2011 Battle "E" Winners Announced

Here's the list of SUBPAC Battle "E" winners for 2011:

Commander Submarine Squadron (SUBRON) 1: USS Texas (SSN 775)
SUBRON 3: USS Olympia (SSN 717)
SUBDEVRON 5: USS Connecticut (SSN 22)
SUBRON 7: USS Santa Fe (SSN 763)
SUBRON 11: USS Hampton (SSN 767)
SUBRON 15: USS Buffalo (SSN 715)
SUBRON 17: USS Nebraska (SSBN 739) - Blue and Gold
SUBRON 19: USS Michigan (SSGN 727) - Gold
Submarine Tender: USS Frank Cable (AS 40)
Floating Dry Dock: Arco (ARDM 5)
Special Category: Devil Ray (TWR 6)

It looks like Hampton and both Nebraska crews are repeat submarine winners from last year, while Michigan kept the award on the boat, it just went to the other crew. (Frank Cable and Arco also won last year.) I'm glad to see my old boat Connecticut on the list, especially since DEVRON 5 didn't give out an "E" last year. The award for Texas comes only a few days after she returned from her initial WESTPAC.

I'll post the SUBLANT list as soon as I see it.

Update 1645 03 Jan: Here's the SUBLANT list:
SUBRON 2: USS Providence (SSN 719)
SUBRON 4: USS New Hampshire (SSN 778)
SUBRON 6: USS Newport News (SSN 750)
SUBDEVRON 12: USS Annapolis (SSN 760)
SUBRON 16: USS Florida (SSGN 728) - Blue and Gold
SUBRON 20: USS Alaska (SSBN 732) - Blue and Gold

USS Hampton: "The Easy Button"

VADM John Donnelly, who as COMNAVSUBFOR has administrative responsibility for all submarines, made some comments regarding the recent problems aboard USS Hampton (SSN 767) that made me think the Submarine Force is taking the right approach to this. Excerpts:

Vice Adm. John J. Donnelly said Thursday that he is trying to determine whether the alleged misconduct on the USS Hampton is an isolated incident.
“I do not have any indications now of a forcewide problem, certainly not of the magnitude that we have there,” said Donnelly, commander of the Submarine Force. “But I am asking those questions, and we're looking very hard at this.” ...
...“We have a group of individuals, not a single individual, but a group who were working together, and they compromised their integrity,” Donnelly said. “I think they were pushing the easy button, perhaps to avoid the pain of long hours and hard work.”
A chief petty officer in the squadron's staff noticed irregularities in the records during a routine engineering check, Donnelly said...
...“We're looking very, very carefully at the root causes of what happened on the Hampton, and the investigation is still ongoing, so it's a little early for me to draw conclusions there,” Donnelly said. “I expect we'll wrap it up in the very near future.”

The easiest thing for the Sub Force to do in this case is decide that the problem was completely confined to the Hampton and not look into real root causes. And by "root causes", I don't mean limiting it to integrity; I mean looking deeper and asking the hard questions like, "Why would an entire division decide to avoid the 'long hours and hard work' on this particular requirement?" They should maybe look into whether whatever checks were skipped can perhaps be done in a less time-consuming way, or checked less often, or if maybe there's a smarter way to put together a system of having supervisors periodically monitor these checks than what we're doing now -- something that lends itself to being less paperwork-intensive and more deckplate-focused. Of course, doing that would involve making Naval Reactors admit they have not been doing it the best way up until now, and that's a longshot. Still, I can always hope...

Update 0951 03 Nov: More on VADM Donnelly's remarks at the Navy Times.

USS Hampton CO Relieved

For the 4th time this year, an attack submarine CO has been relieved of command early -- but this one wasn't unexpected. From the AP wire report:

The commanding officer of the nuclear-powered submarine USS Hampton was relieved of his duty Thursday because of a loss of confidence in his leadership, the Navy said.
Cmdr. Michael B. Portland was relieved of duty after a U.S. Navy investigation found the ship failed to do daily safety checks on its nuclear reactor for a month and falsified records to cover up the omission...
...Portland's dismissal as commander is effective immediately. Myrick said Portland will be temporarily assigned to squadron duty and the Hampton will not conduct operations until the Navy can confirm the operational standards have been met. Myrick said at no time was the submarine conducting unsafe operations.
"He has not been charged with any offense nor has he received non-judicial punishment," Myrick said...
...Portland is the fourth commanding officer of a submarine to be relieved of duty this year. The other three, who were relieved for various unrelated actions, were: Cmdr. Edwin Ruff of the USS Minneapolis-St. Paul, Cmdr. Matthew Weingart of the USS Newport News and Cmdr. William Schwalm of the USS Helena.

