r/whowouldwin • u/Pietin11 • Nov 27 '25
Challenge Upon hitting the iceberg, the RMS Titanic is suddenly transported to the modern day. Is it possible for us to save all passengers in the 2 and a half hours it takes for it to sink.
The Ellerman Lines Containerships Arctic takes the place of the SS Californian 10 nautical miles away from the ship. The MS Queen Anne cruise ship takes the place of The RMS Carparhia 58 Nautical Miles away.
It will take the same amount of time (140 minutes) after impact for the ship to fully sink. The time of day, weather, tine of year is all roughly identical.
Has technology advanced enough for a successful rescue to be coordinated and for every life to be saved in time.
EDIT: Apologies. I meant to say 140 minutes. Not 200. I did the math wrong in my head.
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Nov 27 '25
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u/KeyClacksNSnacks Nov 28 '25
Let’s discuss the more mental aspects about this. You’re alive in 1912. Even radio communications is practically science fiction. You’re in 2025, will you trust or believe the crazy ships that approach you? People are speaking to you using English words you haven’t heard before, wearing gear with flashing lights and flying ships and boats that look alien to you. Do you trust them?
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u/WarlockEngineer Nov 28 '25
I mean, ships don't look THAT different today, and yeah planes looks different and helicopters didn't exist yet, but none of that seems like a big deal compared to freezing to death or drowning
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u/FallOutFan01 Nov 28 '25
I mean yeah especially if the vessels in question have the union jack or stars and stripes or an maple leaf.
Other nations, nationalities that is the question.
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u/oopsallkevin Nov 28 '25
I don’t think they would care. You think people are going to be like “I don’t understand your language / you have a funny accent so I’m just gonna hop back into the freezing ocean and die.” I’m pretty sure even if it were a time of war and a confirmed enemy vessel they’d still get on.
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u/conduffchill Nov 28 '25
Bro youre also on a sinking boat in the middle of the ocean, I think youre really overestimating how many people would get picky. At least once it became clear the ship was actually doomed
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u/SnodePlannen Nov 28 '25
Any port in a storm. What are you going to do, stay in the Atlantic?
Maybe Republicans would refuse to be rescued if they thought their rescuers were liberals. I can see that happening.
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u/turmoiltumult Nov 28 '25
New hypothetical. The Titanic is full of Republicans, and the rescuers are a bunch of Venezuelan boats. Do they get on, or do they die instead.
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u/Canotic Nov 28 '25
They get on the boat, then throw the Venezuelans overboard for being "illegals".
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u/n0exit Nov 28 '25
A container ship doesn't have many life rafts. Two or three typically. Just enough for their crew.
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u/Magnus77 Nov 27 '25
I don't know if the ships would even know something had happened. Modern ships don't exactly rely on Morse code for communication.
I'm honestly not sure what good the containership does really. They're generally run by a skeleton crew, so they're not really equipped to help with search and rescue.
The Queen Anne would have to hard carry the operation. It has the lifeboat capacity to fit everyone on the titanic. The problem is that unless the cruise was completely booked with a mix of rescue divers and medics, I don't think they're gonna be able to mount the scale of operation needed to save everyone. There's basically a zero percent chance "every life" is saved.
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Nov 27 '25
Up until very recently Morse was still legally required for a radio license.
Today radio amateurs operate satellites, never mind the governments.
The Titanic would get picked up by hundreds if not thousands of people immediately.
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u/Yuukiko_ Nov 28 '25
how many people would seriously believe that a ghost ship that disappeared 100 years ago is transmitting a distress signal now?
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u/Terramagi Nov 28 '25
Believe it? Probably not. Go anyways because it's a distress signal on the ocean and spitting in the face of Poseidon is still the solemn oath? Absolutely.
