Merry Christmas!

Update 1133 26 Dec: My belated Christmas present to you -- the Amazon customer reviews for "How To Avoid Huge Ships". (Yes, it's a real book.)

Home For Christmas

While USS North Carolina (SSN 777) got their turn in the barrel and drew the ever popular "leave on deployment during the week before Christmas" straw, two other boats arrived home in time for the holidays. USS Missouri (SSN 780) returned to Groton from her first deployment - what appears to be a northern run with standard concomitant port calls - on Friday while USS Hampton (SSN 767) earlier returned to San Diego, where their Chop won the internet for the day:

While I never did a Christmas return from deployment, I did return right before the 4th of July once, and I had a 12/23 return from a "that's why you always bring all your gear on board even for weekly ops" adventure on Topeka in 1991 after Chicago turned her diesel into a seawater pump and we had to pick up her Nanoose Mk 50 OpEval.

What kind of world are these Submariners returning to? Well, it's one where an XO and CMC of a skimmer can be fired for "collective discipline" or "hazing", depending on your point of view, for publicly shaming an entire group of female Sailors when some of them didn't understand that you shouldn't crap in a non-working shitter. It's also a world where an Aussie boat with female Submariners assigned had a groping and unwanted sexual advances issue (full link requires subscription) that either didn't happen in the way you expected, or exactly the way that you expected. (Here's an article with better news about the RAN Submarine Force; found it while looking for a non-firewalled mention of the story above, a task at which I was unsuccessful.)

What's your favorite holiday return from deployment story?

"What Kind Of (Submarine Officer) Is Best?"

Lots of links to share since I last posted:

1) USS Providence (SSN 719) launched a UAV! The media made sure to call it a "drone" to scare people.

2) In skimmer news, a Chinese LST violated the Rules of the Road in trying to ward off USS Cowpens (CG 63) from collecting intel of a local OPAREA exercise involving the Chinese aircraft carrier Liaoning. I suggest that since the Chinese PLAN has demostrated a desire to play at the varsity level, we take them up on it. I'm gonna guess that Chinese skimmers will collide with each other before anything bad happens to one of our ships. And, in 10-15 years, once the Chinese Navy gets a lot better, maybe we'll need an INCSEA agreement with them like we had with the Soviets.

3) Here's a great 10 minute video on leadership from a Submariner; it's well worth your time.

4) Word on the street is that there are lots of good jobs for former Navy Nukes at the Hanford Vitrification Plant in Richland, WA.

5) The budget agreement will, if it passes the Senate and is signed by the President, reduce the rate of increase for military retirement pensions for those of us under 62 years old and non-disabled. While it'll cost me money and does feel like a "unilateral after-the-fact" modification of the original enlistment contract I signed, I figure that since I support a reduction in the rate of increase of future Social Security payments as part of a "grand compromise" on entitlement reform, it would be hypocritical of me to get too NIMBY with this proposal. YMMV.

6) An article (membership required) in the December issue of Proceedings by a young LT is discussed over at the USNI blog. The article posits that the move to require more (85%) of NROTC scholarships be given to those who will pursue technical degrees is misguided. Excerpt:

The tier system was developed in 2009 as a result of fewer NROTC and U.S. Naval Academy graduates entering the nuclear-reactor community. The Regulations for Officer Development and the Academic-Major Selection Policy direct that a minimum of 65 percent of NROTC Navy-option scholarship midshipmen must complete a technical-degree program before receiving their commissions. A technical degree refers to Tiers 1 and 2, which comprise all STEM majors. Tier 1 includes most engineering majors, and Tier 2 refers to majors in biochemistry, astrophysics, chemistry, computer programming/engineering, civil engineering, physics, and mathematics. All other academic majors are non-technical, or Tier 3.
As a result of the new policy, a high-school senior’s best chance of obtaining a Navy scholarship is to apply for Tiers 1 and 2, since CNO guidance specifies that not less than 85 percent of incoming offers will come from this restricted pool. In fact, an algorithm decides the fate of hopeful midshipmen, balanced in large part with their proposed major selection annotated in their applications.

The post goes on to provide anecdotal evidence of all the History and English and Gender Studies majors who have done fine as Navy Nuclear officers. Most of us know one or two who have done fine. The underlying assumption seems to be that people who get engineering or chemisty or physics degrees only care about science, and are unlikely to be able to find Afghanistan on a map. The good LT goes on to say: "If less than 35 percent of our unrestricted line officers have developed the ability to think comprehensively through critical reading and reflection, what will the force look like in 20 years?"

Despite clear evidence that us guys with technical degrees can read charts and discuss the differences between Shi'a and Sunnism and understand that even though "eye" and "symmetry" don't rhyme it's OK for Blake to pretend like they do, the "we need a critical mass of submarine officers who didn't take Statics and Dynamics in college" mindset is, frankly, silly. I haven't seen the numbers in years, but back in the day the vast majority of Ensigns who made it through Nuke School and got their fish were technical majors, and we've done fine. Yes, there are plenty of Poli Sci majors who made it through, but there's no evidence that they make better overall officers -- they might be more popular with the crew and, when they leave, contribute to the "all the best JOs get out after 5 years" mindset, but that doesn't mean they were the best officers with the most long-term command and flag potential. A young officers job during his or her JO tour is to learn the boat, get qualified, learn something about leadership, and not make any huge mistakes. Based on my experience, officers with technical degrees have an easier time doing the "learn the boat" and "get qualified" parts of those, giving them more time to work on the other stuff. It's not like JOs are going to decide whether the interaction we're watching through the 'scope near the Straits of Malacca is piracy or smuggling based on study of the Dutch colonization of Indonesia in the 17th century; that's up to the Captain. And most of what officers learn about how the world works doesn't happen doing keg stands at some frat house; it happens throughout one's career.

Have dumbass COs slipped through the cracks who were great nukes but were flummoxed by references to Montague and Capulet in a Wilson Phillips song that somehow got played in the wardroom? Sure. Does that mean we need to give up populating our Force mostly with officers who are most likely to be able to get qualified and start down the road through the proven winnowing process that generates the COs and flag officers who run the Navy? I don't think so. But I look forward to the discussion.

7) Go Navy, Beat Army:

The Day That Transformed The Submarine Force

The attack on Pearl Harbor 72 years ago today forced the U.S. Navy to change its perception of how submarines would be used in war, from fleet auxiliary to independent operations. Among the first orders given after the attack was to "execute unrestricted submarine warfare" against Japan. This change in mission resulted in most of the pre-war COs being relieved for ineffectiveness after a couple of patrols, and a new generation of aggressive young skippers was fleeted up; it was these men who established our best traditions. Keep them and the sacrifices of thousands of Submariners in your heart as we face the challenges of the new millennium.

Boondoggle

Here's a story of a Brit Submariner who got caught doing a boondoggle -- a luxury Med cruise with his wife under the guise of "Surface Ship Familiarisation (sic)". Excerpt:

Details of Commander Dunn’s cruise, from October 24 to November 8 this year, emerged after the Ministry of Defence answered a Freedom of Information request, referring to his voyage as a ‘Surface Ship Familiarisation’ mission.
The trip was sanctioned under the Merchant Navy Liaison Voyage Scheme, designed to foster relations between the Navy and commercial vessels. In the past 12 months, 53 Royal Navy and Royal Marines officers have taken advantage of the scheme.
Commander Dunn was the commanding officer of HMS Vigilant, a Vanguard-class submarine that is part of Britain’s Trident nuclear deterrent. He was awarded an OBE in 2009.

This is a pretty good boondoggle, but this was one that had official sanction from higher-ups who knew what was going on; the story says that over 50 officers have done something similar. Some of the better stories I've heard have come from guys who pulled on over on their chain of command and got the sweetest of deals paid for without taking any leave. (One of our riders on the Topeka '92-'93 Westpac ended up staying in Phukett for several weeks after he left the boat and met us on the beach when we showed up for a liberty call; he claimed he paid for the trip, but I wasn't buying it.) My best boondoggle was convincing CENTCOM to send me and my relief as the Individual Augmentee J5 Coalition Financial Officer to Warsaw for a week to work with the Poles, but I actually got a lot of work done on that trip.

