SUBSIM Radio Room Forums - View Single Post - A rare look inside nuclear powered submarine USS Florida

jrf773 · 01-12-20, 05:27 PM

Caveat this with I don't really know crap about boomers,I was on a fast boat (VLS 688I) as an FT, so most of this is from nukes I went drinking with in Hawai'i at Murphy's. Edit:Boomers for an FT was considered our idea of heaven (No VLS and two crews!!!!) But this was from a bunch of guys that thought it was a good deal if you fell down a hatch and broke a leg and a couple of other bones was a "Good Deal" because you didn't have to be on a sub for a few months, if ever again. Screw it if you can't walk, at least you are off the sub! Yeah, that is how FUBAR'd sub sailors are.

I think I should have said 12 hour days were the norms for a lot of the nukes, and underway was hell as well. Lots of maintenance and training. Nukes got more training than pretty much anybody on the boat. And drills, they always got drills more or less depending on the CO.

14-15 hour days for these poor cats was not uncommon, with three section duty not being terribly uncommon (although that being said, at one point under Big Al the Sailor's Pal, we were pretty much ALL five section duty, after 9/11 we were port and starboard for a while, if you were qualified in M-16 or M-60 ((I was a former infantryman in the Reserves/National Guard)) port and report)

They did maintenance a lot in port, had a lot of PMS (Preventative Maintenance, the 3M crap for squids among us) and a lot of stuff to fix, in addition to training out the wazoo.

Nah, near as I could tell it from a cone-ers (somebody who lived and worked in the cone((From the front end of the boat looks like a cone with the sonar sphere fairing(((Can't remember what it is exactly))), IE a non nuke) they were standing around a lot waiting for permission to do crap, or waiting for QA folks to get around to do stuff. The duty section took care of most of the log readings from what I remember. But yeah, I went drinking with a lot of them, and standing around waiting for stuff to happen was what I remember most of them bitching about, and wasted time was par, as it was for all of us. Worklists would come out in the morning and the real work list would come out like a few hours before we'd go home, so we'd be there late. I saw it happen this way on three different boats, and with every division, so it wasn't just a coincidence. It had some purpose in the naval hierarchical way of doing things, no clue what it was, but everything they do is for a reason, they just don't tell the blue shirts what it is all about.

The nukes get an extra $100/month (Or they did, back in the late 90's early 2000's) called pro-pay. I got a lot of them calling it ARP (Ass Rape Pay) and the supervisors got an extra amount (Don't remember what it was, maybe Engine Room Sup?) and we called that SNARP (Senior Nuclear Ass Rape Pay) Most of them I talked too were unanimous in they'd love to give it back to get out of the nuke program. There is a reason their Re Enlistment bonuses were so high. Knew a dude of the Providence that got out as an E-6 MM and went to some power plant in CT and made $120k back in '96. Edit #2 All sub sailors get ARP (our sub duty pay) nukes get NARP (Nuclear Ass Rape Pay) and senior nukes get SNARP. Nukes got ARP and NARP, and the dudes qualified Engine Room Sups (I think?) got ARP NARP AND SNARP.

To sum it up, being a nuke had few benefits, and a lot of pain. I don't remember to many happy nukes.

01-12-20, 05:27 PM	#21
jrf773 Swabbie Join Date: Mar 2007 Posts: 10 Downloads: 8 Uploads: 0	Caveat this with I don't really know crap about boomers,I was on a fast boat (VLS 688I) as an FT, so most of this is from nukes I went drinking with in Hawai'i at Murphy's. Edit:Boomers for an FT was considered our idea of heaven (No VLS and two crews!!!!) But this was from a bunch of guys that thought it was a good deal if you fell down a hatch and broke a leg and a couple of other bones was a "Good Deal" because you didn't have to be on a sub for a few months, if ever again. Screw it if you can't walk, at least you are off the sub! Yeah, that is how FUBAR'd sub sailors are. I think I should have said 12 hour days were the norms for a lot of the nukes, and underway was hell as well. Lots of maintenance and training. Nukes got more training than pretty much anybody on the boat. And drills, they always got drills more or less depending on the CO. 14-15 hour days for these poor cats was not uncommon, with three section duty not being terribly uncommon (although that being said, at one point under Big Al the Sailor's Pal, we were pretty much ALL five section duty, after 9/11 we were port and starboard for a while, if you were qualified in M-16 or M-60 ((I was a former infantryman in the Reserves/National Guard)) port and report) They did maintenance a lot in port, had a lot of PMS (Preventative Maintenance, the 3M crap for squids among us) and a lot of stuff to fix, in addition to training out the wazoo. Nah, near as I could tell it from a cone-ers (somebody who lived and worked in the cone((From the front end of the boat looks like a cone with the sonar sphere fairing(((Can't remember what it is exactly))), IE a non nuke) they were standing around a lot waiting for permission to do crap, or waiting for QA folks to get around to do stuff. The duty section took care of most of the log readings from what I remember. But yeah, I went drinking with a lot of them, and standing around waiting for stuff to happen was what I remember most of them bitching about, and wasted time was par, as it was for all of us. Worklists would come out in the morning and the real work list would come out like a few hours before we'd go home, so we'd be there late. I saw it happen this way on three different boats, and with every division, so it wasn't just a coincidence. It had some purpose in the naval hierarchical way of doing things, no clue what it was, but everything they do is for a reason, they just don't tell the blue shirts what it is all about. The nukes get an extra $100/month (Or they did, back in the late 90's early 2000's) called pro-pay. I got a lot of them calling it ARP (Ass Rape Pay) and the supervisors got an extra amount (Don't remember what it was, maybe Engine Room Sup?) and we called that SNARP (Senior Nuclear Ass Rape Pay) Most of them I talked too were unanimous in they'd love to give it back to get out of the nuke program. There is a reason their Re Enlistment bonuses were so high. Knew a dude of the Providence that got out as an E-6 MM and went to some power plant in CT and made $120k back in '96. Edit #2 All sub sailors get ARP (our sub duty pay) nukes get NARP (Nuclear Ass Rape Pay) and senior nukes get SNARP. Nukes got ARP and NARP, and the dudes qualified Engine Room Sups (I think?) got ARP NARP AND SNARP. To sum it up, being a nuke had few benefits, and a lot of pain. I don't remember to many happy nukes.