Here's a related question. Anyone have any good websites showing a map of all the US Naval bases? Or at least the ones sub capable.

I'm making a campaign series where I have to pull into dock, but I want to make it accurate.

We are actually BASED in San Diego, Groton, Norfolk, Guam, Kings Bay, Pearl Harbor, and Bangor (WA).

SSNs pull in EVERYWHERE. Hong Kong, Singapore, Chile, you name it. Anywhere a carrier pulls in, we show up from time to time. There is a difference between liberty ports and working ports though, and if we're doing much work on the boat we try to pull in to a port with a strong US presence (preferably a US base), such as Yokosuka, Japan, Bahrain or LaMaddalena, Italy. The USS Frank Cable (a Guam based tender) spends a lot of time in Japan.

You can find these ports on the internet.

As an aircrewman we did one (only one) op with a sub, it was a med-evac for a guy that they thought was having an MI (turned out to be a gall-bladder :)
We lowered our basket to the sub deck from a 50 foot hover, they loaded up the pt, we left. Seas were maybe 3-4 feet, but it looked like the damn thing was gonna go back under at any time. Definately not the environment for any serious loading/unloading.

Alrightly then, so.... guess if my sub in my mission is in the Persian Gulf, then it would have to go to...hm...Bahrain sounds good I guess...
...but... let's say that there's a sea denial effort going on prohibiting US entry into the Persian Gulf...SE Asia is just seems to far for a quick, mid patrol port stop.:dead:

You're right. That's why these ports are strategically important. It's a long way to a major US base overseas. As a second choice they might also try Aden or Djibouti. Djibouti has a lot of French and American assets there. Aden has a lot of allies there. I think the British like to keep stuff there. There's other options, but none of them have as much security or as many resources to draw on as the big bases.

It's interesting to follow what goes on in the Navy news www.navy.mil. Certain ports, even though they don't necessarily have major bases there, stand out. They'd probably go to one of those.

Head for Diego Garcia:yep:

The Crew
 

I would like to make the point that the Sub Crew can do many repairs at sea and submerged.
I personally have rebuilt pumps, steam generator feed valves, fixed steam leaks, plugged leaking heat exchanger tubes. I was on a boat that had a "close encounter" with another sub, not friendly, and we had to surface to cut some damaged stuff off so we could raise some mast.
In US navy crews you have people trained to run the lathe, welding, and many other tools, and it is amazing what can be accomplished and then remember, US boats anyway, have many, many back up systems.
But to resupply, especially weapons, you need a tender and a safe location. Some one wrote in this post, weapon load out is a major evolution, not one that could safely be done at sea.
If you use up your weapons you go home or to the nearest tender. One could get services to some degree from friendly countries, but there are structural and engineering difference a places limits on this.

Have a good one,

Ron Banks MMCM(SS), USN(Ret)