Five Days On A Brit Submarine

Here's an interesting article from the Daily Mail about a reporter who spent five days on HMS Talent (S92) during her current deployment. It's not an official source, but I was interested to see an article that I imagine was vetted by the British MoD saying "well over 1,000 feet down" when discussing the submarine's operating depths. I especially liked this picture:

My only experience on a British ship was spending a day on the carrier they had in the Arabian Gulf in 2000 (I think it was HMS Illustrious, but maybe HMS Invincible - it started with an "I") when I was the SubOps guy on the Carrier Group SEVEN staff aboard USS John C. Stennis (CVN 74). I rode over on the helicopter with my Admiral, worked with the submarine guys on the British ship planning a Combined exercise (including an American submarine officer who was permanently assigned to the British equivalent of the Strike Group Staff), and flew back the same day. My fellow staffers were upset that I got to go, because they figured it was a wasted opportunity for someone to drink while at sea. That's still my only helicopter ride.

Have you ever cross-decked to an allied vessel? (Alternate topic: Haven't the Brits ever heard of temporary racks for the guys who have to sleep in the torpedo room?)

Happy 235th Birthday, Navy!

Today is the 235th birthday of the U. S. Navy. From its humble beginnings, the United States Navy has become a force that more effectively controls the maritime areas on the earth than any organization in world history. Idaho's own Jeff Bacon has put out some tips on what not to do at a Navy Ball. Excerpts:

Do not throw dinner rolls. It is rude and obnoxious. Unless you have a clear shot, in which case it may be difficult to resist...
...If they parade the beef, don’t shout, “That’s my DATE!” (This applies to men and women.)

What are your favorite Birthday Ball stories? (Submarine or Navy, i.e. "Spring" or "Fall" Ball.) When I was on USS Connecticut (SSN 22), we incorporated an inflatable sex doll into our centerpiece. (For those who think this topic sounds familiar, it is -- we discussed it about 30 months ago. I figure we have some new people on board since then.)

Nuke School Stories

Got to thinking about how Nuclear Power School was ran back when I went through in the mid-80s, and thought it'd be interesting to see how it's changed over the years. This post will focus on my memories of the Enlisted side (I was single then, so I have more interesting stories from that time) but feel free to put in your inputs on the Officer experience as well.

I got to Orlando in May 1984, right before we classed up. Back then, all Nukes went to boot camp and "A" School in Great Lakes, and I had my "stash" duty there while all my friends went down for their useless "wait to class up" make-work jobs in Orlando. My friends had hooked up with a group of women from the Recruit Training Command, so I got assigned a girlfriend from the least desirable member of that group. She was a Company Commander at the RTC (an AZ2, if I remember right), and was just finishing up with a company. We went out on the town on the night her girls had their Pass-in-Review, and they kept sending champagne over to our table. I had told my friends where the girl recruits were going to be that night, so they had easy pickings. They appreciated it a lot. The CC never let me come over to her house; she said it was because her three roommates (also CCs) were militant lesbians, and she had to "pretend" to be one in order to live there. (She estimated that about half of the women in the Navy who were past their first enlistment in the mid-80s were lesbians.) We stopped dating after a month or so, and I later heard that she was being discharged for homosexuality. I ran into later, and she said one of her recruits had accused her of coming on to her (which she denied) and said she wasn't fighting the charge because they were giving her an Honorable Discharge, and she was going to be forced out for medical reasons anyway. She ended up marrying another guy from my Nuke School class (8406).

When I got to Orlando and went to Cocoa Beach, that was the first time I'd ever seen an ocean. I think there are a surprisingly large number of Sailors who never saw the sea before they joined the Navy.

They had stopped the Carter experiment with female Nukes by the time I got there, but they still had some female Nukes running around on shore duty. There was one who everyone had to see for some sort of radiological screening, and everyone -- I mean everyone -- talked about how big of a bitch she was. When I saw her, sure enough, she was a bitch for no reason at all. I thought about how sad it must be to go through life being such a jerk.

Back then, Enlisted Nuke School was divided into 14 sections -- 3 for ETs, 4 for EMs, and 7 for MMs. They assigned you to a section based on your Nuclear Field Qualification Test (which I think is now called the Navy Advanced Placement Test) score, so the highest scoring ETs were in Section 14, MMs in Section 13, EMs in 12. Sections 1 and 2, as I remember, were for the lowest-scoring MMs, and those sections frequently merged about halfway through due to attrition. Back then, they did most of the attrition (I think it was about 1/3) in Nuke School, which meant the guys who failed out ended up having a hard time moving into a new rate, since they were already a PO3 (or, frequently, an ETSN/EMFN/MMFN, because they tended to mast guys in conjunction with disenrollment). By the time I got back for Officer NPS (8904), I'm pretty sure they had instituted the Nuke Field "A" School in Orlando, and they did most of the attrition there, before the students start Nuke School proper.

