Ah....the union....when one of their members got accused of an accident causing injury to another of their workers and was to be disciplined or possibly fired, they got very angry one day in about 2013...
Our Comm Techs had been given permission to go onboard while in a certain yard, and work on the PA system - at the time it was a "Safe Alongside" requirement that needed to be functional when we took the ship back.
Well, they had over 90% of the ship's speakers functional and tested going home that day, and we were just a couple of weeks away from getting the ship back into our control. The last 10% had been identified, and there was a solid plan in place to fix them.
The next morning? Over half of their repairs were 'undone' in one way or another. Cables cut, yanked out...etc. We were livid. Nothing we could do though except wait to do the repairs once we were handed over the ship.
Willful and deliberate. No one held to account.
As for the MK.41 VLS, I believe you're thinking of the DELUGE system - it works well from what I was told by some 280 sailors. I suspect that most of the missiles in the other cannisters were actually fire-able. They're designed to be somewhat survivable.
Looking at that video, I don't think it was an actual detonation of the warhead - it was a Restrained Firing.
The MK.48 VLS cannister system on the Halifax Class is designed to protect against restrained firings as well - the J-Tube is designed to be able to survive 10 regular launches, or 2x restrained firings with no excessive heat exiting or damaging the ship.
Here's a comment found on the 'net' from someone who seems to know what they're talking about that viewed the original video from 2018:
From the looks of the video, the boost motor fired (Orange flame) but the missile stayed in place. That would indicate that the missile restraining bolts did not release and the missile stayed put.
That’s a Hang fire , not a Misfire. Misfires don’t ignite…Hang fires do.
The efflux will have vented from not just the efflux vents in the launcher but also out of the missile tube. From the video the white blobs flying around would indicate that the motor broke up as well and spread itself over the upper deck. Somewhere in that burning mess is also going to be the High Explosive warhead unless they had a telemetry pack fitted in place of the warhead (Doubtful). I talked to a “steely eyed missile man” US colleague and he told me an SM2 has a dual boost solid propellant rocket motor. This usually means it is a boost and sustainer motor in the same rocket tube. The boost part which burns first is a solid propellant which consists of lots of short lengths of cordite type explosive which has a high surface area. (It could look like say… star shaped macaroni or similar.) When ignited it burns quickly(High surface area) producing high volumes of gas which exits via the motor aperture giving you a high impulse thrust. When that burns out the sustainer motor (also solid propellant) takes over but burns at a slower consistent rate to give constant thrust over the range of the missile.
All missiles have restraining bolts that hold them in place on the launcher or vertically in place in a VL launcher. They are either mechanically actuated or shear bolts. It doesn’t pay to have a VL missile rattling around in a VL tube in rough weather with the vessel pitching and rolling. Same goes for the old beam type launchers (sea sea dart video!) as you don’t want the missile sliding off the beam in roughers.
The MK41 has a deluge system that sprays the tubes in case a hang fire like this happens. That was actuated. Missile tubes also have a lot of fireproof cladding in them to stop Hang fires burning through the deck below the rocket motor. I dont know from the reports if this cladding held.
The damage to the bridge will be due to the ship sailing into the wind at a set speed for the shoot which is standard practice. Any hot efflux from the Hang fire will have been blown back against the bridge burning the paint.
The door being closed probably just means the crew closed the door as best they could after the incident to stop heavy weather filling the MK41 tube with water. As it is the missiles around the damaged tube will, I expect, need to be removed and overhauled/disposed of as they have probably been exposed to excessive heat which can cause a chemical breakdown in the propellant and an increase in explosives sensitivity to shock and handling.
All in all a very nasty incident that did not result in serious casualties which was good to see.
