The Stupid Shall Be Punished

Two Of My Old Ships

2012-02-01T16:30:00.002-07:00

In between my two Eng tours, on Connecticut and Jimmy Carter, I did a deployment as the Submarine Liaison Officer on the Stennis Battle Group staff. So I was happy to see this picture of USS Connecticut (SSN 22) and USS John C. Stennis (CVN 74) moored at the same pier in Singapore a couple of days ago:

Does seeing pictures of your old boat generally bring back feelings of happy nostalgia or some other emotion?

"Paperwork To Follow..."

2012-01-25T14:40:00.001-07:00

A reader writes:

Joel, have you ever done a post on your "favorite" PM, maintenance or "fix" done on the Boat?

I'm sure we have, but can't remember exactly when, so it was probably a while back. The E-mail got me thinking about the most memorable "midnight maintenance" that I was involved in as a JO, but everything I thought about had too much NNPI to share here. As Engineer, of course, my job was to decide when to trust my guys to do the right thing and choose to work on paperwork in my stateroom during the critical repair efforts rather than monitoring on scene.

What are your favorite stories of submarine maintenance that maybe you wouldn't have wanted surveilled by ORSE or TRE?

New Submarine Force Initiatives

2012-01-17T15:42:00.000-07:00

Word on the street is that some of the higher-ups have been talking about splitting the submarine officer path into two separate tracks: SSN/SSGN and SSBN. The idea seems to be that someone taking command of one of America's most important national security assets should have the maximum possible experience operating said asset before becoming Captain. The addition of female officers to the mix adds another issue, since they would likely choose the SSBN path (with SSNs unavailable to them for the foreseeable future) and they'd lose the SSGN platform.

Another initiative, more highly publicized, has been getting the input of younger officers and enlisted men into the design of the submarine control system interfaces through the TANG ("Tactical Advancement for the Next Generation) program. Here's a video about the program:

What do you think about these two new initiatives?

The Sea Is A Cruel Mistress

2012-01-14T21:30:00.000-07:00

Normally, when one reads about a ship running aground or colliding with another ship, a mariner will think something along the lines of "There but for the grace of God go I".

The wreck of the Costa Concordia off the Italian coast does not seem to be one of those times, and serves once again as a reminder that a well-trained crew and well-maintained ship are the best defense against the dangers of the sea. I'm sure the inquiry will provide more information about how exactly the crew screwed up, but initial reports sure make it seem like this tragedy could have easily been avoided.

Update 17 Jan, 1523: It looks like there's proof that the "captain" left the ship before the evacuation was completele and, basically, behaved like a complete coward. I'm normally not a fan of piling on, but if it turns out this guy did what they're claiming he did, I'd be all for the maximum public humiliation. A ship's captain gets a lot of nice things, but it comes at the price of possibly having to stay with your sinking ship if there are people still onboard. Someone who voluntarily signs up for the bennies without being willing to pay the possible piper is among the lowest of the low in my book.

CAPT Robert Nestlerode (1951-2012)

2012-01-12T12:40:00.001-07:00

Retired Captain Robert Nestlerode, former CO of USS Birmingham (SSN 695) and Submarine Base New London (among other commands) passed away on Saturday.

Captain Nestlerode was one of the good guys; in my interactions with him, he was always professional while still having a great sense of humor; he was a mentor and a leader in the best sense of both words. Sailor, Rest Your Oar.

iVIP Tour

2012-01-11T17:48:00.001-07:00

Why, yes, that is the actress from iCarly looking into Tube #1 aboard USS Hartford (SSN 768) today:

The cast of the Nickelodeon show was at SUBASE NLON today for an advanced screening of their upcoming episode that talks about how kids can provide support for U.S. military families. More pictures from the visit are here.

What's the funniest lie you've ever told a VIP tourer on your boat?

A Different Language

2012-01-06T14:18:00.000-07:00

The Navy as a whole, and Submariners in particular, really do speak a different language. While each occupation has its own acronyms and key words and tricky phrases (in my current job, I often find myself saying things like, "I'm taking this FOUP down to CMP and then going to talk to the MT about those SEM CDs"), but I think that submarining is among the "worst" at being understandable to someone who comes in off the street and tries to follow a conversation. From a VIP cruiser in AMR hearing the announcement "AEA, 2JV" to a visitor to the bridge being told to be careful of the bear trap when coming down the ladder, I would venture to guess that our terminology is among the hardest non-Mandarin languages in the world to learn.

What are your favorite words in the Submarine language?

(To download the paper, including Appendix 2, from the link above with many of the words and phrases we know and love, click here.)

21st Century Technology

2012-01-05T14:01:00.001-07:00

I gave in to the inevitable and started a Twitter account, @JoelBubblehead. I have no idea what I'm going to do with it, but you can follow if you want. #firstworldproblems

2011 Battle "E" Winners Announced

2012-01-02T03:40:00.002-07:00

Here's the list of SUBPAC Battle "E" winners for 2011:

Commander Submarine Squadron (SUBRON) 1: USS Texas (SSN 775)
SUBRON 3: USS Olympia (SSN 717)
SUBDEVRON 5: USS Connecticut (SSN 22)
SUBRON 7: USS Santa Fe (SSN 763)
SUBRON 11: USS Hampton (SSN 767)
SUBRON 15: USS Buffalo (SSN 715)
SUBRON 17: USS Nebraska (SSBN 739) - Blue and Gold
SUBRON 19: USS Michigan (SSGN 727) - Gold
Submarine Tender: USS Frank Cable (AS 40)
Floating Dry Dock: Arco (ARDM 5)
Special Category: Devil Ray (TWR 6)

It looks like Hampton and both Nebraska crews are repeat submarine winners from last year, while Michigan kept the award on the boat, it just went to the other crew. (Frank Cable and Arco also won last year.) I'm glad to see my old boat Connecticut on the list, especially since DEVRON 5 didn't give out an "E" last year. The award for Texas comes only a few days after she returned from her initial WESTPAC.

I'll post the SUBLANT list as soon as I see it.

Update 1645 03 Jan: Here's the SUBLANT list:
SUBRON 2: USS Providence (SSN 719)
SUBRON 4: USS New Hampshire (SSN 778)
SUBRON 6: USS Newport News (SSN 750)
SUBDEVRON 12: USS Annapolis (SSN 760)
SUBRON 16: USS Florida (SSGN 728) - Blue and Gold
SUBRON 20: USS Alaska (SSBN 732) - Blue and Gold

Submarine Force 2011 Year In Review

2011-12-31T14:36:00.002-07:00

Here's an official COMSUBFOR video of the year in review in U.S. submarines:

Happy New Year to all!

Delta IV Shipyard Fire

2011-12-29T23:30:00.000-07:00

Reading between the lines of this story about a fire aboard RFS Ekaterinberg (K 84), I'm guessing the shipyard used turpentine-impregnated wood in building the scaffolding. Excerpts:

Television pictures showed a giant plume of smoke above the yard in the Murmansk region of northern Russia as over 100 firemen struggled to douse flames which witnesses said rose 30 feet above the stricken vessel.Emergency workers said efforts to partially sink the submarine at the dock had failed to fully extinguish the fire. A defense ministry spokesman quoted by state news agency RIA said the blaze, which began at 1220 GMT (7:20 a.m. ET), was under control more than eight hours later...
...After hours of trying to put out the flames, officials decided to partially submerge the hull of the 18,200-tonne submarine at the Roslyakovo dock, one of the main dockyards of Russia's northern fleet 900 miles north of Moscow.
Local media reports were vague, but the blaze was believed to have started when wooden scaffolding caught fire during welding repairs to the submarine, which had been hoisted into a dry dock.

Earlier reports said the reactor was shut down after the fire started, but I'm guessing that was just media reporters who don't understand the military coming up with that one there own. Any fire that's bad enough for them to decide to try to submerge a boat undergoing refit must be pretty bad, though. I'm wondering if the Delta IVs have some sort of hull coating, and if maybe it got hot enough for that to catch fire?

What's the dumbest thing you've ever seen shipyard workers do to endanger Sailors?

In Memory Of Mike And Tom

2011-12-29T12:58:00.000-07:00

From the video description of this tribute by poster "Grunt Labor" to the Submariners lost aboard USS Minneapolis-St. Paul (SSN 708) 5 years ago today: "My video memorial/tribute to Thomas Higgins and Mike Holtz, who were killed in the line of duty during a pilot transfer off the coast of Plymouth, England."

Sailors, Rest Your Oars.

Quote Log

2011-12-26T20:26:00.002-07:00

I think most boats had a "green book" or something similar where humorous quotes from crew members were preserved for posterity. It seems to be fairly common throughout the military, as shown my the "Staffer's Hard Sayings Log" I saw when I was at CENTCOM. On submarines, a lot of the quotes that make the cut are inherently funny, some are humorous only to Submariners, and others you won't get unless you know the person or people involved. (Some are put in their by the XO because they're trying to be "one of the guys", but the quote is only funny to him.)

Since it's the end of the year, let's collect some of the funnier quotes that you remember from your submarining days, past or present. One from my past the is humorous to me is as follows:

ENG (after being woken by a phone call at home for the third time that night): "Hello... Hello... I can't hear you!"
EDO (shouting, but sounding very distant): "Eng, you've got the phone upside down!"

See, it's not that funny, but the memory makes me smile whenever I dredge it up. So whether it's the CO's wife giving phone permission for a nuclear evolution in perfect nuclearese or something obscene the AMR Watch said during dependent's cruise, share your funniest quote for our own TSSBP "Virtual Quote Log".

'Twas the Night Before Christmas - Submarine Style!

2011-12-22T07:16:00.000-07:00

The official Christmas video from the Submarine Force!

Whoever put this together did a pretty impressive job of coordination. BZ to them, and Merry Christmas to all Submariners and those who love them!

The Submarine Force normally does a good job of getting boats home for Christmas if at all possible. Here's a video of USS Miami (SSN 755) returning home to Groton last week after a five month deployment. That being said, there always have to be at least a few boats at sea for the holiday. What are your favorite (or most intense) submarine-related Christmas memories?

My "War" Story

2011-12-15T11:08:00.002-07:00

With the end of the war in Iraq, I figure I can tell the story of my "contribution" as the ultimate REMF to the war effort...

So there I was... I'd just been medically-disqualified from serving on submarines and lost my orders to be XO on USS Hartford (SSN 768); as a result, they transferred me to be AOIC of the Submarine Learning Center Detachment in San Diego while I waited for the inevitable 2x FOS to come through and I could put in my retirement papers. When I got to San Diego in July 2003, the OIC -- a real fitness fanatic -- decided that because I was right up against the Navy height-weight requirements I shouldn't teach any classes. So, not wanting to just sit around, I volunteered for the first Individual Augmentation job that came in; they needed an O-4 with SCI clearance to support Operation Iraqi Freedom at CENTCOM. Three weeks after I reported to San Diego, and 6 days after I first saw the message requesting volunteers, I was on my way to Tampa. (The rest of the background information is here, and here's a post about the "good deal" aspects of the assignment.)

CENTCOM headquarters normally had about 900 people assigned on PCS orders, but because they were running the wars in both Afghanistan and Iraq they'd been augmented with about 3000 people on six month TAD orders. I got assigned to the Iraq Coalition Coordination Center and got put in charge of handling the financial aspects of supporting the Polish-led Multi-National Division (Central South) that was just arriving in country. The fact that I got assigned a job for which I had no training, and my turnover was spending a day with my predecessor who gave me his E-mail cache and a folder with a 2 page memo from Condi Rice saying we had $500 million in unbudgeted money to play with, a 4 page standard boilerplate agreement between the U.S. and Poland, and a 17 page agreement with no specifics between Poland and the other 22 countries involved -- none of which contained any mechanism for actually carrying out what they'd agreed to -- gave me my first inkling that the people running the war at the higher levels had no idea what they were doing. This was kind of a shock to me, because I'd always assumed that the Big Bosses knew what they were doing. It turns out that it was only the pockets of competence that existed at the O-4/O-5 level that enabled the war effort to function as well as it did from a staff perspective.

The next six months were a blast. Despite having no training in finance, I set up the mechanisms for providing funding for the logistics support for the division of 10,000, got additional force protection set up less than a week before an unsuccessful suicide attack on an MND-CS base that probably would have caused extensive casualties had I not cut through the red tape, and realized that the Spaniards are among the most unreliable "allies" in the world. I came to understand that while you have to be pretty smart to make flag, there are no real intelligence requirements to make O-6, particularly in the Marines. I saw lots of "war pr0n" of early insurgents who hadn't quite mastered the art of having their IEDs wait to blow up until after they had finished emplacing them, and saw one memorable IR camera video of a bunch of Taliban insurgents get out of a truck behind one that had just blown up, sprint about 100 yards off the road, and gather together in supposed safety, followed by a huge flash right in the middle of their group. I realized that the American military really was trying to do what was best for the Iraqi people, and the higher-ups really did have no plans for a permanent occupation -- they had no real plans at all. I saw the original plans for the invasion that showed that Turkey's refusal to let the 4th ID move in from the north negated what would have otherwise been a brilliant encirclement campaign that would have closed the big hole in the lines north of Baghdad, through which most of the future insurgent leaders escaped. Hanlon's Razor was confirmed: "Never attribute to conspiracy that which can be adequately explained by incompetence".

What did you do in the war? Alternately, were your eyes ever opened by serving on a major staff?

I'm On A (Political) Blog

2011-12-14T07:54:00.003-07:00

I while back, I mentioned that I wouldn't be posting my political writings here anymore because I'd be joining a group blog. That new blog, iSightonline.com, has finally launched, and will focus on Idaho politics with writers from across the political spectrum. (At least that's what we hope -- I'm currently the most liberal writer, and my political philosophy is very close to the first President Bush.) For those who are interested, my first post is here. (It's basically about the upcoming battle for the soul of the Idaho Republican Party.)