They tended to give less homework and mandatory study time to the guys in the higher-numbered sections, so my group of Section 14 geeks tended to have a lot of time to be stupid. We hung out at a bar called "O'Brothers" about a mile off base on the main drag (I think it was Colonial). They had a 2-for-1 Happy Hour from 5-7 every night, and we'd order 3 or 4 extra drinks just before it ended. (That six months marks the drunkest period of my life.) They had a Breathalyzer in the bar, and we used to let whoever blew highest drive back to base. It was a different time back then; I'm glad we, as a society, have gotten smarter about that.

If you're interested in what Nuke School is like now, you can get an "official" version from this video that's a few years old:



What good Nuke School stories do you guys have? And would anyone who's been there more recently like to share how it's different now?

Bell-ringer 1251 10 Oct: From the comments, here's a new blog by an Ensign currently at Nuke School.

Shadowboxing

I got an E-mail from Navy TogetherWeServed telling its members they could build a "virtual shadowbox" (example here). This got me thinking about my own actual shadowbox:

As you can see, I went the traditional route, with rank insignia (E-3 to O-4, plus shoulder boards for retirement rank), medals and ribbons, and list of major commands on brass placards, along with the obligatory flag. It's so heavy I fear hanging it on the wall, so it's been sitting propped up against my dresser for 6 years. The main thing that keeps me from going to the Navy and getting the Global War on Terrorism Service Medal I should have got from my IA duty at CENTCOM added to my service record is that I don't want to mess with my shadowbox.

What do you have or will you have in your shadowbox?

Your Very Own Submarine

It seems like more and more people are wanting their very own submarine these days, because let's face it -- submarines are just cool. Some stories about people building their own subs big enough to carry people can be found here, here, here, and here.

Have you ever thought about building your own submarine?

Have I **Really** Been There?

I was going to add an application to my Facebook page listing the cities I've visited (I took last night off from work, so I'm bored) when I ran across a conundrum - what is the status of cities you've seen through the periscope, but not visited? Can you really say you've "visited" them? (For submariners, of course, we normally couldn't even say if we've "visited" a city or country that way, since we weren't "officially" there -- outside the 12nm limit, of course.)

What do you think? Do you personally count it as being in a country if you've hung out off their coast for a long time?

Meridian City Council: We're Technophobic Fearmongers!

My city is trying to sneak in a texting ban that would "make it illegal for drivers in Meridian to write, send, or read text-based communications while operating a moving motor vehicle." Since I enjoy a good unnecessary law as much as anyone -- especially one that would ban reading a text but not ban someone from revising their PowerPoint on their laptop in the passenger seat while driving through a school zone or looking at dirty pictures on their phone -- I figured I'd repost a portion of my post from earlier this year when the Idaho State Legislature was (unsuccessfully) trying to pass a similar ban:

The Idaho legislature is mostly made up of people who claim to support less government interference in people's lives, but it sure seems like they're happy to support more government interference in people's lives. The latest example is the passage of a bill in the Idaho Senate on a 29-5 vote to ban "texting while driving". While some Senators seem to be saying that the bill would not criminalize the simple act of reading a text while stopped at a stoplight, a quick review of the actual text proves otherwise. The bill defines "texting" as: "engaging in the review of, or preparation and transmission of typed messages via wireless devices." The section of law that's being amended, dealing with Inattentive Driving as a less included offense of Reckless driving, says it applies to "Any person who drives or is in actual physical control of any vehicle upon a highway, or upon public or private property open to public use..."

Unless the apologists for the new law want to claim that the police can't arrest someone for DWI who's passed out at a stoplight with the car running, then clearly the law applies to people stopped at a stoplight, and it clearly applies to reading texts. This whole issue is just the latest example of Idaho legislators who want to control the lives of those without political power -- in this case, teenagers. They claim they want to save lives, but what they're really interested in is passing a law that criminalizes behavior they lack the technical wherewithal in which to engage that's mostly being practiced by people they don't understand.