What's the best boondoggle you ever got?

Do "Ultra-Heavy" Iranian Submarines Get PUCs? I Think Not.

I was intrigued by the news from Iran that they were deploying an "ultra-heavy" submarine (the old Kilo-class boat Younus) along with a "destroyer" (actually a 1500 ton frigate) and "helicopter carrier" (actually a 4700 ton supply ship) to India and Sri Lanka. The surface ships are both 40 years old, and the submarine is about half that age. I'll admit that I'll be impressed if all three ships actually make it to their destinations and get back home without having to get towed at some point.

It says something about our potential adversaries when when refer to an old Kilo as "ultra-heavy" -- which it kind of is compared to their tiny toy mini-subs -- but real navies recognize that "ultra-heavy" boats are more along the lines of my old boat USS Jimmy Carter (SSN 23), which -- oh by the way -- just had a Presidential Unit Citation posted on the Navy Awards page for operations for the 356 days ending 19 Nov 2012.

Take that, Carter-disparagers!

Completely off topic, this story of the snooping wife, despite a senior officer losing his career, is funny in a way that only Navy people can fully appreciate.

Update 0853 22 Nov: Adding a couple of additional unrelated stories to make this even more of a "compilation" entry. Here's a story about morale issues among the Air Force nuclear weapons forces. I'm thinking the Navy hasn't seen the same kind of issues because the "running a submarine" mission takes much more of the average SSBN Sailor's time than the "nuclear weapons" aspect of the job. Or is the Navy seeing the same issues that we're just better at keeping under wraps?

Every month, the Navy webpage posts a summary of Special and General Courts Martial held in the previous month. The compilation for October had one from Great Lakes that kind of jumped out at me:

At a Special Court-Martial in Great Lakes, Illinois, GMSN [doesn't matter what his name is], USN pleaded guilty to indecent language. On 17 October 2013, the military judge sentenced him to be discharged with a Bad Conduct Discharge, forfeit 2/3 pay per month for 3 months, reduction in rank to paygrade E-1, and confinement for 3 months.

A Big Chicken Dinner and three months in the brig for "indecent language"? Now, I don't know the specifics behind the kind of indecent language used, but I'm assuming it was for really really indecent language of a sexual or racial nature directed at a person who would reasonably be offended by such language. On the other hand, if the Navy is prosecuting Sailors for saying bad words in general, I know a lot of people -- including myself -- would wouldn't have lasted very long in the service.

What's the most ridiculous charge you've ever seen someone brought up on under the UCMJ?

Burials At Sea

A story about a mystery photo left at the Navy Memorial earlier this year has been making the rounds in Facebook, and it got me to thinking about the time-honored tradition of Burial At Sea. While sometimes we might look at the tasking with a certain amount of maudlin humor (on Topeka, we once had a wind direction/head valve not closed issue where some of the ashes from a Bridge ceremony were sucked back into the boat, and we blamed any subsequent intermittent equipment faults on a haunting for the next couple of years), I generally felt honored to take part in the ceremonies committing a Sailor's remains to the deep.

How do you feel about taking part in old Naval traditions?

Veteran's Day

2013 is one of those rare years where the Veteran's Day holiday actually falls on 11/11. The Navy sent quite a contingent to NYC to celebrate Veteran's Week. Thanks to all veterans and those who love us for all that you've done.

How do you celebrate Veteran's Day?

(If you'd like a more substantive discussion, we can discuss this article which wrongly calls for the U.S. Navy to invest in non-nuclear submarines because Europeans are better than Americans or some such hogwash.)

This Sounds Like It's From The Onion...

...but it's not. From a story on the actual, verified navy.mil webpage:

NORFOLK (NNS) -- In order to generate innovative ideas on how to best maintain the capabilities and capacity of the Navy and mitigate risks in an era of constrained resources, the Navy is hosting an online collaborative event to solicit input from a broad, diverse audience.
cap2con MMOWGLI - or Capacity, Capabilities and Constraints Massive Multiplayer Online War Game Leveraging the Internet - seeks creative ideas to spread mission requirements across the active, reserve and civilian forces to keep "warfighting first."
The game will be played in two phases: Phase I - an idea discovery phase - will take place Nov. 4 - 10. Phase II, which will focus on further refining the ideas from Phase I, will be played Dec. 2 - 8.
cap2con MMOWGLI is sponsored by the Chief of Navy Reserve, Navy Warfare Development Command (NWDC), Office of Naval Research and the Naval Postgraduate School.
"Some of the best ideas come from the deck plate," said Vice Adm. Robin Braun, chief of Navy Reserve. "I believe this exercise will draw out ideas that can help the Navy best leverage the talents of our active and reserve component Sailors."
Results of the game will be used to inform high-level discussions about future Navy force structure, strategies and capabilities across the active, reserve and civilian components.
The internet "card-based" game is easy to play. Root cards start off the game, and players build on, counter, refine or seek further information by placing their own cards on top of root cards.
Promising "card chains" form the basis for action plans that further develop the participants' ideas. Participants can play for as little or as long as they want, 24-hours a day, from any internet browser.
For those competitive "gamers," leader boards recognize players with special achievements and bragging rights, all in good fun.
"Internet crowdsourcing games are gaining traction helping the Navy to address some of its more challenging problems," said Rear Adm. Scott Jerabek, commander, NWDC. "The CNO's Reducing Administrative Distractions (RAD) initiative received nearly 1,500 ideas, had more than 7,600 comments posted on these ideas, and 91,000 votes casted to help easily identify the top ideas. We are looking forward to similar collaboration in cap2con MMOWGLI to address this very serious challenge for all of us."
Interested players can sign up at https://mmowgli.nps.edu/cap2con/signup anytime and will be notified once the game is open for play Nov. 4.

Anyone gonna play this newest version of Buzzword Bingo? They even have a blog so you can learn more! And a portal with a link to a video and a .ppt!

I'm guessing "we need to kill more enemy troops" won't be one of the major conclusions coming out of this one; I've got a sneaking suspicion the game is set up to yield results like "increase acceptance and celebration of diversity" and whatnot.

News From The NSL Symposium And Other Submarine News

With the Naval Submarine League symposium going on last week, there's a lot of interesting submarine news on the web. Here's a roundup:

1) Enlisted women could start reporting to submarines as early as 2016. I expect this will be more problematic that the integration of female officers -- due to berthing and maturity concerns (not wanting to sound elitist, but, c'mon, anyone who's been around Navy female enlisted women recognize that there are, in general, certain differences between them and female officers in various areas relating to self-control and considerations of the long-term effects of decisions they may make...). I hope I'm wrong. (My data set is based on one deployment aboard an aircraft carrier in 2000.)

2) VADM Connor warns of a submarine shortfall due to the upcoming retirement of Los Angeles-class boats. The "we might have to extend the service life of some boats" suggestion always worries me, since a LID boat has obvious tactical liabilities -- unless they've got more engineering data that says they can increase hull life safely or have figured out a way to anneal the hull.

3) A very good .ppt presentation of the future direction of the Virginia class and Ohio Replacement can be found here. Here's a cool slide from the presentation:

Here's an article discussing this slide.

4) Yesterday marked the 10th anniversary of the grounding of USS Hartford (SSN 768) off La Madd. As I've mentioned before, that one was kind of personal for me.

5) Interesting story from Down Under about an O-Boat Cold War mission that almost went very bad.

6) Topside watchstanders in Norfolk reportedly are now required to wear life jackets at all times as a result of the tragic loss of a USS Boise (SSN 764) crewmember in July. Not sure if the change is being implemented Forcewide.

7) Lastly, in Meridian, Idaho, local retired Submarine Officers are still able to reduce property values throughout their neighborhood but putting up gaudy decorations for Halloween, although with their sons off at various schools they don't feel the need to put up roof inflatables anymore:

Humevac Video And Other News

Here's some IR video of a Coast Guard HUMEVAC from an unidentified 688i about 160nm west of San Diego:



Speaking of SSNs, here's a story about which two boats are going to be the first attack submarines to get female officers. Am I correct in assuming the Virginia's have 4 WRSRs? (I left EB before that module showed up on Virginia so I'm not sure.)

