"Request to Run a Drill in ERML"
I was talking to someone at work last night about engineering drills on submarines, and this made me think back to some of my favorite drill memories. (Most of my bad memories involve NNPI, so I couldn't write about them even if I wanted to for some reason.) Here are some of my favorites:
-- On the last planned drill before ORSE on the good ship Topeka, we decided to get back at the drill monitors. We got ahold of a drill radio, set it to "VOX", and stuck it on a running HPAC. They ended up securing from the drill because none of the monitors could talk to each other. A win for the little guys! The EDEA was not amused...
--I was hanging around in the wardroom with another JO, waiting for some forward drills to start. We had a couple of the rotating flashing lights that we use for fire simulation in the pantry for some reason, so my buddy puts them on the wardroom table and turns them on; we think it looks like the top of a police car (it seemed really funny at the time). Suddenly, we hear over the wardroom 4MC white rat: "Fire in the wardroom", and we had to run up to control to get them to secure from the "drill". The XO was not amused...
--Back aft during a fire drill from hell, we had a huge cluster of people gathered in ERML. Not many EAB connections there, so there were about five guys in a row buddy-clipped onto this one fairly new guy. (For those not familiar with EABS, here's a picture of one being worn. They're "Emergency Air Breathing" masks that you hook up to connections that run fresh breathing air under pressure throughout the ship -- a necessity in case of a fire. When you're wearing one correctly, the only way you breathe is if you're plugged in; you hold your breath going from plug to plug. Each hose has a "buddy-clip" that someone else can plug into near the regulator.)
Anyway, this new guy decided to head up into upper level (this is on an LA-class boat) and doesn't realize he's got all these people plugged into him. He unplugs, starts to head up the ladder, and gets tugged back by the person connected to him. He realizes what's happening, and goes to plug back in, but a new arrival has taken the EAB plug he just abandoned. He looks around for a buddy-clip, and sees one; plugs in, tries to take a deep breath, and... you guessed it. He had plugged into the last guy in the row of people plugged into him. (It's a phenomenon known as "recircing your breathing air"). I laughed my ass off. The five victims were not amused...
--One day, as Engineer, I found in my inbox a proposed drill guide from the off-going duty section. Apparently they had a shoot-the-sh*t in Maneuvering about spontaneous combustion, and one of them came up with an idea for the ultimate "Screaming Alpha" fire drill. The drill guide was in the correct format, and was titled "Fire in the Reactor Operator". It had possible alternate courses of action like "If desired, the fire may spread to the Throttleman". I pretended not to be amused...
--About the title of this post -- standing EOOW, I had the following 2JV exchange with an off-watch EM:
"Request permission to run a drill in Engine Room Middle Level"
"What kind of drill?"
"An electrical drill"
"Report to Maneuvering"
Thirty seconds later, he ''Christmas-dinner''ed, a power drill in hand...
Let's hear some of your favorite drill memories...
Going deep....
posted by Bubblehead at 12:36 AM
7 Comments:
Here's one for ya:
We radiomen were sitting around in the shack between drills kidding about how we can lock ourselves in radio and nobody really knows if we're doing things right. I joked about using an empty coffee cup over my mouth to simulate the sound of speaking through an EAB during 27MC reports. Sure enough, the next drill was a fire and one of the other guys was the RMOW. Thinking he was safe in radio, and seeking bragging rights for later, he was using the coffee cup trick during his reports as the ship heads to PD. In walks the XO. I only wish I were there to witness the discovery. The RMOW spent the rest of the day in an EAB and being laughed at.
RM1/SS
7/11/2005 7:29 AM
We had a very funny MT and during a flooding drill in AMR2LL he secured the depth sensor piping to the hovering tanks. About 10 min after the flooding drill was secured, we began preparations to go to PD and setting up for a meal. I was heading to control for my watch when we took a huge roll, launched all of the wardroom china on the floor and broached big time. As I got to control I told the OOD "I didn't think we were going to PD until after lunch?" He says as he is raising the scope "Neither did I."
During the debrief from this incident it was found as soon as the COW placed the hovering tanks online we pumped all of the hovering tank water overboard shooting us to the roof. The cause was tracked to the sensor valves and my MT friend never got into trouble since he 'did the right thing'. We then began putting a drill monitor at the sensor valves whenever we 'flooded AMR2LL'.
7/11/2005 12:58 PM
While underway on the Drum back in 79 or 80, I had just assumed the RMOW and the guy I relieved was still there filing or whatever when the ETOW of my section came into the radio room. We started a slap fight there and the guy I relieved wasn't amused so he picked up the mic to the Con (forgot the circuit name) and said "Security violation in the radio room". The General Alarm was sounded and needless to say a lot of explaining to do. Another exciting underway moment.
7/11/2005 2:35 PM
We were at the department head meeting and the EDMC and I had the proposed drill set for that week for the Captain. What he didn't know was the drills were all active CASREPs and casualties from the previous 2months.
Flooding from TT#2.
Hydraulic rupture in AMR.
Hydraulic rupture from SS Hyd plant.
HP air leak in TR.
Fire in #2 MSW pump.
Fire in 1S.
Fire in #1 ASW pump controller,
and several others.
He got down about 1/2 way in the list and stopped.....
He got a big smile on his face and looked at the EDMC and I and said "you guys are f*cking jerks".
We got a good laugh. Old 688's are as bad as the '597 I was on.
7/11/2005 11:25 PM
Another good drill story for you.
Saturday field day starts with a security violation drill so after my mid-watch I went into the NavET room aft of control. On a T-hull there are (relatively) huge spaces outboard of the equipment and there are wireway covers that look a lot like cots. I told my NavET friend who was standing watch "I am going to snooze back there, let me know when the drill begins." He says "OK".
I wake up with an unloaded shotgun in my face and I hear this MM bearing said shotgun say to the NavET "Hey, is he he supposed to be back here?" "Yeah, I forgot he was back there." "Oh, Alright" and the MM keeps searching the outboards.
7/12/2005 7:05 AM
We had this one guy who was the best "perpetrator" for the security violation drills. This one time he jammed himself into the outboard area of the 3 inch launcher room (there's a small enough space for a small person to jam themselves in) that was within reach of a JA handset. He gave false reports to Control of spotting himself in places other than where he was; had the main search team running all over the boat...
7/12/2005 8:11 AM
I had heard that we were going to have a “Fire in the Diesel” drill so like a good Aganger, I decided to check out the cleanliness of the Hydraulic Power Plant. I was hanging out, waiting for the drill to start when the XO comes around the corner. He said “How you doing Ole?” I said “Great. As he threw a red blanket over the hydraulic pump, he said
“How many times have I told you not to smoke around the Hydraulic Power Plant?” I was right in the middle of it.
That Damn Good Looking Aganger From Iowa
7/13/2005 4:11 PM
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