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Basics to 1120: Submarine Officer ------------ Forward ------------ DISCLAIMER: ALL DISCUSSIONS WILL BE ON THE UNCLASS LEVEL. DO NOT POST CLASSIFIED MATERIAL. This thread is meant to impart some wisdom to young midshipmen or enlisted looking at submarines as a possible Junior Officer career, and to answer some of the questions that I would have loved to know to ask before I got my 1170 (submarines, unqualified) designator. Since I don’t know you, and I don’t particularly concern myself with the “future of the submarine force”, I hope this will be an unbiased place for questions, answers, and information from pre-commission community selection through post-JO tour career development. Since my experience is limited to fast-attack submarines, some of the things I say may not be applicable to ballistic missiles (boomer) submarines; I will diligently try to point these differences, and my ignorance thereof, out as they come along. ----------------- Introduction ----------------- I am a junior officer, submarine and diver qualified, aboard a fast-attack submarine based in the pacific fleet. I am nearing the end of my first sea duty, and will be going shore duty here in the next couple months. During my 41 months onboard, I’ve done one Middle East deployment (5th fleet), one western Pacific deployment (7th fleet), and one eastern Pacific deployment (3rd fleet). During those deployments I stood watch as Engineering Officer of the Watch (EOOW), Contact Manager, and Officer of the Deck (OOD). I was trained at Nuclear Power Training Unit (NPTU), Charleston on MTS-365 and attended Nuclear Power School in Charleston, SC. I got my major in economics and psychology.  --------------------------------------- Basics of a Submarine Officer --------------------------------------- The unrestricted line officers on a submarine are the tactical leadership backbone of the ship. The wardroom (i.e. 1120 officers onboard) leads the planning, preparation, and execution of the missions assigned to a submarine during deployment, and is the tactical leadership of their watchsections both on deployment and during the workup cycle leading up to deployment. Under the tutelage, and side by side with, the senior enlisted (chiefs) aboard the ship we also manage the day to day administration and training that goes into preparing a submarine for sea. This includes quality assurance for SUBSAFE systems, maintenance packages and paperwork for routine maintenance, training preparation and execution, operational and risk management planning, etc. While out at sea, officers stand (from most junior to senior watchstations) Engineering Officer of the Watch (EOOW), Contact Manager, Junior Officer of the Deck (JOOD), and Officer of the Deck (OOD). The Executive Officer (XO, a 3rd sea tour officer) will also stand Command Duty Officer (CDO) when the Captain (CO) is asleep or otherwise indisposed. The majority of your career, until you make XO, will be consumed by trying to qualify and then succeed as Officer of the Deck, the officer in charge of managing and driving the submarine that is at your disposal.  --------------------------------------- Starting Out --------------------------------------- Getting selected for submarines as an officer is a somewhat more convoluted process than you may imagine, especially for a force that is constantly undermanned. Your first hurdle is the Admiral Interview. Every submarine officer is interviewed by Naval Reactors (NR) in Washington, D.C., the culmination of which is an interview with NR actual, Admiral Richardson. The entire interview process takes about 3 days, and if you are coming from an NROTC unit, you will have been studying for this interview for a couple months to make it easier. You’ll fly to DC, spend the night, and start interviews at 0700 the next morning. You’ll be tested by two NR engineers on mathematics, basic physics, engineering principles, etc. If you have a non-engineering major and run into someone who knows something about your major, they will ask you about that too. Once complete (assuming you passed both your interviews) you’ll go, alone, and sit in front of the Admiral, who makes the final decision if you enter the submarine force. He will ask you about your major, your grades (be prepared to defend bad grades in any classes), your hobbies, your ambitions, etc. This is not a formality; I had two people with me who did very well on their interviews, but the Admiral felt they lacked the “moral fortitude” to become submarine officers, and thus were denied entry. In the end, if you pass, you will spend a wonderful drunken and celebratory night in D.C. before flying home. Did I mention you now have $10,000? Yeah, once you pass the interviews, they drop 10 grand in your bank account. Have fun, but save most of it for post-commission; you’ll need to buy furniture, supplies, a car, etc once you get to power school. --------------------------------------- Power School --------------------------------------- Alright, so you made it through the interviews, got those butterbars, and now you have orders to Goose Creek, SC to attend nuclear power school. BAH for a single 0-1 in Charleston right now is $1150, which can get you a nice apartment in pretty much wherever you want, but since the name of the game is always “save money”, you should try and find a room-mate who is going to power school with you. If there are none in your school, try calling other NROTC units; not only will you be able to carpool, but you can force eachother to enjoy the city. I recommend Mt Pleasant, West