms accept for the long foul weather coat and the absence of Watch caps is the same as was in my initial Sea bag.  The Lifers and young enlisted were not much different from my shipmates 5 years later.   The story takes place in the Atlantic; I spent almost my entire career in PacFleet.  LantFleet and PacFleet are both USN but there were a lot of subtle and some not so subtle differences in the way we did things. 

Lastly the production was made without the help of the USN, for obvious reasons.   However, the RN seemed to be more than willing to provide as much help as the film crew could use.  For example, Bedford was suppose to be a Farragut class, early DLG type, but the topside, below decks scenes, and some of the open ocean views of Bedford were obviously taken of and aboard HMS wakeful F-159 a W&Z class conversion of a Type 15 FF.  Her hull number F-159 was plainly visible in the opening shot.  

In summary for those who never saw the movie or not in a long time:

It is an early '60's Cold War flick that draws heavily on Herman Melville's classic Moby Dick.   Reporter Ben Munceford played by Sidney Poitier, is aboard a U.S. Navy ship sailing near the Arctic Circle, on assignment to write a profile of Capt. Eric Finlander, (IMO Captain Ahab), played by Richard Widmark, a hardened anti-communist Cold War Warrior.  Despite the concerns of Munceford, medical officer Chester Potter played by Martin Balsam, and others on the ship, C.O. Finlander/Ahab is shadowing a Soviet submarine on patrol in the same area, hoping to make to force Big Red/Moby Dick, to surface in Nato waters. The cat-and-mouse game, however, turns deadly serious when a young Ensign Ralston/Ishmail played by James MacArthur fires on the Soviet foxtrot SewerPipe.

Commodore Wolfgang Schrepke/1st Mate Starbuck , played by  Eric Portman, a former Kriegsmarine U-boat officer serving as a NATO technical adviser aboard the Bedford.

Since there never was a USS Bedford DLG-113, to the best of my knowledge the USN did not sink a Soviet Foxtrot in the Denmark Straight in 1962 and that DLG was not vaporized by three nuclear tipped Torpedoes, I think the story qualifies as an ATL.  That said, I will of course leave it to our skipper to decide if this thread is acceptable for our Site.  I really hope it is because I got a lot to bounce off you folks.

  

Will have to check the movie out first Senior Chief (oscssw ) before i truly can comment.

[oscssw]

Is it OK to "Provisionally (navy term for temporary/trial policy until the permanent one is promulgated) comment in this thread, if anyone is interested? If you decide The Bedford Incident as an ATL does not belong here just delete the thread.

I promise you there will be no hard feelings; as I know it is 'Just business" not personal".

[lordroel]

Sept 28, 2022 13:26:12 GMT oscssw said:

Is it OK to "Provisionally (navy term for temporary/trial policy until the permanent one is promulgated) comment in this thread, if anyone is interested? If you decide The Bedford Incident as an ATL does not belong here just delete the thread.

I promise you there will be no hard feelings; as I know it is 'Just business" not personal".

Only have moved the thread you made to The Media Fandom Hub as it is about a movie as a TL, otherwise everthing is fine.

So before i start saying what i think of this, what about Ice Station Zebra, Senior Chief (oscssw).

Not the first movie i have seen where somebody mistakes a sentence for Fire.

Four nuclear torpedoes, what would their kiloton be and is it not a bit overkill, one would do.

[simon darkshade]

Senior Chief,

I liked the book and enjoyed the film, just a tad less. In terms of turning it into a viable ATL, the one issue that sticks out for me is the US captain's extreme zealousness at stopping a Soviet boat from getting through his patrol area, rather than simply tracking the loud bugger. It is a Foxtrot, rather than a missile boat, after all. I get that it is part of the Ahabesque feel that the author was evoking, but it does raise some issues of believability, based on my own reading of the time. However, the flipside to that is that I've never served in any navy, and thus have no applicable contextual knowledge to add in this area.

That issue aside, I look forward to reading what you put together and adding in what I can.

Simon

[lordroel]

Sept 28, 2022 15:14:53 GMT simon darkshade said:

Senior Chief,

I liked the book and enjoyed the film, just a tad less. In terms of turning it into a viable ATL, the one issue that sticks out for me is the US captain's extreme zealousness at stopping a Soviet boat from getting through his patrol area, rather than simply tracking the loud bugger. It is a Foxtrot, rather than a missile boat, after all. I get that it is part of the Ahabesque feel that the author was evoking, but it does raise some issues of believability, based on my own reading of the time. However, the flipside to that is that I've never served in any navy, and thus have no applicable contextual knowledge to add in this area.

