Politics and Press

The Vanguard and Le Triomphant meet at sea

Fleet Commander Reginald Marmaduke calmed a nervous Europe with the news that the recent crash in open sea of two supposedly allied navies’ engineering marvels, the nuclear subs British Vanguard and the French Le Triomphant, only proved the superiority of western European technology. In a statement he later claimed was not meant to be a tip of the hat to Dr. Strangelove, he suggested that if Indian and Pakistani nuclear subs had collided, one could never know what the consequences might be, but that it would surely be due to poor marine training. Not to mention Russian subs. British and French subs, on the other hand, run so quietly that their collision was a sign of excellence, since neither the French nor the English, though outfitted with the latest French and British sonar devices, managed to notice the other one on collision course. “Both the Vanguard and Le Triomphant are among the most silent submarines ever developed,” Bruno Tertrais, a senior researcher at the Paris-based Foundation for Strategic Research, said today in a telephone interview. “The Atlantic is a big place, but coincidences can happen.”

Europeans, who came very close to being blown to smithereens all the way to Tschernobyl by this coincidence, were relieved to hear The Rt. Honourable Sir Joseph Porter, K.C.B announce that British nuclear defence capabilities were not compromised by the collision, as he noted that the whole schlamazel could have been avoided if only warnings sent out by radio transmission seamen had been sent in a language that anyone in either boat could have understood. As a consequence, he proposed that British, French and US nuclear submarine captains be sent to Canadian écoles bilingues as part of their basic training. N. Sarkozy, chief poobah of Paris, said that while he had not yet been informed of the accident, since neither navy had reported it for weeks after it happened, he still expected a detailed analysis by engineers of the Foundation for Strategic Research some time in 2012.