A Submarine Video And One Other Item

2011-12-10T13:01:00.001-07:00

Here's a submarine video from YouTube -- it has some of my old Topeka shipmates, since part of it was clearly lifted from "Sharks of Steel":

Also, there's absolutely no confirmation that this guy is this guy. (I've been getting a few E-mails about the first linked story, and note that despite the same retirement year and same middle initial, there's no proof that the guy who pled guilty in the first story is actually the former USS Maine CO, SUBRON 20 Commander, and CSG 10 CoS.)

Army-Navy Spirit Spot From The Submarine Force

2011-12-10T07:10:00.001-07:00

Here's the "Spirit Spot" from the Submarine Force for today's Army-Navy game:

What do you think of our effort this year? Personally, I'm a little disappointed; not really submarine-related. Here's a much better "Spirit Spot" from last year.

Let's Write A Story!

2011-12-03T08:45:00.001-07:00

[Completely off-topic but timely aside: You can watch the christening of PCU Mississippi (SSN 782) here starting at 1100 EDT today; if you miss the live showing, they'll have an on-demand video replay available there for about a week starting later this afternoon.]

As I was soaking in the tub this morning, I started -- as frequently happens -- thinking about submarines, specifically some of the old midwatch discussions that pass on so much of the Submarine Force's "corporate knowledge" to the next generation. One of my favorites was the theoretical "forward vs. aft war" scenario: If the cones and nukes went to actual war on the boat, who would win? The conclusion always seemed to depend on where the discussion was being held; if in Maneuvering, the nukes would win, while if the discussion were held in Control the cones would prevail. The guns were all forward, but control of propulsion and all electrical power other than the battery bus, along with local control of the planes, was back aft.

This got me wanting to run an experiment with our little TSSBP community. While I doubt that it will work (I expect a result something like this), I think it'd be fun to try some "collaborative fiction" in the comments. My initial ground rules: 1) The protagonist wants to survive, so no solution where he just sinks the boat; 2) No gratuitous sex scenes; 3) No classified technical jargon that isn't already available open source; 4) There's some sort of mechanical fault that keeps the nuke from just manually blowing the aft EMBTs; and 5) If you want to make an editorial comment that isn't a contribution to the story, please put it in [brackets]. I'll start:

"MMCS(SS) Smith thought back to how he ended up in this situation. The emergent tasking while doing mid-deployment voyage repairs on his Los Angeles-class submarine in Jebel Ali, UAE, to transport the world's most wanted terrorist -- recently captured on the Afghan/Pakistani border -- back to the United States for trial. The submerged transit of the Straits of Hormuz and uneventful transit through the Arabian Sea. The midwatch training as EWS of the Reactor Technician (Under Instruction) on EAB usage with ET2(SU) Jones. The sounding of the general alarm with no 1MC announcement. Seeing the rest of the watchstanders in the Engine Room fall dead as if hit by a gas. Rushing forward to dog the watertight door between the forward compartment and the engine room, and seeing the crazed face of one of the CIA "guards" of their terrorist prisoner through the viewing window. Then, most disturbingly, the 1MC announcement -- in Arabic -- followed moments later by a voice in English saying "Surviving crewmembers in the Engine Room: We have complete control of the ship. Surrender now, and you will live."

USS North Carolina Deploys

2011-12-02T09:11:00.001-07:00

USS North Carolina (SSN 777) departed on her maiden WestPac yesterday. Here's a picture:

Do you have any good stories from your first deployment?

RC Submarines

2011-11-27T22:39:00.000-07:00

A reader sends in a link to a video of the shakedown cruise of his newest radio-controlled submarine, modeled on USS Virginia (SSN 774):

Do you have any submarine-related hobbies?

Why Not The Best?

2011-11-19T14:12:00.001-07:00

It's my opinion that every adult can lay claim to being the "first" or "best" in the world (or at least the country) at something. In much the same way that probably 95% of everyone asked would consider themselves to be an above-average driver, making this claim can sometimes require a little bit of self-deception, but no real harm is done.

For me, my claims to fame are that I run the world's most popular submarine blog, I was the fastest ever submarine Engineer on Alpha Trials (at least in the U.S. -- it depends on if the Soviets let their Alfas get up to flank on their initial sea trials, which I kind of doubt), and I lay claim to having written more Admiral's letters enclosures than any Eng in the history of the Submarine Force. (I wrote about 60, having been initial manning Eng twice; letters were due every 4 weeks in the shipyard.)

What's your claim to being the best?

♪♫ "And Another One Gone..."♫♪

2011-11-15T19:45:00.001-07:00

Well, another CO in another submarine-related command got the ax this month, and this one is quite a surprise. RDML (sel) Greg Thomas was temporarily relieved as CO of ~~Newport News~~ Norfolk Naval Shipyard back in May; the CO he replaced in 2010 was also fired. Navy Times reports that command climate was the reason for the firing:

In mid-May, Naval Sea Systems Command temporarily yanked Thomas, a rear admiral selectee, from his perch atop Norfolk Naval Shipyard in Portsmouth, Va. A naval inspector general investigation completed Aug. 31 found Thomas’ conduct “went beyond the limits of professional conduct expected of persons in authority.” The firing was made permanent Oct. 25 after Thomas was formally reprimanded for conduct unbecoming an officer.
The IG interviewed 45 witnesses who served in various leadership positions under Thomas during his nine months as commanding officer of the shipyard. Nine said they were subjected to “demeaning, insulting or profane language or intimidating behavior” privately as well as in public. All names other than Thomas’ were redacted from the report, which was obtained through the Freedom of Information Act.
An active-duty officer with more than 30 years in uniform told the IG that while some of his interactions with Thomas had been amiable, “There have been times when it rises to the worst experience of my naval career in terms of dealing with a superior who will not listen, who wants to be very vocal and loud, and who just wants to dress [me] down. I don’t know that I’m being treated differently in that case.”

What's surprising to me is that Thomas was selected for flag in the first place. I would be very surprised if all the people on the board (particularly in a community as small as EDOs) didn't know the guy had an "unpleasant personality", and given the risk-averse nature of most Navy senior personnel decisions nowadays, I figure that would have been disqualifying.

Reading Thomas' biography, I was surprised to see he went EDO right after finishing initial training, but still got assigned to a submarine later on. Normally guys who go ED before getting their dolphins are the ones who develop some disqualifying medical condition during training. However, given that he was probably "assigned" to USS San Juan (SSN 751) in 1988, when I think the boat was in PSA, I could see them giving a medical waiver for a guy to get his ED Dolphins in that situation. However, the fish Thomas is wearing in this photo look real.

Did you ever work for an asshole? I did. And do you think that assholism may be required in some situations? (Maybe like when you're taking over for a CO who was relieved because the command wasn't getting the job done?)

Bell-ringer 1620 16 Nov: Off-topic but still of interest, here's a story by the Michael Melia reporter about the ongoing investigation into cheating on nuclear qual exams.

"94 Percent Availability Of Commodes"

2011-11-14T20:29:00.001-07:00

From an article in Navy Times:

The Navy’s newest aircraft carrier has a messy problem. Since deploying in May, the Norfolk, Va.-based carrier George H.W. Bush has grappled with widespread toilet outages, at times rendering the entire ship without a single working head.But it’s no laughing matter. Sailors tell of combing the ship for up to an hour to find a place to do their business, if they can find one at all. Others have resorted to urinating in showers or into the industrial sinks in their work stations. Some men are using bottles and emptying the contents over the giant ship’s side, while some women are holding it in for so long that they are developing health problems, according to sources on the ship.The sailors blame the ship’s vacuum system. But the Navy is blaming sailors for flushing “inappropriate material” down the toilets.The ship, commissioned in January 2009, is wrapping up a deployment in the Persian Gulf. Three sailors who spoke to Navy Times on the condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to talk to the media said the problem has been persistent at least since Bush began its first deployment in May. Throughout its deployment, there have been at least two times when all 423 commodes in the ship’s 130 heads went offline, the sailors said. More often, they said, all heads either forward or aft of the middle of the ship have gone out of service, or clusters of heads scattered through different departments have been shut down.

Any good stories about the unavailability of the heads on your boat?

Coming Home Safely

2011-11-11T08:27:00.001-07:00

Welcome home to the officers and crew of USS Springfield (SSN 761), who returned to Groton yesterday after a six month deployment to the CENTCOM AOR. Here's a picture:

Some more pictures of the homecoming can be found here. As we celebrate Veteran's Day, we honor all those who have served our nation, whether they returned home safely like the men of Springfield or if they were not so fortunate. How can we, as a nation, best honor our veterans and their families? Alternately, why did you join the military? (My story isn't very uplifting -- it was the old "got involved with the wrong girl and stupidly threw away a lot of chances, and looked to the Navy as a way to restart my life" tale. I'm hoping some of my readers have better narratives.)

While you're pondering, here's a teaser for an upcoming CNN report on veterans of the Submarine Service during the Cold War.

You Pick The Topic!

2011-11-10T15:42:00.001-07:00

I'll put it up to a vote. For my next post, would you like a) a discussion of the most recent SOBC graduation, or b) an essay about national politics? Vote in the comments!

Update 1611 10 Nov: While you're voting, here and here are a couple of random "Best of Bubblehead" posts from the "Toilet" division.

Bell-ringer 1717 10 Nov: From the comments, here's a cool "Spirit Spot" from USS North Carolina (SSN 777) for the upcoming Carrier Classic:

Update 0549 11 Nov: And here's the response from one of the USS Michigan (SSGN 727) crews.

Hitler The A-gang LCPO

2011-11-03T17:32:00.000-06:00

An submarine-related entry in the classic "Hitler reacts to current events" video meme:

Happy Halloween!

2011-10-31T22:02:00.002-06:00

Yes, I kinda get into the holiday.

Update 1620 04 Nov: I wanted to add this link to an amazing young couple who are trying to adopt. If you know anyone who is looking for a loving home in which to place a baby, you couldn't find a better family than this:

USS California (SSN 781) Joins The Fleet

2011-10-29T08:46:00.000-06:00

PCU California (SSN 781) becomes USS California this morning in a commissioning ceremony at Naval Station Norfolk. You can watch the ceremony live at 1100 EDT here; it should also be available after the ceremony for viewing at your convenience. A timelapse video of the boat and crew preparing for commissioning can be found here. Some comments from RADM Breckenridge can be found here. And a message from the Lieutenant Governor of California is here.

Are you a plankowner?

Update 0855 29 Oct: Based on this picture on Facebook, it looks like the weather might have driven the ceremony indoors. Wusses. I stood outside in bitter December Groton cold for the commissioning of Connecticut in 1998. (As Eng, my job was to stand in front of the formation of the crewmembers who didn't have any specific role in the ceremony. That's the job I've seen the Eng do at every commissioning I've attended.)

Update 1407 29 Oct: Here are some pictures from the ceremony. And here's a picture of the crew "manning the ship and bringing her to life":

I'm sorry, but I think a commissioning ceremony is one of those times where it's OK to have the crew wear their dress uniforms topside. It's not like they're actually going to handle lines. Call me old-fashioned...

Update 2000 30 Oct: Either I didn't read the caption correctly the first time, or they've since changed it, but the caption now explains the picture above was taken during rehearsal, so it's perfectly fine that they're not in Dress Blues.

PED Owning SubPac Submariners SOL?

2011-10-24T22:06:00.000-06:00

Word on the street is that at least some bases in the COMSUBPAC sphere of influence are looking at banning personally-owned electronic devices from the boats, and that possibly COMSUBPACINST 2075.1 is the instruction that establishes this ban. Any truth to this, or just waterfront rumors running amok?

Another Sub Skipper Fired

2011-10-20T22:06:00.000-06:00

CDR Joseph Nosse, Commanding Officer of USS Kentucky (SSBN 737) was relieved of command by the SUBRON 17 Commander today:

“Cmdr. Nosse exhibited inadequate leadership and oversight of the crew in the areas of operations and administration,” Early said. “The determination came after a series of external assessments and observations.”Early did not have details immediately available on the specific shortfalls, who had first observed them or when and whether Nosse’s relief was the result of an investigation.

CDR Nosse began his CO tour with the Gold Crew in February 2010, and accepted the Omaha Trophy on behalf of his crew later that year. He assumed command of the combined crew in August of this year in preparation for the boat's mid-life refueling.Nosse is the 20th Navy CO fired this year. This is getting old. Even if he did used to be an officer detailer, no one wants to see someone's career end like this.

USS Boise Crew On Namesake City Visit

2011-10-20T16:09:00.000-06:00

The Commanding Officer of USS Boise (SSN 764) and three crewmembers are in town for a namesake city visit today through Saturday. I was able to meet them at a Rotary Club meeting, and snapped this picture of three of them:

I hope they enjoy their time in Boise, and that the people with whom they interact better understand the sacrifices these men make. For my readers -- did you ever get to be the CO's "liberty buddy"?

Drydock

2011-10-15T16:35:00.000-06:00

As the Navy prepares for the upcoming commissioning of PCU California (SSN 781) and supports the beginning of the "two submarine starts per year" era, PCU Mississippi (SSN 782) passed an important milestone when she was "floated off" at Electric Boat:

I never liked being in drydock that much, especially after my boat was shaken by two earthquakes while in one in June 1992. Since it's been a couple years since we last discussed it, I'll ask again for the new readers: What are your favorite drydock stories?

PD Fun!

2011-10-09T23:40:00.002-06:00

Here's an old picture of USS Key West (SSN 722) at periscope depth:

What's the most interesting thing you've ever seen out of the 'scope at PD?

"Get The Grease!"

2011-10-05T14:36:00.001-06:00

At work yesterday, for some reason the conversation between me and one of the other Submariners I work with turned towards some of the pranks we boat types used to pull on each other. Some of the more disturbing ones involve things done to people while they're asleep or otherwise incapacitated. Whether it's a Shellback getting silver nitrate "teardrops" applied to his face as he sleeps during the 'Wog Rebellion or the poor guy who got stuck behind some piece of machinery having unmentionable things done to him, the lesson we Submariners learn early is "don't leave yourself vulnerable".