That issue aside, I look forward to reading what you put together and adding in what I can.

Simon

Did a Foxtrot carry so many nuclear torpedoes ore is it part of the plot.

[simon darkshade]

Yes, I've come across indications from my Dark Earth research that such a load was not unprecedented:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_submarine_K-8

However, as of 1962, the Soviets had fewer tactical nuclear weapons than 1970, which would effect the numbers available. Historically, in the Cuban Missiles Crisis, B-59 had a single T-5 nuclear torpedo:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_submarine_B-59

1962: 1/22
1970: 4/24

That is about the best data on the level of difference that we will get from a fairly shallow examination. I would wager that actual Soviet submarine nuclear weapons doctrine from the early 1960s is not readily available to the public in general, let alone the English speaking public.

[miletus12]

Sept 28, 2022 15:16:34 GMT lordroel said:

Sept 28, 2022 15:14:53 GMT simon darkshade said:

Senior Chief,

I liked the book and enjoyed the film, just a tad less. In terms of turning it into a viable ATL, the one issue that sticks out for me is the US captain's extreme zealousness at stopping a Soviet boat from getting through his patrol area, rather than simply tracking the loud bugger. It is a Foxtrot, rather than a missile boat, after all. I get that it is part of the Ahabesque feel that the author was evoking, but it does raise some issues of believability, based on my own reading of the time. However, the flipside to that is that I've never served in any navy, and thus have no applicable contextual knowledge to add in this area.

That issue aside, I look forward to reading what you put together and adding in what I can.

Simon

Did a Foxtrot carry so many nuclear torpedoes ore is it part of the plot.

The Russian Foxtrots in the Cuban Missile Crisis carried either the RDS5 warheaded T5 *(3 kiloton yield) or the ACSW (20 kiloton yield) T5. They had the maintenance and launch capacity for ONE such weapon per submarine, not two as is often claimed. The T5 with the larger weapon was a port attack weapon and was essentially suicidal to launch even though it was reputed to be an 18,000 meter swimout weapon..   

[simon darkshade]

Thanks, miletus. That answers fairly conclusively the increased capacity of the Bedford Foxtrot for plot purposes.

[lordroel]

Have a question, if the four nuclear torpedoes detonate, will we see one single giant ball times 4 ore one ball the size of the detonation of 1 nuclear torpedoe.

[miletus12]

Sept 28, 2022 18:05:01 GMT lordroel said:

Have a question, if the four nuclear torpedoes detonate, will we see one single giant ball times 4 ore one ball the size of the detonation of 1 nuclear torpedoe.

First weapon in the queue chain destroys the others.  Hence when a MIRVED missile scatters warheads from the bus, the warheads are time and spread dispersed to not mutually vaporize each other by same time arrival and within each other's fireballs at detonation. It is literally one impact point per segment of the trajectory. This is why that Chinese hypersonic FORBS test a year ago was the subject of a lot of debate. Was it a MIRV bus like on Minuteman, releasing multiple re-entry bodies in series (It released one and then impacted downrange after circumorbiting the earth, or was it a true hypersonic glide vehicle?    

They do not advertise this feature. This would diminish that supposed scary Chinese test into something like its true threat stature.  So they have a maneuvering bus. Big deal. It is the round the world come at you from any direction that is the worry, and we are not even sure they could do that properly from just one test of a fractional orbital bombardment system.

Torpedoes would have to arrive minutes apart. And with the Russians? They do not expect to survive their own launch.   
 

[lordroel]

Sept 28, 2022 18:21:48 GMT miletus12 said:

Sept 28, 2022 18:05:01 GMT lordroel said:

Have a question, if the four nuclear torpedoes detonate, will we see one single giant ball times 4 ore one ball the size of the detonation of 1 nuclear torpedoe.

First weapon in the queue chain destroys the others.  Hence when a MIRVED missile scatters warheads from the bus, the warheads are time and spread disperse to not mutually vaporize each other by same time arrival and within each other's fireballs at detonation.

They do not advertise this feature. 
 

So the the first nuclear torpedo destroys the other 3, got it.

Also USS Bedford DLG-113 is a fine looking ship.

Front view:



Back view:

[miletus12]

Actual ship used for live action shots was a a Type 15 frigate.

Model from the film.



You can tell by looking at the individual water droplets in the "spray" that it is a "scale model".

The USN wanted nothing to do with this film, so the producers had to go 100% foreign for anything technical. The USN thought it was both technically and morally unsound.

[lordroel]

Sept 28, 2022 18:53:40 GMT miletus12 said:

Actual ship used for live action shots was a a Type 15 frigate.