Odd Surface Ships

With today being the 13th anniversary of the terrorist attack on USS Cole (DDG 67), I was looking through some material and saw this picture of Cole being carried home by MV Blue Marlin:

Other pictures of Blue Marlin show it carrying lots of interesting large loads that would be fairly unusual to see through a periscope. Probably the most unexpected thing I saw was when I was on USS Topeka (SSN 754) doing a Mission Vital to National Security off the coast of Country Orange. We were taking over from the previous watchsection that was led by the Nav, who had notoriously bad eyesight. He was on the 'scope, and turned over to me to look at the "trawler" that was our only visual contact; he had assigned it a masthead height of 50 feet, giving it a range of about 6000 yards. I took a look and realized it was a very small powerboat, and the "mast" was a guy sitting on a bench in the middle of the boat -- MHH ~ 5 feet. You do the math.

What's the strangest thing you've ever seen through the periscope?

Tacking On Dolphins -- A "Good" Tradition?

Check out this letter to Navy Times decrying the "death" of Navy Tradition due to the influences of PC thought. Excerpts:

He made sure that promotions were celebrated with an appropriate “wetting down”; crows, dolphins and wings were tacked on as a sign of respect from those already so celebrated; chiefs were promoted in solemn ceremony after being “initiated” by their fellow brethren; and only those worthy were allowed to earn the title “shellback.”...
...In lieu of flowers, the family of Navy Tradition has asked that all sailors who have earned their shellback and drunk their dolphins; who remember sore arms from where their crows were tacked on and were sent on a search for “relative bearing grease” or a length of “water line”; who’ve been through chiefs’ initiation or answered ship’s call in a bar fight in some exotic port of call, to raise a toast one more time and remember Navy Tradition in his youth and grandeur.

What do you think? Are the various "hazing" rituals that many of us old-timers went through an important part of establishing and maintaining unit camaraderie, or just a way for us to bully the NUBs? I went through a "real" Shellback initiation in on USS Topeka (SSN 754) in 1991 (and was on the other end of one in 1993 where we shaved the letters "XO" into the XO's back and several Wogs lost portions of eyebrows), and thought the ridiculous PC one I saw on USS John C. Stennis (CVN 74) in 2000 wasn't worth anything, but a case could be made that the "old way" didn't really add anything to a boat's efficiency. As I've said before, Submariners are very good at welcoming those who fit in as brothers (and now, sisters), but we're pretty ruthless at getting rid of those who don't really fit in with the culture -- or at least we used to be. Personally, I think that the various "tests" we did to discover if the new crew member would really make a good Submariner, or might be better off exercising his particular talents on a surface vessel, were worthwhile. On the other hand, making someone risk alcohol poisoning to get his dolphins maybe wasn't as useful. YMMV.

I'll Give 5:1 Odds This Admiral Retires Soon

Rather than the O-5s and E-8s that normally make the news for getting relieved of their duties for some moral failing we're used to seeing, we've now got an O-9 making the news: Submariner VADM Timothy Giardina is being prohibited from doing any part of his duties as Deputy Commander of STRATCOM that require a security clearance, reportedly due to a problem with counterfeit chips being used at a western Iowa casino. Vice Admiral Giardina previously commanded USS Kentucky (SSBN 737)(Gold) and SUBRON 17, and was XO on USS Hyman G. Rickover (SSN 709).

While this investigation seems to be focused on the felonious nature of the alleged charges, it got me to thinking about the various reasons people can get their security clearances denied or pulled. I've always figured that anything that left someone open to possible blackmail (adultery, puppy molesting) or more likely to sell secrets (really bad indebtedness, being philosophically predisposed to support an adversary's political system) was fair game, but I wondered what they'd do in the case where someone was clearly a moral cesspool but everyone knew about it. ("Yeah, he's a whoremonger on deployment, but everyone including his wife and girlfriends know about it, so he's good to go for that TS/SCI"...)

While I hope it's all a big misunderstanding and Admiral Giardina can clear his name, it's a cautionary tale for everyone in the military -- if you're ever accused of making a mistake, expect it to be splashed all over the front page.

Update 1030 10 Oct: VADM Giardina was relieved of his post yesterday.

Foreign Submarine Articles

Here are some recent articles from the international press about submarines:

1) An interesting article on the Israeli submarine force.

2) A discussion on the future of the Australian submarine force, along with a report of some problems with their existing boats.

3) Another submarine shipyard fire, this time in Russia.

4) The 70th anniversary of one of the great British submarine exploits during WWII.

Who are your favorite foreign Submariners?

Update 1802 26 Sep: Once again, I completely forgot about my blogiversary. TTSBP started 9 years ago this month with this post. Thanks to all the commenters for making this community what it is. Hopefully I won't forget my 10th next year.

Update 1903 29 Sep: In U.S. submarine news, CDR Richard N. Massie, Commanding Officer, USS Maine (SSBN 741)(Gold) was named the PACFLT winner of the 2013 Stockdale Award.

Navy Yard Attack

While we don't have all the information yet, including the full list of the victims or a motive behind the attacks, our prayers to out to all the families of those hurt in the cowardly attack at the Washington Navy Yard yesterday.

It was almost surreal seeing my friends -- including one old shipmate who works in the next building over -- checking in safe on Facebook. When we joined the Submarine Force, we knew there was inherent danger in what we did; we just didn't figure that working in an office building could be one of the dangerous things.

I don't want to get started on the politics of the situation too soon, but I'm hoping that this, along with the Ft. Hood terrorist attack, will start a movement towards an understanding that active duty military personnel should be allowed to be armed at all times when on active duty during wartime.

Submarine Funding

Yesterday was Submarine Day at the House Armed Services Committee; some stories about the testimony given by RADM Breckenridge (N87) and RADM Johnson (PEO SUBS) are here and here. Highlight:

“With the accelerated retirement of Los Angeles-class submarines, our nation will drop below the 48-boat goal starting in 2025,” said Rep. Randy Forbes, R-Va., chairman of the HASC Subcommittee on Seapower and Projection Forces. “We need to ensure strategy drives our budget and that we give a voice to our combatant commanders. We need to be sure that we provide them with every resource.”
The Navy’s current fleet of 55 attack submarines, or SSNs, will drop down to 42, Rear Adm. Richard Breckenridge, director of undersea warfare said in written testimony . Four guided missile submarines, or SSGNs, will retire and the Navy’s current fleet of 14 Ohio-class ballistic missile submarines, or SSBNs, will drop to 10, Breckenridge wrote.
“The total submarine force will drop from 73 to 52 ships — a cut of 29 percent – before rebounding in the 2030s. The vertical strike payload volume provided by the undersea force will drop by well over half. This trough is borne of the submarine shipbuilding hiatus of the 1990s, and no realistic build plan could now prevent it,” said Breckenridge.

Other discussion centered on how the Navy was basically assuming Congress would come up for the money for the Government-Furnished Equipment (GFE) for new submarines in time, rather than paying for it up front.

Where do you see the Submarine Funding wars going? Are we Congress will generate more funding to be able to stay above the 45 boat threshold, or will we actually bottom out at 42?

USS Minnesota (SSN 783) Joins The Fleet

Welcome aboard, USS Minnesota! Here's a link to the video of the commissioning ceremony.

Should We Attack Syria?

With an American submarine reported to be among the assets on standby for a possible attack on Syria, and the President announcing that he'll ask Congress for authorization for such an attack, I figure we should discuss how Congress should vote.

Normally, I would be in favor of any excuse to reduce the military capabilities of a Ba'athist dictatorship, but I've got some serious concerns about this one. For one thing, we'd be intervening in a civil war in which the side we'd be aiding in our attacks aren't necessarily people we want to be helping. Also part of the discussion is whether the U.S. even wants to be the "world's policeman" any more, like we were in the '90s. I'm leaning towards "no" on that last question.