Confession time: what's the worst thing you've done (or seen done) to a shipmate who was unable to effectively defend themselves?

Longer SSN Deployments?

2011-10-01T01:55:00.002-06:00

Check out this AP story; excerpt:

Vice Adm. John Richardson told the AP this week that keeping subs out longer is one of several options the Navy is considering as the number of attack subs is projected to continue dropping in the next decade and beyond.“I think we’re looking at all the options,” he said. “As you try and maintain the same presence with fewer hulls, there are all sorts of variables in that equation. One would be extending deployment lengths. So that’s certainly on the table.”

As usual, the story by the Michael Melia reporter has to get something wrong ("Enlisted crew members on the attack subs sleep six to a room...") but it seems to be fairly accurate overall. Have you ever done a deployment of greater than six months? What do you think of the potential change? (Alternately, what do you think about the increase in sub pay for E-8/E-9s with over 18 years of submarine service?)

Bell-ringer 1550 01 Oct: It turns out that Virginia-class boats do have several 6 man berthing spaces, so I stand corrected. Only one I was ever onboard was the lead ship of the class in the shipyard, and they didn't have the module with the berthings spaces there when I left.

Bring It On!

2011-09-27T20:06:00.002-06:00

The commander of the Iranian Navy is apparently claiming that the Iranian Navy will soon "have a powerful presence" near the United States. Other than the fact that it's very unlikely to happen -- they'd be lucky to limp into some Cuban harbor at the end of a 10 knot journey and lay over for several months of voyage repairs before trying to limp home -- the thought of them doing something like that would be a rude awakening to their crews if they did manage to hang around off our shores.

For those who haven't had the chance to participate during the few instances in the last couple decades when potential adversaries try to "show the flag" off our coast, we tend to drop the niceties we observe when conducting "freedom of navigation" exercises off Country Orange's shore and start playing at the varsity level. (I was the Sub Guy on the Stennis Battle Group Staff for the Oscar deployment mentioned in the link above.) If the Iranians think we're annoying when we follow all the rules of international maritime law when we're sailing through the SOH, just wait until they're the visiting team.

Since a "powerful presence" for them involves an oiler and a couple of 1400 ton frigates, I'm not too worried if they did end up following through with their "threat". Which they can't, not because they're not brave, but because their equipment isn't worth crap. (Unless you're a Congressional staffer trying to decide if you should tell your boss to vote for more money for the Navy to counter the Iranian threat -- in that case, they're a first-class Navy; Kilos get better with age!)

Russian Boomer T-Boned, Drunks Blamed

2011-09-22T15:06:00.001-06:00

From RIA Novosti:

A Russian strategic submarine received light damage to its outer hull when a fishing vessel rammed into it early on Thursday, a Pacific Fleet source said."The Donets fishing ship was maneuvering to avoid collision with the Kormchy fishing boat and did not notice the St. George the Victor nuclear-powered submarine anchored near the Avacha Bay," the source said."As a result, the submarine received insignificant damage to its outer hull," he said, adding that the sub was undergoing repairs at a dock in Vilyuchinsk. The submarine's nuclear reactor was not damaged.A preliminary investigation suggests that the crew of the Donets fishing vessel is to blame for the collision, as they were reportedly drunk and ignored radio and warning signals.

The article goes on to say that the submarine victimized by the drunk fishermen was RFS St. George the Victor (K 433), a 31 year old Delta III that gets out more than you'd think; it allegedly successfully conducted a test launch last year.

What's the most damage that's ever been done to your boat by the actions of drunk seamen?

Seven Years Of Submarine Blogging

2011-09-19T19:18:00.000-06:00

I completely forgot that Saturday was my 7th blogiversary. I guess that should tell me something.

In these seven years, I've posted 2709 times and received over 2.3 million individual visits and over 4.5 million page views. I've sent hundred of people the words to the "Submarine Song" and regained contact with dozens of old shipmates. It's been a good ride.

Feel free to talk amongst yourselves.

Diesel Submarines In The News

2011-09-17T13:15:00.000-06:00

Here's an interesting article on Israeli submarines that I though was worth a link. While the Israeli submarine force is often credited by idiots on the right with being able to transcend time and distance, everything I've heard is that they're a pretty good coastal defense force. My boats didn't work directly with many foreign diesels (at least not cooperatively), so I don't have that much direct experience, but I was impressed in the few instances I did with what the more advanced diesel boat operators could do with their limited capabilities.

Do you have any good stories about working with OPFOR diesel boats? Which country do you think does the best job? I've always heard the Chileans are right up there near the top. I'd say that, maintenance-wise, the Canadians would probably have to be near the bottom.

"Red Sky At Morning..."

2011-09-12T22:07:00.000-06:00

Because recent pictures of my last boat, USS Jimmy Carter (SSN 23) are so rare, I'll post them whenever they show up in the public domain:

From the caption: "The Seawolf-class attack submarine USS Jimmy Carter (SSN 23) returns to its homeport of Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor at sunrise." Welcome home, guys, from whatever you were out doing.

Never Forget

2011-09-11T00:00:00.000-06:00

As we remember the attacks of 10 years ago today, I don't have much to add to what I said last year, other than that, when our resolve weakens, I hope we all remember how we felt on that day. God Bless all the victims of the horrific terrorist attacks of 9/11/01. My faith teaches me that we are supposed to forgive those who attack us. I haven't reached that point yet.

HMAS Farncomb's Recent Loss Of Propulsion: "Bad" On The Good/Bad Scale

2011-09-09T14:56:00.002-06:00

I had read this article a couple of weeks ago about the Australian submarine HMAS Farncomb (SSG 74) saying that the boat had been forced to surface after a loss of propulsion, and decided there really wasn't enough to the story to make it a good topic for discussion here. This new article that came out today with new information, however, changed my mind. Excerpts:

For the 60 men and women aboard the Collins-class boat, the next few minutes would be among the longest of their lives. Like a Hollywood thriller, the sailors found themselves grappling with a double engine failure followed by a terrifying, powerless descent towards the bottom of the Indian Ocean, stemmed only by the cool actions of a veteran commander.This real-life drama, which took place at 12.30am on August 23 about 20km off the northwest coast of Rottnest Island, was not revealed by Defence at the time. When quizzed by The Australian the following day, officials gave only a brief, sanitised version of the incident, omitting key facts while praising the competence and training of the crew for following "standard operating procedures"......What is undisputed is that Farncomb was conducting operational training in the waters northwest of Rottnest Island soon after spending a month in dry dock where it had its emergency propulsion unit replaced. In charge that night was veteran submarine commander Glen Miles, a ruddy-faced archeology and rugby enthusiast who once served on the old Oberon submarines and who was dux of his submarine officer's course. Also on board was a Sea Training Group assessing the crew's competence.Shortly after midnight, the Farncomb was gliding at a periscope depth of 20m while undertaking a routine known as "snorting", where air is drawn into the submarine to run the diesel motor in order to recharge the boat's batteries. At 12.30am, without warning, a fault in the control switchboard of the submarine's electric motor caused the motor to stop. "Propulsion failure, propulsion failure" rang out across the Farncomb's address system, as crew ran to emergency stations......According to several crew members' versions, the Farncomb slowed to a virtual halt, tilted nose up and began to slide backwards towards the ocean floor. The tilt was so steep that sailors eating in the mess room had to grab their dinners as they slid off the table. Those in the sleeping quarters found themselves "on top of each other".In the control room, Commander Miles was not panicking, but was watching the sliding depth gauge hoping that the propulsion motor would restart before the Farncomb sank too deep. He knew that, as a last resort, he could take the dramatic step of blowing the submarine's ballast tanks to stem the descent......Crew accounts of how deep the Farncomb sank differ. The consensus is that it plunged to between 150m and 190m. If so, this is uncomfortably close to the submarine's permissible deep diving depth, the actual figure of which is classified.At some point during the Farncomb's powerless descent and without any sign of life from the motor, Commander Miles ordered a partial blow of the submarine's main ballast in which air expels water from the ballast tanks, making the boat lighter."Because the submarine was still heavy as compensating water was being pumped (out), the commanding officer chose to blow main ballast to arrest descent," a Defence spokesman said.What happened next depends on whose account you believe. Defence says that the initial ballast blow stemmed the descent and that the Farncomb actually began to slowly rise. Some crew members maintain the submarine was still sinking, although at a slower rate.Either way, Commander Miles then decided to take the most drastic step available to a submarine commander: to order a full emergency blow of all ballast tanks.

The story is written in such a way as to make it seem more dramatic than I'm sure it really was, but there's no doubt that finding yourself left with no option other than an EMBT blow makes for some interesting stories to tell around the grill.Have you ever been scared sh*tless on the boat? The one time I had non-expected flooding called away on my boat, I was kind of surprised at how calm I remained -- partly because I knew everyone was looking at me, I'm sure. (Long story short: Alpha Trials on SSN 22, I was in Maneuvering, flooding in the Machinery Room called away when we first started changing depth from PD to the next deeper depth on the initial controlled dive. ADM Bowman (NR at the time and in charge of the Sea Trial), in Control, told the CO/OOD not to do an EMBT blow. It ended up being overflow from a trim tank.)

Selectivity -- A Good Thing?

2011-09-09T14:36:00.000-06:00

A reader wrote in to ask if I had any insight into the best way to increase one's chances of getting into the Navy as an officer. Excerpt:

I have been trying for over a year now, increased my GPA, lost over 50 pounds, and added additional community services to my resume. From my understanding, there just aren’t any spots for young men and women who are just getting out of college.

To be honest, I hadn't realized just how picky the Navy had become. I knew the services had been meeting their accession goals recently (I'm sure the state of the economy contributes to that), but didn't know just how few slots there really were. Some entries from this blog by a New York Navy Officer recruiter has some interesting posts, including this one and this one, excerpted:

Today I saw NRD NY's goal or quota for Fiscal Year 2012 which starts this October. I did a double take. Active Duty General Officer (Pilot, NFO, SWO, Intel, Nuke, CEC, Supply, SEAL, etc.): The goal for ALL of NRD NY is ten. That's right, T.E.N. Out of those ten four were Nukes. What does that mean to me? Well to put it into perspective last year my personal goal was 24, the year prior 31 while the goal for the district has been 65 and 71 respectively. It means that I highly doubt there will be a board for any of these designators until September of next year. There are twenty-six NRDs in the US. Do the math and you'll see they only need 260 Officer Candidates this year which is a joke, in the past it has been well over a thousand.

I knew the Navy was drawing down, but this sounds much more serious than I'd realized. Sure, it seems like it would be nice to be able to pick and choose which people you want to join your organization, but I'm worried that we'll end up with several year groups in a row composed only of the people who the recruiters think would make the best Officers -- which, to be honest, might not reflect the characteristics and personality types with whom the non-recruiters among us would most like to serve.

Do you have any advice for the reader about what he might be able to do to impress the recruiter? (Input from current and recent recruiters would be especially useful.) And do you have any concerns about potential blowback from the Navy's new-found freedom to "pick and choose"?

Off topic, kind of: Also on the recruiters blog, here's a report of an E-mail he got from a young officer in the middle of the Nuke pipeline that I thought was interesting. Excerpts:

As it turns out nukes are much needed in the fleet but huge holds are building up in the pipeline. If you recall I was attached to NRD NY for 15 weeks and that was shorter than most people who graduated OCS and were designated as sub nucs (There were ensigns who were on hold for up to 24 weeks). Throughout the 24 weeks here in Charleston no one knew where or when we would be going to prototype or SOBC. For my class, we were issued 3 sets of orders the week before graduation which changed constantly. As of now, everyone took 2 weeks of leave and the sub nukes have to report back to Charleston for 2 months of quality assurance training (some assignment they're experimenting with so we don't go back to OHARP or just sit around and muster daily). Most of us are going to prototype in NY after we report to SOBC with a few who are staying in Charleston (mainly those with families who do not want to keep moving around).

The "AwCrap" Moment

2011-09-05T23:11:00.000-06:00

So there I was... onboard USS Topeka (SSN 754) in November 1992, where the boat had just pulled into Mina Salman, Bahrain, for a mid-deployment upkeep. Before we could go out on liberty, however, we had a few items to take care of. I was responsible for making sure that a couple hundred packages got signed over to the Defense Courier Service from the "special" mission we'd been doing -- the tender guys and gals couldn't come on board to start the upkeep until it was all gone.

I had inventoried everything the night before, and rounded up a working party of about 8 guys to get all the packages moved out to the government van; I checked off the items on the inventory list with the local DCS rep as they were loaded in. When the guys brought out the last load, every block was checked... except one. That caused a little bit of excitement as we ransacked all the places these items had been kept, and after about a half hour we found the package (a 9 x 12 inch envelope); it had fallen behind a bench in Radio. I breathed a huge sigh of relief and headed off to the Alcohol Support Unit at the base to start to unwind from being so vital to national security over the previous several weeks, in preparation for heading out into town to see what Manama had to offer.

Anyone care to share their favorite "Aw, crap" moment?

Update 1155 08 September: Going back through my archives, here's a story that falls under the category of "Stupid JO Tricks" more than "AwCrap". And as a "bell-ringer" (moving a link from the comments up to the main story) here's the story of the CO of USS The Sullivans (DDG 68) becoming the 18th Navy Commanding Officer fired this year for mistakenly targeting a civilian fishing vessel with inert training rounds during deployment workup.

Submitted For Your Approval...

2011-09-02T14:03:00.001-06:00

One of my Facebook friends had a patch made up that I think is absolutely great:

What do you think? Isn't that just about the best patch ever? What are your best stories of off-crew? (Or, for us Fast Attack heterosexuals, what are your best stories of being "left behind" when the boat went out to sea?)

Update 1409 02 September 11: The maker of the patch has agreed to make some available to TSSBP readers for $5 (including shipping). If you want one, send me an E-mail [joel(dot)bubblehead(at)gmail(dot)com], and I'll forward it to Jan.