There are approximately 250 people a year who die in Idaho traffic crashes every year, and in essentially every case the accidents involve cars going over 20 MPH. However, I note that there's no bill currently introduced to lower the speed limit to 15 MPH (with exceptions for emergency vehicles, of course). I guess Idaho legislators are happy sending these 250 people to fiery deaths each year so they can race along at 50 MPH to get to the coffee shop for their mocha latte. [Rant inspired by Berkeley Breathed] Who knows, maybe next the Idaho Senate will decide that people are at risk of running off the road if they're outraged by the sight of people of different races walking down the street engaged in PDA, so they'll outlaw miscegenation. All in the interest of public safety, of course...

Hopefully the Idaho House will see through this attempt at election year political grandstanding, and keep this flawed bill from passing (or at least amend it so that it's clear that it doesn't apply to the simple act of reading texts, especially when stopped).

There's no doubt that texting while driving has the potential to cause accidents; that's why we already have a reckless driving statute. This is clearly an attempt by old people to show younger citizens that they are, in fact, the boss of them. Since the old people on the City Council actually have learned how to dial a phone, they aren't going to ban that. It's just texting, which is beyond their capabilities, that they want to crack down on. I look forward to hearing if they come up with any statistics of how often texting while driving causes accidents, as opposed to other behavior. (Unfortunately, I have to work during the meeting on Tuesday night, so hopefully I'll find someone to go testify for me.)

I really need to find the actual text of the ordinance (they claim it's on the city website, but I couldn't find it after a diligent search), because if it really does outlaw "reading text-based communications" I guess that means we won't be able to read roadsigns anymore without violating the law.

And for some reason, they're not even including a ban on shaving one's genitals while driving.

Update 1005 04 Oct: Here's a response I put up on Facebook to a friend asking if texting while driving isn't actually a problem. Agreeing that it is, I responded:

There are a lot of things I've seen here that are bigger problems that aren't being addressed by this law -- specifically, just plain idiots talking on their cell phone while drifting into my lane. My problems with this proposed law are threefold: 1) By outlawing a behavior more likely to be done by young people (the preamble [essentially] states this) it continues the trend here in the U.S. of the more powerful forcing laws down the throats of the less powerful just to keep them in their place; if they were really interested in reducing accidents, why not outlaw cell phone use altogether? Or reduce the speed limit to 15 MPH? It's because the more powerful like to be able to talk on their cells while driving. 2) It's just another example of a law that encourages people to break it, rendering the younger generation into a bunch of scofflaws. Here in Idaho, we sell fireworks but everyone has to sign an "agreement" not to use them in the state. People laugh their ass off at the law. 3) The law is poorly written, specifying "wireless" devices. You'll end up with a bunch of kids leaving their cell phone plugged into the power cord and texting away.

Here's the text of the proposed ordinance that the Mayor was kind enough to provide to me. Unless the city code otherwise defines "wireless", they really could have a problem with people keeping their cell phone power cords plugged in and texting away, if they choose to fight the law in the courts.

Bottom line -- yes, texting while driving is a problem. I think idiots talking on their cell phones while drifting into my lane is a bigger problem. New laws that kind of address one problem while ignoring a bigger problem just because that behavior is more popular among likely voters doesn't seem like the best use of law enforcement's time. If the police see someone driving negligently, pull them over. Don't keep me from reading a text from my wife to pick up a gallon of milk on my way home from work. Idaho's supposed to be about personal responsibility, not nanny-statism.

Update 1045 04 Oct: If the Meridian City Council really wants to protect its citizens, here's an example of another resolution they could pass.

Witness To History

As often happens to us old folks, a song on the radio today made me flash back to a memory. In this case, it was the first night of the Rodney King riots, where I was out with a good portion of the crew of USS Topeka (SSN 754) at the old Horse and Cow in Vallejo; we were in the area for a port visit to Alameda for some reason. Much Nuke Waste was drunk, and the Dance of the Flaming Asshole was performed as we cavorted through the bar, skivvie-less, singing "How can we sleep while Los Angeles is burning?"

The next day, I had duty, and we monitored the spread of the riots to the San Francisco Bay area as guys came back to the boat with reports of almost being assaulted on the BART. We watched the news, half-expecting to see A-Div streaming out of some looted hardware store with lots of new tools. Luckily, no one associated with the crew was hurt, and we left the next morning.

Where were you when history was being made? (In general, not just this particular event. Remember we already covered 9/11 earlier this month.)

Japanese ASW Video

Here's a video of JMSDF P-3's practicing ASW:



If only the submarine had some sort of anti-air weapon, it would have survived.

