[Navigator857]

Uggg, the days of UnReps. I remember our first cruise after being leaving Hampton Roads. As a deckape I was amoung the lucky "ammo work party". All day long we took on 5" and 16" rounds. Stack after stack after stack of 5" rounds that we had to download using those slow WWII era ammo hoists. Most of the 16" rounds were high wired but the pallets of 5" were usually swing onto deck by to transport helos. Those guys were nuts but did a fantastic job. I thought my arms would fall off. The 16" rounds were'nt so bad since the GM's took care of stowing the powder and shells up foward. We had a few rounds of 5" get launched across the lower handling room due to malfunctions.

Now UnRep refueling was a blast. As a QM I got to helm during most of the UnReps. Now that was hairy. A guideline was sent across with different colored flags to measure distance. Get too close and the collision alarm got sounded and an emergency breakaway took place. One cool action was that all ships that did a normal breakaway from AO/AOES got to pick thier break away song. Since it was the 80's I usually played the "Eye of the Tiger" over the 1MC. The CO was'nt too hip on rock music but he let it pass.