Ashley, or Charleston itself; Goose Creek and North Charleston are shitholes, and the best part of Charleston is the city itself; awesome food, fantastic women, and great entertainment. Totally worth an extra ten minutes of driving to get to work. Powerschool itself relatively straight forward, if not exactly easy. You have 6 months to learn basic nuclear engineering, circa 1970’s. You’ll study mathematics up to linear algebra, physics up to energy transfer, thermodynamics, materials engineering, nuclear theory and energy, electrical engineering, and reactor plant principles. Most of the teaching, however, revolves around the original theory of nuclear power, when Admiral Rickover made the program, so the whole “quantum mechanics” thing is conveniently ignored. The basics are still sound, however. Class normally starts at 0630, and end around 1600-1700, M-F. After that, there is normally 1-4 hours of homework, and weekly tests on every subject (you are taking 2-4 at a time). You’ll take ~40 hours of classes per week, and anywhere from 10-40 extra hours per week of studying and memorizing. Welcome to submarines; the 80 hour workweek. If you don’t do well, they’ll assign you mandatory study hours of 10-35, depending on how many you need to succeed. At end of the 6 months, you’ll take an 8 hour comprehensive exam. The key to success at powerschool is to realize that this is not like normal school. The Navy doesn’t really care if you deeply and truly understand nuclear power. What they care about is that you can identify problems and then safely and expertly execute procedures as written. This means you need to know how to memorize; in fact, most of powerschool is just one big memorization fest. The phrase you’ll hear a lot is “drinking out of a firehose”, which is pretty accurate. I normally go home and workout after classes, make some dinner to take to work, and then come back and eat/study until 2000 or 2030. Just expect that you’ll be working long days, so make the weekends count. --------------------------------------- Prototype --------------------------------------- Prototype, which you will most likely attend right after power school, will allow you to work on an operational naval reactor for 6 months, giving you a chance to learn the basics and teaching you how to qualify a watch. Your goal will be to qualify Engineering Officer of the Watch. There are two different prototypes, Charleston and Balston Spa (in Saratoga, NY). I’ve been told Saratoga is quite nice. Where ever you go, you’ll spend the first 8 weeks learning plant basics, and then you’ll be assigned a crew and move onto shiftwork so you can start qualifying. You schedule gets interesting, now. There are 3 shifts; Morning, from 0800-1600, Swing, from 1600-0000, and Mids, from 0000-0800. You will be on Morning shift for 7 days, followed by 3 days off, Swings for 7 days, followed by 3 days off, and Mids for 7 days, followed by 4 days off. The schedule is gruesome and unpleasant, since you have mandatory study hours afterwatch for 2-6 hours, depending on how far ahead you are. Once you qualify EOOW, you are pretty much done until the comprehensive exam at the end of prototype, which is another 8 hour test. The key to prototype is to understand that it sucks, and you need to get through it ASAP. Game the system as much as you can. Kiss rear end, make friends, do whatever you have to do to get ahead of quals and stay there. In order to be the best, you need to do as little as possible while still qualifying; the goal is to qualify, not to know everything. So don’t over-study, just do the minimum amount to get the signature and move the gently caress on. No one will care that you blew that Analytical Procedures checkout out of the water, but they will care that you are loving DINQ (delinquent in quals) because you spent 6 hours studying for it. And above all, remember this: the soda machine always accidentally dispenses 2 sodas before a checkout. Live your prototype life by that creed, and life becomes much more bearable. --------------------------------------------- SOBC: Submarine Officer Basic Course --------------------------------------------- Now that you’ve made it through the miles of poo poo involved in prototype, the Navy has deigned to bless you. Welcome to SOBC, what will probably be the best months of your life until your first shore duty. Here, in glorious Groton, CT, you get to learn the basics of being a submarine officer. This includes SONAR, Target Motion Analysis (TMA), Approach and Attack, tracking techniques, periscope tactics, and all the things that go along with being a tactical submariner. Oh, yeah, and the hours are loving awesome. I spend, maybe, 4 hours a day in class, with NO weekend responsibilities. It was like a god drat dream. The entire course lasts about 3 months, but they have revised it extensively since I went, so I don’t know specifics. Just enjoy it. ---------------------------------- Choosing Your Submarine ----------------------------------- Sometime during this process, you will be told to contact the detailer and tell him what you prefer in terms of at-sea assignments. Know this; he doesn’t give a flying gently caress what you want. Unless what you want is exactly what he wants, you will get exactly what he decides is easiest for him. Sorry. Assigning JO’s to submarines is just a big numbers game; you have a nuclear technical score based on power school and prototype, and you will be assigned to a submarine based on the wardroom’s average technical scores and their recent performance. Don’t worry your little mind over trying to game