Old And Forgetful

What with all the excitement around here about my son getting his LDS Church mission call (to northern Chile, leaving December 1st), I plain forgot about my 6th blogiversary 10 days ago. Here's the obligatory link to my first post, and here's a link to my current traffic stats. Over the last year, we've been pretty steady about about 40K visits and 80K page views per month. As long-time readers have seen, this site has pretty much evolved into more of a commenter-driven blog vice author-driven; I just post ideas, and you guys take it from there.

Thanks to everyone who contributes to make TSSBP the place it is today.

Guest Post: Submarine Dept Head Retention

A guest post from "LT W":

I know this topic hasn't been commented on in three months but for me it was a very emotional issue and I wanted to respond. I was a JO on a 688i out of Pearl in the mid-late 90's and I got out 75% due to leadership/culture reasons and 25% lack of mission reasons.

Before stepping foot on board I never thought I would ever get out. In high school I realized all I ever wanted to do in life was command a submarine; enduring USNA and the nuc power pipeline were just necessary evils to get to use the sonar and weapons. Yet despite looking forward every day for 8 years to finally being an officer on a submarine, it took me only one month to realize something was amiss and another two months before I realized that the only way I could mentally survive the next three years was if I knew I was getting out (as my way of fighting back).

First, my first CO, XO, Eng and Nav were terrible from a leadership perspective. (My first Weps was an exception so when I say DH's I exclude him.) They basically fostered a culture of "Dept Heads and above vs. JO's plus Crew". For example, the CO would come up with a new decree on a whim, the dept heads would say "right away sir" and then force the JO's to have the instructions carried out. Yes I understand that is the way the military works, but what I am talking about here is "busy work" as opposed to "real work". Busy work tends to demoralize when sailors are unable to go home until it is accomplished. Anyway the JO's could see the new requirement for what it was, i.e., non-value add and yet another demand on a crew already working 100-hour weeks in port, so the JO's were in the terrible position of having to order the crew to comply with a new requirement that the JO's themselves disagreed with as much as the crew. When you factor in that the JO's knew many of the crew fairly well in a way the DH's and above never did nor even cared to, it was heartwrenching. Basically the DH's and above looked upon the JO's and crew as expendable resources to be used and discarded.

It was so bad that at one point almost all the JO's tried to eat second sitting in the wardroom because we all wanted to avoid eating with the CO, Nav and Eng. Eventually it got to the point where the oncoming EOOW would be the only JO eating at first sitting (and he would excuse himself early). Eventually someone caught on and we were told either we eat at first sitting or we don't eat at all. Often many of us chose the latter. I once had the Eng pull out his tickler over meal and ask me for an update on each item on it. I do not deny that it was my JOB to know the status of everything, but the way he did it helped us view meals as adversarial proceedings to be endured, not time for teambuilding and camaraderie.

One other telling story involved enlisted retention. Not surprisingly, our boat had the lowest enlisted retention in the squadron (officers just went to shore tour and got out). When the CO heard about the low enlisted retention from the Commodore, the CO's response was to implement a mandatory enlisted advancement exam study program. The CO figured, hey, it can't be leadership or culture as the problem, it has to be the enlisted aren't passing their ratings exams and so they don't get promoted which makes them unhappy and so they don't re-up. So now the crew has one more requirement, they can't go home (while in port) until their mandatory exam studying is done. Remember again the purpose of the mandatory studying was to improve crew morale. Amazing.

The way these "problems" were handled was a good example of senior officer mentality - when something happens, generate a new requirement to deal with the symptom and force compliance. Never did the DH's and above get together and discuss, hey is there anything leadership-wise contributing to the problem? One crewmember told me that the thing he looked forward to when the boat went to sea was it denied the ability for the leadership to say "this gets done before you go home".

My second Eng was even worse than the first, he tried to run the engineroom like the Marine Corps and as any sub vet knows it is a lot more collaborative than that. He came from a 726 and his attitude was like, "S6G, S8G, whatever same thing" and thought that by being a hardass he could hide his lack of S6G-specific knowledge, which the crew saw right through and they had zero respect for him. My second CO was assigned to the boat specifically because he was much more of a people person and the Commodore needed to do something about the (surprisingly continuing) low retention. The second XO was fair and just, an improvement on the first and I respected him greatly. The second Nav was almost as bad at "use-up-the-JO's" as the first, and the second Weps was nice but a bit of a limp noodle. So after experiencing six DH's, there was only one (first Weps) that I thought was a true asset to the fleet. And he was miserable because he was as in touch with the crew and felt their pain as many of the JO's did. About that second CO, he would spend half an hour talking to the ERLL watch about their family and such, he truly gave a sh*t about the crew and enlisted retention jumped up. If we had had the second CO first, the ship's culture may have been a lot different and so I may have thought the first CO I had was the leadership fluke and not the norm, but in my case by the time the second CO showed up I had my letter of resignation almost finished.