[Links above are to my posts on the firings of those COs.] Navy Times has more on the "no band" relief (as opposed to one with a Navy band and nice uniforms, like this one), which includes the information that the new CO, CDR William Houston, had been already slated to relieve CDR Portland next month. (The AP article says that CDR Houston had previously been assigned as a "special assistant to the Director of the Naval Reactors", which probably means "Line Locker".)

So, with the CO, along the original ELTs who messed up, now off the boat, it'll be interesting to see if any intermediate levels of the boat's chain of command suffer any blowback.

Update 0858 26 Oct: From my referrer's log, a couple of other interesting sites are discussing this as well. Fark apparently has way more submariners posting there than I had realized, and head over to Corrente to see what happens when nukes invade a fairly popular blog run by liberals who try to address a technical submarine issue. (Sample quote about the attack submarine Hampton by a "progressive" at Corrente about why the incident happened: "Word got through the grapevine that a strike on Iran was in the works, and so they tried to scuttle the Boomer surreptitiously rather than be forced to murder hundreds of thousands of innocent people.")

By the way, if you head over to Corrente, please don't try to educate them about the chemical that "keeps the reactor shut down" and how it clearly doesn't apply in this case. The poster's husband was apparently a coner, and tried to remember something about nuke chemistry, but only succeeded in making himself look foolish.

USS Hampton In New Home Port

I just realized I hadn't mentioned USS Hampton's recent move to her new homeport. She arrived in San Diego back on September 18th at the end of a seven month deployment, so her crew should just be getting off post-deployment stand-down now.

I really hope there isn't any bad news coming out about the Hampton or her crew in the very near future.

Staying at PD...

Update 2119 12 Oct: Well, there was bad news for the Hampton. From Navy Times:

The fast attack submarine Hampton, which completed an overseas deployment last month, is under investigation for unspecified reasons, Navy officials said Friday afternoon.
“During a routine review ... conduct of procedures, although found to be safe, fell short of high Navy standards,” Submarine Squadron 11 officials said in a release, provided by spokeswoman Lt. Alli Myrick.
Capt. Chip Jaenichen, squadron commander, ordered an investigation under the Judge Advocate General’s Manual, or JAGMan, after some “issues” surfaced while the submarine and squadron were preparing for a normal end-of-deployment examination, Myrick said...
...Already, one officer and several enlisted sailors have received disciplinary action, Myrick said. No details were available late Friday...
...Hampton will remain in port and not conduct operations until the investigation is completed “and the Navy’s high standards are met” as a precautionary measure, officials said.
“Right now, it’s not leaving the pier, it’s not getting underway,” Myrick said. The submarine also had completed a standdown.

Sounds to me like they got their "keys taken away" by the normal organization that does that sort of thing. Word on the street is that it's pretty ugly.

Staying at PD...

2010 Battle "E" Winners

The SUBPAC winners of the 2010 Battle "E" are as follows:

Commander Submarine Squadron (SUBRON) 1: USS Hawaii (SSN 776)
SUBRON 3: USS Jacksonville (SSN 699)
SUBRON 7: USS Tucson (SSN 770)
SUBRON 11: USS Hampton (SSN 767)
SUBRON 15: USS Houston (SSN 713)
SUBRON 17: USS Nebraska (Blue and Gold) (SSBN 739)
SUBRON 19: USS Michigan (Blue) (SSGN 727)
USS Frank Cable (AS 40)
Floating Dry Dock Arco (ARDM 5)
Special category awarded to Torpedo Weapons Retriever Swamp Fox (TWR 821)

It looks like the only repeat winners from last year are Frank Cable and Arco. Of interest is that there seems to be no SubDevRon 5 winner this year. Since my last two boats are in that squadron, I can't help but say that saddens me a little. (It's also possible that the announcement on the COMSUBPAC Facebook page just inadvertently failed to include it.)

I'll post the SUBLANT list as soon as I see it.

Update 0558 04 Jan: The SUBLANT list is here; I'll write it out when I get home from work tonight.