Model from the film.



You can tell by looking at the individual water droplets in the "spray" that it is a "scale model".

The USN wanted nothing to do with this film, so the producers had to go 100% foreign for anything technical. The USN thought it was both technically and morally unsound.

As Senior Chief mentions in his first post, USS Bedford (DLG-113) looks like a Farragut-class destroyer, so that means 23 officers and 337 enlisted men have died while onboard the Foxtrot-class submarine some 12 officers, 10 warrants and 56 seamen have died.

[oscssw]

Sept 28, 2022 13:55:13 GMT lordroel said:

Sept 28, 2022 13:26:12 GMT oscssw said:

Is it OK to "Provisionally (navy term for temporary/trial policy until the permanent one is promulgated) comment in this thread, if anyone is interested? If you decide The Bedford Incident as an ATL does not belong here just delete the thread.

I promise you there will be no hard feelings; as I know it is 'Just business" not personal".

Only have moved the thread you made to The Media Fandom Hub as it is about a movie as a TL, otherwise everthing is fine.

So before i start saying what i think of this, what about Ice Station Zebra, Senior Chief (oscssw ).

Not the first movie i have seen where somebody mistakes a sentence for Fire.

Four nuclear torpedoes, what would their kiloton be and is it not a bit overkill, one would do.

Ice Station zebra is, IMNSHO   a very good movie.  I am a big fan of Alistair Maclean and enjoy seeing his novels on the Big Screen.   Ther are a lot of inaccuracies in the movie but the plot and the cast more than make up for those minor annoyances.

Ok here we go into the things that used to give me nightmares, especially when I was in a PacFleet DD, DDG, FF or FFG.

My best guess is, given that the movie takes place in 1963 one year after the Cuban Missile crisis, I' bet the Soviet nuclear "fish" would be a Type 53-58 (operational version of the T-5) that had a 4.8 kiloton.   This bastard was a standard load out (usually two fish) on most Soviet subs well into the 80's.  The  Type 53-58 had a  quickly substitutable dual warhead.  The Sewer Pipe CO AND political officer had a choice of either a nuclear, most likely a RDS-9, or high explosive "Warshot".

We were told not to worry because our Pig Boats carried the 11 kiloton Mark 45 ASTOR ASW fish, an early nuke tipped, wire guided (I bet it was a very long wire)  Torp for use against high-speed, deep-diving, Soviet subs.  Like hand grenades ASTOR did not have to hit it's target to rip the boat to apart; close and not all that close, was more than good enough.  I bet our sewer Pipe sailors hated the damn things as much as we Real Sailors did our  RUR-5 ASROC (for "Anti-Submarine Rocket")
tipped with our W44 nuclear depth charge.   We much preferred our ASROC carry the Mark 44/46 torpedo, with it's 96.8 pound Torpex punch.  That might sound like a lot of HE but many of our bast ASW operators doubted it was powerful enough to generate a single hit kill against the Soviet, later double hulled, SSNs and SSGNs.   I am not so sure.  More than likely the fish will home on the stern of the sub (prop and engine room make the most noise usually) and shatter the prop shaft seals.  the stern areas of a sub because it is penetrated by the shaft is not a particularly strong section of the hull.  That would mean a mission kill at the least and at even moderate depth, probably the quick end of boat and it's entire crew.   

Speaking of nightmare scenarios especially nuke tipped ASROCs.  By 1967,when I joined the fleet, the 1962 ASROC Nuclear Test shot from USS Agerholm DD826 was no longer a secret, at least among the ASW types.  Agerholm was a Gearing FRAM I DD,  fired one Nuke tipped ASROC at a target 2.5 miles away. The W44 nuclear depth charge separated and flew a ballistic trajectory to the target. After impacting the water, the warhead sank to around 650 feet for the before detonating. 

There was a lot of Scuttlebutt about what the test shot did to the DD:

1. It seared off the topside paint on the stbd side of the Can

2. It did some topside structural damage. 

3. The salt water wash down system had been activated prior to the shot and worked pretty well but not perfectly and the ship and crew got a mild dose of radiation.

4. The test caused an acoustic phenomenon called, "Blue-out" where the massive sound reverb from an underwater nuclear explosion can blank out broadband SONAR for days at a time. "Blue Out" is NOT scuttlebutt. However the W-44 10 kiloton warhead was not big enough to effect a very wide area or last for "days";  maybe a day at the detonation spot and more likely 6-12 hours.    

And now my friend, you know a lot more about Navy Nukes than you ever wanted to.  Enough said?