There's no doubt that using chemical weapons against civilians is a dick move, and while I wouldn't put it past the al Qaeda-linked portion of the Syrian insurgency to use chemical weapons against civilians in areas under their control in an attempt to get a Western military response against the regime, I think there's a pretty good chance the Syrian government launched this most recent attack. So, while it's definitely not nice to gas people, is it that much of a worse action than blowing them up with high explosives that it defines a "red line" requiring American intervention? For this mindset, I blame the previous Administration.

In coming up with a justification for attacking Iraq, the Bush Administration settled on the possession of "weapons of mass destruction" as a causus belli. I always thought they should go with either 1) the Iraqis are continually shooting at our planes enforcing the UN-authorized "no-fly" zone in southern Iraq, or 2) we got attacked on 9/11, and therefore we, as a sovereign country and the baddest-ass dude on the planet, claim the right to overthrow the governments of 1-3 countries we don't like whenever we get attacked, and if the rest of the world doesn't like it, they can suck it. [Note: (1) would probably be the easiest to justify.] I'm guessing they focus-grouped the potential reasons and came up with WMDs as the one that polled best, and, let's face it, it was a "slam dunk" that Iraq had chemical weapons. (The last line was clearly writ ironical, as subsequent history has shown, but at the time everyone "knew" the Iraqis still had chemicals and nerve agents -- they had used chemical weapons in the '80s against Iran and still had them in 1991, based on the evidence we found when we went into southern Iraq in the First Gulf War. It took us some time after the war to get our intelligence assets into place, but we figured that we had confirmation in 1995 from the Kamel defection. Since we didn't see any indication that any weapons were being destroyed after 1995, when we had assets in place, and since we didn't believe Kamel's public statements that everything had been destroyed before that, we were pretty sure they still had WMDs.)

If we do attack with a previously-stated restriction that there won't be "boots on the ground", would this be enough to "deter" other states, or even Syria, from continuing to use chemical weapons? What if a tyrant is willing to trade having $100 million worth of crappy Russian weapons and a few empty buildings destroyed in exchange for us using $250 million worth of Tomahawks, especially if the tyrant gets the support of the "America is always wrong" crowd to boot? Suppose we were to say "You Arabs don't like chemical weapons being used in your part of the world? Let the Arab League handle it."? While I'm adamantly opposed to the isolationist/Ronulan view that we need to bring all our troops home, why can't we just let two groups who both hate us continue to kill each other while we stand aside?

For the upcoming Congressional debate, there is one thing of which I'm sure -- I really want the debate to be over "should the U.S. intervene in Syria and, in general, be the world's policeman" and nothing else. I really hope the House doesn't attach some dumb-ass "repeal Obamacare" amendment that would turn the debate into a cheap political stunt, but I'm not very hopeful on that score. I want to see Congress do their job and debate this important issue. And I kind of hope they reach a consensus that it's not our job to intervene unilaterally. (Note that if Turkey, a NATO ally, goes to NATO with a request to intervene since they fear the Syrian chemical weapons will be used against them, we should eagerly join in a NATO effort. Since, as I mentioned above, I almost always support an opportunity to blow up Ba'athist air defense and command-and-control infrastructure.)

[Also, kind of off-topic, I've been really disappointed in the "amateur hour" nature of the Administration's response to the whole thing. I don't think the new SecState is really up to the job.]

What do you think? Should we attack Syria?

A Submariner Looks At Fifty

"Once you're over the hill, you start to pick up speed" has always been one of my favorite pithy greeting card sayings. As I turn 50, I realize I have no problem with this birthday, as I also had no problem with turning 40. (It was 30 that really got me, when I realized I wasn't a kid anymore.) I figure a half-century on earth is a good time to look back, take stock, and charge into the future.

Back when I turned 30, I was just finishing up my JO tour on USS Topeka. (My 29th birthday is discussed here.) I'd been a hard-charging JO, putting career ahead of family, doing what I needed to do to get command of a submarine some day. As I evaluated where my life was heading, and looked into my childrens' eyes, I realized that my priorities were wrong -- I needed family to rank above job. I still did a good job at work, but stopped doing the extra "after work" socializing that I figured was useful for making contacts but took away from family time.

I did a good enough job as NEWCON Eng on Connecticut that NR invited me back for a bonus NEWCON tour on Jimmy Carter (sandwiched around a Battle Group SLO job that got me another deployment), and I was doing OK career-wise (screened for XO third look), but it was clear I was never going to make Admiral, even though my NR Technical Score was probably high enough to get me at least an overhaul command. And I was OK with that. I had orders to be XO on USS Hartford when my asthma (which I had successfully kept out of my medical records until then) got bad enough that I wasn't able to pass the swim anymore on the PRT. I got medically disqual'd from subs, failed to select for O-5, and prepared to transition to civilian life.

(Regarding the Hartford, she ended up grounding off La Madd during what would have been my XO tour. I still don't know if I would have been able to prevent it had I been in Control. Had I not, that would have ended my career anyway, no matter how much schmoozing with Captains I'd done earlier in my career.)

During my twilight tour, I did an IA at CENTCOM (discussed here). There, I learned some important things about how the world worked outside of the Navy. I'd always assumed that the higher-ups in government and business really knew what they were doing if we'd just trust them. What I actually learned is that the big bosses might be idiots, but there are always just enough pockets of competence to keep things moving along, and the big bosses, even if they're morons, have gotten where they are because they've learned to identify and exploit those pockets.

So what have I learned in 50 years? I've learned that one's worldview depends on one entering argument -- whether or not one believes that they have a soul. As we've seen the rise in atheism and agnosticism in Europe start to spread to the U.S., I'm predicting that America will start to divide along the lines of atheists vs. religious people. Personally, I fully fall into the camp that believes I do have a soul. I know it can't be proven (in the same was that the existence of gravitons can't be proven experimentally, and I believe they exist), but that's the way metaphysics works. There are things that happen inside my head that I can't explain with biochemistry, and I choose to explain it by the existence of a soul that exists outside of four dimensional space-time. Since a soul offers no evolutionary advantage, it must have been created by God. When America is divided into camps that can't even agree on this entering argument, it will be difficult to reach common ground on many issues, but I have faith that the genius of the American system will allow us to survive and thrive.

Politically, I've learned that extremism is considered extreme because it just wouldn't work in the real world. While Libertarianism sounds good, with its "everyone should live by the Golden Rule" philosophy, world history has shown that it just won't work -- it would only take 1 or 2% of the population that wants to control other people to make the system crash to the ground. Likewise, I can see where progressives of good intent can think "the people of Scandinavia seem to be happy with their Social Democracy, so it should work in America too", but I realize that it actually wouldn't work here -- our multiculturalism would work against it, and, let's face it, the only reason it works in northern Europe is that we're subsidizing their defense and medical research and education costs. If we revert to benevolent socialism, we'd have to stop that subsidy, and it would collapse over there. I've come to believe that we need to continue steering a course between the extremes in order to continue to grow into the future -- realizing that compromise is not a dirty word in public policy, that it is NOT a legitimate function of government to go out of its way to humiliate citizens who are going through a rough patch, and continuing the consensus of the last half of the 20th century that we need to keep conflict away from our shores by killing the people who need to be killed in other countries. You think that's not nice? Please point out any lessons from world history wherein a large, non-mountainous country can survive just by being nice to everyone (without having treaty protection from "mean" countries).

The most important thing I've learned, as I alluded to before, is that Family is the most important thing on which we can concentrate. Young parents out there may think that all they need to do is get their children safely to adulthood, and they've done their job. My wife and I have done that, and our hearts are still filled with worry for our kids -- did we give them the right tools to make it through life? The worries, though, are completely outweighed by the joy that our children bring to us. If I could give any advice to my children, it would be "Find a partner to travel through life together, and pass on what you've learned to your children. Realize that the only way a marriage can truly work is if both people are willing to subvert their own selfish desires to the needs of the family. That way leads not to restrictions in your life, but the unbridled Joy of the most fulfilling life possible."