Update 0546 05 Jan: The SUBLANT winners:

SUBRON 2: USS Pittsburgh (SSN 720)

SUBRON 4: USS Virginia (SSN 774)

SUBRON 6: USS Albany (SSN 753)

SUBRON 8: USS Boise (SSN 764)

SUBDEVRON 12: USS Alexandria (SSN 757)

SUBRON 16: USS Florida (SSGN 728) Blue and Gold

SUBRON 20: USS Rhode Island (SSBN 740) Blue and Gold

USS Hampton Investigation Coverage

The news of the investigation into what happened to USS Hampton (SSN 767) that caused them to get their keys taken away continues to spread -- and not in a good way. I discussed earlier my thoughts on what may have happened, and intimated that the "word on the street" was that it was pretty bad. Now, a Hampton Roads TV station is wondering whether the "Submarine Life" video that was posted on YouTube last month was behind the investigation -- and they even linked to my post that introduced the video to the submarine blogosphere. Excerpt:

The submarine is under investigation. The Navy has already disciplined one officer and five enlisted sailors, but the Navy isn't exactly telling us why. All it's saying is that a recent routine review "fell short of high Navy standards." It may be an issue with maintenance problems on the ship as they were wrapping up their deployment, but again, the Navy isn't saying.
There are also some who theorizing that a music video that recently posted on YouTube entitled, "What is submarine life exactly?" may be part of the controversy. It was made by a Hampton crew member on the recent deployment and it's fun pictures of the crew joking around together. The worst thing we saw on the video was someone giving the middle finger and slapping someone on the butt. But several blog sites on the internet are wondering whether this music video has something to do with the investigation.
Submarines are very serious about their security. When NewsChannel 3 photographers are on board the subs, the Navy is extremely particular about what we can take video of. But again, the Navy won't say if that video has anything to do with the trouble the sub is in. Again, they'll only say it's "issues" that they're looking into. We'll keep you posted.

I sure hope they're not thinking that TSSBP was one of the "blog sites" wondering whether the video had something to do with the investigation; some commenters here did -- and it was a reasonable supposition -- but I've heard from "the street" that the video definitely wasn't the reason for the initial investigation. Now, I suppose it's possible that, as the investigation expands to the "crawl up their buttholes and look for every possible thing they've ever done wrong" phase, the video might get mentioned -- but it sure wasn't the original problem. Another division apparently getting confused and thinking that because their workcenter name was one letter off from the people who work behind Control, they should do what the other division's name has become submarine slang for -- that was supposedly the thing that Squadron found on the inspection workup. (You submariners can figure out what that means; everyone else can just keep wondering, 'cause we're not gonna tell you.)

Update 2352 19 Oct: Via Vigilis at Molten Eagle, here's an update from the Virginia TV station, with some questions the Navy agreed to answer. Included is a confirmation that the video isn't part of the investigation... for now.

USS Hampton Investigation Report Released

Last fall, the Submarine Force was abuzz with discussion on the problems USS Hampton (SSN 767) had been having with nuclear integrity. Today, a heavily-redacted version of the official Command Investigation was published by the San Diego Union-Tribune today, and, as expected, laid a lot of the blame on the former CO. From the story:

Four officers and seven enlisted sailors have been disciplined as a result of the investigation, said spokeswoman Lt. Alli Myrick of Destroyer Squadron 11, the San Diego-based command that includes the Hampton. The squadron commander dismissed the submarine's commanding officer and chief engineer (sic)...
...A wider investigation also revealed dozens of integrity violations aboard the submarine, according to the report released yesterday. An officer whose name is redacted from the report alleged that he and others had falsified test scores or received answers in advance for exams to certify various officers...
...“Commander Portland set unachievable standards for his crew, was intolerant of failure and publicly berated personnel,” wrote Rear Adm. Joe Walsh, commander of the Hawaii-based Pacific Submarine Force.
These and other leadership lapses, Walsh said, “directly contributed to problems identified in this investigation . . . (and) his failure to identify these problems for over one year.”