this; it is completely out of your control. You can’t guarantee yourself a San Diego submarine by doing well, or doing badly, or really by doing anything, so just let it go. Your only choice in the matter is whether you go Ballistic Missile or Fast attack, which in turn decides which ports you may go to. For the love of god, do not choose a platform based on which ports are available to each platform. The choice of Fast Attack or Boomer will make such a big difference in your life, the port will be almost entirely irrelevant. Here’s why: Boomers have 2 crews; blue and gold. Every 3 months, the crews swap, and one crew takes the boat while the others go to a couple offices and does…something. I never really figured out what, aside from training, so maybe someone else will know and answer better. The crew with the ship repairs it, and goes out to sea for a patrol, generally lasting 60-90 days. From what I understand, all they do is drill while out on patrol, and since I hate drills, that seems like a pretty crappy deal. But hey, they spend half their time on shore, so gently caress em. It’s an important job, but so is cleaning sewers; doesn’t mean I want to do it. Most people who go boomers either have family and kids (which makes boomers a fantastic choice) or really want to go to Seattle. Fast Attack This is the meat of the submarine force (sorry boomer guys). Our deployment cycle lasts 1-1.5 years. We spend 4 months doing maintenance availabilities, 3 months doing at-sea testing and training, and 2 months doing pre-deployment evaluations, after which you will go on a 6 months deployment (this cycle is slightly different for Guam boats, since they are only a couple days from theater). On deployment, you will get a chance to do some really awesome, frontline super secret spy poo poo. You will have security clearances that start at TOP SECRET and move up, depending on what you are doing. When the job is done, you get to pull into some pretty awesome foreign ports (normally 2-4) and see the world. Deployment is downright awesome, aside from being away from the family. Unless all you care about is making a paycheck and spending time with your family, fast attack is the way to go. Just know this; there is no 3 month off crew. Life is much, MUCH harder on a fast attack.  NOTE: This is how a lovely day starts for a submarine. ------------------------------------- Why be a Submarine Officer ------------------------------------- This is an extremely demanding job, both mentally and emotionally (nope, not physically. You can be fat. They will waive that, though we will mock you for it. Fat rear end.) Like all things that are hard, it can be very rewarding. On the “feel good” side, you are generally regarded as some of the smartest people in the Navy, and for good reason. The training and qualification pipeline is grueling and unforgiving, and once complete you and everyone you meet will be astounded at your accomplishment. I have yet to run across a person who did not find my job utterly and completely fascinating, and they really, really mean it when they thank you for your service. On the personal side, you will develop skills that you will never develop anywhere else. Your leadership skills will be the foundation of your career, and your watchteam will depend on those skills to return them home safely. This is not an idle aphorism; if you fail your watchteam, the costs are severe and very potentially fatal. The sea is a harsh mistress, and the consequences of water in the people tank are always tragic. I still have nightmares about one of my failures and how close to ruin I led my boat. The important part, however, is that the submarine force will prepare you to face those challenges, and that is an invaluable benefit. No matter how timid or unworthy you think you are now, you will be different person when you are done, prepared and ready for the burdens you will carry. And no matter what you do later in life, no one can ever, ever take that away from you  ------------------------------------------ Now for the bad: what’s the catch? ------------------------------------------ This job will suck. A lot. Not like “gees, my girl won’t touch my happy place tonight” kind of suck, but the “I’ve been awake for 3 days, I haven’t seen the sun since the month before last, and I’m pretty sure we’re running out of food tomorrow” kind of suck. It’s the “It’s 11pm, I got to work at 3am yesterday, and my port and starboard duty means I have to be at work in 6 hours on a Sunday so gently caress it I’m sleeping in my car for the 4th day in a row” kind of poo poo. This is just the start. Let me try to put this in perspective. I originally was an EOD candidate; I made it all the way through mudpups, pre-school, and a summer of suffering before I finally was 1 week away from being able to report to Panama City to start my training, when I was “medically disqualified” and shipped off to Washington to interview for submarines (read: I was non-vol’ed). Despite my deepest desire, longing, and love for EOD, I well and truly believe that submarines is just as hard, demanding and sacrifice requiring a job. Don’t believe me? I don’t blame you; I wouldn’t have either. But here, let’s run a test. If you join submarines, ask you SEAL buddies “Hey, want to switch jobs? I’ll take yours in a heartbeat.” God knows I asked that same question to all my old EOD friends when my orders came in. The inevitable answer of “gently caress no” awaits you. That is all you need to know in order to assuage yourself that your sacrifice is indeed profound. ----------------------------------------------- So