PCU Minnesota Video

The shipyard released a propaganda video from a recent PCU Minnesota (SSN 783) media availability:



It's not too bad. I would have liked to have seen more shots of the screens on the Virginia-class boats, but I was most happy to see a crew in poopy suits instead of the dumb-ass aquaflage you normally see on underway videos nowadays.

The KOG

A ship's checklist for a visit from then-VADM Rickover has been floating around:

Preparation Checklist for VADM Rickover

 USS (Ship’s Name)
(Date)
MEMORANDUM
From: Executive Officer
To: All Officers
Subject: Preparation for VADM Rickover, USN
The following arrangements will be made by officers indicated to insure the Admiral’s comfort during Sea Trial ALPHA:
- Two full sets of khakis available in XOSR with sox and belt. Shirt size 14-32; trousers waist 30 length 29.
- Menu – Clear menu with OIC prior to 10/26. Fruit available – grapes/apples/etc. (fresh orange juice). Keep bowl in XOSR full. No milk, eggs, cheese, etc. Have margarine and skimmed milk available.
- Insure RM’s check out on Marine operator procedures. He will want to make ship to shore calls.
- Have late airlines schedules available to XOSR desk.
- Disconnect MC system, buzzers, dial-X. ringer in XOSR. DO NOT disconnect pantry call button. E Div. Officer see XO for details.
- Turn all MC speakers in the WR Country down to low, pleasant, but discernible level. He will talk to crew and it should be heard in Wardroom. IMC speaker outside XOSR disconnected.
- Ship’s force film badge and dosimeter Doctor deliver personally.
- Provide plenty of (SHIP’S NAME) stationary, envelopes, and pen available in XOSR desk.
- Do not pull in shore phone connection until last minute when getting underway and then with CO’s permission.
- Have foul weather jacket (Khaki) available in XOSR with jacket patch (leather name patch) and (SHIP’S NAME) patch. The jacket must be expendable.
- Rig for RED only when required by Standing Orders and with permission of OIC.
- Insure toilet articles such as soap, towels, etc. are available in XOSR.
- Insure at least 500 plain envelopes on board
- Insure latest weather reports are available immediately upon request.
- Insure stock of message blanks available in the XOSR desk. (Deliver to XO).
- Insure Engineer is in Engineering spaces any time Admiral is there.
- Insure bunk ready on barge for Admiral if he desires to use it. Be prepared to serve Sat.evening meal to Admiral and guests on the barge or boat if he desires.
- LT (NAME) should handle arrangements for departing.
- Insure brow hanging on crane on arrival. He may leave immediately.
- Have 2 stop watches available for Admiral in Maneuvering and one in XOSR. Flashlight in XOSR.
- Minimize use of 1MC. Emergencies and essential traffic only (and then use in a modulated unexcited voice).
- Have one yeoman available to take care of stenographic needs.
- Provide copy of local newspaper and Sunday’s New York Times (if possible) in XOSR. Also provide recent magazines (Time, U.S. News and World Report, Harpers, Newsweek, etc.)
- On scrams don’t fiddle around warming up mains. Get back on the line safely but quickly. Don’t forget to order a gravity taken.
- Provide dental floss in XOSR medicine cabinet. (Deliver to XO).
- Insure we have equipment for transfer to small boat.
- Have transportation sedan ready (on one minutes notice) clean, fueled, driver standing by, etc. (SO5 sedan).
- Be prepared for full camera coverage (Polaroid, 35121 and speedgraphics).
- Insure plenty good books and reading material available in XOSR and Wardroom (Librarian coordinate with XO).
- Insure embossing machine and at least three different colors of tape available. Provide plenty of tape.
- Check installation of flexowriters. Yea, XO and one Trial Alpha RM (Crypto Repair Trained) check out with Tech Rep. by Friday 10/23/
- Insure barber available in instant call with hair cutting equipment.
- Minimize use of Dial-X in Maneuvering.
- S.S. Pierce lemon drops.

I can confirm that, even in post-Rickover days, a local NR Rep will meet with the CO/XO/ENG before the NR Admiral gets underway on the ship for Alpha Trials. (I went through such a meeting before Alpha Trials for SSN 22.) We didn't get a checklist -- it was all verbal -- but it didn't include demands for free uniforms or hundreds of envelopes. The rep did tell us that the Admiral at the time seemed to like Diet Dr. Pepper.

Did you ever interact with ADM Rickover, or any of his successors?

SSBN 730 (Blue) COB Masted, Relieved

From the Navy website:

The Blue Crew chief of the boat (COB) of the Trident ballistic missile submarine USS Henry M. Jackson (SSBN 730) was relieved of his duties Aug. 15 after being found guilty of violating Article 134 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice in a Captain's Mast proceeding at Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor.
Senior Chief Fire Control Technician (SS) Jason B. Vega-Cruz was awarded non-judicial punishment and was removed from his position by Cmdr. Jon Moretty, Blue Crew commanding officer, after a formal investigation substantiated allegations of involvement in an inappropriate relationship. Mbr /> Vega-Cruz, who had served as Blue Crew COB since July 2012, has been administratively reassigned to Naval Submarine Support Center Bangor.
Chiefs of the Boat are the senior enlisted leaders of Navy submarine commands and have a great deal of responsibility for their unit's assigned Sailors and their mission. They strengthen the chain of command by keeping the Commanding Officer aware of existing or potential issues of concern as well as procedures and practices which affect the mission, readiness, welfare and morale of the Sailors in the command.

I'll be honest... I'm glad they at least did the investigation and mast before he was relieved -- let the system play out before taking action.

Indian Submarine Suffers In-Port Explosion, Duty Section Feared Lost

Indian Kilo-class submarine INS Sindhurakshak (S63) suffered a series of onboard explosions shortly after midnight local time, and is apparently sunk at the pier. This article says that duty section of 18 men, including three officers (one the XO), has been declared dead.

The last article also featured speculation from a retired Indian submarine Admiral that a battery well hydrogen explosion triggered onboard ordnance.

Says Admiral Singh, “In the Kilo Class submarine, the ammunition compartment is located directly above the battery compartment, in the forward part of the vessel. A fire in the battery compartment could have ignited or detonated the ammunition on board.”

If it was a battery well explosion, it draws eerie parallels to a previous hydrogen explosion on the same boat in 2010 that killed one Submariner.

Staying at PD...

Update 2115 15 Aug: Here's an updated story listing the lost crew members names, and speculating that the more powerful explosions were onboard ordnance cooking off.

Update 1555 19 Aug: It looks like they're leaning towards an "ordnance cooking off somehow" explanation.

USS New Mexico Returns From Deployment, Makes News

USS New Mexico (SSN 779) returned from her maiden deployment today; here's a video of the return:



The homecoming even made the national news! I've always had a commitment to discuss submarine issues that make the national news, so I figured I should comment on this one. The story from The Day has this controversial line: "The deployment was the first for the vessel as well as for 70 percent of the boat's 132-man crew, whose median age was 20". I'm not sure that statistic passes the common sense test; I'm gonna have to throw the bullshit flag on that one. Are they seriously saying, with all the training Submariners receive prior to getting to their first boat, that half of them were still 20 or under? With the propensity of the people in the demographic for potential submariners to at least try some college before joining the Navy? I'll have to see an audit of the crew records to believe that one.

Oh, and an MM2(SS) from the boat proposed to his boyfriend on the pier.

Looks like the boat got port visits in Norway, Scotland, and Spain. About average for what was probably a Northern Run.