Clearly, there were a lot of problems with the boat. Just as clearly, however, some of the problems mentioned in the Investigation are little more than "piling on"... things that you could find even among the most squared-away submarines (e.g. changing Fire Control solutions so you didn't have to report a contact). The majority of the report deals with Engingeering Department exams, especially qual exams. When I was Engineer, I was lucky enough in NewCon to have big classrooms where I could give proctored exams, and have exam banks from previous ships to give new exams out. Normally, though, it's just about impossible to give senior people requal exams that they haven't had a hand in preparing or reviewing; nevertheless, the report takes the boat to task for doing that.

One paragraph in particular jumped out at me. Although the identity of the subject is redacted, it looks like they're talking about the former Eng. Here's what they said:

"The ________ purposefully maintained an appearance of ignorance of the integrity violations happening in his departmect and on the ship to preserve culpable deniability."

That's gotta win some sort of award for best characterization ever in a Command Investigation. Rather than just say "The guy was a weasel", the investigator finds just the right buzzwords to make the guy look like an even bigger sh*tbag than he might actually be. BZ, [redacted]!

So what do you think? Was it overkill or a fair report? Will anything actually change in the Force because of the problems found on the Hampton? Will lessons actually be learned? I'm guardedly optimistic.

Update 0530 17 March: Here's the Navy Times story on the report.

USS Hampton In Hong Kong

USS Hampton (SSN 767) made the first port visit of a U.S. submarine to Hong Kong in three years this week. Here's a photo:

Unfortunately, one of the boat's Sailors got some unwanted press attention after having a little too much "fun" at the end of the first night ashore. I visited Hong Kong back in 2000 when I was the Submarine Liaison Officer on USS John C. Stennis (CVN 74), and liked it a lot; it was probably my 2nd favorite liberty port, after Hobart, Tasmania. In general, did you like the big cities or smaller towns better for a mid-deployment liberty call? And did you like heading out on the town the first night, or taking duty that day so you could get the "gouge" from the guys coming back in from the first night?

Update 1421 23 May: Here are more pictures of the Hampton in Hong Kong.

A Photo Suitable To Hang In A Destroyer's Wardroom

Valiant Shield 2007, a huge U.S. joint military exercise off of Guam, finished up this week. There are lots of good pictures from the exercise that you can find here; this one is my favorite to come out of the exercise so far:

I'm not sure which Arleigh Burke-class destroyer is getting pwned in this picture, but I know it was taken by USS Cheyenne (SSN 773); I'm sure the Cheyenne's CO (one of my old shipmates on the Topeka) will be making sure the destroyer CO gets a framed copy of the shot.

The recently completed exercise looks like it was quite a doozy. In addition to three aircraft carriers, there were seven Los Angeles-class submarines participating: USS Los Angeles (SSN 688), USS City of Corpus Christi (SSN 705), USS Houston (SSN 713), USS Chicago (SSN 721), USS Key West (SSN 722), USS Hampton (SSN 767), and USS Cheyenne (SSN 773). I'm sure the Chinese sat up and took notice.

Update 1751 16 Aug: TSSBP goes international!

SSN 783 Name Announced (L.E. SSN 784 Too)

(See update at bottom; it turns out that two submarines were named today.)

According to a statement from Sen. Byron Dorgan, SSN 783 784 will be named USS North Dakota.

“This is great news for North Dakota. It’s a testament to the respect the Navy has for our state that the next Virginia-class submarine will be the USS North Dakota,” Senator Dorgan said. “North Dakota may be landlocked, but our state has contributed a great deal to the U.S. Navy. This ship will be a fitting tribute that should be a source of pride for all of our veterans.”...
...“There hasn’t been a ship named after the State of North Dakota in 85 years,” Hoeven said. “That’s why together we put on a full court press to get the Navy to name a submarine after our state, and we were successful. I think the more than 1,000 pictures colored by our young people which we presented to Donald Winter, Secretary of the Navy, impressed him with the grassroots effort our state made to name a submarine USS North Dakota.”
Senator Dorgan invited Senator Conrad, Congressman Pomeroy, Governor Hoeven, and a group of prominent North Dakotans earlier this year to take part in the effort to convince the Navy Secretary to designate a new USS North Dakota. The result was the formation of the USS North Dakota Committee. Dorgan asked former Secretary of State Warren Christopher, a native of Scranton, N.D., to act as honorary chair of the committee.
Senators Dorgan and Conrad, Congressman Pomeroy and Governor Hoeven led a delegation last month in a meeting with Navy Secretary Donald Winter at the Pentagon. The group outlined a plan for how North Dakota will support the ship and its crew. They said that after so many decades, the time is right for the Navy to name a new ship after North Dakota.