what sucks besides the hard job? ----------------------------------------------- We are the Silent Service. While the main logic behind this saying is obvious, I have found that there are many implications to this saying that are equally applicable. When on mission or on patrol during deployment, the submarine is “silent”; there are no communications off the ship. Period. No letters home, no talking to mom and dad, no calls to the wife, no postcards for the kids. You will go for months at a time with no one except the 30 or so “in the know” people on the ship knowing where you are, period. When at home, we are equally silent. No one will ever know what you really do; no one will know the missions you did, the vital role you played in national security, or the hardships you endured to get the job done. You will bear those burdens silently, with only the shipmates around you understanding what it cost. This service can, and may very well, destroy your marriage. Submariners have the highest divorce rate in the military, and the military has the highest divorce rate in the country. Where the national average for civilians is ~50% for the last 5 years, submarine divorce rates are around ~80%, and many of those occur after the couple has left the military or is no longer on submarines.  ----------------------------------------------- Conclusion ----------------------------------------------- Submarines is hard way to learn a living, but the rewards can be incredible, no matter what career path you choose to take. This can be a fantastic life though, despite the suffering that goes along with it. Like any career, taking the bad along with the good is the key to success as a stalker of the deep. ----------------------------------------------- Questions? ----------------------------------------------- Ask away. I have a week until I go back out to sea (I’ll be gone for about 2 weeks after that), but then I’ll be in port for a couple months, so I’d love to answer any questions. Sacrilage fucked around with this message at 02:49 on Aug 10, 2013 |
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Mar 9, 2013 22:36
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Grrr-Krishnakk posted:I know nothing about life on a sub so this is probably some basic/inane poo poo. Anyhoo: No worries mate; I wrote this thread to answer questions like this. 1. Food is good. Unlike the surface fleet, we make all our food from scratch since it saves space, and as such it is normally quite palatable, if not exactly restaurant quality. That is, until the underway exceeds our food limitations (depends on how extreme we get), in which case ~1000 calorie days get real common, and the food sucks. 2. Classified, sorry  Read wikipedia.3. Pressure is atmosphere normal, + a little since the sub is basically a large air storage for high pressure air banks. Keep in mind, it is a rigid steel tube. 4. Yep, and Valium until we pull back in and remove them. They generally start talking to themselves, and since the crew is so small, we notice it quick. 5. Yeah, lots and lots and LOTS of wildlife. They generally keep clear of us, since the ones who didn't were subject to darwanism 50 years ago. Its a mutually happy relationship. I think whales see us as the retarded mute step-cousin no one talks about. EDIT; No privacy, no solitude. I have spent more time sleeping closer to my fellow JO than I have spent sleeping next to my wife of 5 years. Yeah....seriously. Masturbation and poo poo like that is kind of just....accepted. Don't talk about it.
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Mar 10, 2013 10:23
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Rowzdower posted:Thanks so much for posting this thread, I've been looking into the program and there's a few things I'm curious about. 1. Our relationship is interesting. From what I understand, no one in the military has our kind of day to day rapport. You see, the enlisted train and mentor us to be the officers we are; they teach us the basics and the complex in systems, DC, life support, etc. Yet they still expect us to lead, from day one. It teaches you to be a strict but benevolent leader right from the start. You'll still curb-stomp the shitbags, but it becomes a different story when the man who trained you has an ARI because of the divorce you've known about and talked about for 2 years. I kicked a man out of the Navy for being implicit in blazing logs, and I cried like a baby during the Mast because I had babysat his kids. It will make you, in short, the kind of leader who rules the world. Compassion and discipline is one. 2. My workweek pushes 100 hours, when we are inport. This includes duty hours, so realistically I still push 80 hours+ of actual working hours. At sea, I am almost always on 3 section OOD (or before, 3 section EOOW) so with my off-watch responsibilities as a JO, I stand 7 hours watch (pre-watch included), 1 hour meals, 1 hour post-watch responsibilities, 5 hours work, 1 hour touring, 30 minutes hygiene, 3.5 hours sleeping. It gets rough after 4 months; that is the grit submariners are made of. 3. Normally 1 officer in a 14 man wardroom, and only on fast attacks, has diver training. It takes 5 weeks, and it is a whole post in and of itself. It sucks, long and short. 4. The lack of personal space is absolute. I have, maybe, 1 square foot of "mine alone" space, and because I am a senior officer, I am lucky. I work out is Auxiliary Seawater Bay, between machinery, with dumbells, and that is all the space I get. I am in great shape, but the effort I put into it would shame an MMA athlete.