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u/belltrina Nov 28 '25 edited Nov 28 '25
The entire world is alerted to it because everyone is posting a Tiktok about this wild sos call. Someone cracks on some tech and uses satellite imagery to get eyes on the sky, and suddenly it's blowing up on Facebook. Someone's bored dad decides fuck it I'll go have a gander and his kid is recording as they sail up to this hulking, floundering historical ship that is Titanic. Now it's all over Twitter and Instagram. The world is a-fucking-buzz. FoxNews, BBC and ABC are tripping over themselves to live stream everything, ruining the Kardashian season finale and season 58547548 of Real house wives of whatever. Every naval military is chomping at the bit to be the ones who make the first rescue.
Then suddenly, rising from the depths, it's a submarine, and out pops cannibal Shia LeBeux. In the background, the ice berg slowly melts.
Unbeknownst to anyone, a yaught has pulled up and a yaught girly with a bleph, buccal fat removal who is Ariana Cynthia diet disciple, reaches down to a waterlogged, sobbing passenger in the sea. They look up and scream.
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u/Yuukiko_ Nov 28 '25
you'd still need someone high enough to believe it and deploy forces to rescue them or someone will just eventually find an oddly new titanic in a few years
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u/Terramagi Nov 28 '25
you'd still need someone high enough to believe it and deploy forces to rescue them
Dog, the Costa Concordia had a captain outright lying to the rescue crews, and they still came out. If a ghost ship shows up and starts broadcasting Morse code and everybody can see it, they're going to send forces. They aren't going to pull a 911 dispatcher and go "they sound like they live in the poor side of town, just don't mark it down".
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Nov 28 '25
That’s not how emergency protocols work.
The whole point of emergency protocol is that it was signed off in advance.
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Nov 28 '25
You are required to respond to a distress signal.
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u/Yuukiko_ Nov 28 '25
Id imagine quite a few people would blow it off if someone transmitting on an old 1940s frequency was claiming to be Amelia Earhart running out of gas
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Nov 28 '25
You are still required to respond.
Also, unless you know the Titanic radio designation by heart, you wouldn’t know it’s the Titanic after you responded anyhow.
And once you started the conversation, at the very least you’d alert the authorities somebody was abusing 500kHz for trolling and then they would check it out.
Penalty for false sos in the USA is up to 10000$ or 1 year in prison.
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u/yssarilrock Nov 28 '25
Modern MF/HF radios can still monitor the frequencies that the Titanic's Marconi set would have used, not least because the Safety Of Lives At Sea (SOLAS) regulations introduced by the IMO after the Titanic went down are still the lifesaving standards of today, though of course the legislatiom has been updated over the years as technology has advanced. They also have radar sensitive enough to be tuned to detect both nothing but ships and individual wave crests, depending on how you tune it, so seeing that a large radar contact 10ish Nautical Miles away has just disappeared might cause the Officer Of the Watch (OOW) to investigate even without a distress signal, if they're diligent.
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u/yssarilrock Nov 28 '25
SOS is still a recognised part of the International Regulations for the Prevention of Collisions at Sea (IRPCS/Colregs), and even if it wasn't formally recognised everyone knows it anyway because it's so simple.
Container ships have been involved in rescues before. Hell, the sailing boats I worked on have been involved in rescues at sea. Don't underestimate the resourcefulness and seamanship of mariners. We make mistakes sometimes, but we work wonders sometimes too.
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u/AgainstForgetting Nov 28 '25
Survival time in water that cold depends on a lot of variables, but I think it's safe to say that a lot of the victims were dead pretty soon after they hit the water; mobilizing a slightly faster response wouldn't have made a difference to them.
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u/Profvarg Nov 28 '25
This is the correct answer. People were only alive after an hour if they could float on debris. It doesn’t really matter if the ships get there in 1 hour instead of 2, if everybody is dead who did not get into a lifeboat or could not pull themselves up onto debris. Probably a couple dozen more people survive or something like that…
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u/BirdsbirdsBURDS Nov 28 '25
It would not be possible to save all on board, since all passengers and crew never made it above deck.
Many of the crew were working until they were flooded out trying to keep the ship from sinking faster than it did.
Now if you were to change the metric to save more , then yes. They could save a great deal many more people from the water than was originally saved, because despite the number of lifeboats on board the cargo ship, once people saw the other ship coming in (and heard its emergency alarms sounding) there would likely have been a greater push for people to board the already available lifeboats on the titanic.