It's as good a name as any, but I can certainly imagine Dave Barry cracking some jokes as the boat comes up for christening.

Bell-ringer 2357 16 July: When I posted this morning, I assumed that only one submarine would be named today; they actually designated two:

The Navy announced on July 15 that the next two Virginia-class attack submarines will be named the USS Minnesota and the USS North Dakota.
The selection of Minnesota, designated SSN 783, honors the state's citizens and their continued support to our nation's military. Minnesota has a long tradition of honoring its veterans of wars past and present. The state is proud to be home to 46 Medal of Honor recipients that span from the Civil War to the Vietnam War.
This will be the third ship to bear the state name. The first USS Minnesota, a sailing steam frigate, was commissioned in 1857 and served during the Civil War, remaining in service until her decommissioning in 1898. The second Minnesota was commissioned in 1907. On December 16, 1907 she departed Hampton Roads as one of the 16 battleships of the Great White Fleet sent by then-President Theodore Roosevelt on a voyage around the world. She continued her service through World War I, and was decommissioned in 1921.
The selection of the North Dakota, designated SSN 784, honors the state's citizens and veterans and their strong military support and heritage from the Frontier Wars through the Cold War and currently the war on terrorism. Seventeen North Dakotans have received the Medal of Honor for actions in combat, including Master Sgt. Woodrow W. Keeble who posthumously received the Medal of Honor during a White House ceremony on March 3, 2008. This is the second ship to bear the name North Dakota. The first ship, the Delaware-class USS North Dakota, was in service from 1910 through 1923.

And in answer to the commenter who wondered why Montana was left out... it turns out that there has been a USS Montana. It just got renamed after 12 years, right before it was decommissioned.

Tweeters On USS Hampton

As I type, several San Diego-area Twitter users are embarked on USS Hampton (SSN 767) on a day trip arranged by the Navy to, apparently, get good press from the local Tweeters. Here's a live feed. (There might be a better one, but I'm completely unfamiliar with Twitter.) And here's an earlier blog entry from one of the guys who's there.

I think this is a good thing from the public relations standpoint, and I'm sure the crew was REALLY, really excited to get underway on a Friday to show a bunch of netheads around the boat. What's the tour group that's most "excited" you for which you've gotten underway to show around for a day?

Update 1720 19 Jan: Here's an after-action report.

Re: USS Hampton -- Someone Talked

All the stuff we've been talking around in the thread below this one is pretty much out in the open now in this Navy Times article. Excerpt:

According to one source with knowledge of the investigation, the central problem involves how often sailors analyzed the chemical and radiological properties of the submarine’s reactor, which is typically checked daily.
During preparations for the boat’s Operational Reactor Safeguard Examination, which is typically conducted as a nuclear submarine ends its deployment, officials discovered that the sailors hadn’t checked the water in at least a month, and their division officer, the chemistry/radiological controls assistant, knew it, the source said.
They also learned that the logs had been forged — or “radioed,” in submarine parlance — later to cover up the lapse and make it look as though the sailors had been keeping up with required checks all along...
...Referring to the chemical levels, another former submarine commander added: “It’s not that it’s dangerous at the instant. Blowing off the chem sample that day isn’t what’s dangerous, but the operational philosophy adopted by people who would do that, if applied to the other aspects of operating the nuclear propulsion plant watch stations or other aspects of the submarine, could be dangerous. That’s what’s scary. Besides, why the hell wouldn’t you check the chem levels? First, that’s the ELT and the CRA’s job. Second, it takes about an hour and a half each day to do it. Third, you’re on a submarine, so it’s not like you’re going to get away with doing nothing on your free time.”

The Navy had to expect that the story would get out sooner or later -- too many people are just flabbergasted at what supposedly happened. (I should point out at this time that I don't absolutely know if what was described here is what actually happened -- I've only heard rumors, and I was certainly not one of the sources quoted, even though the story does link back here.) If this is what happened, though, I think it's important to realize that this is almost certainly an isolated instance. In any division, you'd only need one guy with integrity to nip a problem like this in the bud. The odds of having 5 or 6 guys all deciding to throw away everything we do as submariners are fairly low -- before this, I would have said the odds were infinitesimally small.