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Mar 10, 2013 10:35
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Lanky Coconut Tree posted:How much of the time you were OOD was spent driving the sub in giant dong shapes? I am not on boomers, so very little. I have places to go, unfortunately. I hear the boomer fa...people are quite good at shapes though.
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Mar 10, 2013 10:36
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Kaliber posted:What do you think of females in submarines? Can they endure the physical hardship of a submarine? Absolutely a priority, and since I don't think women are inferior in anyway, not an issue imho. We simply don't have enough people. My main concern is that some oval office brings a sexual harassment suit against a M-div'er who compliments her rear end. We don't have enough people in subs, and too long a heritage, to be able to curb that kind of behavior, so they just better roll with it if they want dolphins. Not a day goes by that I don't get solicited for some sort of sexual deviancy from one of my men, so I hope they don't take it personally.
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Mar 10, 2013 10:40
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Cerekk posted:Yes but it's still not enough because the job is that bad. The long and short of it is that nuclear officers who commit for a second tour get a $30,000/yr bonus on top of base pay, sub pay, and sea pay, and attrition is still around 80% after initial obligated service. Myself personally, that bonus would have to be in the mid six-figures for me to even start considering staying in for a second sea tour. (obviously that will not be happening) Quoted for truth. In my limited experience, I've never run across a Department Head (DH, second tour JO) that said they did it for the money. It makes the choice more palatable, but not a reason. Most of the guys who survive their JO tours, even the mouth breathing retards, could find a well paying civvie job.
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Mar 10, 2013 18:48
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Cerekk posted:I refuse to believe that a submarine officer had enough free time to write that effort post. PD standdown is a wonderful thing. I've...started hobbies too. 
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Mar 10, 2013 18:50
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Best Friends posted:Would male only and female only boats be even theoretically possible, or desirable? Related: how often is dudes loving each other an issue? Literally, I mean. Possible, but not necessary. People will just have to grow the gently caress up and learn to play along in the sandbox. As for the second part, never been an issue that I've come across. I've heard horror stories from the grapevine or from chiefs, but never in personal experience.
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Mar 10, 2013 18:55
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Grrr-Krishnakk posted:It was the only thing that I suspected would be. Thanks for the answers dude! No problem man. 1. Saturday nights the CO mandates all off-watch, non-midwatch (oncoming) guys watch a movie in the wardroom. Some may fall asleep during it, but we still do it. Myself, I try and read, but I started game of thrones book one 9 months ago....chapter three is going to be a duzzy. 2. Yes, but you adapt quickly. I almost don't notice it anymore. 3. She works alot. After the first long underway, she got a job; now she has a really awesome career going for her. In all honesty, it sucks sometimes since she misses a lot of return to homeports, weekend days where I don't have duty, etc, but I did this to her, so if she wants a job to fill her time, I'll support her. 4.As BANJO loving FT up there said, most docs are pretty stand up guys. All in all, they are pretty free and loose with non-narcotic medicine, and I've seen him do some pretty amazing medical feats. As soon as someone requires narcotics, though, they have to be guarded; nuclear submarine, afterall.
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Mar 10, 2013 19:06
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Mortabis posted:Huh. Now I'm wondering if Tom Clancy would be all into that hot sub on sub action if he'd actually served on one. The CO and XO have their own staterooms, about 8 feet by 8 feet for the CO, and 8 feet by 4 feet for XO. Yeah, they are living the good life. The senior JO's and Department Heads (3 on sub, 4 if you count CHOP) have 3 staterooms on a fast-attck, with 3 people in each stateroom (DH+2 JO's). Those staterooms are 6 feet by 2 feet each, and have 2 fold out desks and 3 coffin-racks. Stateroom life is awesome. Yes; when we go underway, almost every enlisted non-chief hotracks. This past underway some of the second class Petty Officers got out of hotracking, which was rare. http://science.howstuffworks.com/transport/engines-equipment/submarine2.htm Found it on the internetz, so we're good. No rationing of fresh water, unless the fresh-water maker is broken, in which case life gets so incredibly lovely so fast. As a junior submariner, you are trained to take "sub showers"; 10 seconds of water, turn it off, scrub and lather, 30 seconds to wash it off, turn it off. Takes maybe a gallon. As to the second part.... 