Update 2244 05 September 11: I ended up forwarding 17 orders for probably 40-50 patches to Jan, so it looks like they were pretty popular!

Adventures With Skimmers

2011-09-01T10:38:00.000-06:00

This picture of USS Ronald Reagan (CVN 76) pulling into Pearl Harbor yesterday caught my attention:

It got me thinking of my time on a carrier, the Millennium deployment of USS John C. Stennis (CVN 74) as the Submarine Ops guy on the Carrier Group SEVEN staff. While we were in the Arabian Gulf, one of the assigned submarines was tasked to do one of those "special" missions we all know about, the ones where they bring on extra Sailors who eat four meals a day and monopolize the best tables in Crew's Mess between meals. The boat wanted to make some room, so I arranged for them to send some extra nukes over to the carrier to ride for a few weeks. Being the gung-ho Submariners they were, they decided they'd make the best use of their time by earning the Enlisted Surface Warfare Insignia. As I remember, six of the 9 Submariners met that goal within 4 weeks. As they were getting ready to leave, I asked them what they'd remember most, and they said they learned that 1) administrative tasks you routinely see E-5s doing on submarines are done by O-4s on the carrier, and 2) skimmers aren't very bright.

Have you ever had to interact with skimmers on their home turf?

Emergency Sortie

2011-08-26T11:40:00.004-06:00

Here's a photo of an unidentified Los Angeles-class submarine pulling out of Norfolk yesterday ahead of Hurricane Irene:

(Official Navy information on the storm can be found here.) Have you ever had to do an emergency sortie for a hurricane? Or been kept in port because your boat couldn't move and had to ride out the storm?

[Admin note: Expect light blogging for the next few days. I'm celebrating four dozen years on earth today, and switch back to day shift at work after that, so I'll need to get re-acclimated to a normal schedule.]

Request For Information!

2011-08-24T14:03:00.002-06:00

Although we think that our little community here at TSSBP is a fairly insular little group, discussing issues of little attention to the world at large, I can assure you that is not the case. It turns out that people of eclectic interests read what we have to say and would like us to comment on issues of vital national importance. I got this E-mail from "Susie":

I work for an IT company that has extensive contracts with the Department of the Navy. I am looking for information about US submarines that have been damaged by earthquakes while berthed, but preferably while on patrol. Since we just experienced our own 5.9 bit of excitement here yesterday afternoon, this would be a topic of interest to our in-house Team Sub.

Based on your comments and your readership, you seem to have extensive resources; most of what I come up with is speculation about how US subs’ underwater testing has been the cause of whales and dolphins beaching themselves, the island of Sumatra shifting, and a trove of other sins so I’m hoping that you have more verifiable information on this topic. If you can assist me in this quest, please send any links that would provide some details.

So what do you think? Can we help Susie out? I've discussed my ideas on whether or not naval sonar is responsible for marine mammal beachings before (here, here, here, here, here, here, and here), so you could say I'm on the side of the "skeptics". As far as submarine operations shifting the island of Sumatra, I had heard that there are some who think that "Bush/Cheney" set off a nuclear bomb to cause the 2004 tsunami to distract attention from their theft of Ohio votes in the election; once again, I'm a little skeptical about that one. I discussed my views on that topic on other websites.

So what do you think? As far as the effects of sonar on marine mammal beaching, there are probably legitimate security classification concerns with revealing too much, but I think we can all agree that the story of submarine operations causing tectonic shifts is much too important to worry about little details like "national secrets", so I encourage all my readers with vital information on this important topic to let us know in the comments!

Malcontents On Submarines

2011-08-19T15:59:00.003-06:00

We covered the Memphis cheating scandal in extreme detail back in November, but stories are making the rounds again after the AP got some information (much of which we already had) from an FOIA request. I wasn't going to rehash the old news, but enough people E-mailed me about it that I figured there was some interest. Excerpt from the new story:

An investigation report obtained by the AP through a Freedom of Information Act request describes an atmosphere aboard the USS Memphis that tolerated and even encouraged cheating: Sailors were emailed the answers before qualification exams, took tests outside the presence of proctors and openly asked officers for answer keys. One sailor told investigators that test-takers were encouraged to "use their time wisely" during breaks, insinuating that they should look up answers to exam questions.
A submarine force spokeswoman, Navy Cmdr. Monica Rousselow, said the Navy holds its officers and crew to very high standards and denied that cheating is rampant.
"The evidence we have shows that it's very rare," said Rousselow, who is based in Norfolk, Va.
But three former officers said the episode aboard the Groton, Conn.-based Memphis was an extreme example of shortcuts that occur aboard many of the roughly 70 American submarines in service.

[I couldn't find anywhere that the AP writer posted the report he got from the Navy; has anyone seen it online?] The article goes on with quotes from one former Submarine officer who claims that cheating is pervasive throughout the fleet, and bragged earlier about how he refused to cheat, resulting in him failing what I assume is the BEQ test several times.

How did you deal with malcontents on your boat who wouldn't "go with the flow"? Personally, I generally liked them and encouraged them to question things (to a degree), but I'll admit it could get old after a while when they just didn't know when to stop tilting at windmills.

Update 0850 23 August: For the purposes of this discussion, remember that "malcontent" is not the same as "disgruntled", as shown in this story about a Sailor off "the USS Springfield submarine". The article was written by the Michael Milea reporter.

Life After A Sub

2011-08-13T16:04:00.002-06:00

Just about 7 years ago today, I went on terminal leave prior to my retirement from the U.S. Navy. I went to all the required pre-retirement classes where they talked about the importance of networking, how to write a résumé, and the importance of starting your job search early. I figured, "Well, that's all well and good for the skimmers in the class, but I'm a highly-qualified Submariner. I'm the only guy in recent memory who was initial manning Eng on two new construction submarines, and I know all the civilian companies out there know that NR looks at that billet harder than any other Department Head slot. Plus, I did Coalition Finance at CENTCOM, so I've got the budgeting block checked. I just need to send out some CVs, and the offers will come pouring in."

Those of you who have already been through the post-service job search already are probably laughing your butts off, and rightly so. When they tell you that you need to completely convert all military terms to their civilian equivalents when talking with recruiters, they're exactly right. I was able to get a job here in Idaho, but not just by sending in a résumé and having them be so excited by my qualifications that they hired me on the spot; I needed to network. Luckily, there's a very senior Submariner who moved to Boise after he retired who takes us under his wing, shows us the ropes, and introduces us to the right people. If your town doesn't have a former Fleet Commander, however, that option might not be open to you. If you don't have an "in" with a given company, your best option might be to target a group that understands the Navy culture.

From what I've heard, one such company is Bechtel. I found this over at the NavyCS blog, and wanted to repost an updated copy here:

Time to leverage your shipboard nuclear power and submarine warfare knowledge and translate it to land based power plants and other projects in the US, Asia, Middle East and other regions? Bechtel Corporation, one of the largest Nuclear Power engineering, project management and construction firms in the world, is prepared to help transition qualified engineers – Naval Officers and NCOs for engineering leadership positions, into their business. Bechtel currently has many projects and needs for Navy Nuclear Power trained engineers. Bechtel is prepared to help transition qualified engineers into their business and allocate resources to do this.

Bechtel has 100’s of openings, many in the field of Nuclear Power Generation and are aggressively seeking the usual suspects; US Navy nuclear propulsion trained officers (ranks of O3 – O5 preferred); US Navy nuclear submarine qualified officers (ranks of O3 – O5 preferred); US Navy nuclear propulsion trained Warrant officers – submarine or surface ship; US Navy nuclear aircraft carrier nuclear propulsion trained officers; US Navy Engineering Officer of the Watch (EOOW) nuclear propulsion trained – submarine or surface service; US Navy Reactor Operators (RO); and US Navy Shutdown Reactor Operators (SRO) – submarine or surface, US Navy nuclear propulsion trained Petty Officers (E-6 and up) qualified in Submarines (i.e., Engineering Lab Technicians [ELT’s], Machinist Mates [MM’s], Electronic Technicians [ET’s]) (AS degrees preferred); US Navy nuclear propulsion trained US Naval Petty Officers (E-6 and up) surface Navy (i.e., ELT’s, MM’s, ET’s) (AS degrees preferred); US Navy nuclear propulsion prototype instructors (officers and enlisted); US Navy nuclear propulsion power school instructors (officers and enlisted).
Starting base salaries are high - can range from $95K to $175K and up, not to mention the potential for bonuses, depending, of course, on your qualifications and the position you fill.

Interested? I highly recommend that you contact Erik Plesset, a Senior Recruiter at Bechtel directly at Hotjobs[at]becthel.com, or if you are on Linked-In, hit him up there at – http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=3742469&trk=tab_pro .

I was intrigued when I read that post, and since I was planning a series about "getting a job after the Navy", I contacted Erik to see if he'd be willing to share some pointers. Hopefully he'll be able to, because I think one of the best uses of this blog, with its combination of active duty and veteran readership, is to help guys transition back to civilian life when their time on the boats is done, and having the perspective of a senior recruiter of a major company would be helpful. For those who want to see what kind of jobs Erik is talking about, the Bechtel career page is here.

For the guys who have re-entered the civilian workforce -- what was your experience in getting a job on the outside? For those looking to get a job over the next few years, do you have any questions for Erik or those of us who have made the transition?

Life On A Sub

2011-08-10T08:13:00.003-06:00

For some reason I missed this official Navy propaganda video when it first came out in January:

At least one of the guys in that video is from my old boat, Topeka. A couple other videos I missed about that time (I did share two of them that came out in January) were "Fast Attack", focusing on Virginia-class boats, and "Experience". All five videos are aimed at getting people to visit the official Navy submarine officer recruiting page.

Have you ever been in an official Navy video?

Update 0957 13 August: Here's another one I missed, from back in February, featuring a simulated battle on a Virginia-class boat:

New Posts On The COMSUBFOR Blog

2011-08-09T08:11:00.003-06:00

Both RADM Caldwell and VADM Richardson have new posts up at the COMSUBFOR blog. Hopefully they'll keep writing and responding to the comments they get.

Update 0830 10 August: VADM Richardson has been busy getting his views out in the public eye; he wrote this response to a post from a Naval War College professor over at The Diplomat.

Steel Beach

2011-08-05T07:54:00.004-06:00

Here it is -- the video that's causing all the controversy on Facebook! The picture causing the questions, at about the 2:40 mark, is apparently of midshipmen on USS Michigan (SSGN 727):

Other (longer) videos by the same poster can be found here and here.

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Bell-ringer 0818 8/9: Some people are saying in the comments that the female JOs aren't going to be filling existing billets, but that the wardrooms are getting +2'd in the manning document. Word on the street is that those commenters are telling the truth. If so, it looks like PERS-42 isn't going "all in" on this experiment working out.

Proposed Change That Will Adversely Affect Future Submarine Manning

2011-08-01T05:51:00.008-06:00

By the end of the year, we'll be seeing a dramatic change in the makeup of some submarine crews. The first women submarine officers will be arriving at their boats as early as November, and even before that, prior to the end of the summer, homosexual or bisexual Submariners will have legal cover to be open about their sexual preference. (Note that I don't say that gay Submariners will start arriving after that time; anyone who's honest about it knows they've had gay shipmates in the past, and current Submariners have gay shipmates now, and it will continue in the future.)

So are these the changes that will adversely affect submarine manning? Well, there could be some issues. Since Congress never modified or removed Article 125 (Sodomy) from the UCMJ, it's possible that an overzealous chain of command could bring a media sh*tstorm on themselves by writing up a gay Submariner for telling too much about whatever penetration -- however slight -- he may have enjoyed over the weekend. Likewise, it's possible that the 10% of military members who said in a 2009 Military Times survey that they'd leave the military if DADT was repealed weren't just blowing smoke, and they'll take their chances in the current job market. Of course, the old method of getting out quickly -- the "phrase that pays" -- won't exist anymore.

As far as women on submarines goes, of course that will introduce new challenges. I'll admit I'm a little concerned reading about one of the young officers getting ready to get to her boat saying "I have a feeling more people will be focused on us. Our mistakes and successes will be magnified more than they deserve." When women were being integrated into the surface and air arms of the military, the stories you saw make the press were Senators ending the careers of Admirals for dropping women out of flight training. While it's possible that some Submariners will try to make it harder for women to qualify, I think it's more likely that one of the women just won't be able to cut it, and despite the fact that about 1 of 25 male submarine officers can't finish their qualifications after they get to the boat, the press will make a huge deal out of this happening to the same percentage of women. Hopefully the senior Submarine Force leadership won't overreact when that happens.

So are these two changes going to be too much for the Submarine Force to handle? Of course not. We'll handle it the same way we've handled other changes in the past -- by making a commitment to doing it, and then carrying out the plan. Any dislocation will be minimal, and certainly not Force-wide. I mean, c'mon, skimmers could do it; of course we can make it work. (Speaking of skimmers, when I was on the Stennis in 2000 I laughed about the ship's "no dating" general order; now, if I were a submarine CO, I'd be thinking seriously about implementing one on my ship sometime in the next few months.)

So what is the "Proposed Change That Will Adversely Affect Future Submarine Manning"? It's this one -- the proposal to radically restructure military retirement from the Defense Business Board. Their presentation can be found here. Excerpt from the first-linked article:

In a massive change that could affect today’s troops, the plan calls for a corporate-style benefits program that would contribute money to troops’ retirement savings account rather than the promise of a future monthly pension, according to a new proposal from an influential Pentagon advisory board.
All troops would receive the yearly retirement contributions, regardless of whether they stay for 20 years. Those contributions might amount to about 16.5 percent of a member’s annual pay and would be deposited into a mandatory version of the Thrift Savings Plan, the military’s existing 401(k)-style account that now does not include government matching contributions.