When A LT(j.g.) Gets A "Good Idea"

Navy Times has an article about a proposal on the USNI Blog from LT(j.g.) Zack Howitt to recognize the skimmers doing Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) missions. Excerpt from the initial blog post:

Of all the missions the Surface Navy does, Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) might be the least sexy. It involves sitting in a small box in the middle of the ocean for weeks, usually far away from land or even any commercial shipping traffic. Ships on station need to be in a specific engineering and combat systems configuration at all times so they can track or engage a target at a moments notice. This means there aren’t many opportunities for training, ship handling, gun shoots, swim calls, and other evolutions. Sometimes, a poor middle-of-the-ocean satellite uplink makes the internet unusable, and “River City” could be set (meaning the internet is turned off completely) for bandwidth constraints or upholding Operational Security (OPSEC) due to mission sensitivities. Depending on the ship’s heading and location, TV-DTS (the Navy’s satellite TV connection) could go down as well...
...What is needed is a real way to recognize BMD service to the fleet, starting with the most junior Sailor. In fact, we need to do more than recognize it; we need to make it prestigious among the Surface Warfare community. One platform with a comparable mission is the Strategic Ballistic Missile Submarine (SSBNs). Besides the fact that SSBN patrols are much more predictable in terms of deployment schedule, their missions are similar. Like BMD ships, they go on patrol for several weeks at a time, in a small box, at a secret location in the ocean, waiting for an order to shoot a missile that most likely will not come. However, because the Navy have taken basic steps to appreciate them in their past, the importance of their deterrence mission, as an integral part of the nuclear triad, is without question. SSBN Sailors are awarded a special uniform device, called the SSBN Deterrent Patrol Insignia (more popularly known as the “Boomer Pin”). This device is the only of its kind in the Navy and can be worn even in addition to their submarine warfare devices on all their uniforms...
...I believe BMD is worthy of having its own special uniform device like the Boomer Pin, but creating a new BMD Service Ribbon is more realistic since it would probably require less red tape to be implemented. Similar to the eligibilities of other service ribbons, one award of the BMD Service Ribbon could be given to all personnel who are on station for 30 consecutive or 60 non-consecutive days over the span of one deployment or every one year if forward-deployed...

And here's some reaction from the Navy Times article:

A BMD badge, critics contend, smacks of being merely an award for good attendance.
“There are lots of long, boring, or constrained patrols out there that don’t get a service ribbon,” one active-duty USNI reader commented on the blog post. “If we used ‘painful but important’ morale-ribbon logic, we might justify a ribbon for everything from INSURV to painting.”

So what do you think of the young officer's idea? While we can chortle and guffaw at the poor skimmer crew that occasionally loses internet connectivity when we think of the "FamilyGram" concept, is there a chance he's on to something, and that this is the sort of "out-of-the-box" thinking that's need to fight and win wars in the 21st century? Feel free to pile on weigh in in the comments.

USS Miami To Be Decommed

From The New London Day (may require premium access):

The Navy notified Congress on Tuesday it plans to stop repairing the USS Miami and remove the submarine from the fleet.
In April, the Navy discovered additional cracking on board the submarine, which was severely damaged after a civilian worker set a fire inside the submarine at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Kittery, Maine, in May 2012. The cost of the repairs increased from an estimated $450 million to $700 million, according to the Navy...

Staying at PD...

Update 1805 07 Aug: RADM Breckenridge explains the reasoning behind the decision. Excerpt:

The combination of these effects — sequestration effects in 2013 and the expanded scope of work — resulted in two adverse consequences: the bulk of the repair effort was pushed from FY 2013 to FY 2014, and the cost estimate increased from $450M to $700M.
Sequestration could levy a devastating burden on FY 2014 maintenance spending, causing the potential cancellation of up to 60 percent of scheduled availabilities. The shift in Miami repairs and the increased cost estimate means that without $390M in additional resources in FY 2014, funding the repairs would require cancellation of dozens of remaining availabilities on surface ships and submarines. The Navy and the nation simply cannot afford to weaken other fleet readiness in the way that would be required to afford repairs to Miami.

"Burn A Flick"

IMHO, two of the most important things affecting crew morale happened in Crew's Mess. Everyone knows that the quality of food is a very important indicator of crew happiness, but I always thought that how a submarine handled movies was an excellent indicator of how "together" they were. I would imagine that, with portable electronic devices available to the crew that allows them to watch movies or play games in their rack, this would be less important nowadays, but back in the day, it was very meaningful.

How a boat chose which movie to watch said a lot about them, but what happened after the movie was chosen was most telling. I believe that the most successful boats would do a rotation -- usually by division -- with breaks in the schedule when someone earned their fish, wherein the newest Submariner would choose. The most important part, however, would be how the crew reacted if an unpopular movie was selected. The best and most cohesive crews would respect their shipmate enough to sit through the movie; if the movie was a stinker, they'd give the picker the appropriate level of abuse, but they'd at least give the guy a chance. How did your boat handle movie time?

(Also, re: movies, I liked the midwatch game wherein people would have to choose which from a group of two movies they liked best, or disliked least. You could learn a lot about someone that way. My personal favorite for dividing the world, back in the day, was the "Body Double" vs. "Body Heat" question.)

Spring 2013 Undersea Warfare Magazine Out

The long-awaited Spring 2013 issue of Undersea Warfare magazine is posted. Several good articles on the submarine forces of our Pacific allies.

Update 1555 19 July: Also in the news today, RADM Breckenridge defends SSBN force level requirements, and Reuters has a story about what my old boat USS Jimmy Carter (SSN 23) may or may not be doing in the wake of recent interest in the NSA.

Update 0940 20 July: Some boats are experimenting with 8 hour watches. What do you think of the idea? Personally, back in my coffee-drinking days, I only had a 6 hour bladder, so I would have definitely needed a short relief to get through 8 hours.

First Nuclear CO Passes

VADM Eugene Wilkinson, the first CO of USS Nautilus (SSN 751 571), passed away late last week. From the message:

1. It is with sincere sadness that I report the passing of Vice Admiral Eugene P. "Dennis" Wilkinson, USN(Ret) on 11 July 2013. VADM Wilkinson graduated from San Diego State University in 1938 and was commissioned in 1940. His 34 years of honorable service was highlighted by his pioneering of nuclear power and culminated in his appointment as the Deputy Chief of Naval Operations, Submarine Warfare. Vice Admiral Wilkinson served in two surface ships and ten submarines, including eight war patrols in USS DARTER (SS 227) and command of three diesel submarines, most notably, he served as the first commanding officer of both the first nuclear powered submarine, USS NAUTILUS (SSN 571), and the first nuclear powered cruiser USS LONG BEACH (CGN 9).
2. VADM Wilkinson was instrumental in the early development of Navy nuclear propulsion. In the late 1940s, he served in a variety of nuclear billets at the Oak Ridge and Argonne National Laboratories and the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission. At 1100 on 17 January 1955, then-Captain Wilkinson signaled "Underway on Nuclear Power" from NAUTILUS, marking the United States Navy's entry into the nuclear power age. His leadership of NAUTILUS and LONG BEACH were critical to charting the course for today's Navy and fundamentally changed the way we fight from the sea.
3. Following his retirement in 1974, Vice Admiral Wilkinson continued to advance nuclear power by serving as the first president and CEO of the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations.

Sailor, Rest Your Oar.

Update 1230 16 July: If anyone who served under Admiral Wilkinson at any time would like to share some memories of him as a leader, a reporter for the Navy Times is looking to do some quick phone interviews. Drop me an E-mail at joel(dot)bubblehead(at)gmail(dot)com and I'll put you in touch with her.

Update 1555 16 July: Updated to correct the Nautilus' hull number based on a comment.

Watchstanders Gone Wild

While I'm perusing the CIMSEC website on Maritime Security put together by a bunch of JOs, I figured I'd repost a post I put out in 2009 to get inputs from any new readers:

Anyone remember this blurb from The Hunt For Red October?

"The engineers went about their duties calmly. The noise in the engine room spaces rose noticeably as the systems began to put out more power, and the technicians kept track of this by continuously monitoring the banks of instruments under their hands. The routine was quiet and exact. There was no extraneous conversation, no distraction. Compared to a submarine's reactor spaces, a hospital operating room was a den of libertines."

Discuss. Remember, though, that we have some wives reading, so you should avoid stories that go something like "the throttleman fell asleep so the RO put his junk in the throttleman's ear"... unless they're really, really funny.

USS Boise Sailor Reportedly Lost

Media reports (nothing official I could find on any Navy websites) indicate that a Sailor onboard USS Boise (SSN 764) fell overboard around noon today at Norfolk Naval Station; his body was reportedly recovered by divers. Sailor, Rest Your Oar.

