The design of compliant tube gratings for acoustic decoupling in water requires considerable detailed modeling of tube elastodynamics, array acoustics, grating resonant frequency, resonant bandwidth, elastomer loading, and tube stresses induced by uncompensated hydrostatic loading. Since the stresses depend on the same tube parameters as the acoustic characteristics it becomes necessary to simultaneously consider all grating factors including weight, thickness, and cost. For obvious reasons, however, tube strength must be given top priority in any design, and fundamental to estimating strength is a knowledge of stress risers in uniformly loaded oval shells. For conventional shaped tubes, such as those used by NUSC, the maximum stress is compression on the inside at the center of the curved ring segment. For very thick curved ends the ordinary thin shallow shell model is inappropriate and should be replaced by a more precise model. This paper presents the theoretical and emperical highlights of a detailed stress analysis of compliant tubes, including the flexural stress at the tube ends as well as the ring stresses.