So, has there ever been a time that you were the "one switch" in the chain that kept something really bad from happening? One of those "I did good, but I sure can't put this in my fitrep/eval" type of moments? I had a few (found five or six Weapons guys lowering a guy in a safety harness headfirst into a VLS tube with a couple feet of water at the bottom so he could retrieve a dropped tool, for one) but nothing like what any of these RL Div guys on the Hampton could have done. The whole situation just breaks my heart.

Update 0911 22 Oct: And here's where it gets bad -- the story migrates out from a publication that is aimed at and at least talks to people who "speak the language" and into the the general media. Distortion and hyperbole follow. Here are some excerpts from the AP story that's on the wires this morning (for added fun, count the factual errors and misrepresentations in the story!):

In the case of the Hampton, it appears from a preliminary investigation that sailors in Submarine Squadron 11 had skipped the required analysis of the chemical and radiological properties of the submarine's reactor for more than a month, even though a daily check is required...
...Other members of the squadron discovered the lapse during a routine examination required as part of the redundancy built into the system so that problems are caught, he said. The examination was done as the submarine was nearing the end of a West Pacific deployment, which was completed Sept. 17...
...A nuclear powered fast attack submarine, Hampton is the most advanced nuclear attack submarine in the world, carrying a torpedo, cruise missile, and mine-laying arsenal, according to information on its Web site...
...The reported problems with procedures and record keeping in the Navy squadron comes just after the Air Force disciplined some 70 airmen in the B-52 incident...

I'm not sure how they got from the Navy Times article that squadron members were the ones who blew off the chemistry analyses -- unless the AP writer normally covers the Air Force and doesn't understand the difference between a "squadron" and a "ship". And of course they'd try to link it to the recent Air Force nuclear weapons problems, which, let's face it, were much, much, much worse than the Hampton problem in the whole scheme of things.

Update 1142 22 Oct: Well, the story hit the CNN.com front page, so now the solid contents of the san tanks are really going to get blown into the ventilation system's rotating machinery.

Attack Subs Moving West

More examples of secrecy going down the tubes today. On the same day that News.com.au announces that the "United States Navy plans to secretly transfer submarines from its Atlantic to Pacific fleet" we see announcements from Congresspersons that the boats are going to be transferred... maybe it's not as big a secret as the overseas papers would like us to believe.

Anyway, the news is full today of stories talking about the Navy's plans to move six attack boats out west; the first two Seawolf-class boats to Washington State, three LAs to San Diego, and an additional LA to Pearl; Guam will apparently stay at 3 boats.

The move of USS Seawolf (SSN 21) and USS Connecticut (SSN 22) to the Puget Sound was expected, although I admit I was taken by surprise by the initial announcement that the boats would be going to Bremerton Naval Base, rather than the Sub Base at Bangor. The Congressman's later "clarification" that the Navy hadn't decided between Bangor and Bremerton made me think that the Congressman had messed up his announcement, and was trying to save face.

This Seattle P-I article says that the other boats that are moving, sometime before 2010, are USS Albuquerque (SSN 706) from Groton to San Diego, USS Jacksonville (SSN 699) from Norfolk to Pearl, and USS Hampton (SSN 767) from Norfolk to SD. The 3rd boat moving to San Diego hasn't been identified yet, but since all the PacFleet VLS boats are stationed there, it could easily be one of the newer boats -- maybe a Virginia named after a Pacific Ocean state?

The articles all mention the same final numbers of attack boats at each port -- Guam 3, San Diego 7, Pearl 18, and Kitsap County 3, for a total of 31 on the West Coast, leaving 21 on the East Coast -- Groton dropping from 17 to 14, and Norfolk from 11 to 7. Since the East Coast is losing one more boat than the West Coast is gaining, and we'll still be bringing Virginia's into the fleet, I think this is telling us that the number of attack boats we'll be decommissioning in the next four years is one more than the number we'll be commissioning.

My opinion --it's a good move. I've said before that the most likely locations for wars involving submarines that we don't start are off Korea and Taiwan, and having boats closer to the action makes sense -- but maybe not too close, which might be why Guam didn't plus up. Also, if something happens in the Straits of Hormuz, it's nice not to have to think about transiting the Suez Canal...

Random Stuff

Here's some submarine/Navy-related stuff in the news:

1) Here's a follow-up story from the Associated Press with more details about the submarine CO who faked his own death to try to dump his mistress. The question remains: Is this a more salacious story than the Australian officer who repeatedly spanked a junior female sailor?