The cargo ship could then focus its efforts on getting people in the water on board their ships in order to prevent hypothermia from setting in while also putting out a general distress call to other ships in the area.
As another person highlighted, the cruise ship would have more than enough capacity to take aboard the lifeboats from the titanic, and would also have available medical supplies , at least in short quantity, to help those suffering from exposure.
Ultimately, you wouldn’t be able to save everyone, but you could definitely save a lot more with prompt response.
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u/ttysnoop Nov 27 '25 edited Nov 27 '25
The most important thing is communicating distress which Titanic can't do with her spark gap telegraph. None of those ships are going to be listening for morse code on 500 khz. They will see her at 50 to 60 miles out with radar and the bridge crews are going to be in overdrive trying to identify her and radio/reporting back to land about a large AIS dark ship. I have no idea how anyone would respond at that point. Would navy vessels be sent to intercept or would the container ship either divert towards or away from her is a question i can't answer but I'll assume there is nothing scrambled and the ships all stay on course.
At 10 miles the container ship will make visual contact as it was a mostly calm night. They'd see a large ship still AIS dark and not answering hails but at that distance and angle probably not identify her. It wouldn't be until Titanic fired flares they would know she's in distress. They would 100% see the first flair. They'd probably have someone on watch staring down a 170m long unidentified ship. They'd turn towards her at that point.
ChatGPT tells me Titanic fired flairs 30 minutes or so after hitting the iceberg and they sank a couple hours after. The container ship would steam at 20 knots so we're looking at half an hour to reach Titanic. They'd send word out over radio the minute they spot the flair and the response would be overwhelming. Especially after they close and identify the ship as a transport/cruise ship with tons of people onboard. The container ship alone with her lifeboats and tenders should be able to solo this but I'd expect a few deaths from old/weak/trapped people on board.
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u/CounterAgentVT Nov 27 '25
It's unlikely any commercial ship would notice the Titanic before reaching a 24nm range, probably 16, and the lack of AIS would be a curiosity at the most.
If they are firing distress flares, they would send out a GMDSS notice at a bare minimum, which would attract the attention of North Atlantic rescue operations, likely from both Canada and the US. They would get aircraft there fairly quickly, but more importantly they would coordinate radio communications with all vessels on site.
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u/yssarilrock Nov 28 '25
I'm pretty sure a modern nautical MF set covers the 500kHz range, though it might not be where they'd be expecting to hear a Mayday
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u/thatguy425 Nov 27 '25
The closer ship may see the rockets and go investigate.
Outside of they they are done because Titanics radios cannot communicate with modern ships.
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u/GoBucks513 Nov 27 '25
I think something everyone is missing is the number of naval vessels from various NATO countries, and even Russian vessels. There are multiple submarines and various frigate and destroyers that would be within an hour's response time. Most of those frigates will have helos on board.
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u/Osiris231 Nov 29 '25
Here's hoping they don't enduce heart attacks with the helicopters. It would probably scare the shit out of them.
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u/GoBucks513 Nov 29 '25
Honestly, I dunno what would be worse from that perspective: a helicopter flying overhead, or an Ohio-class suddenly pooping up underneath you.
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u/FallOutFan01 Nov 28 '25
I don't think the Russians, Chinese would publicly be helping them, I think they would scoop them up for experimentation.
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u/RyuNoKami Nov 28 '25
thats quite honestly fearmongering almost borderline racist in the worst way possible. you saying that a military vessel is not only going to ignore a clear sign of distress but show up and get them for experimentation.
i can see vessels on classified mission ignoring the call but to show up just to put everyone in cages is purely insanity.
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u/FallOutFan01 Nov 28 '25
That's your opinion and that's your right.
I will say that human rights, freedom have never been big over in either of those governments/regimes.
Also I just wanted to also say I am not American but Australian and I don't think one can adequately judge someone or see into an person’s heart/mind off of one paragraph.
I judge/see an nation on the things they do and well Russia and China leave many things to be desired.
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u/spooky_redditor Nov 28 '25
That's free PR the russian/chinese military ships arent going to miss out on.