I remember making a little splash on the way out, my letter of resignation was four pages long, but was not combative like some are. It just detailed some of the leadership issues mentioned here (and more). Most JO's just submit a "I just want to spend more time with my family" letter in order to avoid having a showdown with every officer up the chain. I realized such an easy out would not do any favors for bringing attention to the underlying problems. What surprised me most was when I got a call from the head of submarine detailing (a Captain, I forget his name). Basically instead of trying to argue with me about how I had it all wrong about the boat, and instead of trying to scare me about how tough civilian life is, he simply said I can tell by your letter you care about the force and people, it's people like that we need to stay in to change things. That really got to me but by that time I had already been accepted to an Ivy-league business school and I was still very upset. I see now that it was partially my fault due to unrealistic expectations; I had showed up expecting the kind of leadership I read about with Mush Morton and Dick O'Kane in WWII, and instead was greeted with DH's and above who all acted like Ghost of Rickover. I do strongly believe the nuclear power mentality of check everything, trust nothing and massive micromanagement (basically) causes good leadership practices to suffer, but I have to assume some boats out there have both high Eng Dept morale and good ORSE scores. We achieved the second at the expense of the first.

I originally meant to address the other big aspect of why I got out, which was my entire time on the boat all we did was ORSE workup. If memory serves, we even once pretty much blew off our entire TRE workup time to run ORSE drills and we just winged the TRE. Seeing as how I joined up to try and find the Red October, but ended up being on a permanent ORSE training platform, I was basically faced with a terrible command climate while doing nothing actually submarine-mission-related. But this post is long enough already, and I see now that whole mission-focus issue was in many ways a subset of the leadership issue.

Now...all that being said, recently I have been curious about if I wanted to, could I get back in. Recently (on this blog) I saw a post showing the names of the people who just screened for CO and some of my year group friends were on it, and the words that head of officer detailing said came back to haunt me. That, plus I have pretty much maxed out civilian life, the only thing left for me is to be a CEO/CFO/COO of some middle-market company somewhere. As mentioned I got out and finished a top-5 MBA school, and work in a niche industry fixing broken companies which is as much leadership, planning and execution as it is finance. My first job out of b-school paid about what I was making when I left the Navy, but having the nuc sub training quickly pulls you ahead of your pure-civilian peers and as such my compensation has doubled every couple years. Not to brag but last year I think I brought home three times what my old CO's made. Point is if I got back in I would be taking a massive pay cut. But life is more than income and I sincerely miss a lot of the leadership and execution - getting things done, being in charge - that even a C-level position in a company doesn't match up to. The problem is, with the economy not doing great I'm sure a lot of JO's are staying in just to weather out the economic cycle so I'm probably simply not needed, and also it might be too late being in my mid-late-30's to get back in. I just hope if I could get back in I could be assigned to only 688's, I really love those boats and remember almost all the piping diagrams and systems, maybe the detailer could swing that as I imagine everyone wants a Seawolf or Virginia.

Anyway, sorry this became so long, it was planned to be shorter but any place I think about cutting might be the one thing that really resonates with someone. As a side note, nowadays I tell any Navy person I meet who is a junior enlisted or JO to not make their stay-in/get-out decision solely based off their first CO; at least wait to see how your second CO is before you make up your mind as the first, if bad, could be the exception not the rule. Also, while you certainly can make a lot more money with nuc power training on the outside, unless you're running your own company you won't get the same opportunity for leadership and direct hands-on operations that you get on the boats.

Take care everyone, and as I remember saying at the end of my letter of resignation nine years ago, God Bless the US Navy and those who serve.

Facebook Group For TSSBP

Are you on Facebook? Would you like a way to tell from a glance at your Facebook news feed if a new post has gone up here at TSSBP? If so, you should join the new group at Facebook, cleverly titled The Stupid Shall Be Punished. Whenever I post a new article here, I'll put a link to it there.