2) The LANTFLT winner of the 2012 Stockdale Award is USS Boise (SSN 764) Commanding Officer CDR Brian Sittlow. w00t! This comes a year after the Boise won the Battenberg Cup.

3) Here's a story of an ET1(SS) from USS Missouri (SSN 780) who was re-enlisted at Foxwoods by an Elvis impersonator. What's your favorite "non-traditional" re-enlistment story?

4) In some sad news, the United States Submarine Veterans of WWII national organization officially disbanded following their convention in Norfolk. The youngest member is 86, the oldest 102. The Submarine community will have lost the best of us when the last of these heroes finally departs on Eternal Patrol.

Update 1615 25 Sep: Q. When is a diesel submarine louder than any Western nuke boat? A. When it's an Iranian Kilo-class boat that just got out of an overhaul in an Iranian shipyard in which they fabricated the repair parts in Iran!

Also, two submarines were recently announced as the winners of the CY 2011 Marjorie Sterrett Battleship Award for superior performance in intra-type battle efficiency: USS Newport News (SSN 750) from LANTFLT, and USS Hampton (SSN 767) over in the Pacific.

Newport News is on a similar roll to Boise, with their CO earning the Darby Award from the Submarine League back in July.

Submarine News And Notes

A quick run through submarine tidbits making news today:

1) USS Connecticut (SSN 22) arrives in her new homeport of Bangor today, meaning all three Seawolf-class subs will now be based in the Puget Sound. Given the known superiority of Seawolf-class boats, this means the Bangor area now indisputably has the world's most powerful submarine fleet when you count the 2 SSGNs, their 8 SSGNs SSBNs, and whichever two Seawolfs can get underway while the 3rd one is used as a spare parts depot for the other two.

2) We don't talk about countermeasure systems very much, for very good reason, which can leave military reporters unsure about how to describe them when they do make the news. This results in them being called part of a "counterattack" system in this article about a man stealing what seem to be domes from a CSA MkII system on USS Hampton (SSN 767).

3) I really don't see Brazil successfully building an SSN within the next 20 years, despite what this article says.

4) This article about the Navy resuming sonar training off SoCal is amusing because it has quotes from skimmer-types about ASW, including this one:

At 2 a.m. Sunday, the target submarine -- a U.S. sub playing the role of the enemy -- surfaced near the carrier and radioed to announce its location. In these games, it was a taunt that prompted a round of urgent, middle-of-the-night phone calls.
"It's very embarrassing that the submarine got in on us," said one Navy captain. "But it shows how a submarine can hide among pinnacles and seamounts, and we'll have to learn from it."

Looks to me like at least one Navy captain has been watching too much "Hunt For Red October" and thinks submarines really do dart in and out among the forest of "pinnacles" that is the SoCal local ops area...

Edited 2024 29 Jan to correct a typo.

Update 0717 30 Jan 2008: The news about submarines just keeps on coming! USS Miami (SSN 755) returned from deployment, the delivery of PCU North Carolina (SSN 777) has been delayed until February because of a problem with a steam valve, and USS Connecticut arrived as planned yesterday, as this photo attests:

Update 0015 31 Jan 2008: Here's another picture of Connecticut's arrival.

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?

USS Memphis In South Florida For Fleet Week

USS Memphis (SSN 691) got the Good Deal this year; they got picked to go to Fleet Week in Fort Lauderdale. Of course, with every Good Deal comes some annoying PR work -- Memphis had to do a media underway prior to pulling in. The report that came out of it was pretty good, though; you can check out the video here, which includes the reporter trying to keep his feet during a fairly tame up-angle.

I'm predicting the crew of the Memphis will have lots of good safe fun, and they won't have the same problem one of the crewmembers from USS Hampton had last year during the Fort Lauderdale Fleet Week. (I'm sure they've all been briefed and GMT'd to death about not setting fire to any yachts.)