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Mar 10, 2013 19:16
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Manmower posted:What are the exercise facilities like on a sub? Dumbells. For deployment we put a treadmill on the sub, but it's REAL cramped, and tends to break quickly from the beating. Temperature depends on the water around the ship, and since it's cold deep, it tends to be quite chilly.
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Mar 10, 2013 22:05
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Mortabis posted:Why is it that boomers have so much more space? Wouldn't all that space be taken up by the missiles? Is it because the diameter of the boat has to be bigger to hold the missiles, and so there's just more space everywhere? SSGN's tend to have a lot of extra people on them because of the SOF missions they do. The tomahawks are retrofitted into the trident missile system, so no more or less space because of that.
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Mar 11, 2013 01:28
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Golli posted:Corollary: Never stay awake for drills. That ten minutes before drills are supposed to start can turn into a magic hour of sleep when the drill briefing goes too long. Battle racking; something I hope to never have to do again after this tour.
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Mar 11, 2013 01:29
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Rowzdower posted:Might be a stupid question, but since everyone's sleep schedule is staggered, how are alarm clocks handled? Do you just learn to sleep through the alarms that are set for other sailors or is there another system in place? I used to be a light sleeper before I joined the Navy; now nothing but my own personal alarm clock, my last name, or the sound of a general alarm will wake me up. You just adapt that way, or die from sleep deprivation.
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Mar 11, 2013 01:32
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Mortabis posted:Does the crew know the mission of the sub? Like, are the orders posted or something, so that if the mission is something like "wait for this other country's sub to leave port and track it" or something else would the crew know about it, or just the people who need to know? Most people have a gist, but only the people who need to know have details, for the most part. Only when needed or during a very rare casualty. Normally we surface because we are pulling into port, and that's it. Not anymore. With all the recent wikileaks crap, they've gotten tougher. Then some senior surface gently caress gave a blanket order that personal electronics weren't allowed in "SECRET" areas, and since the whole loving submarine is secret, that meant us. Starting my last underway, it was downright 1940's on the boat; no tablets, no phones, no e-readers, no I-pods, no laptops, no gameboys, nothing. It's amazing how much those things made for quality of life, since most people don't have enough space for more than 1-3 books.
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Mar 11, 2013 01:55
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vulturesrow posted:moker told me that sub life was a lot like the movie Crimson Tide. genderstomper58 posted:Actually, it is just like the hit ABC show, "Last Resort" Quoted for truth. Actually, I don't even know why I made this thread. People, please, stop reading and just go watch Last Resort for your answers.
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Mar 11, 2013 05:33
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Saga posted:Don't know if you USN guys have seen this. Not sure whether it qualifies as interesting, irritatingly superficial or painfully boring if you've spent too many months of your life stuck on a boat. Perisher is no joke. SCC (American CO school) is not easy by any stretch, but the Perisher is old-war submarine-ing at its finest. I only know one American CO who has passed it, and he was CO of the Virginia Class boat USS Hawaii.
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Mar 12, 2013 08:50
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Clamps McGraw posted:Anyone have any idea why if you fail Perisher you're no longer allowed to serve on subs at all? Clean break. Like pulling off a 20 year bandaid. Or a ligament.
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Mar 13, 2013 04:32
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Snowdens Secret posted:If it's a PCO level course, what job would be left to fill on a submarine for that rank other than captain anyway? Haven't the students already done an XO tour? Probably a good thing; just makes sure that non-CO level people aren't making XO. Only issue is manning; if you loose an XO, you are scrambling/extending to maintain.
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Mar 13, 2013 06:09
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JO retention rate is really, really low because a lot of JO's get poo poo on pretty hard during their sea tour, and since they are generally very smart and will have lucrative offers for civie jobs given their skills, most (~75%) get out. Even the ones who love submarining come to the conclusion that there are easier ways to make money.
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Mar 18, 2013 02:23
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Snowdens Secret posted:After our nav div failed to keep us off the rocks, one of the things we did was buy a Garmin and bring it up into the sail. Since I was the only nuke up there, I operated it. It was a nautical GPS, not one of the road ones, so it didn't have GPS lady voice so instead you got shivering RC divver voice. Yep, I think that is pretty standard now; CO has his own TomTom so he can yell at the Nav when he recommends a terrible course.
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Mar 18, 2013 04:26
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Mad Dragon posted:I've known people who enlisted as submariners in the 60s to avoid the Army draft. I know guys who went green to Marine Corps to avoid being voluntold to submarines. Different times.
