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I was involved with Level1 and SubSafe parts as a Machinist in the 80's. First on a Sub Tender then at a Naval Shipyard. I served as Controlled Materials Petty

I was involved with Level1 and SubSafe parts as a Machinist in the 80's. First on a Sub Tender then at a Naval Shipyard. I served as Controlled Materials Petty Officer and learned the nuances of material classification. All laymen need to know is that every part of a submarine is engraved with a number that can be traced back to the site where the minerals were mined. This includes every bolt, nut and washer. A very impressive level of accountability. I have dealt with alot of green tags in my day. Generated quite a few as well from manufactured parts. What I wonder is how much the price of a sub increased after SubSafe program was started. From a material point of view the cost was around 3X for roundstock.

frankharv 7y ago
The Iwo Jima incident was really horrible and preventable. https://www.nationalboard.org/Index.aspx?pageID=164&ID=226 https://www.nationalboard.org/Index.aspx?pageID=164&ID=226 Brass Nuts on a 600 pound steam system. What were they thinking.
- jacquesm 7y ago
  Conspiracy nuts? You'd almost think they were purposefully replaced. If it was designed that way than that's incompetence on a level that I'm not comfortable with, you'd imagine someone would have looked at that and said 'that's stupid'.
  - thaumasiotes 7y ago
    The report is pretty interesting. The ship was not designed that way. The nuts were installed as part of routine maintenance: > By mid October, the Iwo Jima had been operating in the Persian Gulf for approximately two months and had developed some leaks and other repair needs in the ship's 600 psi steam propulsion plant. > The ship was granted permission to dock in Manama, Bahrain (a country on a group of islands in the Persian Gulf, between Qatar and Saudi Arabia) and conduct repairs. A variety of maintenance items were planned, including overhauling the main steam valve that supplies steam to one of the ship's turbine-driven electrical generators. This valve, incidentally, could also be considered a boiler-boundary stop valve. The overhaul of this large, rising-stem, bolted-bonnet gate valve was contracted to a local ship repair company, under the supervision of U.S. Government inspectors. The mechanic conducting the repairs didn't know the requirements: > Ultimately, what was found was that a series of mistakes and misunderstandings led to this accident. > First, the mechanic wanted to replace the fasteners, but he did not have any. He also did not speak English very well. Allegedly, the mechanic asked one of the boiler room personnel for new nuts and bolts, and was given permission to look through the boiler room's spare parts bins. He selected parts that he thought would work. And an inspection that might have caused the problem got lost in the shuffle: > Secondly, with the case of the authorized inspection agency, it must be taken into consideration that there was a massive build-up of troops and ships in the Persian Gulf. It was assumed that the office was not staffed for the increased workload. Consequently, many inspections were not being conducted. > And finally, the boiler room supervisor thought that one of his subordinates had conducted an inspection. Sadly, it was never concluded that an inspection had been made. If someone had conducted an inspection, possibly he was not familiar with fastener markings, nor the job specifications. > The end result was that incorrect fasteners were chosen, and controlled inspections and testing were not fully accomplished. Really, what surprises me the most about this is that the Navy apparently doesn't repair its own ships!
    - thaumasiotes 7y ago
      I meant to say "an inspection that might have caught the problem", not "an inspection that might have caused the problem".
    - rwmurrayVT 7y ago
      Even today there is a big push by the government for "checkpoints" to be reduced. The government pushed repair and overhaul contracts to FFP. The overhaul periods are going over schedule and they are trying to get ships out of the yards "on-time". I see it every day. I do critical alignment work that involves very tight tolerances on the order of single digit arcseconds and single thousandths of an inch. Do you think when MARMC or SWRMC comes out to check the work item that they're verifying the alignment? That takes specialized equipment and knowledge. If they reduce 25% of the checkpoints, but alert the shipyard of which checkpoints they are discarding don't you think that could cause some perverse incentives? They'd be better off sending out a list of checkpoints and then performing 50% of them without telling the shipyard. Also of course the Navy doesn't repair all of it's own ships :) US Navy, including MSC, and the CG have the majority of their repair work done at General Dynamics, BAE Systems, Colanna's, and a whole slew of smaller shipyards around the country.
      - thaumasiotes 7y ago
        > Also of course the Navy doesn't repair all of it's own ships :) I can think of two systems with obvious benefits: 1. The Navy repairs its own ships. The big benefits here are that you don't have to let anyone else access -- or see -- the ships, and you can perform repairs in the field to the extent that's possible. (For replacing nuts, it's certainly possible.) This requires two types of training: knowledge of the ship's specifications, and skill in performing repairs. 2. The manufacturer repairs the ships. This makes it a lot more difficult to receive repair, but it has similar secrecy benefits, and the manufacturer is well positioned to know how to repair the ship and what is or isn't important. You don't need to train anybody in anything as long as you have perfect, total confidence in the manufacturer. The Navy here picked the option of having the ship repaired in random foreign shipyards where nobody knew the specs. That's a compromise that advantages ease of getting repairs -- but you lose out on the idea that the person performing repairs knows what constitutes good working order and what doesn't. I struggle to see the advantages; you get more ease of repair and more reliability by doing it yourself.
- dmix 7y ago
  > It's virtually impossible to describe the scene upon entering the boiler room for the first time. It was a very eerie white color. This occurred because the velocity of the steam had sandblasted the insulation off of nearby pipes, and evenly spread the insulation onto every surface, and into every crack or crevice virtually throughout the boiler room. Glancing around the room from corner to corner, it stimulated a very scary, weary feeling in me and others, as we could picture the terror the operators might have felt as they desperately tried to shut off the boilers and escape the heat. What a fascinating first-hand account. Thanks for the link.