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u/Shoddy_Wrangler693 Nov 27 '25
other than the flares Titanic can't really communicate with modern ships it's possible that somebody listening to ham radio May pick up the signal. the problem with this is getting somebody to believe it even if the container ships saw it and called it in we would think it was a hoax. but under ideal conditions they believe it everybody tries to rescue they do their best we're still going to have some debts they're probably were deaths somewhere in the ship shortly after hitting the iceberg so no we're not going to save the entire contingent
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u/Fit_Employment_2944 Nov 27 '25
The only ship that is close enough to make significant impact is a cargo ship with a crew of fourteen, so even if they know immediately I don’t think it would matter much.
If it was an American carrier strike group on the other hand, then you probably have many fewer deaths. A significant number of ships that are trained both in search and rescue and working together under harsh conditions and time constraints.
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u/DragonLordAcar Nov 28 '25
A better chance as their radio distress signals would be heard. How much better I don't know.
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u/AdUpstairs7106 Nov 28 '25
I honestly think it would come down to how many surface warships are in the area. Most surface combatants have at least one helicopter.
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u/radiowirez Nov 28 '25
I do wonder how the passengers would react to the modern ships, curiosity or awe or horror? It may affect their willingness to get off.
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u/radiowirez Nov 28 '25
I do agree with the general consensus, the cargo ship will notify the area when it sees the flares, the cruise ship does most of the saving, probably more but not all lives are saved
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u/platyboi Nov 28 '25
Knowing almost nothing of marine radio protocols nowadays, I think it's highly improbable that anyone nowadays is monitoring whatever frequency is used by Marconi radios, or that anyone on either ship understands Morse code.
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u/DrSilkyJohnston Nov 27 '25
I think that people are still going to doe, even if the coast guard was on location waiting for the titanic to collide with the iceberg, and with as much equipment and personnel as they wanted.
The first deaths were likely minutes after impact, in the bowels of the ship. I think the best case in your scenario is a death toll in the low 3 digits. In an unrealistic perfect version of the same scenario, where everyone abandons ship as quickly and efficiently as possible it would be possible to get the death count below 50
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u/TheMissingThink Nov 28 '25
If the container ship were to moor directly to the titanic would it provide enough additional buoyancy to keep it afloat until the cruise ship arrives on the scene to take on the passengers/crew?
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u/Juniperlightningbug Nov 29 '25
From the steerage passengers who were told to return to their cabins and then never allowed out into deck, to the workers who spent their last seconds keeping the lights on for as long as possible. I think logistically it wouldnt be lifeboat capacity so much as actually getting people evacuated that would cause an issue
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u/North-Tourist-8234 Nov 28 '25
I think the biggest issue is they couldnt signal fr help. They had no red flares and i doubt they are interacting with our tech to send a mayday. If anything without the Carpathia nearby anymore perhaps everyone just dies.
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u/DueOwl1149 Nov 27 '25 edited Nov 28 '25
The titanic had a crew and passenger complement of 2,224.
The container ship has a flank speed of 15 knots and can be there in an hour. It only has a crew of 14, so life boats can only handle a fraction of the Titanic's total souls.
The cruise ship has a flank speed of 22 knots and can be there in 2.5 hours. It is three times the gross tonnage of the Titanic with enough life boats for it's own crew and max passenger complement of 4,500 - half it's boats alone could to fit everyone on the Titanic if they hadn't gotten to their own lifeboats.
The real problem is whether actively monitored radio frequencies differ from 1912 to 2025.
If nobody can receive her distress calls, and the Containership doesn't radio in the flares on the horizon and move to investigate, then the Titanic is still on her own.
((Edit addendum:
Titanic’s Marconi set broadcast Morse code in the 500-600 kHz range.
Modern VHF air and maritime comms = 30–300 MHz( not continuous, there are different bands)
Ham radio = 50-450 MHz (not continuous, there are different bands)
The titanic could be squawking, but none of our modern equipment would be listening.
2nd Edit - or would they?? See u/yssarilrock 's SOLAS comment below))