Former Submarine JO Writes Book, Makes News

I don't have as much time to write about former submarine JO and author Christopher Brownfield as I would like to right now, so I'll let you guys get the discussion started without me. I first posted about Mr. Brownfield back in June when he made news for suggesting that explosives be used to stop the oil leak in the Gulf. Now, he's got his first book out, "My Nuclear Family", which was just reviewed by the New York Times. I'll want to actually read the book before I form a final opinion, but based on this post by Brownfield at The Daily Beast, I'm pretty sure I won't like it. Excerpts from his post:

During my on-board training, while I studied more than 70 hours per week, my fellow officers regularly warned me, “Don’t let knowledge stand in the way of your qualifications.” They urged me not to, “learn too much… just check the box and get qualified.” But when my exam arrived, it seemed impossibly difficult. I failed miserably, despite having made a very serious five-month long effort to pass.
My fellow officers were surprised by my failure, and wondered aloud why I hadn’t used the “study guide.” When my second exam arrived, so did the so-called study guide, which happened to be the answer key for the nuclear qualification exam I was taking. I was furious. Defiantly, I handed back the answer key to the proctor and proceeded to take the exam on my own. I failed again. My boss, the ship’s engineer officer, started to document my failures with formal counseling so that he could fire me.
The most competent junior officer on our ship ran to my rescue, confiding that none of the other officers had passed the exam legitimately; the exam was just an administrative check-off. “Swallow your pride,” he told me, and just get it done.
The ship’s engineer and executive officer didn’t believe me when I complained of the cheating, and swept my allegations under the rug. It took me five attempts before I finally passed the "basic" qualification exam. Unbeknownst to me, senior members of my crew even went so far as to falsify my exam scores in order to avoid unwanted attention from the headquarters. But strangely, the exam was anything but basic. The expectations on paper were astronomically high compared to the banal reality of how our ship actually worked.

The post goes on to talk about his post-JO shore tour experience as a Sub School Instructor (which kind of shows where his career was heading had he not gotten out) and includes a rookie mis-spelling of "court-martialed". Interestingly to me, I easily could have been his XO for the last half of his tour on the Hartford (I had orders to be her XO starting in 2004, but got sub disqual'd for asthma), so I'm interested to think about how I would have reacted had I been on the boat. From what I've read of Brownfield so far, it's clear he's one of those over-earnest malcontents who just don't get it; they won't fit in with the group because of their "standards", and make a big deal out of stuff that's really not a big deal in the big scheme of things. Normally, I've liked guys like that; I felt they had something to offer, and there was no question that they cared, even if they did end up causing a lot of extra work and frustration for their supervisors. For this guy, I'm not so sure. I'll have to read his book (the last part of which appears to be about his staff IA tour in Iraq, which I can compare to my IA tour at CENTCOM) to make a final decision. You guys can feel free to start discussing him and his charges now. (Remember, though... NNPI shouldn't be posted.)

Update 0830 23 Sep: So as not to appear to hypocritical, here's my disclosure on my experiences with the BEQ exam (which is clearly what Brownfield is talking about in his post). Clearly, it's tacky to give the guy the answer key with the exam. On the other hand, it was roundly known that the only way to pass it was to take it "open book"; guys generally took it in the wardroom during the midwatch, with the RPMs available when needed. As Eng, I gave a proctored BEQ exam to the whole department at the time; I had that luxury because I was in new construction doing initial quals, and had trained the guys for almost 2 years, in a much more structured setting than is available to operational boats, before I had to give the exam. As far as the few guys who took it after the initial qualifications when I was still Eng -- I never really asked, but I assume they did it open book. [Parenthetically, the BEQ exam is a big deal for junior officers because they have to pass it before they can stand any watches aft; junior enlisted guys don't have that restriction.]

Update 1030 23 Sep: Vigilis posts his thoughts on the media campaign for the book.

Update 0936 24 Sep: Thoughts (and additional forums in which to spread the discussion) from nhsparky and [Bell-ringer] Tom Ricks.

Officer Promotions To Be Delayed

“Great! What we really need are some more 0-5s around here…”
MAJ (EUCOM) on the release of the list of 0-5 promotables
--From the Staffer's Hard Sayings Log

It looks like the Navy has figured out a way to save some money -- hold off on paying people for promotions for as long as they can. From the PERS-42 website, you can download a story and a FAQ about the Navy mid-grade officer promotion phasing plan for FY11 and beyond. Excerpts from the story:

As part of the Navy’s multiple efforts to achieve fiscal balance, the Secretary of the Navy has approved a revised phasing plan for active duty officer promotions beginning in fiscal year 2011.
Under previous plans, five percent of officers selected for captain, commander and lieutenant commander were promoted in each of the first eight months of the year, with 15 percent per month during the remaining four months.
Effective Oct. 1, 2010, active duty officers selected for promotion to the grades of captain, commander and lieutenant commander will be promoted at a three percent per month rate for 11 months, with the remaining officers to be promoted in September 2011.
All officers selected for promotion during fiscal year 2011 will be promoted in that fiscal year. This phasing plan does not affect future selection board promotion rates.

