Nuclear Submarines: Smarter Every Day

We did lock-in/lock-out in torp tubes. Hated it. Hated. It.

We stored a lot of rum in a torpedo tube on the return from Puerto Rico a few times.

A LOT of rum.

Lemme tell you, a tube big enough for a 21 foot long, 21 inch diameter torpedo holds a LOT of rum.
 
I remember when we used to do tiger cruises and have riders on board... It always got a bit hectic when we would have females. Of course, that's a thing now. But before, we'd have all sorts of briefings.
 
We stored a lot of rum in a torpedo tube on the return from Puerto Rico a few times.

A LOT of rum.

Lemme tell you, a tube big enough for a 21 foot long, 21 inch diameter torpedo holds a LOT of rum.
We used to store ours underneath the ERUL deckplates. Crawl down near the Stbd main engine bedplate, there's a few pookas in there that'll hold anything. And they'll pass right by customs every time.
 
We used to store ours underneath the ERUL deckplates. Crawl down near the Stbd main engine bedplate, there's a few pookas in there that'll hold anything. And they'll pass right by customs every time.

They pass by customs every time because they don't have the clearance to enter the Engineroom.

While I'll be the first to admit there are any number of hiding places aboard a submarine, it's good to know the following:

- All those above you in the chain of command were once junior people, too, and likely collectively know all these places.

- Regardless of how good a hiding place is, the more hiding places are used, the greater the likelihood some Chief is going to stumble across one of them.

- The CO who authorized the use of one of the torpedo tubes to store all the booze was dead serious when he made the 1MC announcement that if any booze was found anywhere else aboard ship, there would be a water slug shot from that tube.

That said, nobody ever disassembled the CRDM Current Reading Shunt Box to see if anybody had stored a bubble wrapped bottle of Bicardi Reserve inside.

:D:D:D
 
They pass by customs every time because they don't have the clearance to enter the Engineroom.

While I'll be the first to admit there are any number of hiding places aboard a submarine, it's good to know the following:

- All those above you in the chain of command were once junior people, too, and likely collectively know all these places.

- Regardless of how good a hiding place is, the more hiding places are used, the greater the likelihood some Chief is going to stumble across one of them.

- The CO who authorized the use of one of the torpedo tubes to store all the booze was dead serious when he made the 1MC announcement that if any booze was found anywhere else aboard ship, there would be a water slug shot from that tube.

That said, nobody ever disassembled the CRDM Current Reading Shunt Box to see if anybody had stored a bubble wrapped bottle of Bicardi Reserve inside.

:D:D:D
Yeah, screw opening anything CRDM related in general. Had to supervise a few maintenance ops as a QAI (on loan from M Div)...
 
The next video...

 
I remember watching some of our divers being able to head from berthing to back aft on a single breath. I also remember watching a few cranks try and do the same thing...and then watching them hit the deck somewhere around the freezers/escape trunk.
 
Another video. Haven’t watched it, yet.

 


A cool video!

A basic question asked of every nub working his way through submarine qualifications:

"You're a drop of sea water. How do you end up in the Oxygen banks?"

It's a question which takes the nub through several ship systems to answer.

The Oxygen candle demonstration is freaky cool in this video, but it really is a last resort method of getting Oxygen. The EOG (affectionately referred to as "The Bomb") normally provides all the O2 necessary, and is used to charge O2 banks. The O2 banks is the next choice for O2 if The Bomb is down for some reason.

In all, an excellent video.

Atmosphere control is a very important system, obviously.

Note: nub - "non-useful body", a term officially deemed derogatory, but in fact simply refers to one who has yet to qualify for their Submarine Warfare Pin ("Dolphins"). A milestone which takes a significant amount of time and work to achieve, about 12 months after first reporting.

Most nubs would gleefully demonstrate their knowledge of each of those systems in depth.
 
You can't find much on submarine nuclear reactor design and operation, but Wikipedia has this to say:


Current U.S. naval reactors are all pressurized water reactors, which are identical to PWR commercial reactors producing electricity, except that:
  • They have a high power density in a small volume and run either on low-enriched uranium (as do some French and Chinese submarines) or on highly enriched uranium (>20% U-235, current U.S. submarines use fuel enriched to at least 93%)
  • They have long core lives, so that refueling is needed only after 10 or more years, and new cores are designed to last 25 years in carriers and 10–33 years in submarines,
  • The design enables a compact pressure vessel while maintaining safety.
Long core life is enabled by high uranium enrichment and by incorporating a "burnable neutron poison", which is progressively depleted as non-burnable poisons like fission products and actinides accumulate. The loss of burnable poison counterbalances the creation of non-burnable poisons and result in stable long term fuel efficiency.

