Here's another question (I have a billion of them... becuase I live vicariously thru other people :p ... and I'm researching for the sub novel that I will one day write when I'm old enough to retire:cool: )...

... since subs aren't deployed year-round... how much time off do sailors get between deployment?

For example, I've heard that USN SSBN have two entirely different crews... what does the 2nd crew do during six whole months of shore time?.... besides party? I'm thinking training of course, some paper shuffling problably... but other than that seems like there should be a lot of opprotunity to relax with the family and friend for the next 6 months. Am I right?

here's one, how close did your ship ever come close to firing on another ship?

It would be nice if it were that easy. SSBNs do have 2 crews(Gold crew and Blue crew0, so only one is deployed at sea at any given time. That just means that the off crew works out of a building when off patrol. They are busy training, preparing for the turnover loadout/refit, and also taking some leave if they can. Just like everyone else you just get 30 days of leave a year. They are fortunate to get to work pretty much 8-5 M-F on offcrew time with little watchstanding. But far from an R&R time. Closer to being like shore duty.

SSNs on the otherhand have only one crew and still spend 50%+ of their time actually at sea. Difference is when they are in port 1/3rd of the crew min needs to be on board at any given time. That is a sufficient number to set sail if required and maintain a safe/secure watch on the boat 24X7. Essentually that means 3 section duty. So once every 3 days you don't go home. You would typically have to stand 6-8 hours of duty watch on your duty day. Of course none of this precluded you from working the other weekdays you didn't stand duty, often beyond the 8-5 workday. So you could actually expect to get a Saturday AND a sunday off about once a month in port. Assuming you were not in some kind of workup or god forbid DINQ!:88)

Not sure we have discussed quals much, but that is where the word Dinq is derived from. A derogatory shortening of delinquent. Meaning off the required pace for qualifications, earning your dolphins. Esentually anyone newly assigned to a sub must obtain a qualified in submarines status within 1 year. This can be extended slightly with the Captains permission, but that pretty much means you are a perm. DINQ and will probably still get some flak from the boys even after getting qualified.

A great breakdown can be found here.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Submarine_Warfare_Insignia

I was on a fast boat and we had a saying....

One Boat, One Crew, One Shaft and One Screw

We had the boat 24/7/365 and if you were not deployed you were working up to deploy, working up for a cert (TRE,ORSE, Etc etc). In port my boat was on 3 shift duty days. Meaning every 3rd day you were on the boat 24 hours. When you did not have duty you mustered at 7am and left when the job was done. We did not have things like 'day after duty' when you left as soon as you were relieved. So as you can see, it was not uncommon to have a 110 hour work week.

When you were on duty you had to stand watches and handle the normal day to day things. Sometimes you could have the non-duty people help you but they did not have to if they had other jobs they had to do. Once they left for the day the duty section had the whole show.

By doing the 3 day watch rotation, they always had enough crew on-board to get the boat underway in an emergency. It would not be fun, but you could do it (I did it once and it sucked.. NO watch relief!)

Oh the stories some of us could tell you.......

But we ain't called the silent service for nothing...

I can only echo what BN and Rip have said, except that on my boat, most of the time, coners had 4-section duty unless we were in drydock or some other special in-port period. That's because the duty sections had to supply fire and saftey watches for the shipyard-type work that was going on. Nukes more often than not had 3-section duty.

Additionally, while we did have "day-after-duty" (go home early after your duty day), it was totally up to your LCPO as to whether you got to enjoy it or not... if you had work to do, you weren't going anywhere... nobody else was going to do it for you!

TG

Ahh, that sucks:cry:. Thakns anyway.:)

Boomers have THREE crews: the Gold, the Blue, and the Other. The Other crew breaks everything . . .


Patrol cycles are about 105 days, so it's three months, not six. As others have said it's moslty training, schools, paperwork, and PT, but I found enough time to take $10 USAF space-A flights to Europe.

Nothing like sitting fire watch during the mid-watch trying to stay awake holding a fire extinguisher. :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::damn::damn::damn::dam n:

Sorry for straying OT...but I've been gone a long time myself...but holy crap, heya TG! Been lurking for like a year now...finally decided to post when i saw a familiar face from the old matchup days.

Why lurk when we've finally got a decent setup now? DW's back!

Good to see you around again.:D

Good stuff, good stuff. Okiedokie. Next Question for the RLB (Real-Life-Bubbleheads)

When your on patrol... do you get to updates on non-military world news? Like the sorta stuff that would show up on ABC or CNN, but isn't directly related to military happenings.

Say for instance... the contaminated lettuce stories that was so big a few months ago, or who won the Oscars or Britney Spears having a baby or the latest UN resolution etc. If so, is it from a network news broadcast like ABC, NBC, CNN? I'm just wondering how uptodate submarines are on what's happening in the outside world whenever they are away from it all.

Hopefully things have improved in this regard. In my day (mid 80s) we copied wire news off the satellite if we happened to be up and operations allowed it. Often we would only get some of it as operational tasks often interferred, and like family grams they were of little priority. It was nice working in the radio room on long patrols though and getting alook at the scores and news first as it was printing out. We would also use the gear to listen in on radio broadcasts on some of the EW gear if we happened to be somewhere we could pick something up that was in a language you could understand.

Another good time for this type stuff is if you did some type of personel or equip transfer. Often they would come lugging mail/newspapers.

Good to see you again Op...

That did suck...

TG

what were punishments for screwing up while at sea? I don't mean dropping the ball during an exercises where you didn't hear the OPFOR sub but for something like putting a piece of kit in the wrong place or something like that.

They lock you inside a torpedo tube for three hours.:lol:

Being restricted to the boat is often an effective punishment. Always serveed during port time. Nothing worse than having to spend 30 extra days onboard after returning from a 90+ day deployment. Well maybe having to crank twice but that is usually viewed as cruel and unusual punishment.:rock:

I cranked not once, not twice, but THREE times.

1st time - I was the first nuke on the boat to crank. We did not have any new coners to crank so I was picked. EDEA and COB about had a WAR over it. C.O stepped in and made the final call. New C.O. as well and he wanted to re-enforce the 'one boat, one crew, one shaft, one screw' policy

2nd time - never dink again... never dink again... never dink again... 'nuff said

3rd time - one of 3 nukes foreward cranking for a TRE exam. We were the initial casuality response team. Senior TRE member was seen calling the CO a sneaky S.O.B when we found out that he had 3 sub qual'd nukes working the mess decks.

I was lucky enough that our sonar division was very short and even grabbed a few other division personel to obtain their BSO designations. So, with that being said, I didn't have to crank at all during first patrol...helped that we were heavy in non-division personell too...seaman apprentices and the like.

What is to crank?

I'm lost with that one.

Seriously, you ever lock anyone or hear of anyone being locked in a torp tube?