I can remember before going on some very long cruises actually walking on a layer of #10 cans which covered much of the decks in the forward compartment. It took us 3 or 4 weeks to eat down to the floor.

Managing what goes where and in what order was a very difficult and important task. Things needed to be in a certain order so as to not need to dig to the bottom of a storage area for the box you needed. Nothing would piss the supply officer off faster than having to go to the old man and tell him they couldn't find a needed ingredient for something on the menu. No one wants to be the supply officer on a nuclear sub. No respect from either direction and lots of grief from both.

Oh yeah, good old diamond-tread on top of the cans...

On 688(I) there's a berthing area for E-6 (Petty Officer First Class, a fairly senior NCO) in the forward compartment lower level. Presumably, it's supposed to be a benefit of attaining such seniority that E-6s get their own berthing area. Well let me tell you, it was only a benefit for the guys in the outboard racks. The inboard racks were subject to all the noise of people transiting lower level between the torpedo room and AMR, the people hanging out near the laundry shooting the sh!t, the people in the smoker's line (our official smoking area was AMR, max 2 smokers at a time, so it got busy right after chow), the line of guys waiting to use the lower level head, and last but most certainly not least, the mess cranks diving into the Aux Trim Tank to retrieve ingredients for the next meal. Most often, the ingredients were canned items, which the cranks gleefully plopped onto the deck right in front of the inboard racks in 21-man berthing. Seems the galley caused cranks to forget about sound silencing...

I had better racks as a non-qual and an E-5!!

Man, how did I miss all this stuff in my Almanac article!!

TG

Im interested in knowing what kinds of foods u guys eat, whether u always bring hotsauce with u to improve it if it sucks :P, and whether or not anything they make is good.

We ate well. Too well in fact. You could REALLY pack the weight on if you were not careful. All it took was a few barbs and you would start to watch what you ate. If that did not work, you HAD to do something when you could not get into your uniform. It was not like you could go down to the PX and buy new ones.

The food depended on who was reading the reciepe cards. If you had someone who did it all by the book, then things were bland but, as we used to say, 'It makes a turd'. If you had a cook who was not afriad to play with the reciepe you could have some REALLY outstanding food.

As for types of food?

Breakfast was mostly scrambled eggs, muffing, bacon sometimes, grits & grits, oatmeal, and sometimes pancakes.

Lunch and dinner? Well,I remember LOTS of corned beef, or, as we called it Babboon Ass. Fried Chicken, Hamburgers (sliders), shrimp, pasta and other pretty ordinary items. I remember pizza was every friday night. Beanie Weenies or coldcut sandwiches were common on the midrates.

You have things that you could freeze a LOT of, be high in nurient content, and be as compact as possible. If you could not find it frozen, it had to be availble in #10 cans. Frying was used a LOT. If the deep fat fryer was broke, the variety of meals drops WAY down.

If you want to be a RICH man, figure out how to can FRESH lettuce and other easily perishible items. When a bubblehead hits port, the first thing he grabs is NOT a beer, but a FRESH glass of milk and the largest FRESH salad you could lay your hands on. Then you wash it down with a beer.

Interesting, that doesnt sound half bad lol
I guess its a good thing Im goin to culinary school then, ill open up shop outside a navy base :D

It seemed that we ate Ravioli all the time on mid-rats. :rotfl::rotfl::damn::damn::doh::doh:

Lmao oddly enough, I can picture that happening. But hey, when u gotta go, you dont care where it is, as long as u can find a place.

There were certain periods of time away from port that were key. A few weeks out no more fresh milk or lettuce etc. A few weeks late no more eggs. I for one couldn't stand powdered milk or eggs. Anything that was frozen or canned was good for the duration. Although with the limited size of the freezer, at the end of a long trip it was canned or nothing.

I think the 2 most popular meals other than Surf&Turf was Pizza or Sliders(Cheeseburgers). Pizza was usually scheduled for poker night, which IIRC was Saturday night.

Slider night (Thursdays) and pizza night (Saturdays) were very popular, as were the major holidays like Christmas and Thanksgiving... the MSC didn't mess around. We had a full spread for those meals! As the oncoming watch after one of those meals, i was so stuffed with food as to be nearly useless...

I didn't mind the powdered eggs too much... it beat eating cereal with powdered milk!

One of the things that really brings me back is whenever I smell bread baking in an oven... I remember a lot of the smells from the boat... most of them ranging from unpleasant to horrendous... but the smell of rolls baking in the galley was something altogether different. It felt like home, and made us look forward to eating the rolls - if nothing else about the meal with which they were served :p I liked to smell the bacon being cooked for breakfast too.