While I'm always in favor of Sailors getting all the money that they've earned, I guess I'm not surprised that the Navy would look at this as "low-hanging fruit" to "save" a few million dollars. Hopefully, they'll return the saved money to taxpayers or augment the maintenance budget, rather than using it to fund something like an extra Senior Officer Conference in Phukett where they share lessons learned on how it's stupid to write yourself TAD orders to go visit your girlfriend.

I figure as long as the selected officers can still get frocked, it's not that big a deal. (Their wives might think otherwise, of course.) How do you feel about the concept of frocking?

Missing MIP A SHT-ty Problem For 774s

From an article at dailypress.com reposted at Military.com, there are apparently concerns with how much Mold-in-Place (MIP) Special Hull Treatment (SHT) is falling off the Virginia-class boats. Excerpts:

Significant portions of the specialized hull coating sloughed off from portions of three of the first four boats in the class, leading the Navy to begin an investigation to determine the cause of the problem and how to fix it.
The coatings, applied to the entire exterior of submarines to absorb sonar waves and reduce the amount of detectible noise emanating from inside the boat, have "debonded" from underway Virginia class subs, often in "large sections up to hundreds of square feet," according to the Pentagon's top weapons tester.
J. Michael Gilmore, director of operational testing and evaluation, presented the findings in a June 30 letter to Ashton B. Carter, the Pentagon's acquisition chief. In the letter, Gilmore said the Virginia class program has experienced multiple "fail-to-sail" issues — problems that could delay a ship's deployment — including the hull coating problem.
Major hull coating failures are limited to three of the seven subs commissioned so far — the Virginia, Texas and the North Carolina — the Navy said in a written response to questions posed by the Daily Press. The debonding occurred over a period of several years.

Several readers here noticed this problem from a picture of USS Hawaii (SSN 776) I posted earlier this month. As I recall, the early 751-flight Los Angeles-class boats had the same problem. As the engineers have solved similar problems before, I'm sure they'll figure this one out as well -- given enough time and money.

What's the most interesting thing you've ever had fall off your boat?

Update 0732 23 Sep: Some really good posts from Next Navy on the subject of the debonding MIP can be found here and here. The links include close-ups from this picture of USS Texas (SSN 775) taken last month that shows missing MIP from all along the starboard side of the boat:

Bloggers: The Next Generation

[This post is mostly for family, so my regular non-family readers can feel free to skip it if they want. For those who are left... Hi, Mom!]

As the kids we've known for the last 6 years are all going off to college, a couple of them have discovered blogs as a way to keep family and friends informed of their goings-on. My son Robert's roommate started College: The Blog; some of the posts talk about Robert. Another friend of the boys who is going to Idaho State (where my wife was going when I met her) recently started up 4 teh lulz. I especially like today's post, in which he talks about how much he liked hanging out at our house and eating our food.

So, it you'd like to see how the next generation of nerds is enjoying college, I highly recommend these fine blogs.

The Second Shoe Drops

The second firing of a Bangor-area CO occurred today, when the Commanding Officer of USS Ohio (SSGN 726)(Blue) was fired for "inappropriate personal behavior". Excerpts:

Capt. Ronald Gero was relieved by Rear Adm. James Caldwell, commander of Submarine Group Nine, because Caldwell lost confidence in Gero’s ability to command.
The relief occurred after an investigation into allegations of inappropriate personal behavior that eroded good order and discipline, the Navy said.
Gero, who took command of the submarine in November 2008, has been temporarily assigned to administrative duties on the staff of Submarine Group Nine...
...Gero’s profile on LinkedIn.com states that he was the ninth commanding officer of the USS Buffalo, from July 2002 to May 2005. He was the executive officer of the USS Narwhal, and served on the USS Nebraska Gold Crew and the USS Houston.
Read more: http://www.kitsapsun.com/news/2010/sep/17/second-bangor-commander-relieved-week/#ixzz0zqm8yG5h

A Navy Times story of this firing (and others) can be found here. At this rate, I'm almost looking back with fondness towards the old-fashioned firing for a failed TRE or ORSE or something rather than these "inappropriate personal behavior" RFCs, although I'm sure this type of CO early relief is a lot easier on the crew.