I can seriously see this proposal being adopted, and if it is, I think we'll see significant attrition of experienced Submariners starting about the 10 year point, the time when they should be running divisions or departments. With the attacks we've seen on public employee pensions from some who subscribe to Tea Party principles, I fully expect to see them move towards attacking military pensions -- not now, but as we finish with the "easy" cuts and they realize that people like me have been getting over $35K/year since I was 41, along with free health insurance. If this proposal is adopted, that's when we'll start seeing problems with getting enough qualified Submariners to man the boats. And then we'll be glad we haven't eliminated 51% (or so) of the population from serving on submarines, like we do now.

So what do you think? Will having women on submarines cause a plague of locusts o'er the land? Will having openly homosexual Submariners cause the Earth to stop spinning on its axis? Or will the sudden change in centrifugal force fling all the locusts into space and result in a wash? (Yes, for Dilbert fans who thought that sounded familiar, I didn't come up with that on my own.) Personally, I think the only result of having "out" homosexuals on board will be a reduction in overt acts that any observer not familiar with submarine culture would classify as "gay" (e.g. "swordfights" in the tunnel, various spit games between the ERUL and ERF watchstanders, etc.) as people don't want to be accused of actual gayness. Having women onboard will probably cause more issues, but I don't think it's something we can't overcome with minimal effort. Let us know what you think in the comments. (I'm not planning on running any more "gays/women on submarines" posts unless some specific incident makes the news, so this could be your last shot. Have at it.)

Are Officers Inherently Jerks?

2011-07-28T15:06:00.002-06:00

A reader sends in the following:

I was an enlisted nuke MM and following my time in the canoe club, went to [respected university] for my BSME. I have completed all the course work for my Masters in Engineering and am just working on the research to complete it. So I have an education and am not stupid in any sense of the word.

Is there something in ROTC and/or the Academy that they teach officers about in treating enlisted sailors with disdain? I don’t get it. I happened to meet a gentleman at work the other day that was an officer on the Dallas (I was on the Philly). He was engaging and the minute I mentioned that I was an enlisted nuke, the whole conversation turned. Well actually it just ended – abruptly. Since then I have seen him and he has never said a word to me even in a professional sense. I am in a training class currently (two days) and he is sitting right behind me – not a word or even any acknowledgement of my existence.

This isn’t the first time I have run across this behavior, and actually find it quite common.

I've known quite a few officers who seemed to believe that they were inherently "better" than enlisted people; my stateroommate on the carrier on which I was stationed used to thrust his collar device out of mess attendants he thought weren't being sufficiently deferential. I didn't think it was something he'd been taught in an organized way; I figured he was just probably a jerk. Still, I've heard from many people who believe that that probably apocryphal quote about enlisted Sailors being "cunning and devious", allegedly contained in some early 20^th century officer handbook, is still being actively taught by commissioning sources. Now, I only went through OCS, but I paid attention in class, and I'm almost positive they didn't teach us that there.

We've kind of discussed this before, but what do you think about this story? Are guys who are officers who are jerks to enlisted men just a-holes, or is there something about the Submarine (or military) culture that teaches them that they should be like that?

USS Texas Sailor On AFN Korea

2011-07-26T08:19:00.003-06:00

A good video from Armed Forces Network Korea about an MM1(SS) aboard USS Texas (SSN 775).

Update 0743 27 July: Here's another video, this one from the Navy website:

Submarine Independent Duty Corpsman Recognized for Efforts

And while I'm at it, for no reason other than I want to get it on the server in case I need to use it for some future unforeseen circumstance, here's the most recent picture of your friendly neighborhood Submarine blogger:

New Hazing Fallout

2011-07-22T16:38:00.002-06:00

A couple of stories about "hazing" in the Navy have hit the news lately. The most recent is the case on the minesweeper USS Patriot (MCM 7) where, apparently (this is based on one opinion piece in Navy Times) six Sailors are getting ADSEP'd for "tacking on" crows. It seems to me that, unless the CO had specifically told the crew that anyone tacking on crows would get administratively separated, that seems a little harsh -- especially when one considers this article on the official Navy website about officially-sanctioned "tacking" ceremonies (obviously without the bruising associated with the tradition of 10-20 years ago). I can only imagine what the Navy would do to someone who participated in a dolphin "tacking" (without the backing studs) or "drinking your dolphins" ceremony.

Meanwhile, we're waiting to hear what, if anything, will come of the reported story about hazing on USS Tennessee (SSBN 734) while the boat was in the shipyard. Has anyone heard anything about that one?

Do you think that the old "camaraderie-building" stunts we used to pull had any positive effects, or were they just a way to bully the new guys? I went through Shellback ceremonies both "before PC" and after, and thought the "before" version was a lot better (even though I was the 'Wog for that one).

"Design For Undersea Warfare"

2011-07-18T15:06:00.004-06:00

The Submarine Force leadership just released an overview of what they see as "commander's guidance to the Submarine Force on maintaining undersea superiority in the 21st century". VADM Richardson expects to introduce it to the Force on Wednesday (the anniversary of the first launch of Polaris from the submerged submarine USS GEORGE WASHINGTON (SSBN 598)), but they released this advance look a couple days early.

I haven't had a chance to look at "Design For Undersea Warfare" yet (or it's companion piece, "Undersea Warfighting") because I'm in the middle of my workweek and need to concentrate on making the best memory chips in the world. Until the official rollout, please take a look at the Force leadership's vision and start a discussion in the comments.

Update 1020 20 July: Today's the official "rollout" day of the new initiative, as detailed in the first post of the new COMSUBFOR blog. As I understand it, all the boats not at sea will be sending their CO/XO/COB to meet with the leadership in each submarine homeport to get briefed on the changes this new vision will bring. And word on the street is that there will be changes, with a message flying (possibly today) that will cancel several onerous administrative requirements. I think the highest levels of the Submarine Force leadership are buying into it; the question remains as to what the deskbound Captains, Commanders, and Master Chiefs who will never go to sea more than a day or two at a time in the future will do to support (or hinder) the Admirals' vision. I remember back when ADM Boorda cancelled a large number of admin requirements, and the waterfront inspecting agencies basically ignored the CNO. (True story -- one of the cancelled programs back in 1998 was the Diesel Trend. When my boat had its ORSE in July 1999, I showed the instruction to the team member, who acted like he'd never seen it before, and still reviewed my records. I had kept them up, of course, since I didn't expect the ORSE would ever willingly give up a chance to find another "weakness".) Since some inspecting agencies officially work for the Fleet Commander, hopefully they won't "overrule by board precept" the Sub Force's efforts to move their warfighters away from filling out TPS reports and more towards figuring out better ways to deny the ocean to our adversaries.

It's clear that money will be the biggest driver of the future of the Submarine Force. This article in The Day says that some people are considering foregoing an all-new design for the next generation SSBN, and just putting SLBMs on a Virginia-based hull. I remember them talking about that at EB as a possibility back when the original Virginia was being built next to my boat, and I thought how they'd have to drastically shrink the missiles to fit with the tiny (33'; it's tiny compared to the 40' of the Seawolf-class boat I was on) diameter of the Virginia, even if they did use some sort of turtleback (with concomitant speed penalties for an already slow boat). I suggested back then that they should base the new SSBN on the Seawolf. The design's already proven, the existing missile would fit in with only a small turtleback, and they already know how to cut a Seawolf in half to add a middle section. The only problem would be that you'd end up with an SSBN fleet that was faster than the SSN fleet.

I'll be interested to hear from anybody who finds out which admin programs they'll be cancelling.

Sub Tender CO Fired

2011-07-16T15:27:00.004-06:00

From Navy Times:

The commanding officer of a submarine tender based in Diego Garcia was fired Friday after his ship struck a channel buoy in June, the Navy said Friday. He is the 13th CO fired this year.
Capt. Eric Merrill, a career submariner, was in command of sub tender Emory S. Land on June 21, when the ship hit a channel buoy while heading into Mina Salman, a port of Bahrain...
...After an investigation, Rear Adm. Phillip Sawyer, commander of Task Force 74/54, relieved Merrill for “loss of confidence in his ability to command,” Hagen said. Merrill was awarded non-judicial punishment on Friday for violation of Uniform Code of Military Justice Article 110, improper hazarding of a vessel.

CAPT Merrill was previously CO of USS Wyoming (SSBN-742)(Gold). Based on item #292 in this Notice To Mariners, it looks like the ship took out Channel Buoy #12. From what I remember, the approach to Mina Salman is fairly tricky, with a tight turn.

Have you ever been on a boat that hit something it shouldn't have hit?

Update 2021 16 July: Here's a picture of CAPT Merrill during happier times earlier in the deployment.

Gotta Be A Misquote

2011-07-16T07:07:00.002-06:00

From an Army Times interview with Vice CJCS Marine Gen. James Cartwright, discussing planned DoD budget cuts over the next decade:

“The second three years tend to be on the structure side of the house. So that is forces, changing the number of forces that you have or the character of the forces.
“People generally will look at it and go, ‘That means taking people out of the services.’ Not necessarily. You may just shift the balance of the services from active to Guard or reserve or to — the dirty word — a draft,” he said. “Those are all different characters and they have different costs that you can manage, based on time when you bring those forces into activity. We are looking at all of that full range. We’ll have to look at everything.”

[Emphasis mine] I'm not sure why someone who apparently is supposed to have a clue would be saying that in 4-6 years the military, currently fully-manned and downsizing, would want to bring in a bunch of people who don't want to be there. (Granted, there are plenty of volunteers who end up not wanting to be there, but with those guys you can at least shame them with the fact that they voluntarily signed the dotted line.) I've always said that bringing back the draft is a sure way of destroying the American military; I expect that from people who hate the idea that America should be able to project power overseas, but I'm not sure why someone who apparently doesn't would want that. (If, on the other hand, this was just a scare tactic to try to stop the budget cuts, that means the Administration has some serious message discipline problems.)

Any older guys want to share stories of malcontent draftees who caused problems?

New (To Me) Submarine Videos

2011-07-14T10:00:00.003-06:00

Here are a couple of newish "official" submarine videos that I don't think I've posted before. The first is "Why I Joined":

The second is "The Ultimate Stealth Platform":

How do you think the Navy does with their propaganda videos on social networking sites? If you were a youngster, would they make you consider signing up? (Alternate question: Why did you join? For me, it was because I'd kind of quit going to class in the middle of the semester to hang out with girls of questionable character, and really needed a new start in a new place.)

And Now For Something Completely Different...

2011-07-14T08:55:00.006-06:00

Nothing submarine-related here, just "proud Dad" pictures of his youngest kid on his mission in northern Chile. He's on the left in these two pictures:

And on the right on these two (his "Mission Mom", the Mission President's wife, is on the left):

He's currently in Calama, Chile, which apparently gets below freezing now while it's winter down there. We sent him with a nice long coat, but based on these pictures he's only wearing the liner that came with it.

Up Or Out -- Good Or Bad?

2011-07-08T17:08:00.003-06:00

This story (and a nudge from Chap) got me thinking about the Navy system of "up or out" officer promotions and career gates in general. There are very few other organizations that, once you get good at a job (or not), literally force you to up to the next step of the ladder or else get thrown aside. For Unrestricted Line Officers, there really are no other realistic choices.

For those who aren't aware of the system, here's a short primer (in addition to the link above), using submarine examples. For officers, if you don't get promoted, you're asked to leave the service within a few years. Once you make LCDR (O-4), you're generally allowed to stay around until you're retirement-eligible, but a Lieutenant who fails to promote to LCDR usually has to leave once you fail to select (FOS) twice. This isn't that big a deal -- at the lower ranks, one generally has to be a major screw-up to fail to promote, so you'll normally be doing everyone a favor by taking your talents elsewhere. (On the enlisted side, they kind of have the same concept, but once you make E-6 you're good to go until 20.) It's the officer job career path that, I think, results in some people who are really good at their jobs being forced into jobs where they're not so good.

For a submarine officer's sea tours, you get three years as a division officer, then shore duty. Then you get about 3 years as a Department Head, then more shore duty. About 60% of DHs get selected to do about 2 years as Executive Officer, and about 2/3 of XOs get three years in command. And then, unless you go to new construction or get to fill in for someone who got fired, that's the last time you command a submarine. The best COs get the same three years as the worst, with no time left to start again. (There are obvious exceptions to the above -- I did 5+ years as Eng on two NewCon boats -- but those are exceptions that prove the rule.)

What this results in is people who are really good division officers, but who might be lousy Department Heads, not being able to serve the Navy doing what they do best. On the other hand, if you leave a guy doing Main Propulsion Assistant tours for three out of every five years for 20 years, you take away that slot from a new guy coming up. If the Navy were ever having manning problems that would be an option, but we aren't nearly at that point yet. By constantly injecting "new blood", you end up with people not necessarily filling the job they're best at, but you do get a chance to evaluate all the talent to see who might have what it takes to be a CO. Of course, once you do that, you still get only 3 years out of those guys in command. Is this the best system? The Brits will get guys who are good Engineers be the Eng on several ships for a decade or more, but he'll never get command. There are pros and cons either way.

What do you think? Is "up or out" the way to go, or should we let guys do the jobs they're good at (which would also allow us to reduce accessions)?

Personally, if they would have let me, I would have been happy being an Eng forever.

Tea Party Boise Dons Tin-Foil Chapeaux

2011-07-07T19:08:00.004-06:00

As the novelty of the Tea Party wears off and people begin to realize that candidates espousing the doctrinaire beliefs of that group are completely unelectable on a national level, you're starting to see the "true believers" who remain active reveal their true colors. One such group seems to be the leadership of Tea Party Boise. Here's a flyer for a meeting they're holding this weekend in Nampa, for which getting people to attend seems to be a problem.

One problem seems to be the "Featured Keynote Speakers". The guy they have on Saturday is listed on the flier as an "Expert in International Conspiracies", but it's the Friday guy who seems to be causing (deservedly) the most backlash. It's Dr. Steven Jones, who I've been mocking and belittling since 2005.

Both of them are "Truthers" -- people who believe that 9/11 was a U.S. Government plot. And by having them as featured speakers, Tea Party Boise is legitimizing this crackpot theory.

