Keeping the blogosphere posted on the goings on of the world of submarines since late 2004... and mocking and belittling general foolishness wherever it may be found. Idaho's first and foremost submarine blog. (If you don't like something on this blog, please E-mail me; don't call me at home.)

Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Alternate Uses For TDU Weights

A reader named Chief_Torpedoman sent in a story about an imaginative use of TDU weights that he'd seen:
I was in Weapons Repair QA on the Frank Cable (AS-40) in 1981. The Weapons Repair Weight Test Shop was supposed to test the torpedo loading skid for a 637 class boat on Monday so they could load SUBROC on Tuesday.
Interesting thing was that the approved method of testing the skid was to have a 21 inch diameter hollow gondola shaped like a torpedo and fill it with lead ingots until the proper weight was aboard the gondola. The pallets of lead ingots were out in the open in the parking lot at the end of the pier at Naval Station Charleston and wouldn’t you know it, someone lifted them over the weekend.
None of the officers knew what to do. The commitment to load on Tuesday was firm and fitreps were at stake. There was talk about shipping in another skid from a Norfolk sub that had already been tested.
Now I only had three years in subs and that on boomers, but I knew what TDU weights were, so I suggested that they may be a good substitute. Talk about a scramble and a high priority supply chit been walked through to get the weights. Well it worked, but the chop made us give them back afterwards.
Personally, the most inventive thing I've seen TDU weights used for was as part of a prank where you put one under someone's mattress every couple of days, that it keeps getting harder and harder for them to lift up their rack to get at their bedpan; the payoff comes when you hear them complaining that they need more exercise because they seem to be getting weaker.

What's the most imaginative use to which you've seen TDU weights get put?

14 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Almost on topic. We had to use TDU cans to fabricate a new fairing for our under ice sonar on the front of the sail after the fiberglass one was destroyed in an unfortunate impact with some ice. The best part is that it was too cold up there and all the various epoxies and JB weld type of things we didn't really have onboard would not make a bond, so the improvised fairing was attached with band-it strapping to the ladder rungs on either side of the sail.

11/21/2007 11:01 AM

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

One time about halfway through a WestPac we present the COB with a birthday cake.

Do you have any concept just how hard it is to cook up a seven layer TDU cake and let him cut the first piece especially after he had to get through the icing on the 'cake' and the fire cloth used to soften the insides up.

11/21/2007 11:48 AM

 
Blogger Unknown said...

Probably not original, but holding a trim party for the EDMC, who decided to qualify DOOW, in which the entire off watch Eng Dept moved all the spare TDU weights to the torpedo room, and then, after 30 minutes back to the ER, just to mess with the newly qualified EDMC DOOW, was rather amusing. Apparently he was scrambling like mad to try and figure out what tank he was supposed to be pumping.

11/21/2007 4:08 PM

 
Blogger beebs said...

My E-Div chief traded four TDU weights for a magamp from some skimmer out in Pearl.

I was nub on the boat and was amazed. I didn't think horsetrading like that happened.

11/21/2007 5:22 PM

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

The followup to the "under the mattress" exercise happened at the end of a midshipman summer. The ST2responsible for the nubliest dink plebe found him in the 9 man trying to pack his seabag and told him the debrief was waiting for him in the wardroom."Don't worry, I'll finish this for you." Followed by the obligatory perivis view of a 19 year old trying not to end up with a broken back as he headed for the bus.

11/21/2007 7:19 PM

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Two comments,

First on the TDU weight under the rack..
Did it to a very buff middie on the Alabama, patrol 14 or 16 I think. The nukes discussed how muscle deteriorates under submarine conditions while middie was at next table, the antenna went up. We had him doing everything to regain the his strength :) finally had to quit when the shipmate in the bunk below complained .

Best use for the TDU weights was a crossing the line ceromony on the Toledo. All polly wogs had to present a ceremonial coin to King Neptune on crossing the line. Some very creative TDU weights were presented. Many of those are still treasured by the Shell backs who carried them during their trials :)

11/21/2007 7:44 PM

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

What is the world would a skimmer want with TDU weights? I like the idea of ceremonial coins to King Neptune and the cake idea was great.

I wonder what the middie did with the TDU weights when he got back to the Canoe U.

Chief_Torpodoman

11/22/2007 7:25 AM

 
Blogger reddog said...

Because of alterations to the ship our unit was a permanent non-hacker. We stored the garbage in the freezer after processing in the compacter. Toward the end of each deployment we surfaced at a secret location for an all hands trash disposal party. Freezer to crews mess to wardroom out the hatch, poke some holes in the bags and over the side.

TDU weights, we don't need no stinking TDU weights.

11/22/2007 10:57 AM

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

The TMC on our boat bet a non-qual that he could take a ten pound bowel movement. The TMC was duly weighed and entered the head. About ten minutes and some serious moaning later, he re-emerged and weighed almost fifteen pounds lighter. The non-qual failed to notice that the TDU rack in the head had gained a couple of TDU weights.

11/24/2007 9:02 AM

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Same boat, this time after evening meal during the movie. While changing movie reels, the MMCS (A Div) grabbed everybody on the mess decks to move boxes of TDU weights from the galley area to the After Trim Tank for storage. TDU weights came ten to a box @ seven pounds/weight, so each box weighed about 70 pounds. Twenty guys, each carrying 2 boxes of TDU weights from the mess decks to ATT, makes one hell of a trim party at four knots.

11/24/2007 9:09 AM

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Same boat again, a couple of weeks after filing ATT with TDU weights, someone inadvertently flooded ATT. This wasn't discovered until the TDU weights had a chance to dissolve into a gooey mess. De-sliming ATT turned into quite a job.

11/24/2007 9:13 AM

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

From the above post:

This wasn't discovered until the TDU weights had a chance to dissolve into a gooey mess. De-sliming ATT turned into quite a job.

In my day TDU weights were made of steel or maybe iron. They did not dissolve. What are they made of now that would allow them to dissolve into a gooey mess?

11/26/2007 12:02 PM

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Our "A" gangers made a car for halfway night out of a couple of big pipe wrenches using TDU weights for wheels....man, that was one heavy gravity derby car!

11/29/2007 2:16 AM

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I had the TDU weight in the rack joke pulled on me. I generally did laundry when my rack was getting "heavy" from my laundry bag in my rack getting to big to let me lift my rack easily. Not paying too much attention to the size of my laundry bag I was doing laundry about every two watches before my prankster let me in on the joke.

11/30/2007 2:51 PM

 

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