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Mar 18, 2013 04:28
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Sorry for the absence; just back from underway. Speaking of anchors, our Deputy frequently fucks with the NAV by insinuating that he will want to see anchor ops...then "forgetting" about it. Three times, 3 sleepless inspections for the NAV, much happiness for the rest of us at seeing him mindfucked. Sacrilage fucked around with this message at 05:29 on Mar 30, 2013 |
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Mar 30, 2013 05:02
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Golli posted:Sonar officer was one of the JO billets that was sort of 'optional' depending on staffing. Since it is a coner division, it is given to either a newly reported ensign to kill time while working on Battery Charging Lineup Officer/EEOW quals until he can rotate into an Engineering division - or to a senior LT who has finished engineer officer qual and is coasting toward shoreduty/EAOS. I was AWEPS for about 2 years after I finished my mandatory year as a Nuclear Div-O (required to be sent to PNEO), since our Weapons Officer (Department Head) was a mouth breathing retard and we were prepping for an extended 5th/7th fleet deployment. I was responsible for Sonar, Fire Control, Torpedo, Deck, Sound Silencing, and Dive divisions. My job consisted of: QA'ing paperwork Developing and enforcing Continuing Training -giving theory lectures -making the Chiefs give technical lectures -creating/administering tests Managing maintenance (specifically for Sonar, since their chief rode the short bus) Operational Planning (mission planning, etc) Making sure people weren't loving off on watch I got a chance to learn a lot about the systems while being AWEPS; no where close to the level of the better 1st classes, but enough that I knew how to stand the stacks and was eventually made PRIMATE for battlestations when we lost our good FTOW's. It was rewarding, albeit challenging; I sure as poo poo didn't get paid enough to do WEPs job for him, considering he was banking a yearly $30,000 dollar bonus for being incompetent.
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Mar 30, 2013 19:40
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ded posted:Sperg all you want! My boat nearly got ran over by a supertanker while we were pulling into Yokosuka once. I was on the fathometer and saw/heard it all as it went down. Scary as poo poo. The only reason we didn't get rammed was our helm questioned one of the skippers orders when he gave a rudder call that was the wrong direction. He did it very politely tho, "Say again sir?". This has changed, ALOT, since the Montpelier and Greenville incidents, both of which were collisions when the CO had the CONN (driving the ship, which is rare). It has become a standard that anyone, down to a cook, is not only encouraged, but required, to question an order given that someone knows could put the ship in danger. Our CO took an FTOW to mast for dereliction of duty when we had a close CPA because the OOD (newly qualified) gave a bad course, and the FTOW decided he didn't want to contribute. Now, that of course raises great conversation about wartime necessity for absolute authority and rapid obedience, but a submariners its a more intellectual debate than practical.
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Mar 30, 2013 19:48
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Golli posted:Yeah, pretty much had no choice. If you were in maneuvering for 6 hours with 3 smokers (especially if one was the eeow) you smoked, first or second-hand, you smoked. Done completely now; COMSUBFOR banned it almost 2 years ago now. Some CO's still have a "morale day" once a week and ignore the order for a couple hours, but most submarines are utterly non-smoking now. It's probably a coincidence, but 1 month after subs banned smoking, E-cigarettes became the most popular thing in Hawaii. I had 6 stores pop up within 5 miles of me in just a couple weeks. Now there are only 2-3 old chiefs who still smoke regular cigarettes on the sub. Everyone else smokes E-cigs since they can smoke them underway.
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Mar 30, 2013 19:56
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genderstomper58 posted:i loved seein dudes so fat they were hydrostatically testing their coveralls all day We were trying to think of a nice way to tell one of my fellow JO's he was overweight, so we filled out a QA-26 (Hydrostatic Test Record) with a diagram of himself overflowing from a poopy suit. Test Medium: white pale flesh.
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Mar 31, 2013 10:44
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Fart Sandwiches posted:I'm sure it's the same for most boats but we had an elliptical, a bike, a rowing machine, and a set of those adjustable dumbbells. Some people worked out and stayed relatively in shape, and some people got really fat. We just end up putting the poo poo in torpedo room. That P90X stuff was really popular on my boat too, since people could do it with little to no equipment. We had a guy that memorized 6-7 routines in the entirety, and then would do one a day during deployment.
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Mar 31, 2013 18:31
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bradass87 posted:What is ORSE? Operational Reactor Safeguards Exam; a big engineering inspection to make sure Engineering Department is somewhat on the level. We supercompact our trash into a tiny little canister, and then weigh it down and drop it out the bottom. We can compact about 4-5 trashcans worth of stuff into something the size of a small bucket (3000# hydraulics is good for that). All plastics and recyclables are now required to be kept onboard until we pull into port and they can be recycled.