I'm not doubting that the government lies -- they clearly did when they said that Osama bin Laden was buried at sea so as to satisfy Muslim traditions that burial take place within 24 hours when it was obviously done before Monday morning (U.S. time) to make sure that some lawyer couldn't file suit for possession of the body on behalf of some family member. People like the "Truthers", however, believe that the government always lies, and anything that doesn't match their own narrow worldview must be the product of some huge conspiracy. People like the leadership of Tea Party Boise just can't understand how President Obama hasn't tried to confiscate their guns yet -- after all, didn't all those people who jacked up the price of ammo in December 2008 say he was going to? The more their predictions of doom fail to come true, the more they retreat into a delusional world where it's all part of an even more sinister and detailed conspiracy (usually led by Jews). The 9/11 Truth movement is the apex of this line of thinking, so it's not surprising that they're headed into that territory.

It's not just Tea Party Boise that's fallen into this trap. Even a respected group such as the Elmore County Republican Central Committee has started to eat their own, passing a resolution calling for the State GOP to investigate Gov. "Butch" Otter and his "Project 60" because of fears that he's supporting a Chinese enclave just south of Boise that will be a perfect base for a "Red Dawn"-style invasion. (Of note, then-Rep. Otter proved his Libertarian bona fides by being one of 3 Republicans to vote against the original Patriot Act -- even that isn't enough to protect him now from xenophobic Idaho Republican activists.) Like most Tea Party ideas, this one spread quickly via E-mail, finally hitting the Drudge Report, without anyone stopping to verify facts or realize that the whole idea was so far-fetched as to be unbelievable -- it was enough for them that it was more "evidence" of the government being evil.

I find it interesting that many of these people, when confronted with irrefutable evidence that a given pet conspiracy theory is wrong, will defend themselves with words to the effect of "Well, Obama is such a horrible person that I'm justified in believing he'd do that"; or, in other words, "It's Obama's fault that I believe this unbelievable thing". Coming from adherents of the philosophy of "Personal Responsibility", that's quite amusing. (Progressives did the same thing during the Bush era, but it's not as hypocritical coming from them because they aren't generally into "not blaming others for one's mistakes" so much.)

So what do you think? Will the Tea Party finally crash and burn when they eventually get so far into Tin-Foil Hat Land that eventually even the True Believers start having second thoughts? Or will it take the shock of actually nominating a Tea Party Presidential candidate and having them lose by 300 electoral votes?

(And for those who think that the government actually could pull off a stunt like wiring the WTC towers with explosives and doing the rest of 9/11 while being able to keep it a secret -- the world just doesn't work like that. You'll have to trust me on that one. We keep things like submarine operations fairly secret because, in the big scheme of things, nobody really gives a crap. For stuff like shooting down TWA 800 with a missile from a Navy ship or hiding aliens in Area 51, enough people do care, and at least one smart person among the thousands who would have to be involved would figure out a way to smuggle the evidence out in a flash drive.)

A Promise Is A Promise...

2011-07-06T09:09:00.003-06:00

I made a vow in the past to stop tilting at windmills and give up my crusade against the cheapening of a great submarine tradition, so I'll just say "Congratulations" to PCU California (SSN 781) for completing Alpha Trials, apparently sinking all enemy ships they encountered while doing so:

Navy Independence Day Tribute 2011

2011-07-03T13:48:00.001-06:00

Married BAH

2011-07-02T18:43:00.002-06:00

This story from CNN about some enlisted Marines who entered into fictitious marriages so the women involved could live together off base got me thinking about the ongoing battles when I was in between single guys who were pissed off that married guys doing the same job as them got paid more, vs. married guys who laughed in their faces. Excerpt from the story:

Vice told CNN affiliate KGTV in San Diego that she wanted to live off base with her girlfriend, Jaime Murphy, as a couple. Murphy is a civilian.
But on her salary, she couldn't afford it.
So she says she found a Marine, Jeremiah Griffin, who agreed to marry her so she could receive the $1,200 per month living stipend the Marine Corps gives to married couples living off base.
A year and a half later, Murphy did the same thing and married Marine Joseph Garner, Vice and Murphy told KGTV, according to footage that aired Thursday...
...The three Marines are accused of pocketing about $75,000.
"There's no conspiracy here," Murphy told KGTV. "There's no trying to steal from anybody. We just wanted to be together and she wanted to serve her country."

Leaving aside the question about why the civilian girlfriend couldn't get a job to help pay for their off-base apartment, the concept of "there's no trying to steal" in attempting to fraudulently get BAH (Basic Allowance for Housing) at the "with dependents" rate is one I've seen before. I personally never had a problem with the cases I saw where a couple who were going to get married after deployment had a "secret" civil wedding beforehand so they could pocket the extra six months of married pay, but other cases I heard about seemed more like stealing. I always believed that the military had good reason to encourage marriage among its members -- married guys tend not to get hauled in for doing stupid stuff on liberty, in my experience -- but my viewpoint might have been skewed because I was married for 19 of my 21+ years on active duty. I knew a lot of guys who were almost violently opposed to the "double standard".

What's the best story you ever heard about someone gaming the BAH system?

"The Charge Of Command"

2011-07-01T17:10:00.003-06:00

Check out this letter the CNO sent to all Prospective Commanding Officers last month (and which I assume will be part of all future PCO training). Excerpts:

There are two accountability standards that we use to measure officers in Command. The first is the standard for measuring criminal behavior. This standard belongs to the courts and uses rules of evidence and procedure to determine, beyond a reasonable doubt, whether a violation of a specific criminal code has occurred. The second accountability standard is trust. Our Navy's decentralized command and control structure is built on trust. Without trust, we cannot delegate authority. Without authority, we cannot fulfill our responsibilities. Therefore, without the delegation of authority, we simply cannot effectively operate our Navy. Trust is a fundamental building block of our command and control structure and our ability to achieve mission success.
As a Commanding Officer, you must build trust with those Officers and Sailors under your command. You build trust through your character and in your actions which demonstrate professional competence, judgment, good sense, and respect for those you lead. This trust can only be built through personal interaction on a daily basis at every level in your chain-of-command. Human interaction remains the dominant factor in leading Sailors; do not fall prey to the belief that a variety of contact through electronic media can substitute in a meaningful way for the direct contact afforded by daily Quarters, Officer’s Call or similar “face—to—face” leadership opportunities.
Once built, that trust is sustained by personal accountability — accountability to those same standards to which you hold those you lead. When trust and accountability are institutionalized in the routine of a command, the result is long—term success. When accountability is not enforced, the command and control structure, which is held together by trust, falls apart and the command eventually fails.

So what do you think? What upgrades would you make to the CNO's directive to PCOs?

USS San Francisco DV Embark

2011-07-01T14:18:00.002-06:00

USS San Francisco (SSN 711) took a group of educators and community leaders out for a day trip last month; here's the video:

It looks like whatever prohibitions against DVs operating ship's equipment, at least in the Torpedo Room, have gone by the wayside.

Moored To The Tender

2011-06-27T16:42:00.003-06:00

Here's a picture from the Navy website (no story attached; only mention I could find in the press is this error-laden report from Israeli conspiracy theory site DEBKAfile.) of USS Bremerton (SSN 698) pulling up next to submarine tender USS Emory S. Land (AS 39) recently in Mina Sulman, Bahrain. Been there, done that, back in 1992. Bremerton deployed in April.

Meanwhile, the Russian press has a story about a CO who was fired (although they say he wasn't fired) for yelling at a senior officer.

Stupid Drunk Tricks

2011-06-22T14:22:00.003-06:00

The big news here in Idaho this week comes from an Idaho politician -- State Sen. John McGee (Party of Personal Responsibility - Caldwell) -- whose story went international after he was charged with grand theft and DUI:

Tracey Carleton said her two teenage sons woke her up about 2 a.m. Sunday, saying a drunk man had jack-knifed the neighbor’s Ford Excursion and a 20-foot trailer in their large south Boise yard. The man had wandered around the property, up and down the road and eventually went to sleep in the vehicle’s back seat.
Another vehicle and trailer on the Carleton’s property were damaged along with the neighbor’s Excursion and trailer, she said...
...Ada County sheriff’s deputies later identified the man as John McGee. Deputies said McGee had begun drinking at a golf course at about 10 p.m. Saturday. At some point, McGee left the clubhouse on foot, eventually coming upon a parked truck and trailer about three houses down from the Carleton’s.
Deputies arrived at the scene at 3 a.m. and found McGee in the truck. McGee told deputies he was headed to Jackpot, Nev. McGee was taken to the Ada County Jail where he registered a blood alcohol content of .15 on a breath test, nearly twice the legal limit of .08. He was booked into the jail at 4:27 a.m. Sunday.

None of us is perfect. I personally destroyed an outhouse as part of the drunken celebration after the Activities Banquet my senior year in high school (I was named "All Around Boy"). In the Navy, I managed to avoid doing really stupid things when I was drunk, but I did have some shipmates who weren't so lucky.

When I was on the Group staff on the USS John C. Stennis (CVN 74) back in 2000, I was standing inport duty while moored at Jebel Ali when we got a call that one of the pilots from the Marine squadron was in jail in Dubai. It turns out that he had stolen a hotel courtesy van and driven it lots of places where he wasn't supposed to, and ended up mooning the Dubai cops who came to arrest him. The upshot was that the Admiral had to come off the golf course to apologize personally to the Chief of Police in order to get him released back to our custody. That resulted in the only Admiral's Mast we had on that deployment, and the guy lost his flight quals, along with the civilian airline job he had lined up for when he was getting out of the Navy in three months. (One of the few other Submarine officers on the carrier got put in hack for the next two port visits because he had signed out as the guy's official "liberty buddy".)

What's the dumbest thing you've ever seen done by a drunken Sailor?

Submariner Recommended As Next CNO

2011-06-16T19:32:00.003-06:00

From the Navy website:

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates announced June 16, he has recommended Adm. Jonathan W. Greenert, vice chief of naval operations, to succeed the retiring Adm. Gary Roughead as the next chief of naval operations.
Gates said he made the recommendation to President Barack Obama based on Greenert's solid portfolio that includes both significant personnel programs and budget responsibilities.
Navy Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Greenert is "an exceptional officer, and if confirmed, will be, I believe, an exceptional CNO."
"He has wonderful operational experience, fleet experience, he's terrific with people and he has extensive experience in the money world, which is now facing all of us," Mullen said. "So I strongly concur with the secretary's recommendation."
Gates praised Roughead, who will retire this fall, for four decades of service and leadership at the helm of the Navy for the past four years.
"I have very much enjoyed working with Gary and have greatly valued his counsel and wisdom on both Navy issues and broader strategic issues," Gates said.
Upon being notified of the news, Roughead offered his congratulations and endorsement.
"I could not be more pleased that Adm. Jon Greenert has been nominated to be the 30th Chief of Naval Operations. I have known Jon and his family well for years and I have the utmost respect for him as a leader and a naval officer."
In a statement released after the announcement Greenert said "I am honored and humbled by the Secretary's recommendation and look forward to working with Congress during the confirmation process."
Greenert's career as a submariner includes assignments aboard USS Flying Fish, USS Tautog, Submarine NR-1 and USS Michigan and as commander of USS Honolulu. He also served as commander of Submarine Squadron 11, U.S. Naval Forces Mariana, U.S. 7th Fleet in the Pacific and U.S. Fleet Forces Command before he became the vice CNO.

Assuming no embarrassing Halfway Night or WestPac liberty photos show up, ADM Greenert should be a cinch for confirmation. He'll be the first Submariner to be CNO since ADM Frank Kelso retired in 1994.

Update 2230 16 June: According to this story from Navy Times on the CNO recommendation, Submariner VADM Cecil Haney is in line to be the next Pacific Fleet Commander. If that comes to pass, we'll be back up to three 4-star Submariners on active duty.

Hanford Submarine Reactor Compartment Boneyard

2011-06-16T13:51:00.006-06:00

Ever wonder where the sealed-up Reactor Compartments go when a boat gets decommissioned and razor-bladed? It appears that they go to Trench 94 in Hanford, WA. Here's a picture with the several dozen RCs labeled (no idea if the labeling is accurate or not):

Did you find your old boat? (You can click on the picture for a bigger version.) Another picture is here, and some official government information on Trench 94 is here.

What's the most outlandish thing you're ever done in an RC? (Note that I said "in an RC", not "to an RPCP", so this isn't the thread to say "I removed the Port RCLIV switch handle and cover and wrote 'If you had a Fast Leak right now, you'd be in big trouble' on the back".)

Connecticut CO Fired After NJP

2011-06-09T06:15:00.003-06:00

The CO of my old boat USS Connecticut (SSN 22) got a "non-band" relief after being masted for problems related to control of classified material and (more seriously) apparently not being completely forthcoming about the problems when asked about them. Stories can be found here and here. Here's the official Navy press release:

The commanding officer of USS Connecticut (SSN 22) was relieved of command June 6, by Commander, Submarine Development Squadron (SUBDEVRON) 5, due to a loss of confidence in his ability to command.
Capt. Brian Howes relieved Cmdr. Michael S. Varney as a result of an investigation into the mishandling of classified information.
Varney was awarded non-judicial punishment for violations of UCMJ Article 92 (violation of a lawful general order), Article 107 (making a false official statement), and Article 134 (wrongful interference in an adverse administrative proceeding) June 6.
Varney, who took command of Connecticut in February 2009, has been administratively reassigned to the staff of Commander, Navy Region Northwest.
Capt. Benjamin Pearson, deputy commander, SUBDEVRON 5, has assumed command of Connecticut until a permanent replacement is named. Pearson previously commanded the Gold Crew of Trident ballistic missile submarine USS Kentucky (SSBN 737).

CDR Varney is a Naval Academy graduate, for what it's worth. Also, I note that the Navy website is allowing people to comment on their stories now; based on the responses for this story, I expect this to be a short-lived initiative.