This Sub Sailor Must Really Hate Skimmers

Yesterday, I blogged about USS Hampton (SSN 767) pulling into PEV for Fleet Week USA on Monday. Today (via The Sub Report) we learn that one of the Hampton submariners took our well-known antipathy for surface ships a bit too far:

"A sailor, who serves as a Fire Control Technician, is accused of setting fire to a 44-foot yacht docked on the New River.
"Fort Lauderdale police arrested U.S. Navy fire control technician Robert Lee Coloretti at about 12:20 a.m. Thursday morning.
"Authorities said Coloretti, 23, snuck on to the Ida II and began breaking things in the cabin, waking up the passengers sleeping below deck. Police said while one of the passengers dialed 911, Coloretti was setting the yacht on fire.
"Police said they arrested Coloretti as he was stepping off the yacht. Police said he was wearing his uniform."

He obviously forgot that we're supposed to take out surface ships with torpedoes, and not our bare hands. The article doesn't say if alcohol was involved, but I think we all know the answer to that question...

(More seriously, I'm sorry that this young man's career will take a big hit from this, and it's too bad the rest of the crew will probably have more liberty restrictions, but let's face it... who hasn't had someone from their crew do something worse on liberty? The difference now is that the Internet lets us all read about it, rather than it only showing up in the local paper.)

Update 2208 04 May: The story even made Fark.

Update 2035 06 May: I don't think the Sailor's alibi is going to work:

"I was only trying to put out the fire," Petty Officer 2nd Class Robert Lee Coloretti explained to police, according to his arrest report.
"Police picked up Coloretti, 23, on the Ida II, a 74-foot Forbes Cooper express cruiser, just after 12:30 a.m. on the New River, according to the report. Inside the boat, authorities said they found three fires, bleach poured over parts of the cabin and a punctured lifeboat."

A Navy spokesman commenting on the case shows he apparently doesn't know much about how advancement in the submarine force works:

"McGuinn said Coloretti joined the Navy in 2001 and reported to the submarine in 2003.
"Based on Coloretti's rapid rise in rank, McGuinn said his conduct in the Navy must have been good.
"You don't get to be a second-class petty officer in that time without doing well," McGuinn said."

Most FTs show up on the boat as an FT3 right out of "A" school (as long as they've signed up for a six year initial hitch), and you only have to be an E-4 for a year before you get to go up for E-5; I'm pretty sure you can still get that automatically by re-enlisting under the STAR program. Therefore, it's not surprising that a submarine FT would be an E-5 with 5 years in. About all it says is that you haven't been busted...

Submarines Pull Into Ports

Navy NewsStand has stories or pictures of two subs that pulled into ports this week. The first was USS Jefferson City (SSN 759), which returned to San Diego from a six month WestPac on Wednesday. I'm sure they did a good job, but the list of port visits -- Guam, Singapore, Hawaii, Yokosuka and Sasebo, Japan -- makes it look like CSG7 didn't go out of their way to get the crew any really "interesting" liberty ports. Heading all the way down to Singapore without getting an Australia, Hong Kong or Thailand stop kinda blows, IMHO.

The second was USS Hampton (SSN 767), which pulled into PEV on Monday for South Florida's Fleet Week USA. It looks like she's moored outboard of either a destroyer or cruiser -- one of my skimmer readers might know. It appears as though she just came down the coast from Norfolk for the port visit; she looks way too nice to have been out for very long:

Training The Next Generation Of Submarine Officers

It hit me like a TDU weight dropped onto your gut by a "funny" shipmate -- considering what we've been hearing about USS Hampton and some of the other not-so-Clancyesque stories that have come out recently about the Sub Force, what must the NUBs currently in the pipeline be thinking about submarining? I got an E-mail recently from a Nuke officer in the training pipeline (not Chase, who you may be familiar with already) who asked:

I've been following your blog off and on for a while now, and with comp in power school looming up in about a month and a half I've come to the realization that I don't know much about the fleet...
...Do you happen to have any lessons learned, etc..., that you would be willing to share with an almost (but not quite there yet) nub ensign?

Hopefully I've been able to put across in my blog that, although I'm not always happy with the decisions made by Big Navy and various shore-based submariners, I still think submarining is one of the best careers to which any young man can aspire; I'd happily recommend to my sons that they join the Sub Force. That being said, it's clear that submarining isn't as glamorous as it used to be. So how should I answer the young Ensign? I'm looking for your input, whether it's from the perspective of a JO, former JO, or submariner who used to have to fix mistakes made by their division officer -- or from submarine wives. What can a young officer coming up for orders to his first submarine do or what should he know to make him the most effective submarine JO possible? The comments are open...