Submarine Field Days

While we're waiting for the other shoe to drop with the Bangor CO firings, here's the newest viral video making its way through the Submarine Force; it looks like it's a rap done from the perspective of JOs:

My favorite line: "If the Dive need a head break, rack out the Chop..."

Aboard USS Rhode Island

USS Rhode Island (SSBN 740) recently hosted some journalists for an at-sea media availability, and an Armed Forces Press Service reporter filed this report, posted on Defense.gov. As with most reports where a civilian journalist goes on a submarine, some interesting "facts" are presented. Excerpt:

The Trident subs, known as “boomers,” are powered by a single-shaft nuclear reactor. They can carry more than 16 tons, travel more than 20 knots -- more than 23 miles per hour -- and submerge more than 800 feet, according to Navy officials who keep their exact capabilities secret.

I was interested in the "single-shaft nuclear reactor", and I really have no idea what statistic the reporter misconstrued to come up with the "16 tons" factoid. I'm guessing some crew member said it to the reporter as a joke, and nobody caught it during the editing process.

I was interested to see a mention of a CDR Michael Sowa, identified as the SubGru TEN Deputy COS for Strategic Weapons. I know there were two Mike Sowa's in the Sub Force back when I was on active duty; I'm wondering if this is the one who was one of my JOs on USS Connecticut (SSN 22).

The article also has a picture of the Dolphin Ceremony for PO3(SS) William Corring:

Congratulations, Petty Officer Corring!

Update 1700 9/15: Maybe the reporter meant 16 tons of food -- or 16 tons of crew. It's been so long since I've done a dive comp that I can't remember what we used to put in for a full stores load and crew complement, but 160 guys (for an Ohio-class boat) times 200 pounds would be about right.

Bangor TTF CO Fired

Story at Navy Times. I'll update with the link in the morning.

Update 0827 15 Sep: Here's the link to the Navy Times story. Excerpt:

The commanding officer of the Trident Training Facility in Bangor, Wash., was fired Tuesday because of “inappropriate personal behavior,” according to a Navy spokesman.
Capt. David Solms, the 14th CO fired in 2010, was relieved Tuesday by Capt. Kenneth Swan, commanding officer of Submarine Learning Center in Groton, Conn., said William Kenny, a spokesman for the learning center.
Kenny said the relief stemmed from “inappropriate personal behavior” that led to a loss of confidence in Solms’ ability to command. Kenny said he could not characterize the nature of the behavior.

Here's a story from September 2009 when CAPT Solms assumed command. The Navy Times article also has the list of the previous 13 COs fired this year. This blog grabbed CAPT Solms' bio before it got taken down from the TTF Bangor website; it looks like CAPT Solms did his JO tour on USS Helena (SSN 725), Eng tour on USS West Virginia (SSBN 736)(Gold), XO tour on USS Ohio (SSBN 726)(Blue) and command tours on USS Alaska (SSBN 732)(Blue) and USS Hawaii (SSN 776), where he was the plankowner CO.

For those who have been E-mailing me, yes, I've heard that there's more "news" coming out of Bangor other than this story, but I generally don't publish anything until it gets into the public domain.

For my standard "question" at the end of a post, let's give this one a shot: Have you ever been a CO who didn't realize that if you did something stupid someone was going to find out, and that people can't get away with the same crap that they could even a few years ago?

USS Maryland (Gold) CO Wins Stockdale Award

CDR Jeffrey M. Grimes, Commanding Officer of USS Maryland (SSBN 738) (Gold), was announced yesterday as the LANTFLT winner of the 2010 Stockdale Award. Excerpts:

Grimes reported aboard the Kings Bay, Ga.-based Maryland in 2007. Maryland received the 2008 and 2009 Commander, Submarine Squadron 20 "E" for battle efficiency and the 2008 Omaha Trophy for top performance among Trident submarines.
Grimes was chosen to mentor prospective commanding and executive officers as part of the Strategic Programs Prospective Commanding Officer/Executive Officer Course, and was nominated for the Stockdale Award by three fellow commanding officers, including Cmdr. Michael Katahara of the USS West Virginia (SSBN 736)(Blue Crew).
"A true team player, Cmdr. Grimes fosters a strong atmosphere of camaraderie and esprit de corps throughout the Kings Bay area," said Katahara, in his nomination letter. "A true mentor for peers and juniors alike, he has clearly displayed leadership which will establish a professional legacy in the submarine force for generations to come."

He'll receive his award Nov. 3 at the Pentagon. Congratulations, CDR Grimes!