Scorpion Down - Don't Read This Book

[Kazuaki Shimazaki II]

Originally Posted by TLAM Strike

The Royal Navy is a outstanding record but considering that the US has three or four times as many submarines our record isn't too shabby.

That's like saying the Soviet record was acceptable because they had about twice as many subs.

Thats one area where I agree with you folks on the other side of the Atlantic. Submarines have ChEng's for a reason. The CO's schooling should be in combat related matters.

Thanks a lot Rickover.

Another world of hurt for American officers is their rapid rotation schedule and frequent staff and instructor tours on the way up. Nobody knows exactly what good those trips do for most officers, sure they might learn a bit about other services but up or out means most officers will never promote to the point where they'd get to lead other services, so all it mostly does is reduce their at sea time.

Fortunately, their opponent in the Cold War believes that the best way to be ready for war is to keep everyone in port...

[TLAM Strike]

Originally Posted by Kazuaki Shimazaki II

That's like saying the Soviet record was acceptable because they had about twice as many subs.

No its like saying the US has a larger number of diverse subs (many of our 1st and 2nd gen boats were totally different from one another) and we lost only one more crew than the RN. If the RN had the same size force as the US and kept up the same operating tempo odds are that they would have lost more subs. The Soviet record (to westerners) isn't acceptable since many of the losses were foreseeable and preventable losses (poor designs, and near-criminal commands from Moscow that killed many). Soviet designs were a deliberate trade off of Safety vs. Numbers/Performance. They built a unsafe boats deliberately to have superior performance while the US on the other hand had some unsafe boats (only two resulting in losses but there were more that could have if not fixed in time) as a result of it being new technology doing things not done before. Don't forget the US gave the UK a fifth gen reactor system from the Skipjack class SSN (the S5W) and the UK has access to the designs from Electric Boat for the Naut/Seawolf/Skate classes of subs. I don't want to sound like a A-Hole or belittle the UKs subs but the first generation of RN subs were basically 1st gen US designs for the most part and were built while the US was already in its 3rd gen of designs. HMS Dreadnought was commissioned in 1963 while USS Nautilus was commissioned in 1954 thats 9 years between commissioning of 1st SSNs and USS Thresher was commissioned in 1961 two years before Dreadnought (Dreadnought and Thresher were commissioned/lost in April of '63). The UK was somewhat behind the US and was building a safer design (those of the post WWII diesels) while the US was building a cutting edge design and in some ways learned the hard lessons for the UK. Even today the UK subs has a visible link to the Post WWII Diesel hull design with their oval shape while US subs have the round cylinder of the Thresher design.

Let me repeat that I'm not trying to put down the RN or its submarines I'm just saying their designs from when Thresher and Scorpion went down were of an older and safer design adapted from the US, also the US was "in the nuc game" longer and thus the UK has had a better record of subs lost.

Another world of hurt for American officers is their rapid rotation schedule and frequent staff and instructor tours on the way up. Nobody knows exactly what good those trips do for most officers, sure they might learn a bit about other services but up or out means most officers will never promote to the point where they'd get to lead other services, so all it mostly does is reduce their at sea time.

Fortunately, their opponent in the Cold War believes that the best way to be ready for war is to keep everyone in port...

Well as Pearl Harbor showed ships sunk it port can be rased and send back to war. Maybe Ivan was planing to pull a repeat of the US's resurgance after the first year of its involvment in WWII.

As for the Personel issues I don't think anyone in the US Navy knows what their doing when it comes to that. My buddy (an Enlisted sailor) on the Churchill finaly got his next stripe after about 6 months waiting for the proper clearince to take the test.

Let me just say for the record if we had a RN orginized crew on an American sub with Russian style weapons built by France it would be unstopable.