Staying at PD...

Update 1420 07 July: While the name of the lost Submariner has been put out by some people on social media, I don't intend to post his name until the Navy makes the official announcement, and would ask TSSBP commenters to do the same.

Update 1445 08 July: From the Navy website:

The body of a Sailor assigned to USS Boise (SSN 764) was recovered in Norfolk, July 6, during a Navy-led search for the crew member who fell overboard while the submarine was moored to a Naval Station Norfolk pier.
Sonar Technician Submarine Seaman Rolando Acosta, 21, of Plainview, Texas was found dead after falling overboard around noon while standing duty. An investigation is ongoing.
The Navy notified Acosta's family and conveyed its condolences for their loss.
"Seaman Acosta was a hardworking and highly valued shipmate," said Boise Commanding Officer Cmdr. Scott Luers. "His presence will be missed by USS Boise and throughout the submarine force. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family."
Acosta reported to Boise last December. The Norfolk-based submarine was Acosta's first assignment after enlisting in the Navy in January 2012. He attended Navy Submarine School in Groton from March to November last year.

Update 1205 10 July: SN Acosta's funeral will be held in his hometown of Plainview, TX, on Monday.

Happy Independence Day!

Happy Independence Day! It's a great day to celebrate the birth of our great country!

Growing up, the 4th was always one of my favorite holidays. My dad was really big into fireworks, and like most teenage boys, I liked blowing stuff up. After I joined the Navy, I enjoyed the festivities the base would offer, and usually tried to pull duty on the holiday. In San Diego in the early '90s, B-List Hollywood celebrities would come down to the base, and we once had Khrystyne Haje eat dinner in our Wardroom on Topeka. As we moved towards the end of the decade, however, it seemed that, at least in Groton, the focus seemed to move from "honoring those who serve" to "an excuse to get civilians on base" -- the holiday became more about providing bodies for extra duty for traffic direction and trying to "sell" the military to a bunch of mullet-wearing civilians. This scaled back after 9/11, of course, but I'm worried it might degenerate into that again. For now, it looks like some bases aren't doing much at all.

What was your favorite way to celebrate the 4th on active duty? Did you like hanging out on base, or did you use the holiday as a chance to get away from the base?

N97 On Ohio Replacement

Check out this video from RDML Breckenridge:


Here's the blog article he mentions. Excerpts:

The Right Answer: A new design SSBN that improves on Ohio:
What has emerged from the Navy’s exhaustive analysis is an Ohio replacement submarine that starts with the foundation of the proven performance of the Ohio SSBN, its Trident II D5 strategic weapons system and its operating cycle. To this it adds:
* Enhanced stealth as necessary to pace emerging threats expected over its service life
* Systems commonality with Virginia (pumps, valves, sonars, etc.) wherever possible, enabling cost savings in design, procurement, maintenance and logistics
* Modular construction and use of COTS equipment consistent with those used in today’s submarines to reduce the cost of fabrication, maintenance and modernization.
* Total ownership cost reduction (for example, investing in a life-of-the-ship reactor core enables providing the same at-sea presence with fewer platforms).

I notice that they did not consider what I've always thought was the most cost-efficient and useful option: A Seawolf-based design with the D5 missile. This significantly mitigates the hull streamlining issue (since a Seawolf has a diameter 7 feet larger than a Virginia) and the Seawolf power plant could easily drive an SSBN at speeds that likely would exceed that of a Virginia SSN. Plus, we've already proven we can insert a module into the middle of a Seawolf hull.

Off-topic aside: When I was assigned as initial manning Eng of the aforementioned Jimmy Carter, I was the second Newcon Eng (after Virginia) that was part of a new initiative to have the initial manning Eng billet be a post-DH shore tour; I thought it made a lot of sense. I note from this article about the initial manning of PCU Illinois (SSN 786) that the Eng is a Lieutenant, so it appears they've gone away from this model. Does anyone know when that happened?

"I'd Rather Have A Sister In A Whorehouse..."

"... than a brother who was a recruiter." Those were among the first words I heard in Boot Camp as we were getting the customary "CCs yelling at new recruits to try to get them to hand over contraband" welcome. I thought of that episode when reading this Navy.com recruiting article written, apparently, by a recruiter who'd never been on a submarine (or a former Boomer JO). Excerpts:

Normally, a Sailor is assigned to a submarine for a three-year period, followed by a three-year period of shore duty. But don’t expect to be at sea for three years straight – remember most subs spend a significant amount of time docked at their home port.
Because of the nature of the work, the living conditions and the limited space for onboard supplies, submarines typically have shorter deployments than surface ships. A typical submarine deployment would be:
3 months for a smaller Fast Attack Submarine
3–6 months for a larger Ballistic Missile Submarine

And...

Rest assured, it’s not all work and no play aboard a Navy Sub. There is some downtime that can be beneficial to team building and personal rejuvenation. And it’s important take advantage of it when you can. Here’s how a typical day breaks down:
6 hours of sleep time
6 hours spent on watch (actively operating assigned equipment)
12 hours spent off watch (this time is divided between eating, studying, training, qualifying and free time)

How many other errors can you find? Do you have any good stories of lying recruiters (or, even better, stories from when you were a recruiter)?

Light Weekend Reading

Here are some submarine-related tidbits that have come out in the last week or so:

1) The CO/XO and DH screening messages came out. Everyone on them is so young that I have nothing to add to the traditional "I can't believe that puppy-molester screened" conversation Submariners have. That being said, if you do have something to add, please don't use names in the comments.

2) CDR Salamander had a post about a letter sent out by the CNO directing NAVSEA 08 to "stand up a Navy-wide working group" to reduce administrative overhead. I remember the last such initiative, under ADM Boorda. I remember how there was a message from the CNO directing that one particular program (the part of the ORSE Admin requirement that required A-gang participation) be cancelled immediately. I remember how, at the next ORSE (not officially an NR program, of course, but everyone knows the score on that one), they asked me for these records, and I gave them the message from the CNO from 9 months earlier saying it had been canx'd. I clearly remember how the ORSE board member (look, I didn't capitalize it! Man, that's liberating) said he'd never heard of such a thing. Figuring this would happen, I then gave him the records, since I knew that NR would never let something as insignificant as a direct written order from the CNO get in the way of their ORSE Admin requirements.

That being said, ADM Richardson has been known to be interested in reducing unneeded admin, so we'll see if this initiative comes to anything. Heck, it might even be more successful than the clearly doomed-to-almost-immediate-worthlessness of the new "21st Century Sailor office".

3) USS Cheyenne (SSN 773) got back from a WESTPAC! Subic Bay, Pusan, Yoko, and Guam. I've seen worse sets of port visits.

4) Looks like vehicle decals for Navy bases are going to be a thing of the past as of next month.

5) Hey, we should launch a discussion about the U.S. government intercepting communications on a submarine blog! Not.

6) THE NAVY IS GETTING RID OF ALL-CAPS MESSAGES.

7) Scandal or non-event? I'm thinking that, as most submarines are commanded by O-5s and we still call them "Captain", it's not a big deal.

Update 1518 18 June: 8) A Brit officer becomes just the 2nd UK officer to earn American gold dolphins.

EB To The Rescue!

Good story from the AP yesterday about a miscalculation by Spanish submarine designers:

A new, Spanish-designed submarine has a weighty problem: The vessel is more than 70 tons too heavy, and officials fear if it goes out to sea, it will not be able to surface.
And a former Spanish official says the problem can be traced to a miscalculation — someone apparently put a decimal point in the wrong place.
"It was a fatal mistake," said Rafael Bardaji, who until recently was director of the Office of Strategic Assessment at Spain's Defense Ministry.
The Isaac Peral, the first in a new class of diesel-electric submarines, was nearly completed when engineers discovered the problem. A U.S. Navy contractor in Connecticut, Electric Boat, has signed a deal to help the Spanish Defense Ministry find ways to slim down the 2,200-ton submarine.