Comings And Goings

2011-06-02T13:43:00.003-06:00

As I'll be heading to the land of the dial-up Internet connections for the next several days (my parents' farm in Nebraska), I figured I'd leave a post for all who want to keep the conversation going. Here are a few possible topics:

1) USS Charlotte (SSN 766) returned home to Pearl from Westpac on Tuesday. Here's a picture of her pulling in:

Note that the accompanying article, while acknowledging the 28 crew members who earned their dolphins, doesn't mention which port visits they got. Especially for an official Navy article, that usually means the ones they did get were to the "less desirable" ports of call in the Pacific. However, the use of the code phrase "experienced the dynamic operational environment of the Western Pacific" let's everyone who knows know pretty much exactly what they were doing. It's deployments like this one that, while not providing crew members with a lot of pictures to share with family and friends, are more likely to allow them to wear a NUC. Welcome home, guys.

2) All Hands magazine for June 2011 has a cover shot of USS New Hampshire (SSN 778) surfaced through the Arctic ice, along with an article about the recently concluded ICEX 2011. The Atlantic also has several good pictures of the boats involved in this photo essay.

3) The XO of USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN 69) was just fired for undisclosed reasons. In other news about carriers named for presidents, the Navy recently announced that CVN 79 will be named USS John F. Kennedy. Personally, I think that any SECNAV who leaves office without ensuring that the name Enterprise is attached to a commissioned or soon-to-be commissioned vessels should feel like he threw away 235 years of Naval history in order to be a political sell-out. But that's just my opinion. I'd like to hear yours about any facet of ship naming.

4) How 'bout them Mavericks/Heat/Canucks/Bruins?

Extending Hull Life

2011-06-01T17:23:00.002-06:00

Here's a quick discussion over at DoD Buzz about the Pentagon finally admitting what everyone has known for years -- the size of the U.S. submarine fleet is going to drop below the minimum required to support its missions by 2030. Of most interest to me is the consideration of keeping some boats in commission longer. Excerpt:

But that may be difficult, cautioned a top naval analyst. Shipbuilding expert Ron O’Rourke of the Congressional Research Service, appearing after Blake before a panel of the House Armed Services Committee, warned lawmakers that it may be hard to extend the service of the Navy’s fast-attack subs because of limitations on the lives of their pressure hulls. The Navy keeps its nuclear submarines in excellent condition, but the ships were built to meet exact tolerances and specifications, and it may be more expensive than it’s worth — or even impossible — to keep submarines sailing for much longer than their planned lives.

That's really the whole problem with extending submarine lives -- unless they come up with a method of annealing the entire pressure hull, they're going to have to reduce some of the engineering margins built into the design. We all know that American submarines are incredibly over-engineered, but at some point you're going to have that catastrophic failure as you try to push the limits, and a submarine crew will pay with their lives.

What do you think? Are there reasonable methods of extending submarine hull life without unduly risking the crew? (If you bring up some sort of depth limitation, please remember not to mention any numbers below 800 feet.)

Screen(ing) Door On A Submarine, FY12 Style

2011-05-28T11:41:00.004-06:00

It's that time of year again for Submarine officers -- time to check out the list of who screened for CO/XO/DH for FY12 and wonder how the puppy molester/dirtbag/jerk you don't like screened and who he sucked up to in order to do so. Back in my day, they never released the list -- even within the community -- due to the complaints it generated. Apparently the new generation of Submarine officers is better behaved.

Here's the list for those of you with Facebook access; it appears that this is a Facebook exclusive for now, as the ALSUBFOR message won't be released until Tuesday. I'll post that link later from the PERS-42 site for those of you who are Facebook-deprived. I note that this year several of the guys I taught at NPTU are screening for XO -- just another indication of how old I am.

Here's last year's thread for those who want to see how this discussion might develop. Congratulations to all those selected!

Update 2015 01 June: Here's a link to the PERS-42 page with links to all the selection messages.

You Can't Spell "Submariner" Without "Mariner"

2011-05-27T16:53:00.003-06:00

"When you see the Southern Cross for the first time,
You understand now why you came this way..." - "Southern Cross" by Crosby, Stills, and Nash

Many of my fondest memories of submarining involve the most basic aspect of operating a ship -- getting from point "A" to "B" without hitting land or another vessel. While the internal operation of a ship or submarine is incredibly important, the simple acts involved in driving the ship and making sure you don't hit other people driving other ships are among the most intense and satisfying part of being a Submariner.

Whether it was being on the Bridge during a quiet surface transit into some southern port under the summer stars or making the right decision to avoid a close-quarters situation with some dumb merchant, or even freezing while doing a 6 hour transit in December out of the Straits of Juan de Fuca and down the Washington coast because some boomer owns the submerged water, these are probably the memories of at-sea Submarining I'll hold onto the longest.

What are your most intense memories of getting own-ship's plotted position to move across the chart? (Alternate question inspired by the song at the head of this post: How many of you joined the Navy because of a girl/woman? One hand raised right here.)

Submarine IDC Videos

2011-05-25T11:34:00.004-06:00

A Submariner posted a video he'd come across on the Facebook page for TSSBP; it appears to be the official video they show to HM students introducing them to the Submarine Independent Duty Corpsman job. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be on YouTube (yet).

For those of you without Facebook accounts, check out this video I was able to find on YouTube of the Doc on USS Montpelier (SSN 765):

(Not to be a spelling Nazi, but I am intrigued that an official Navy video managed to mis-spell Independent in the title.)

USS Boise Wins Battenberg Cup

2011-05-20T15:40:00.004-06:00

LANTFLT announced today that USS Boise (SSN 764), named for one of the world's great cities, is the winner of the 2010 Battenberg Cup was the best warship in the Atlantic Fleet.

Boise is homeported at Naval Station Norfolk in Norfolk, Va., and is only the third submarine to win the Battenberg Cup. The other winners were Los Angeles-class attack submarines USS Memphis (SSN 691) in 2005, USS Miami (SSN 755) in 1999.
"The outstanding achievements by the crews of each ship nominated for the Battenberg Cup made the selection process extremely difficult," said Harvey. "All of the finalists distinguished themselves through exceptional performance and should be proud of their accomplishments.
"For the crew of USS Boise, you have shown yourselves to be among the best Sailors we have, and you made Boise the best ship in the Atlantic Fleet. I'm very proud to serve alongside you and congratulate you for your achievement. Bravo Zulu," said Harvey.
Other ships in the Battenberg Cup competition included aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman (CVN 75) representing Commander, Naval Air Force Atlantic; and amphibious warfare ship USS Nassau (LHA 4) representing Commander, Naval Surface Force Atlantic.
"Boise was outstanding this past year," said Vice Adm. John M. Richardson, commander, Submarine Force Atlantic. "They approached every challenge in a dedicated and very thorough way. Every member on the Boise team knows their job and knows they are valued by their command and the Navy as national treasures. Boise's integrity and humble sense of purpose really set them apart as an example for others to follow. I'm super happy about them receiving this prestigious award."

Here's a picture of the winner returning from her last deployment:

As Idaho's first and foremost submarine blogger, I have to say that I'm quite excited by this honor for the ship that represents my state's capital, almost as excited as I as that we now have a COMSUBLANT who uses the phrase "super happy" in an official press release.

In other submarine news heading into the weekend, PCU Minnesota (SSN 783) had her keel laid (you can watch the video here), and PCU California (SSN 781) is probably heading out for Alpha Trials pretty soon. Meanwhile, NAVSUBASE Kings Bay celebrated diversity.

In personal news, I got a new air compressor today, so I'm totally stoked. Have a great weekend, everyone!

USS Hampton In Hong Kong

2011-05-19T12:58:00.006-06:00

USS Hampton (SSN 767) made the first port visit of a U.S. submarine to Hong Kong in three years this week. Here's a photo:

Unfortunately, one of the boat's Sailors got some unwanted press attention after having a little too much "fun" at the end of the first night ashore. I visited Hong Kong back in 2000 when I was the Submarine Liaison Officer on USS John C. Stennis (CVN 74), and liked it a lot; it was probably my 2nd favorite liberty port, after Hobart, Tasmania. In general, did you like the big cities or smaller towns better for a mid-deployment liberty call? And did you like heading out on the town the first night, or taking duty that day so you could get the "gouge" from the guys coming back in from the first night?

Update 1421 23 May: Here are more pictures of the Hampton in Hong Kong.

An Age Old Question

2011-05-13T18:26:00.002-06:00

[Reposting due to the Blogger maintenance fiasco that caused one dropped post and several dropped comments here]

As a result of a combination of me being out at sea a lot during our early years as a family and the fact that I have absolutely no sense of fashion or color coordination, my wife and I have evolved a system of gifting whereby my wife tells me exactly what she wants, and I get her those things, or else she just buys them herself and lets me know what I got her.

My wife's birthday and Mother's Day are always close, occasionally on the same day. She's always been very insistent that she get separate gifts for those two important days, which I think is reasonable and fair. Since this is her 25th Mother's Day as a mother (she was carrying our first child on Mother's Day 1987) I thought I should get her something special. [This should set off alarm bells already among experienced husbands.]

She had given me a list of exactly two things she wanted, so in an effort to surprise her I decided to spend the same amount of money and get her one of the things she wanted (but of lower quality), and one item that she has always kind of said she wanted but never really asked for. She was very surprised at the "bonus" item and seemed very happy, but now, a couple days later, she's saying, "I love it, but why didn't you just get me what I asked for?" I don't really have a good answer; it just seemed like a good idea at the time.

So what do you think? Should husbands just get the presents their wives want, or should they try to surprise them?

"What We Really Need Around Here Are More One- And Two-Star Admirals"

2011-05-11T15:36:00.003-06:00

The O-7 board results have been announced. The only names I picked up on right away as being Submariners are CAPT Michael Jabaley, CAPT Stuart Munsch, and CAPT Kenneth Perry; there should be one or two others. [Bell-ringer 1616: A commenter says the other Submariner on the list is CAPT Dave Kriete.]

Also, here's the O-8 list that was recently announced. From a previous thread's comment:

Navy Rear Adm. (lower half) Barry L. Bruner has been nominated for appointment to the rank of rear admiral. Bruner is currently serving as commander, Submarine Group Ten, Kings Bay, Ga.

Navy Rear Adm. (lower half) Jerry K. Burroughs has been nominated for appointment to the rank of rear admiral. Burroughs is currently serving as program executive officer for command, control, communications and intelligence, Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command, San Diego, Calif.

Navy Rear Adm. (lower half) Bradley R. Gehrke has been nominated for appointment to the rank of rear admiral. Gehrke is currently serving as defense attache China, Defense Intelligence Agency, Beijing, China.

Navy Rear Adm. (lower half) David C. Johnson has been nominated for appointment to the rank of rear admiral. Johnson is currently serving as program executive officer for submarines, Washington, Navy Yard, Washington, D.C.

Navy Rear Adm. (lower half) Robert L. Thomas Jr. has been nominated for appointment to the rank of rear admiral. Thomas is currently serving as commander, Submarine Group Seven/commander, Task Force Seven Four/commander, Task Force Five Four, Yokosuka, Japan.

Congratulations to all those officers selected! I've seen plenty of dumb O-6s (mostly Marines), but I've never known a dumb Flag or General Officer. Misguided ones, yes, but never dumb.

Female Officers Report To SOBC

2011-05-11T08:42:00.005-06:00

Hoping against hope that this can generate a useful discussion, here's a Navy announcement that eight female officers reported to Groton for the Submarine Officer Basic Course earlier this week, and here's a DoD video announcing same:

According to the February 2011 Submarine Officer Detailer Community Status Brief, there were 18 female prospective submarine officers in the Nuclear Power pipeline, and eight prospective female submarine Supply Officers. This Navy Times story says that 10 of them have completed Nuclear Power School and moved on to prototype as of late April. While it's possible that there are a group of women that are going to SOBC between NPS and NPTU, I'm guessing that the eight officers who just reported to Groton are the Chops. I haven't heard if any of the original 18 nukes selected have been attrited yet, but the initial plan of putting two female nukes and one female Chop on each of 8 Ohio-class boats indicates that they're planning on losing up to two of the nukes, which is probably normal officer attrition -- of course, previous submarine officers haven't had to worry about pregnancy contributing to the dropout rate.

Update 1456 11 May: It looks like these eight young officers are actually nukes who are taking the "NPS/SOBC/NPTU" path, which totally sucks for anyone who draws that particular short straw; as a commenter mentioned, SOBC is supposed to be the chance to relax between nuke training and your first boat, instead of spending the whole time being worried about prototype and trying to remember everything from Nuke School.

I was interested in Pravda's take on this story. Excerpt:

What if the initiative will become a starting point for numerous sex scandals in the US navy? The wives of US submariners do not welcome the idea either. Needless to say that if two submariners, a man and a woman, want to have sex on board a sub, they will face a big problem of finding some room for it. Anyway, the command of the US Navy hopes that women's presence on nuclear subs will not result in an eruption of sexual activity.
The author of this article, a former submariner of the Russian navy, recollected a story, which happened on board a nuclear submarine of the Northern Fleet. The story took place at the end of the perestroika period, when sex toys began to appear in small commercial stores in the country. The submarine was navigating for two months, when it suddenly became known that submariners started to catch a sexually transmitted infection one after another.
It was later revealed that the wife of an executive officer submariners gave him a sex toy - a rubber woman - prior to his departure. The officer had a separate cabin, so he could please himself with a toy woman from time to time. A young submariner found the appealing toy when he was cleaning the officer's cabin. The young man decided to give the toy a try.
The news about the toy was spread on the submarine very quickly. Apparently, one of the submariners was already infected with a veneral disease, which the rubber woman subsequently spread among the others.
One may say for certain that Russian women will never serve on Russian submarines. No one can say, of course, what is going to happen in 100 or more years, but for the time being it seems absolutely unacceptable and out of the question.

That pretty much says it all.

SpudMarine!

