[TopTorp '92]

Originally Posted by Bubblehead Nuke

Hard de har har. Come on now. When we do that 120 food loadout the trim of the ship hardly changes. We have no room aft, the crews quarters are #10 cans deep, the command passageway is stuffed to the gills, food is EVERYWHERE. A lot of things yes. TONS and TONS?? No. As you eat the consumables and shoot the TDU's you just add more water to the trim tanks to maintain your trim. Compared to the bulk of the sub and the heavy non-movable items, it is really not much to matter. TDU wieghts are not that heavy and we carried OVERKILL amounts of them. Did we ever run out?? Not that I remembered. Also, in my multiple times at cranking I had the pleasure of asking the mess chief (may his red hair never fade) about how we loaded things aft because it made getting to the outboard chiller plants a PAIN and he said they actually loaded food and consumables in the boat in such as way as to eat thier way to the equipment and fairly equally eat fore and aft. Guess there was more to being a cook than making those HORRID rehydrated eggs eatible.

Refering to the VLS here as well? The water fills the VLS tubes after they are fired and help, but does not eleminate, the difference in mass. Any addition trim is handled by the trim tanks. When I first got to the boat we were not weapon nor VLS certified. Went out with 4 warshots (cause a us sub does NOT go out without the ability to defend herself) and VLS was empty (they had weighted dummy cylinders in them if I remember correctly). Did not make that much difference to anyone as I remember. Granted, I was a nub then and did not pay attention to much in the forward end of the boat. I remember AFTER we got VLS certified they had to come back and do a trim adjustment on the boat. They came down and took some hard mounted weight OUT of the engineroom. Weapons must not have been as heavy as they thought huh? I am not sure how much they took off but it was enough to worry the dive and OOD that first time out. Only other time I ever saw them adjust the trim of the boat was when we did a battery changeout. That was were I learned some of this. Us nukes, we were always asking stupid questions.

Salinity will affect bouyancy. Yes, it will, but the MASS of the boat and the distribution of said mass will not change. You just have to adjust your trim via the trim tanks to get back to nuetral bouyancy and keep right on steaming.

mmm.. come to think of it. It might change the metacentric height of the boat. The bouyancy will increase(I think the Red Sea is saltier than the Med) but the mass will stay the same. Let me think on this one.

Thanks for the submarine enlightenment. I almost forgot what its like to be a "Coner."