Being a 2x Newcon Eng, I worked with EB design guys quite a lot; the ones who were served Submariners were pretty good, but some of the other ones required quite a bit of explaining to understand how their designs translated to issues for the crew. Still, as far as I know all the boats they designed could at least make it back to the surface.

Have you ever worked with civilian submarine design engineers?

Update 0855 07 June: For any non-submariners that wander by, here's a quick and simplified primer on submarine buoyancy. Ships in general float because they displace a volume of seawater with weight greater than the weight of the ship. A submerged submarine strives for neutral buoyancy, in which the submerged submarine displaces a volume of seawater equal to its weight.

For the Spanish submarine problem, assuming it's not carrying 70 tons of extraneous equipment, the simplest solution would be to increase the volume of the boat with a new compartment that weighs 70 tons less than the volume of seawater it displaces. I suggest a win/win solution - put in a big-ass berthing compartment. It wouldn't have a lot of heavy equipment, and would give the crew lots of sleeping space. They could increase the length of the submarine by 10%, displacing about 220 extra tons of seawater, and I'm sure they could bring it in at under 150 tons. Everybody wins!

What Makes A Good Submarine CO?

Recently, a series of articles in the online edition of Time got me thinking about what makes a good CO. The articles don't directly address the topic, but they make one think about the mindset, attitudes, and morals of submarine COs. The articles are here, here, and here, for those who want to read them. An additional post by a sometime TSSBP commenter is here.

*** IMPORTANT ADMIN NOTE: It's likely that some of you will be able to figure out which former CO is being discussed. That's not the point of this post, and any comments speculating on the identity of said CO will be deleted. ***

As we all know, some COs are jerks, some are nice guys, and most are somewhere in between. We can see which type(s) are rated as most successful by the current Navy hierarchy by seeing who gets the Squadron command and eventual flag slots after their command tours. In generally, the absolute jerks and the "nice" guys don't do well -- it's the middle-of-the-road guys who are most likely to get their own flag aide to pick up their dry cleaning. My question is: Are the kind of officers we're selecting for command the right kind of COs we'd need were we to go to war?

At the beginning of WWII, the U.S. Submarine Force, to be honest, didn't do very well. Sure, our torpedoes were sub-optimal and we hadn't developed the tactics that would eventually win the war, but the existing batch of COs in December 1941 tended to be too timid and didn't press home the attack on the enemy. Only when they were replaced by young, sometimes hard-drinking and partying firebrands did we successfully wage war on the Japanese Empire.

Are we that way today? Are the "young firebrands" of today's force being passed over for command, or leaving the Navy early? Would we pay the price were we to find ourselves in a submarine war in the near future. I'm going to answer the last question first: I don't think so. Our technological supremacy for the foreseeable future (next 10-15 years) is so formidable that we'd still easily defeat any potential enemy. It just might take us a couple of weeks longer than it might if we had more aggressive COs, but we'd be less likely to lose a boat.

So that brings be back to the original question in the previous paragraph -- is the NR-dominated CO selection process and the "zero defect" policy of firing COs at the drop of a hat making us too timid in submarine operations? Have we forgotten that sometimes you "want a man with a tattoo on his dick" to do the job? Or are the people who can't live by the Navy Core Values not trustworthy enough to be given the responsibility of command in the modern world?

The original linked articles described, from one side, a CO who seems to have issues being honorable in his dealings with at least some other people. But does this mean such a person is by definition a bad CO? Or do we need COs willing to skirt the rules (of the Navy, or of decent society) once in a while? Read this study and let us know in the comments (without mentioning names! Anecdotal evidence carries the same weight whether you name the boat/CO or not).

Riding The Bow Wave

Here's a cool propaganda video from the PCU Minnesota (SSN 783) sea trials, with some dolphins riding the bow wave:


IMHO, surface OOD is the best possible watch on a submarine. I've had dolphins make a beeline to the boat from over a mile away to ride the bow wave. I found that they got bored fairly quickly with a 2/3 bell, and a standard bell was a little fast for them and they tired easily. My last surface OOD watch on the Connecticut coming into Groton, we were a little ahead of schedule, so I was able to slow down to "turns for 12" which is right in their sweet spot, and the dolphins rode the wave for about 10 minutes. A most excellent watch.

Any nominees for "best watchstation" on a submarine other than surface OOD?

Why Do People Believe Unbelievable Conspiracy Theories?

From the beginning of writing TSSBP, I consistently railed against two things: idiotic people who believe in unbelievable conspiracy theories and submarines flying "clean sweep" brooms when returning from 2 day underways for Alpha Trials. Somehow, I missed a post from the "Israel did it" 9/11 Truther website with the stunningly deceptive name of "Veterans Today" published a couple years ago that combined both elements: they claim that the "Jimmie" Carter caused the December 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami by firing "air guns" into the sea floor near the fault line, then bragging about it by returning from their "Alpha Trials" after a couple of months flying the broom. (They actually flew the broom on conclusion of Alpha Trials on 19 November 2004, but actual facts never stand in the way of conspiracy theorists.)

I've always been amused by those whose worldview would lead them to believe that the government could successfully plan, and keep quiet, conspiracies to deprive American citizens of freedoms just because they secretly work for either Nazi fascist oil companies or Nazi fascist Muslims (depending on which party is in charge). This leads people who apparently have enough on the ball to hold their psychoses in check long enough to get elected to public office to believe, for example, that the government staged the Boston Marathon bombings and used actors to portray the "alleged" wounded, or that President Bush let 9/11 happen apparently as part of a plot to build a gas pipeline across Afghanistan.

I'll admit I get concerned rather than amused when I see Submariners on Facebook -- men who've earned dolphins and therefore have shown that they are able to function in a fact-based world -- expressing agreement with conspiracy theories that clearly have no basis in reality. (The current favorite is that the President had a secret plan to get our Libyan ambassador kidnapped before the election so he could trade him for the "Blind Sheikh" -- as if somehow this would help the President get re-elected.)

Here's the deal... yes, it's clear the government lies to us sometimes. A good example was when we announced that the reason we had buried OBL at sea right after he was killed was to follow "Muslim practice and tradition", when it is clear to even the most casual observer that we did it to make sure we didn't have custody of the body when court buildings opened on Monday morning on the East Coast, and some lawyer would find some bin Laden family member they could represent and sue for custody of the body -- a suit they would probably win. This is the kind of lie the government can keep secret -- the ones where everyone figures they're doing it anyway, and no one would be surprised if it were to come to light. That's the reason we can keep submarine operations secret -- sure, there would be some hand-wringing by the usual suspects, who would say "I can't believe we're spying on Country Orange", but the vast majority of everyone would say "Good, we should be doing that", or "It would have been a bigger surprise if we weren't" and give a big collective yawn. That's why we don't see submarine ops on the front page of the New York Times; not because there aren't Submariners who would be willing to tell their story, but because the NYT doesn't want to deal with the national security lawbreaking implications of publishing a story that wouldn't really change anything. A story about how the government intentionally killed their own citizens and blamed it on terrorists would make a big enough splash.

Some things, like "rich people get together and talk about how they can make the world economy better for rich people like them"  would invite a mass shoulder shrug, so it's not unreasonable to believe that happens; it is unreasonable to believe that they emerge from the meeting and carry out a plan to use chemicals deposited in the upper atmosphere from airplanes to make people more docile. Other things, like killing President Kennedy or hiding alien spacecraft or packing WTC-7 with thermite or having the Navy shoot down TWA Flight 800, are things people would care about, and therefore things that couldn't be kept secret. If you wanted to do something like those things, you'd need smart people to help you do them, and these smart people would also be smart enough to 1) retain proof of what had been done, and 2) know the right people/press to go to such that they wouldn't be killed if they were going to spill the beans. At least one person involved would recognize those points, and also that they'd become a rich celebrity in the process. Conspiracy theorists can't believe this, but it's true. That's just the way the real world works.

Update 1625 06 May: Speaking of Alpha Trials and brooms, here's a pic of PCU Minnesota (SSN 783) completing her initial sea trials today. I note there is no broom visible. BZ, Minnesota!