Torpedo Tube Muzzle Isn't A "One Way" Street Anymore
Interesting story from Navy NewsStand about a successful homing and docking test of an Unmanned Undersea Vehicle (UUV) from USS Scranton (SSN 756). The thing that fascinates me the most about the project is the amazing method they have of recovering the UUV:
"After the UUV is launched from the submarine’s torpedo tube, it transits to a series of pre-programmed waypoints. Meanwhile, the submarine maneuvers to rendezvous with the UUV. Homing and Docking sonar guides the UUV towards the recovery arm, a unique docking mechanism that extends out of the ship’s upper torpedo tube. After the UUV is captured, the recovery arm guides the UUV into the lower torpedo tube, and back into the submarine."
I've always been interested in the potential of the torpedo tubes as a route of ingress to submarines ever since the Great Topeka Food Shortage of 1992. As we were heading into our second week of bologna pinwheels and jello, and knew that we had only about a week of food left, several of us on USS Topeka came up with a plan to drain a torpedo tube, getting in the middle of a school of fish, and then force open the muzzle valve against sea pressure to suck the fish into the tube. Then it'd just be a matter of shutting the muzzle valve, draining the tube, and sending someone in to collect all the tasty fish. (Another team was working up a roster of riders to we could eat; it was one of those deployments where we had about 20 CTs riding...)
Going deep...
posted by Bubblehead at 6:09 AM
6 Comments:
Ya ya, once we put a big hook on the end of the towed array. :) :) :)
That's why Jaws only went to III. :) :)
3/10/2006 1:38 PM
And we...
uhh, never mind.
Durn Internet.
3/10/2006 6:51 PM
Basically, it was because we'd lost our Chop (broken ankle), and didn't get a new one until the day before deployment. The MSC was retiring halfway through the deployment, so he stayed behind. He didn't consider the 20 riders we were getting when figuring how much food we'd need. When we figured out we were running low, our CO ("He Who Must Not Be Named") refused to arrange for more food at BSPs because it would make his planning skills look poor. And finally, those darn CTs ate four meals a day -- huge portions.
3/11/2006 11:16 PM
Our motto wasn't "Meals/Matress/Movies" by happenstance. Please note which one was first in the list.
ON one boat, all of the riders were overweight. The captain was a fat-nazi and had a rigid weight program on board. We laughed our way to seconds at every sitting, as we were TAD and not really his playthings.... I wonder if that's why the crew resented us???
A former spook
3/14/2006 8:45 AM
we left port on the ustafish with enough food for the spec op, even including the fat pos spooks, but when our relief was detected in route, we were tasked to stay on station another 3 weeks, last week was pretty much last of the beef sliced very thin, no seconds, no midrats, and those hockey puck vegetables. It felt strange not to walk around on any cnas when finally pulling into yucka sucka
5/12/2006 8:17 AM
My "enlisted" understanding was that we actually called for more food but due to the sea-state only the first box of food made it to the Topeka from the small-boat. It turns out the first, and only, box of food was the CO's ("he who shall not be named") Cornish Game Hens. I understand that the CO had cooked chicken while the rest of the crew ate mixed-nuts, baloney pin-wheels, and grits.
"He who shall not be named" = douche-bag.
I also remember one of our nuke mechanics was using yeast to brew some "on-watch relief" back in the engine-room. The CO got on the 1MC and asked to have the yeast brought to the cooks, no questions asked. Apparently it was enough to make some bread to get us by until we pulled into port.
-EM2
9/08/2009 12:46 PM
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