TG

Ahhh....White Death...good times, good times. :rotfl::rotfl::arrgh!::arrgh!:

Here's another question for RL submariners...

How does HotBunking work? Is it just a matter of two guys one bed, whoever gets there first gets to sleep?

Or is there something more to it? Just curious.

Ok, here is an easy way to understand it.

1) Subs are on 18 hour days vs your normal 24 hour days. That is three 6 hours watchs in rotation that make up each 'day'.

2) 3 people share 2 racks. They are all on a different watch. That way ONE of the three is ALWAYS on watch and thus not needing a rack. The other two can thus sleep if they need to. You work out who gets what rack beforehand if you have to get picky. For the most part, unless you get a real retentive rackmate, you just grab the empty one.

3) Of the 2 rackpans, One guy each gets 2/3 of a pan and the 3rd guy gets the remain 1/3 of each rack for his stuff. In case you are wondering, it is not a lot fo space. About the equivelant of 1 medium sized dresser drawer and you have to make sure that nothing breakable is in it.

4) Called "hot racking" becuase when you get off watch, you can climb into a pre-warmed bed.

And there you go.

Hm... that doesn't really sound that bad. Since a person on shift isn't using there rack its a waist not to put it to use... as long as the person in the rack before you doesn't smell like crap:o :doh: :dead: :lol:

And as long as the patrol sock caught everything.

Did you guys get Jell-O on your ships, also?



And how often can you shower/bathe?

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

Darn...Bill doesn't have a 'barf' emotioncon.

As long as your fellow rackmates shower fairly regular and the bedding is washed weekly it is not too bad. Patrol socks are HIGHLY discouraged among hot rackers. You take matter in hand elsewhere..

Speaking of laundry. You have ONE day a week that you may do laundry. That is, your division is allotted one day a week. Thus only so many people can do laundry. Normally, we assign a laundry queen for that day who does all the laundry they can for everyone else on 'our' day. Once you get ahold of the ONE washer & drier on board, you do not want to let it go.

Remember that little rackpan I told you about? What if I told you I could fit 30 pairs or skivvies, 30 tee-shirts, 30 pairs of socks, 6 'poopie suits (one peice blue jumpers), 4 pairs of dungarees, toilety articles, a few books, music, some candies (hey, the creature comforts count!), shoes and a backpack all in there and still make it close. Why 30 pairs of undergarments you ask? Well, you will find that you can re-wear your outer stuff for days if you have to, but you want some clean underwear daily and you might miss your laundry day due to 'operational constraints' I.E drills, the desire to minimize the use of water, sound considerations ,etc etc etc. 30 pairs means you can go for about 3 weeks and do not laundry if you have to.

Sometimes, although I don't recall it being a poular item. For desert everyone likes it when the soft serve ice cream machine is up and loaded. Just grab a cone and eat away.

You could normally take a shower daily unless drills or other operational constraints caused reduced water usage to be ordered. Usually not for too long since the boys that work back aft make the water and they don't like getting all stinky. Unlike the machinists that work up front and make the air and remove the CO/CO2.

Showers should always be submarine showers however. Meaning you get wet, turn off the shower head and soap up. The turn the water back on rinse and get your ass out. 30 minutes standing under the spraying water is very much frowned upon. Again especially by the aft machinists that have to make it. Overdoing it is called taking a hollywood shower and is not something you want to be associated with unless you wear lots of gold.

:|\\

and a quick comment on hot racking. It is not unheard of (especially if you are a nub(very junior)) to have 2 guys sharing 1 bunk. But not to fear that usually means they will put you in port/starboard duty as well. Meaning you are 6 hours on and 6 hours off. I can remember at times when we were carrying riders having to share bunks that were just metal trays slid into torpedo storage racks in the bow, or even sleeping on an air mattress in the sonar equipment space. I like the sonar space better since you seldom got disturbed as the sonarman never clean the compensators like they are supposed to. The TMs on the other hand seem to need to move weapons around multiple times daily. Especially whe I was off watch:damn:

Of all the ones I've read, this is the scariest - I can't function unless I can take a 30 minute shower in the morning! :lol:

Heh, I once woke up to the bedroom floor being flooded due to a water heater malfunction in my apartment. Had I been in a sub at the time, I'd probably of been reduced to a gibbering idiot...lol

These are great! Please keep sharing!