Long-term integrity of the compact reactor pressure vessel is maintained by providing an internal neutron shield. (This is in contrast to early Soviet civil PWR designs where embrittlement occurs due to neutron bombardment of a very narrow pressure vessel.)

Reactor sizes range up to ~500 MWt (about 165 MWe) in the larger submarines and surface ships. The French Rubis-class submarines have a 48 MW reactor that needs no refueling for 30 years.

The nuclear navies of the Russian Federation, the United States, and the United Kingdom rely on steam turbine propulsion. Those of the French and Chinese use the turbine to generate electricity for propulsion. Most Russian submarines as well as all U.S. surface ships since Enterprise are powered by two or more reactors. U.S., British, French, Chinese and Indian submarines are powered by one.

Decommissioning nuclear-powered submarines has become a major task for American and Russian navies. After defuelling, U.S. practice is to cut the reactor section from the vessel for disposal in shallow land burial as low-level waste (see the Ship-Submarine recycling program).
 
I was really excited to see SED release that vid yesterday. I’ve often wondered how subs make their own water and air. Very neat video, and I need to watch it again just to try to comprehend all that is presented.

@RetiredUSNChief, thanks for the further information. I’ve been geeking out (see:eek:bsessing) on nuclear subs the last few months, reading and watching videos on YouTube. I listened to “Blind Man’s Bluff” on audiobook, which was a great listen. It wasn’t too in-depth in terms of technical information on subs, but it had a lot of great stories and history from the Cold War era. I’m currently listening to an audiobook on the sinking of K-129, called “Red Star Rogue”. There’s a YT’er called Sub Brief who’s done a number of videos on Russian subs. He is evidently an ex submariner, and he gets into a fair amount of detail on a number of subs. The differences in US and Russian nuclear approaches is big. The Russian subs sound like they were death traps! He also did a video on the beginnings of US nuclear subs and how Rickover pushed nuclear subs from their infancy. All fascinating stuff!
 
I was really excited to see SED release that vid yesterday. I’ve often wondered how subs make their own water and air. Very neat video, and I need to watch it again just to try to comprehend all that is presented.

@RetiredUSNChief, thanks for the further information. I’ve been geeking out (see:eek:bsessing) on nuclear subs the last few months, reading and watching videos on YouTube. I listened to “Blind Man’s Bluff” on audiobook, which was a great listen. It wasn’t too in-depth in terms of technical information on subs, but it had a lot of great stories and history from the Cold War era. I’m currently listening to an audiobook on the sinking of K-129, called “Red Star Rogue”. There’s a YT’er called Sub Brief who’s done a number of videos on Russian subs. He is evidently an ex submariner, and he gets into a fair amount of detail on a number of subs. The differences in US and Russian nuclear approaches is big. The Russian subs sound like they were death traps! He also did a video on the beginnings of US nuclear subs and how Rickover pushed nuclear subs from their infancy. All fascinating stuff!


Both Blind Man's Bluff and Red Star Rogue are great books. Another excellent one is called Running Critical. It's about Electric Boat and the building of submarines in the 1960s and '70s. It does not paint a flattering picture of Rickover or really anyone else at the top of the Navy or civilian service.
 
I was really excited to see SED release that vid yesterday. I’ve often wondered how subs make their own water and air. Very neat video, and I need to watch it again just to try to comprehend all that is presented.

@RetiredUSNChief, thanks for the further information. I’ve been geeking out (see:eek:bsessing) on nuclear subs the last few months, reading and watching videos on YouTube. I listened to “Blind Man’s Bluff” on audiobook, which was a great listen. It wasn’t too in-depth in terms of technical information on subs, but it had a lot of great stories and history from the Cold War era. I’m currently listening to an audiobook on the sinking of K-129, called “Red Star Rogue”. There’s a YT’er called Sub Brief who’s done a number of videos on Russian subs. He is evidently an ex submariner, and he gets into a fair amount of detail on a number of subs. The differences in US and Russian nuclear approaches is big. The Russian subs sound like they were death traps! He also did a video on the beginnings of US nuclear subs and how Rickover pushed nuclear subs from their infancy. All fascinating stuff!

If people were scared at how close they thought we came to nuclear war during the Cuban Missile Crisis, I wouldn't recommend they read Red Star Rogue.
 
