If a missile can sink a vessel...?
608474
Size matters for several reasons. Overall efficiency is increased on larger ships. Less fuel than three or four ships, to haul the same amount of cargo. Size matters when you are landing fixed wing aircraft on the ship (aircraft carrier). It also matters when riding out bad weather where sea swells have been measured to be 90-100 feet high. However close in to shore, where most modern combat is being done, the smaller ships have some advantage as to maneuverability and speed. Compare it to a Cadillac Escalade SUV and a Honda Civic Coupe. The Escalade is better for hauling a lot of stuff a long ways, while the Civic is better for around town.\nFor your Cruiser vs Frigate issue, the size of the two has gotten so close that there really isn't much difference.
218971
Any object will float as long as it displaces a volume of liquid that is more massive than itself. Take the aluminum boat and fold it into a block of aluminum and it sinks. But due to the shape of the boat, the mass of the aluminum,plus you, and your fishing gear, is still less than the volume of water pushed aside by the hull of the boat. So, you float.
61489
The length of time a nuclear submarine can remain submerged depends upon the amount of provisions stored onboard for the crew.  Storage space reserved for food is limited.  Extra food can be kept anywhere where there is room.  Often, the pathways of berthing are used for canned goods (one walks atop food for several weeks before it's all gone).\n\nOther than the limitation of food, the only other thing that would prevent a nuclear submarine from staying submerged would be air quality.\n\nAn atmosphere monitoring system tests the air (percentages of 02, CO2, CO, etc.) constantly to assure breathable air, while a carbon dioxide scrubber removes Co2 gas; a COH2 burner burns hydrogen (byproduct of the burn is water) and removes CO by passing it over a bed of lithium carbonate.  The scrubbers and the burner work quite well at maintaining safe levels.\n\nWhen the oxygen levels get close to a minimum for safe levels, either the boat ventilates (ship rises to periscope depth and outside air is sucked in with a blower; stale air is exhausted overboard) or it is decided that an oxygen bleed (venting oxygen into the ship from high pressure banks) should be started.  If an oxygen bleed is started, however, it can only continue for a limited time due to the increase in pressure it causes inside the ship; before the pressure increases above acceptable levels (above acceptable levels would cause a human's ear drums to burst and bleed out), the ship must ventilate to equalize with atmospheric pressure.  In case you're wandering, the oxygen aboard ship is actually converted in an oxygen generator from deionized water through a process called electrolysis.
905409
Yes. In fact you could float a 40,000 kg ship in a few kg of water.\n\nThe point is to make sure that the displaced water (i.e. the water that is not there because the hull is taking up that space) would weigh 40,000 kg. Presumably a ship would have been designed in such a way that this is true because it is intended to float.\n\nSo all you need is a tank that is shaped exactly like the ship's hull with maybe a cm in every direction, and just enough water to fill that small space up to the water line. The actual amount of water present is irrelevant - it's the water that's not there that matters.
238439
Yeah, it's not a jet where air is pushed out.  It is a chemical reaction where chemicals are burned and thrust out the back of the ship.  It's like if you were floating as still as possible in zero G and blew air out hard.  you would move in the opposite direction.  If you held a little bottle of any gas under pressure and opened it, you would move.  Same basic principle. It's not pushing against the surrounding air, it's just pushing away from you regardless of whether it's a vacuum or in air.\n\nIn fact, in air you would get less of a push than you would in a vacuum.
29332
Drop it off of a ship into the North Atlantic.
433856
Perhaps you can picture it this way.  Take your 2,000 ton ship and melt it down and use it to make a very large solid steel cube.  Mearsure the cube and obtain an equal cube of water (say frozen into ice?).  Place the two cubes on opposite ends of a giant seasaw.  The steel cube weighs more than an equal volume of water and goes down (sinks!).\n\nTake a second identical steel cube and build a typical ship.  While still in drydock, fill the inside of the ship with water up to the intended water line (based on an identical ship?).  Drain the water out and use it to make another really giant ice cube.  This ice cube will now be much larger than the cube of steel.  Now place the steel cube and the ice cube on the seasaw.  The weight of the water goes down and the steel cube goes up (floats).  The weight (volume) of the water inside the drydocked ship is equal to the weight of water displaced by the ship (shoved aside by the floating ship) and acts upwards on the bottom of the ship with the same force it had on the seasaw.  It is more than enough to make the ship float unless the ship is loaded up until water flows over the side of the ship and floods it.  Hope that helps a little.
856925
The Harpoon is an anti ship missile, fired from; let's say an F-16. The Tomahawk is capable of destroying entire buildings and is even capable of carrying a nuclear warhead (never used before). But there could be more out there in the non US defence market, we never know. The Russians and the Chinese have some neat stuff. Peace to the world.
293938
well depending on how well it's built, the same thing that would happen to any reactor hear in the US if it core was breached. You would have a radiation leak
226032
There is theory that says perhaps the fresh water aquifers under that area of the ocean rupture into the salt water, making the water less boyant.  That would sink ships loaded with cargo or near their max weight limit.  Yet it does not account for lost planes.  So who knows?
65763
Because a ship has surface area, a needle doesn't. Water can flow around it, so it sinks.
484525
There is no wing shaped damage to the right and left of the hole...  Since the Pentagon is built very strongly, It seems to me that the wings would have sheared off upon impact and there would be many pieces lying in front of the building on either side of the hole.  There isn't.  Commercial jet liners don't 'vaporize'... That's preposterous.  Water vaporizes.  Liquid nitrogen vaporizes.  Aluminum and titanium do not.  They eventually will melt, but due to the quick response of the firefighters, I doubt the fire got hot enough for long enough to melt an entire plane.  Even then, there would be many tons of melted metal to pick up.  I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but I'm no idiot either.  There is something wrong with the government's version of what happened at the Pentagon.
775903
The turrets of a battleship can fire the shells in any direction but forward. Each barrel can be elevated independently. Powder bags are used to fire the projectiles and each turret requires from 77 to 110 men. The turrets are in reality not attatched to the ship, but to rolers, in the even that the ship sinks. Only the top turret protudes above the main deck. Back during WWII, the projectiles were fired by percussion, but nowadays, they haveto be fired electronically. The guns are 66 feet long. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nhttp://www.chuckhawks.com/armor_schemes.htm\nhttp://navalhistory.flixco.info/H/54503/8330/a0.htm\nhttp://www.bigstockphoto.com/photo/view/795138\nhttp://www.stormingmedia.us/74/7493/A749381.html\nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iowa_class_battleship
566567
See my earlier answer about missile defense. This is still one of the technological weaknesses of the system that keeps it from being viable.
1086468
... let's trim your sails and see what comes up ...\n\n... after trailing your stern, my submarine needs to surface ...\n\n ... you look like a solid vessel, how many torpedos do you take  before you go down? ...\n\n ... you're the best boat in this harbor:  broad in the beam, responsive when wet ...
24694
Some say it's because of methane bubble. Huge methane bubbles that explode could sink the ships and because methane it's lighter than air it rises up and stays in the air. Enough methane in the air could abruptly stops an airplane engine.
518532
Hmmm......\n\nI don't know. I assume things can explode, as long as the essential ingrediants are stored within the object exploding..\n\nHowever, it may be more of an implosion. \n\nSo, yes, no, maybe. Give me my 10 points.