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How a nuclear submarine officer learned to live in tight quarters
- adaisadais 7y agoPhenomenal. Reminds me to count my blessings and enjoy the sunshine.
- KineticLensman 7y agoHence the jokey UK naval slang for submariners: 'sun-dodgers'
- pferde 7y agoWow, just reading about the cramped conditions inside a submarine got me breathing faster due to my latent claustrophobia. And this was a fairly modern submarine, I can't imagine how much worse it had to be in WW2-era subs...
- hanoz 7y agoDon't watch Das Boot.
- Diederich 7y agoActually do watch it if at all possible.
- dbcurtis 7y agoIt is a great movie, but it is intentionally shot to evoke feelings of claustrophobia -- it may be great art, but I would not recommend it to a true claustrophobe.
- ThePadawan 7y agoI had the great pleasure to walk through one of the original models used for shooting exhibited at Bavaria Filmstadt [0]. I believe the guide said that it had to be scaled up by ~25% to fit the cameras at the time and it was still incredibly claustrophobic. [0] https://goo.gl/maps/uEKtGzQ4wHd78CWW9 https://goo.gl/maps/uEKtGzQ4wHd78CWW9
- Diederich 7y ago> it had to be scaled up by ~25% Wow, that's kind of nuts.
- DrScump 7y agoWatch the full Director's cut, in German (not dubbed, with subtitles in your language as necessary). The original (USA) theatrical release dropped a lot.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- jvm_ 7y agoCivil war subs...
- dbcurtis 7y agoOh yeah. Quite some years ago my wife and I went on a tour through a WW II era submarine. Luckily for us, the docent leading the tour had served on an identical subs in the Pacific theater. Anyway, about 1/2 way through the tour, my wife went top-side. She isn't normally claustrophobic, but has a slight touch of it. The sub was triggering. The docent was great. "All submariners are pillow-huggers." Everyone but the commanding officer hot-bunked. You shared a bunk, and just about everything else. The things you didn't share were your pillow, your toothbrush (when there was water enough to use it), and the clothes you were wearing. Said clothes being a tee-shirt and shorts which you wore until they rotted off of you and then discarded -- no water to waste on laundering clothes. Fresh water was made by desalination. Desalination took fuel.
- pmoriarty 7y ago"The things you didn't share were your pillow, your toothbrush (when there was water enough to use it), and the clothes you were wearing. Said clothes being a tee-shirt and shorts which you wore until they rotted off of you and then discarded -- no water to waste on laundering clothes." I'd be tempted to cauterize my nostrils under such circumstances. I don't know how they could bear it, but presume fart and BO jokes must have been flying 24/7 during their whole deployment.
- gherkinnn 7y agoBased on my experience, once everybody is smelly, nobody is. And fecal jokes are your #2 source of entertainment. Pissing off your friends is #1. Though to be fair, my experience is based on many weeks of unwashed outdoor shenanigans, and not stuck in a tube underwater.
- xnyan 7y agoSensory adaptation. It’s why your house smells weird when you come home from a long trip, or why people with horrible smelling breath often have no idea.
- baddox 7y agoMy dad and I toured the USS Pampanito in San Francisco. We're both over 6 foot tall and it was quite cramped (even with very few people moving around). We wondered at the time if they had a height/size limitation for crew members. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Pampanito_(SS-383) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Pampanito_(SS-383)
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- chiph 7y agoThe WW-II era USS Clamagore is on display in Charleston South Carolina, and I went through it while I was talking to the local Navy recruiter about going Nuke. I hit my head on just about everything bolted to the overhead, and banged my shins on all the hatch coamings. Even though the modern boats are much roomier, that was enough for me to stop talking with the Navy and switch to the Air Force. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Clamagore_(SS-343) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Clamagore_(SS-343)
- xtiansimon 7y agoMade me think I wanted to see a 360 panorama, and you can find a few https://www.360cities.net/image/vladivostok-submarine-56-central-compartment-asia https://www.360cities.net/image/vladivostok-submarine-56-cen... https://www.360cities.net/image/norway-horten-navy-museum-submarine-utstein https://www.360cities.net/image/norway-horten-navy-museum-su...
- RosanaAnaDana 7y ago>'My longest stint was 2 months' Boomers and forward deployed out there having a good laugh.
- StringyBob 7y agoJust realised boomer means Trident submarine, and not (OK boomer) baby-boomers! https://www.military.com/daily-news/2014/06/30/uss-pennsylvania-sets-patrol-record.html https://www.military.com/daily-news/2014/06/30/uss-pennsylva...
- moandcompany 7y agoIn naval slang, "Boomer" typically means SSBN submarine :)
- smoyer 7y agoI also noticed that the caption under the sail broken up through the ice called the submarine a "ship". When my dad was stationed at SubLant in Norfolk VA, everything was a ship except the subs which were always "boats". Is this still the case?
- lonelappde 7y agoDoes "forward deployed" imply confined?
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- canada_dry 7y ago> It’s unnatural to stuff humans, torpedoes, and a nuclear reactor into a steel boat that’s intentionally meant to sink. Aptly put. I suppose only the ISS offers a more unholy accommodation.
- Someone 7y agoI would rather be on the ISS, I think. The ISS has (tiny) windows with great views and more room per person (about 150m³ per astronaut). I also think its inhabitants have more of a sense of being blessed to be allowed to be there. That helps, psychologically.