2011-05-06T16:46:00.002-06:00

[Intel Source: Midwatch Cowboy] As Idaho's first and foremost submarine blogger, I would be extremely remiss in not posting this:

Have you ever done a science experiment on the boat? I'm not talking about the standard "let's see what happens when we put a drop of silver nitrate on the sleeping guys face" type of stuff, I'm wondering about the stuff with actual scientific value, like "how small can the styrofoam cups get if we put them in a mesh bag and leave them in a free-flood area when we're going to test depth" sort of thing.

Goodbye SUBRON 8

2011-05-04T17:11:00.002-06:00

Submarine Squadron 6 absorbed Submarine Squaron 8 in a ceremony held on April 28. Excerpts:

COMSUBRON 6 will be the immediate superior in command for the six Los Angeles-class attack submarines homeported in Norfolk: USS Albany (SSN 753), USS Boise (SSN 764), USS Montpelier (SSN 765), USS Newport News (SSN 750), USS Norfolk (SSN 714), and USS Scranton (SSN 756). The COMSUBRON 6 staff will be responsible for preparing and certifying their submarines and crews for operations and warfighting in support of the combatant commanders’ objectives.
COMSUBRON 8 was originally commissioned in February 1946 in Groton, Conn. It was decommissioned in December 1969 and re-commissioned in August 1979 in Norfolk, where it has remained until the consolidation.

Are those six the only submarines left in Norfolk, other than the 774s being built at Newport News? Since the Sub Force is normally loath to give up O-6 billets leading to Flag like this, I figure they had a lot of budgetary pressure to combine the staffs.

In other submarine news, both USS Florida (SSGN 728) and my old boat USS Connecticut (SSN 22) returned home from historic deployments. OK, Florida's deployment was probably a little more historic.

Have you ever been part of a decommissioning crew or staff?

The President's Speech

2011-05-01T20:36:00.004-06:00

Breaking news banner up that the President is going to speak in about an hour. I'm guessing he'll be announcing the death of Osama Bin Laden. Any other guesses?

Update 2220 01 May: It's official. They're reporting that it was a SEAL Team that carried out the operation; if so, I'm glad the Navy did it. While they'll probably never be able to publicly announce the name of the SEAL who did the deed, I'm guessing that he'll never need to buy his own drinks for the rest of his life.

I'm glad we shot him, vice killed him with a bomb. It seems more personal that way.

For those who didn't see the President's announcement, here's a link.

Update 0006 02 May: This guy unknowingly Tweeted the attack on the Bin Laden mansion. As far as "what happens next", lots of people are worried about al Qaeda retaliation. It could happen, but it's not like they haven't been trying their best to attack us for the last 10+ years. I'm guessing that if anything does go down, it'll be missions they have in place being launched before they're supposed to be, with concomitant reductions in efficiency. As far as U.S. public opinion, I expect a drop in support for staying in Afghanistan; a lot of people will say, "Well, we got what we came for." And the next time President Karzai whines about the way our military does its job, I would support the President if he were to say, "Fine, we'll leave, I guess you can take care of yourself. And, by the way, you should leave a note to your successor that if we're ever attacked by a group based in Afghanistan again, we won't send in ground troops next time; it'll all be from the air, and not precision-guided, either. B-52s."

Favorite Submarine Class

2011-04-29T05:31:00.002-06:00

RDML Bruner, COMSUBGRU Ten, posted a "Welcome Home" message to USS Florida (SSGN 728) on the Submarine Group TEN blog, thusly:

USS FLORIDA – SSGN 728, returns home from deployment today. She’s been gone for over 14 months, worked for three different Combatant Commanders, and successfully completed every mission assigned. It is amazing to think about the conversion of FLORIDA from a strategic deterrent to a Special Operations and Guided-missile submarine – a tremendous adaptation to the changing strategic environment. Her success, which culminated in her superb support to operation ODYSSEY DAWN, certainly validates the decision made almost ten years ago to convert the first four OHIO class submarines rather than decommission them.
But as good a ship as FLORIDA is – it’s her crew (both Blue and Gold crews) and their families that deserve our thanks. I will be on the pier to greet them later today and would ask you to come too – to welcome them back too as you run into FLORIDA’s crew members and families. BZ to them for a superb deployment – and Welcome Home!!!

This was interesting, but I was more excited about the poll on the left side of the page. It asked for your favorite submarine class, and right now both Ohio (SSBN) and Ohio (SSGN) are ahead of the three active classes of Fast Attack boats. I guess I shouldn't be surprised, since this is a boomer group running the poll; that being said, I don't know if us SSN guys can let this challenge pass unanswered. Let's all head over to the Group TEN blog and vote for your favorite active submarine class. Personally, I voted for the fastest, most heavily-armed (from a conventional sense) and overall bestest submarine class ever built -- the "Sea Wolf" (sic) class. Your mileage may vary.

SECNAV On CO Firings

2011-04-28T09:09:00.002-06:00

Here's a good article on Secretary Mabus' thoughts about the spate of CO firings over the last few years; basically, he seems to be saying that there's not a problem, and the problem definitely isn't the fault of the Navy senior leadership. Excerpts:

Mabus said the service hasn't initiated any investigations into the rate of disciplinary firings among its commanders and won't add any additional professional military education or programs to address the problems that led to the career-ending errors.
"I think we're doing something about it because we're the ones who go in, and we're the ones who relieve them, and we're the ones who publicize it," Mabus explained. "We do it so there will be some lessons learned."
He believes relieving commanders in swift and visible ways serve as cautionary tales for those who remain in leadership roles.

While you're digesting that, you still have until 1900 EDT today to vote for The Stupid Shall Be Punished as Best U.S. Military Veteran Blog.

News And Notes, And A Bleg

2011-04-26T20:38:00.004-06:00

Some items of interest around the submarine world:

1) The lost bell of USS Triton (SS 201) has been found, and will be put in the Triton Barracks at Great Lakes.

2) USS La Jolla (SSN 701) is making the first ever visit of a U.S. nuclear submarine to Goa, India. Here's a picture:

3) I'm hearing that Submarine Department Head screening for YG05 will actually be putting a fairly large number of officers in the "not cleared" category. Has JO retention been up because of the recession? According to this description of the new "two-look" screening process, that's the case. What I'm hearing is that something like 80 officers might not screen.

4) Remember to vote for The Stupid Shall Be Punished for Best U.S. Military Veteran Blog at the 5th Annual MilBloggies. Don't let the Skimmer-Friend win!

Vote For TSSBP!

2011-04-25T20:08:00.004-06:00

Voting for the 5th Annual MilBloggies is now open! The Stupid Shall Be Punished was nominated in the "Best U.S. Military Veteran Blog" category, along with a number of outstanding milblogs:

Red Bull Rising

Neptunus Lex

Exile in Portales

Toby Nunn's Briefing Room

As you go through most of these blogs, you see that they generally post several insightful articles a day -- as opposed to my style, which seems to be posting two or three times a week and letting the commenters run free. You'll also see that a few of them have offered tasteful, humble requests for your vote. However, I'm a submariner, so I'm going the "make it personal" route -- that's the way I roll.

I don't expect to win this thing, but I'd really like to beat Neptunux Lex. Not only is he the only other Navy-centric guy on the list, he's also an Airdale who has been know to serve on ships with thousands of Skimmers. We're not going to let a Skimmer-Friend beat us Submariners, are we?

It looks like you can only vote once from each computer, but please feel free to encourage your friends, kids, and kid's friends with computer skillz to vote for The Stupid Shall Be Punished. You'll be glad you did. Voting ends Thursday, 28 April, at 1900 EDT.

Update 1020 30 Apr: Congratulations to Neptunus Lex and all the other winners!

Update 2023 02 May: I got a badge for being a finalist!

Super Secret Tube Daze Video

2011-04-25T05:52:00.002-06:00

Here's a link to a Tube Daze episode commissioned by the crew of USS Alabama for a recent underway. See it now before it gets pulled from YouTube. Bad word warning!

The Russians Are(n't) Coming!

2011-04-22T15:46:00.003-06:00

The Bristol Bay Times reports that an unexpected PERSTRANS from a submarine in Dutch Harbor, Alaska, caused the locals to start the rumor there was a Russian submarine with an engineering casualty in the harbor. Excerpts:

Lt. Ed Early with the U.S. Navy's Submarine Group 9 based in Washington state confirmed that is wasn't a Russian sub, but couldn't say any more since the military's policy is not to comment on submarine operations. It is supposedly a U.S. Navy Los Angeles class submarine dropping off scientists who had spent the past few months in the Arctic.

A quick look at the picture shows what seems to be a fillet (or what we used to call a "boot") in front of the sail, so it's unlikely to be a Los Angeles-class boat. If the boat really was dropping of scientists from a mission in the Arctic, it's more probably that this was actually my old boat USS Connecticut (SSN 22) returning from ICEX 2011. As far as an American submarine being rumored to be a Russian boat pulling into a U.S. port, I admit I was once fooled.

What's the most obscure port you've ever pulled into?

New Navy Submarine Video

2011-04-17T20:36:00.003-06:00

Here's a new "informational" video from the U.S. Navy about submarines:

My favorite part is when they correctly say that "the Seawolf class is exceptionally quiet, fast, well-armed, and equipped with advanced sensors". Especially the "fast" part.

2011 MILbloggies

2011-04-13T19:43:00.003-06:00

Nominations are open for the 5th Annual MILbloggies! You can nominate your favorite blog in various categories here. And find links to some of the most popular military blogs here.

Update 1801 22 Apr: The list of finalists is here. TSSBP is a finalist in the "U.S. Military Veteran" category; thanks to "Ears" and "Ross" for nominating us. Voting with start Monday, April 25.

Submarine Currency

2011-04-11T20:40:00.002-06:00

From a reader:

I am a current JO who just came back from my first underway. One thing that I observed is that energy drinks have become the new "currency" on board. Need a hair cut or some paperwork by the end of the day? A 5 Hour Energy, Monster, or Red Bull will help get the job done quickly. In addition, the value of these items increased as the patrol wore on. I would be interested to hear from the group regarding how things used to get done (cigarettes, coffee, hard candy...)

What was the most popular "underway currency" on your boat? My favorite was using actual currency to try to pay the last mess bill of the patrol to the Chop. "No, Joel, for the last time, I will not take 500 yen, 20000 won, 5 dinari, 1000 baht, and 10 Australian dollars for your mess bill. American dollars only!"

Happy 111th Birthday, Submariners!

2011-04-11T00:00:00.000-06:00

I'll be wearing my dolphins to work today in honor of the 111th Birthday of the U.S. Submarine Force. Happy Birthday, Submariners!

Shooting on HMS Astute

2011-04-08T07:58:00.005-06:00

Breaking news from the BBC:

One person has been killed and another is in a life-threatening condition after a shooting on board the nuclear submarine HMS Astute.
A man was arrested after police were called at 1212 BST to Southampton docks where the vessel has been berthed since Wednesday as part of a five-day visit.
The BBC's Jonathan Beale understands that a crew member shot two of his crew mates before being overpowered.

Since initial reports are often wrong, I'm not going to draw any conclusions yet. Prayers going out to all involved.

More information from this article in the Telegraph. It seems a little more sensationalistic (bringing up the "servicepeople who have served in Afghanistan are very likely to go crazy" canard in the 5th paragraph) so I'm less inclined to believe it, but it claims that an officer is dead, and the shooting happened when the off-going topside watch shot his relief and accompanying officer when an argument broke out during watch relief.

Staying at PD...

Update 1124 08 Apr: Here's an update from the Guardian. They confirm that the person arrested was a Sailor, and that the city's mayor was onboard at the time of the shooting.

Update 0927 09 Apr: More information from this follow-up article in the Telegraph and this one from the Daily Mail. The suspect is a 22 year old Able Seaman. The dead officer is identified as Lt-Cdr Ian Molyneux. Sailor, Rest Your Oar.

"Locks Keep Honest People Honest"

2011-04-07T18:15:00.002-06:00

So there I was... back on my JO tour on the good ship Topeka, getting ready to get underway for some exercise, probably support for a JTFEX or something. In any event, I had been part of the team that had got the boat regenerated for carrying "special" weapons back when we did that sort of thing. As a result, we had one of the "special" safes -- you know, one of the two-lock ones where you aren't allowed to even write down the combination anywhere. I was one of the guys who had one of the combinations, and we had just changed it the week before.

Anyway, we had to inventory the "cookies" or whatever it was we called them at the time before getting underway that afternoon, and wouldn't you know it -- the lock I was responsible for wouldn't open. The CO ("He Who Must Not Be Named") was understandably perturbed, and told us to "get that #$%#&$@ safe open; I don't care how you do it". We called up the tender to send over the locksmith, but he wasn't going to get there for several hours. So, being industrious young officers and gentlemen, we took to cracking the safe. Despite having no training, we got it open within a couple of hours; I think it was supposed to be rated for either 6 or 12 hours. The locksmith showed up a couple hours later and put in new locks, and we were good to go.

As it turns out, it was probably my fault the lock didn't open. The CO had accused me and my partner of forgetting the combination, which was untrue; we had used one of the two most common submarine methods of remembering combinations you can't write down. The first and, I think, most common way back in the early '90s was to convert an easily remembered six-letter phrase to the telephone keypad equivalent, and use that as a safe combination. (38-25-63 was fairly common; this translated to "F&ck Me".) We had used the other method -- using the level/frame/item designation from the brass placard of a nearby piece of electrical equipment. This is where we went wrong. Since a submarine is fairly narrow, the last number is normally fairly low, as there are only a limited number of pieces of equipment that can fit on each level and frame. (The first number has the same problem, with only 3 levels on an SSN.) It was the last number that got us; as we were reading the lock instructions when trying to open it, we found a prohibition against making the last number between 01-05; since this was one of the locks that you rotate back to zero before opening, last numbers this low didn't give the lock enough time to always engage the opening mechanism. It worked when we tested it after setting the combination, but apparently not thereafter. (I never did tell HWMNBN exactly what we'd done wrong.) After that, we always added a certain number to the placard code we used.

Have you ever had a problem with a lost key or combination on the boat?