Finally getting to the important stuff…

 
Blind Man's Bluff is a great book.

Speaking of Rickover, he hand-picked his nuke officers until he retired, and had a hand over the program until he died. Scott Waddle (he of the USS Greenville infamy) told a story on how Rickover would "hire" his nuke officers, and it was both hilarious and frightening.
 
Blind Man's Bluff is a great book.

Speaking of Rickover, he hand-picked his nuke officers until he retired, and had a hand over the program until he died. Scott Waddle (he of the USS Greenville infamy) told a story on how Rickover would "hire" his nuke officers, and it was both hilarious and frightening.

Yep.

There are a lot of people out there who lambast his ways, but he was a driven man and wanted insights into how and what people thought.

I seriously doubt all of his interviews were like the ones we get to read about, though.

And Blind Man's Bluff is an excellent read. Can't comment on any details or accuracies, but it is an excellent read. So much so that Submariners like it.

If you want something that will make your sphincter pucker, read Red Star Rogue. If you thought the Cuban Missile Crisis took us to the brink of nuclear war...
 
Yep.

There are a lot of people out there who lambast his ways, but he was a driven man and wanted insights into how and what people thought.

I seriously doubt all of his interviews were like the ones we get to read about, though.

And Blind Man's Bluff is an excellent read. Can't comment on any details or accuracies, but it is an excellent read. So much so that Submariners like it.

If you want something that will make your sphincter pucker, read Red Star Rogue. If you thought the Cuban Missile Crisis took us to the brink of nuclear war...

I'll have to read it.

I went to a public lecture here at Duke about 10 years ago, the guy was a retired spook, in the CIA from the 50s-80s. He said if people knew how close we actually came to war with the Soviets many times, we'd be horrified.
 
I'll have to read it.

I went to a public lecture here at Duke about 10 years ago, the guy was a retired spook, in the CIA from the 50s-80s. He said if people knew how close we actually came to war with the Soviets many times, we'd be horrified.

Once you read Red Star Rogue, it makes sense what happened with the power shift that occurred under Brezhnev.
 
If you ever get a chance to go on a WWII sub do it!!! There's one in Charleston harbor.
UNBELIEVABLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Bunks are 18 inches wide, shared by 3 folks.
This is truth. Read Thunder Below by Adm. Gene Fluckey for a taste of it.
 
If you ever get a chance to go on a WWII sub do it!!! There's one in Charleston harbor.
UNBELIEVABLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Bunks are 18 inches wide, shared by 3 folks.
BTDT, its been a long while but I still get the willys thinking about being on that thing and imagining being depth charged. Brass balls doesn't come close to what those WWII combat submariners had.
 
If you ever get a chance to go on a WWII sub do it!!! There's one in Charleston harbor.
UNBELIEVABLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Bunks are 18 inches wide, shared by 3 folks.

The USS Clamagore.

She's due to be sunk as an artificial reef soon.

Been on her many times.
 
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I have been on the Clamagore, the Lionfish (Battleship Cove, Mass), and the Growler (NYC). They are...small. I never thought I was claustrophobic until I had been aboard a WW2 sub.
I’ve been aboard the Clamagore, the Requin, the Bowfin and the U 505. I love subs and reading about them. I always have. I don’t know how I ended up in the Army!
 
Just for clarification, for those of you who’ve served in the silent service, how do you pronounce “submariner”. I’ve heard it both ways and wonder what is correct. Is the “marine” part pronounced in the same way as you would when you talk about the US Marines, or the other way like when you hear someone talking about an ancient mariner? @RetiredUSNChief
 
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That's because he didn't go back aft and meet the complete tards that make the boat go.

Sent from my moto g power using Tapatalk

My stepson is a machinists mate on a sub… I can confirm that he’s a complete tard (by choice) . But we love him just the same [emoji23]


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Just for clarification, for those of you who’ve served in the silent service, how do you pronounce “submariner”. I’ve heard it both ways and wonder what is correct. Is the “marine” part pronounced in the same way as you would when you talk about the US Marines, or the other way like when you hear someone talking about an ancient mariner? @RetiredUSNChief


The way I heard was "marine" like "sub-mar een-er" was for Americans and "sub-mar-in-er" is for Europeans.
 
"Submareener".

As in "one who works aboard submarines".

"Sub-Mariner" would be a Marvel comic book character who fought the Fantastic Four.

Personally, I like Sub-Mariner" better.
 
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