- nabla9 7y agoISS is physically more demanding. Radiation damage, weightlessness, constipation etc.
- baud147258 7y agoAt least in the ISS, the astronauts stay connected to the rest of the world, unlike the submariners on ballistic missile subs.
- bane 7y agoAn interesting thought, how many submariners have also become astronauts? Seems translatable to me.
- krenzo 7y ago> [In Nuclear Power School,] I was below the line enough to earn the distinguished dishonor of 25 additional study hours each week My man, welcome to the club! Reminds me of the time I was punished for being just 30 mins shy of meeting my mandatory additional study hours because my friends dragged me out to go see Star Wars Ep 2. Nuclear Power School had a rule where if you were scanned in (everyone had to scan in and out of the building with a badge) for study hall less than 30 mins, all of the time was invalidated. I clocked out at 29 mins. It was not worth it!
- brandmeyer 7y agoWe really do want that kind of attention to detail in our nuclear force, though. Its the combination of engineered safeguards and cultural safeguards that has kept the nuclear navy relatively incident-free all these years. My default position of trust in a nuclear energy startup starts off very low specifically because I have yet to see that kind of detail-oriented and safety-oriented culture in the people behind them.
- BTBurke 7y agoI'm a retired submarine officer and spent a lot of time on an LA class fast attack submarine, a bit older and smaller than what the author experienced. When my parents came to visit one time, I gave them a tour and my mom described living on a boat as like "opening up the hood of your car and crawling into the engine." That's not too far off.
- Gibbon1 7y agoI liked walking into the SS Jeremiah O'Brien. You don't so much as walk into the engine room as much as you walk inside the engine. Reminds me I need to go see the USS Pampanito when the current madness blows over.
- facorreia 7y agoUSS Pampanito is great! And the audio tour is very good. It was recorded by sailors that server in the same class of sub.
- rsync 7y agoAgreed - I have taken all of my children 2-3 times each and I have been there perhaps 10 times. I also very highly recommend touring the aircraft carrier that is in San Diego.
- BrandoElFollito 7y agoYou can visit a French submarine in Paris (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_submarine_Argonaute_(S636) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_submarine_Argonaute_(...) and I was blown away by how tiny it is. I actually went twice because I left the boat thinking there would be more.
- brandmeyer 7y ago> The full cycle was 18 hours, which meant the timing of our circadian cycles were constantly changing. Living on an 18-hour day is rough, but I always felt that the worst part was changing back and forth between a 24-hour day and the 18-hour day. There are a couple of strong feedbacks to help you with the 18-hour cycle. > The bunk rooms are sanctuaries where silence is observed with monastic intensity. Not merely silence, but also lighting. The bunk rooms are always lit with dim red lights, and the working spaces are lit to nearly full daylight. On the older boats you would also operate the control room at periscope depth with dim lighting, but newer ships with electronic masts probably don't. Diet-wise, the ship serves four meals a day, every 6 hours. Midnight rations or midrats is the fourth meal. So in a good rhythm you can eat when you wake up, go on your 6 hour watch, eat once more, work/train for 6 hours and sleep/personal for 6 hours. Eating your prior meal about 12 hours before you wake up also helps keep a decent body clock.
- i_am_proteus 7y agoAnd then there are drills. Simulated equipment failures, fire, flooding, etc.; all of the alarms sound as if it were real, and the crew responds as if it were real (except that no extinguishers are discharged, no SCBAs lit off, no hoses pressurized). Scheduling drills without detrimental effects on the crew's sleep, but still making the drills a surprise and a challenge, is (like the reactor) critical.
- brandmeyer 7y agoDrill days were especially rough. We called them Vulcan Death Watches, although I have heard other nicknames as well. There's a lot of nukes in this forum, but for the all the non-nukes out there, drills use all three of the ship's shifts. The on-watch shift is normally assisted by the off-going shift in emergencies. The on-coming shift then supervises, runs, and observes the drills. So one way or another, all three shifts are going to be up and awake during the drill cycle. The typical rotation for us packed 3x 4-hours shifts in to the same time that would normally be occupied by 2x 6-hour shifts. So the pre-dawn shift and evening shift would have both of the off-watch thirds of the crew taking personal time while all three of the morning and mid-day drill shifts have everyone awake. It more or less takes your body clock and smashes it with a sledgehammer. It also prepares you mentally for just about anything.
- WalterBright 7y ago“Admiral, an officer should be a gentleman of liberal education, refined manners, punctilious courtesy, and the nicest sense of personal honor.” Something we should all be.
- bojo 7y agoHad a chance to tour a Trident submarine due to my uncle being its Chief Engineer. Through the eyes of an 8yo it seemed pretty huge, but looking back, the whole crew was packed into a series of tiny bunks between each of the missile tubes. Reading articles like this give a much better perspective as to how genuinely tight it all really was.
- baud147258 7y agoI've got a friend who served for a short stint on a nuclear submarine and because of the lack of available bunk space, he slept with a few other in the torpedo room
- renewiltord 7y agoSomething I never thought about with being a submarine officer is that there aren't weekends. I never even thought about that. I could work the hours but not even a Sunday?! I can't do that for the time they do it.
- bane 7y agoThe Seawolf class has an interesting history https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seawolf-class_submarine https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seawolf-class_submarine