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Mar 31, 2013 18:34
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Beach Bum posted:
Actually not that hard; done that same thing in an SSN. Main defense is that carriers are fast. Stupid fast, all the time. So a 4KT diesel/AIP needs to be lucky as poo poo or catch a carrier off guard to get a decent shot with acceptable POI.
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Apr 2, 2013 04:49
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I knew we were weak on SS ASW but goddamn
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Beach Bum posted:"I SAID 'Rig for silent running'. Jennsen, stop banging the cook Doesn't require women. ... Just saying.
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Apr 2, 2013 04:50
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Sonar can hear you and we're going to start broadcasting on the 1MC:
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bradass87 posted:why couldn't they make a nuclear stirling engine and forgo noisy turbines? wouldnt even need to get your fuel to critical mass, just use natural decay heat from highly enriched subcritical plutonium cores or something-- could use several to generate the heat you need and then the ocean provides the cool side for the stirling Too big. WAY too big. A reactor using stable decay heat as a source of power would have to be way too large to be feasible for a submarine. Second, the main reason diesel/AIP are used is because they are quiet....VERY quiet. And anything nuclear power-related will have main/aux systems that are not quiet (comparatively), thus defeating the purpose.
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Apr 2, 2013 05:55
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Beach Bum posted:Was this before or after the S-3 got retired? I know airborne-ASW is pretty terrible but the threat of SONOBOUYS EVERYWHERE might have helped a little bit, having only helicopters afterward. P-3's may not be the end all be all, but the P-8 is a scary, scary machine. I just went up against one in a recent Exercise, and those motherfuckers were the bane of my god drat existence. I can't really go into more detail but...drat. I had to totally rethink my outlook on MPR aircraft.
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Apr 2, 2013 08:07
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bradass87 posted:there is no loving way this tactics and technics talk poo poo can possibly be kosher None of this stuff is classified. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonar#Sound_propagation Our application of it may not be wise to discuss, but it's on wikipedia. And personally, I'd be pissed if people were discussing ways to dissolve HY-80, considering my natural aversion to water in the people tank, so I can understand people's angst when discussing counter-jamming IEDs, which kill people.
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Apr 2, 2013 08:11
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Snowdens Secret posted:We came off station for field days and drills. I guess the bad guys didn't do anything important on the weekends. We spent 2 weeks on RFUQ, and while I hold no special love for field day, the boat was so incredibly disgusting it was unbelievable. I held a new respect for constant cleaning efforts. It took us 2 months of 3 field days a week to get the boat presentable again. While the first 3-4 days of RFUQ are cool, after day 4-5 you start to go god drat crazy. You are out of movies, sick of reading, and your normally enjoyable rack hobbies have become loathsome.
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Apr 7, 2013 19:16
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Snowdens Secret posted:Watchstanders have 6 hours to clean already, if your boat was that filthy that fast you probably had a bunch of lazy slobs. I want to disagree.....but I can't
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Apr 7, 2013 23:48
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ded posted:The smell of Amine made me throw all of my uniforms away once I got out. I couldn't even keep my seabag that thing stank too. My wife hated it for the longest time. She still hates the smell of Amine, but if you ask her what the smell of Amine means... "That smell reminds me my husband is home. It's a good smell."
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Apr 8, 2013 08:35
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Cerekk posted:Amine makes everything smell pretty bad, but "boat smell" was 100x worse before the smoking ban. Not to mention that trying to quit smoking was a epic battle of willpower that I lost 3 times before the ban went into effect and I was able to finally kick it.
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Apr 13, 2013 23:37
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113th Birthday Video If you can ignore the crappy Euro-trance music and heinously awkward submariners saying hello, it's a good video. Happy birthday gents.
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Apr 21, 2013 20:24
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Snowdens Secret posted:Chop. Submarines don't roll well with waves to begin with, you get stormy weather and wind going and it can be a rough ride. The deeper you go the less of an issue it is. ^^ spot on. I don't think I've felt chop below ~200', but you can definitely tell it's going to be a bad day if the boat is rocking at 150' Surface ships take the swells a lot easier since they have the "V" shaped keel; as they tilt to one side, they displace more water on one side versus the other, and correct themselves quickly as a result. With the submarine being a circle, no such luck. It's all just based on ballast and gravity on a submarine, which makes for some super awesome rolls.
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Apr 24, 2013 23:49
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