frankharv 7y ago

The Iwo Jima incident was really horrible and preventable. https://www.nationalboard.org/Index.aspx?pageID=164&ID=226 https://www.nationalboard.org/Index.aspx?pageID=164&ID=226 Brass Nuts on a 600 pound steam system. What were they thinking.

jacquesm 7y ago
Conspiracy nuts? You'd almost think they were purposefully replaced. If it was designed that way than that's incompetence on a level that I'm not comfortable with, you'd imagine someone would have looked at that and said 'that's stupid'.
- thaumasiotes 7y ago
  The report is pretty interesting. The ship was not designed that way. The nuts were installed as part of routine maintenance: > By mid October, the Iwo Jima had been operating in the Persian Gulf for approximately two months and had developed some leaks and other repair needs in the ship's 600 psi steam propulsion plant. > The ship was granted permission to dock in Manama, Bahrain (a country on a group of islands in the Persian Gulf, between Qatar and Saudi Arabia) and conduct repairs. A variety of maintenance items were planned, including overhauling the main steam valve that supplies steam to one of the ship's turbine-driven electrical generators. This valve, incidentally, could also be considered a boiler-boundary stop valve. The overhaul of this large, rising-stem, bolted-bonnet gate valve was contracted to a local ship repair company, under the supervision of U.S. Government inspectors. The mechanic conducting the repairs didn't know the requirements: > Ultimately, what was found was that a series of mistakes and misunderstandings led to this accident. > First, the mechanic wanted to replace the fasteners, but he did not have any. He also did not speak English very well. Allegedly, the mechanic asked one of the boiler room personnel for new nuts and bolts, and was given permission to look through the boiler room's spare parts bins. He selected parts that he thought would work. And an inspection that might have caused the problem got lost in the shuffle: > Secondly, with the case of the authorized inspection agency, it must be taken into consideration that there was a massive build-up of troops and ships in the Persian Gulf. It was assumed that the office was not staffed for the increased workload. Consequently, many inspections were not being conducted. > And finally, the boiler room supervisor thought that one of his subordinates had conducted an inspection. Sadly, it was never concluded that an inspection had been made. If someone had conducted an inspection, possibly he was not familiar with fastener markings, nor the job specifications. > The end result was that incorrect fasteners were chosen, and controlled inspections and testing were not fully accomplished. Really, what surprises me the most about this is that the Navy apparently doesn't repair its own ships!
  - thaumasiotes 7y ago
    I meant to say "an inspection that might have caught the problem", not "an inspection that might have caused the problem".
  - rwmurrayVT 7y ago
    Even today there is a big push by the government for "checkpoints" to be reduced. The government pushed repair and overhaul contracts to FFP. The overhaul periods are going over schedule and they are trying to get ships out of the yards "on-time". I see it every day. I do critical alignment work that involves very tight tolerances on the order of single digit arcseconds and single thousandths of an inch. Do you think when MARMC or SWRMC comes out to check the work item that they're verifying the alignment? That takes specialized equipment and knowledge. If they reduce 25% of the checkpoints, but alert the shipyard of which checkpoints they are discarding don't you think that could cause some perverse incentives? They'd be better off sending out a list of checkpoints and then performing 50% of them without telling the shipyard. Also of course the Navy doesn't repair all of it's own ships :) US Navy, including MSC, and the CG have the majority of their repair work done at General Dynamics, BAE Systems, Colanna's, and a whole slew of smaller shipyards around the country.
    - thaumasiotes 7y ago
      > Also of course the Navy doesn't repair all of it's own ships :) I can think of two systems with obvious benefits: 1. The Navy repairs its own ships. The big benefits here are that you don't have to let anyone else access -- or see -- the ships, and you can perform repairs in the field to the extent that's possible. (For replacing nuts, it's certainly possible.) This requires two types of training: knowledge of the ship's specifications, and skill in performing repairs. 2. The manufacturer repairs the ships. This makes it a lot more difficult to receive repair, but it has similar secrecy benefits, and the manufacturer is well positioned to know how to repair the ship and what is or isn't important. You don't need to train anybody in anything as long as you have perfect, total confidence in the manufacturer. The Navy here picked the option of having the ship repaired in random foreign shipyards where nobody knew the specs. That's a compromise that advantages ease of getting repairs -- but you lose out on the idea that the person performing repairs knows what constitutes good working order and what doesn't. I struggle to see the advantages; you get more ease of repair and more reliability by doing it yourself.
dmix 7y ago
> It's virtually impossible to describe the scene upon entering the boiler room for the first time. It was a very eerie white color. This occurred because the velocity of the steam had sandblasted the insulation off of nearby pipes, and evenly spread the insulation onto every surface, and into every crack or crevice virtually throughout the boiler room. Glancing around the room from corner to corner, it stimulated a very scary, weary feeling in me and others, as we could picture the terror the operators might have felt as they desperately tried to shut off the boilers and escape the heat. What a fascinating first-hand account. Thanks for the link.