USS Houston Arrives in Guam

The third submarine to be stationed in Guam, USS Houston (SSN 713) arrived in her new homeport today. The other two submarines, USS San Francisco and USS City of Corpus Christi, have been operating out of Guam since late 2002. These are all refuelled Los Angeles class boats, without the additional 12 Vertical Launch Tomahawk tubes of the improved Los Angeles class boats. Stationing the older boats in Guam makes sense; to be honest, if there's going to be a war involving submarines that we don't start, it'll probably involve Taiwan or Korea. Having these boats homeported closer to the action cuts several days off the travel time to either of these potential flashpoints.

Jimmy Carter (SSN 23) Delivered

PCU Jimmy Carter (SSN 23) was officially delivered to the US Navy yesterday. Her commissioning will be February 19 in Groton. It appears that the initial plans to commission her in Kings Bay, Georgia, fell through; my guess is that they weren't able to get an active enough commissioning committee together there.

Going deep...

Blogger Frank J. Coming to Boise!

Submarine news is kind of slow lately, so I thought I'd share some big news from the Blogosphere at large. (OK, it's not really big news, but for Idaho bloggers, it's about as big as it gets.) Frank J., of IMAO fame, is coming to Boise for his Christmas vacation. I've been reading Frank J. for almost two years now, and he seldom fails to make me laugh. His "In My World" and "Know Thy Enemy" categories are consistently clever.
No word yet on whether or not the Idaho FrankJ-anians will be turning out to meet their hero... I'll update here if I hear anything...

Going deep...

Fire on USS Jacksonville

This quick article from the Portsmouth Herald discusses a small fire aboard USS Jacksonville. There's a lot of "hot work" (welding) that goes on during these overhauls; my guess is that heat from a welding job caused a small fire. Each welder is supposed to have a "fire watch" whose only duty is to watch for smoke. However, if they were welding on a deck or bulkhead, I could imagine someone didn't realize that they had to have an additional fire watch on the other side...

Electric Boat Downsizing?

This article from Newsday discusses EB President John Casey's announcement that the shipyard may drop up to half of their employees in the next few years. With the Jimmy Carter finally finished, they mostly just have Virginia-class work and overhauls now. Although not specifically stated, my guess is that most of the attrition will take place among the design staff; with the Virginia class design work essentially done, and no new class coming along, most of them become expendable.

Cool Pics of my First Boat!

The official Navy news website has a couple of neat pictures up from my first boat, the USS Topeka (SSN 754). The pictures are here and here. Your first boat always has a special place in your heart...

Going deep...

China Launches New Boomer

This is really kind of old news, but since The Drudge Report is linking to it, I figure I should as well. China has developed a new class of SSBN (Type 094) and the Washington Times decided to do a story about it. I'm sure she'll be getting lots of attention as she eventually heads out to sea...