Subs Ain’t Sandwiches
I went digging around for news from the real world, not the peculiar daydreams of the left side of the fence, and came across this from the BBC News.
This story is in regard to a declassed CIA memo about a Polaris class sub, SSBN James Madison colliding with a Soviet Victor class sub off the coast of Scotland near Holy Loch. It indicates how closely the Soviets followed our subs and could have taken out our first line of defense in a heartbeat, according to the article.
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-38744322
I’m sure sub sailors will have a few things to say about it.
What is disturbing is that the news of the collision was not released until now, some 40 years later, because at the time, Kissinger considered it to be “too embarrassing” to be released as news by the Ford administration.
Embarrassing?? Embarrassing is being caught with your pants down, isn’t it? Subs ain’t sandwiches built especially for you by some benighted soul behind the glass sneeze shields at a Subway shop on the highway.
You wanna talk about embarrassing?? How about the last eight years??
Category: Historical, Navy, Nukes
Some day when I am old,
The stories that will be told,
Things of fear and things of fright,
Things that really go bump in the night.
Amen. Newsflash, boys and girls: they TRIED to trail ours, and so etimes they could, most of the time they couldn’t. Chief here could tell you a lot more, but suffice to say, “Rig ship for ultraquiet, all off-watch personnel turn into your bunks.”
Read “Blind Man’s Bluff: The Untold Story of American Submarine Espionage.” This sort of thing happened more often than one would think, and almost never made public. The “Crazy Ivan” maneuver mentioned in “The Hunt for Red October” was very real, and performed for a reason.
Helluva good book – and a real eye-opener.
I accept that, but the reason Kissinger gave for not reporting the collision, i.e., ‘too embarrassing’, is something that I would believe as having come from Kissinger.
The fact that it happened near a US sub base in Scotland, and happened because the trough was too narrow to turn the boat properly to avoid a collision, is/was of great concern then.
I understood back then the cat and mouse games the Soviets played with the US Navy back then. I still understand it.
But to label something ‘an embarrassment’ as an excuse to keep it classified for 40 years is too typically Kissinger for me to stomach without saying something about it.
I read that one a while back. Some crazy shit went on in those days. Imagine how much they still can’t tell us about!
Still, I remain unconvinced that the sinking of K129 and USS Scorpion were accidental. Too many coincidences, not least among them that the traitor John Walker (may that sack of shit be assraped in hell) suddenly got all nervous and reticent when the Feds asked him for specifics of his activities on certain dates in 1968.
Read the book and I was amazed it was allowed to be published. The whole idea of the “Silent Service” is to be silent about covert submarine operations.
When they interviewed the authors of the book they said the sailors had the “need” to tell their stories. Bullshit.
I was on the Tautog (SSN639), got there in 73. Our sail had a funny “bend” in it, made helmsman watch fun. To say nothing of our Westpac in 75….
How about those poor bastards on the Jacksonville?
After depth charge testing she had a permanent bent, hence the nickname, “The Banana Boat.”
Started reading “The Hunt for Red October” at about 9 one night while on TDY. I finished it at about 3:30 and then showered for an 0530 takeoff for a 12 hour mission. I couldn’t put the damn book down and suffered for it. But I never regretted the time spent. Luckily I was the test monitor that day, so I was along for the ride.
I was on active duty aboard SSN-719 when that book was published. We were given explicit orders not to discuss the contents of the book with anyone, but particularly with reporters.
You wanna talk about embarrassing?? How about the last eight years??
I don’t want to talk about it……
Oh, come on, TH, let it all hang out. You’ve got friends here. 🙂 We all understand. Just pull up a tree stump, put some hot dogs on that forked stick, and start the grumbling.
The next 6 months is what worries me. Give me more data and a few hours crappie fishing to form an opinion. Ask me in August.
I do know that Pres. Trump (get used to that) had a phone conf with Vald Putin this past week. It had to do with IS, but we won’t get the details on that for a bit.
I feel sooooo dirty
I love the tee shirt Michelle Obama used to wear, the one with the arrow pointing to her left that said, “Who needs big tits when you have an ass like this”. The Chump in Chief was n her left side.
To say both sides didn’t have that capability is a joke. One side was just better (read: didn’t bang shit or get caught nearly as much.)
Sandwiches. Did somebody say “Sandwiches?”
Well the Women’s March has been over for a week now, so sandwich production should be back to normal
Wow… US and Soviet Subs played hide and go seek during the Cold War?? Noooooo Shit. ?.
That’s news to me ?
(That’s my story and I’m sticking to it)
No comment.
594’s FOREVER!
I’m a 637 class man myself.
Never deployed on a 637. Lots of buddies did and they loved them.
But, there’s something about a 594. Must have been the incredibly cramped spaces.
637 and a 688. I liked the fact 637s for the most part because they were better at PD and we didn’t seem to hotrack as much, but less maintenance (relatively speaking) on a 688.
Also did an underway on a Hilton…I mean Trident.
I always preferred racking out in between torpedoes. Only on 688’s but fun while it lasted
Did the same on 594’s. My best (well, only) rackmate was a MK-48.
Oh, yeah. 688’s had some issues with broaching. We used to call it “pogo scoping.”
Fun, fun, fun!
688 (two tours same boat). Have nothing with which to really compare it except the few WWII diesels I have been a tour guide aboard and a couple of 774’s I have visited that made my 688 look positively spacious by comparison!
If you weren’t there it didn’t happen.
Even if you were there, it didn’t happen.
And I never watched them on my ASW gear in the mighty P-3 Orion, either.
One time when my P-3 was headed back from a mission, we happened to catch a Soviet sub on the surface. A Foxtrot I think. We were at about 30,000 when the PPC saw her.
He immediately dipped the wing and the boat NEVER saw us until we were below 1,000 feet right on top of her. I don’t know how they missed us, maybe we were in the sun or they just had shitty lookouts.
It looked like the Keystone Kops in the sail as they tried to dive.
I consider that as “counting coup” for a P-3 crew It was fucking awesome!
Nice! My crew was on a Rota Det, and we were tasked with a night time diesel hunt. Seemed a Juliet was about to INCHOP the Med, and we were to find her. Which we did using radar and IRDS. We set up a nice racetrack over her, and I guess Ivan got a little pissed off, ’cause he couldn’t see us, but he sure could hear us at 300 feet marking on top. So on one pass they fired flares up at us.
Not cool.
So the next pass at 1/4 mile inbound the pilots dropped the landing lights, about 5 million candlepower each, blinding the bridge watch and ruining their night vision.
Fuck you, Ivan.
BWAHAHAHA!
Best part? I was at the SS-3 station running radar and IRDS, calling out the ranges, and I could see the GCBs* in the sail of the sub, binoculars up, looking for us just before the lights went on. That had to hurt…
*grin*
*Godless Commie Bastards
Phasers. … on stun.
Fire!
Forgive the lubberly, err, soldierly, question but… Rota Det???
A P-3 aircraft, aircrew and maintainers on detachment to Rota, Spain, from our squadron based in Sigonella, Sicily. Any Det from Sig was a good deal, and Rota was especially coveted for the generous per diem and liberty. The good hunting for commie submarines was just bonus, ’cause we wouldn’t be there for no reason.
Ncat
Rota Det
Our ASW bretheren flying Per Diem 3s had a number of Detachments away from the Squadron’s home drome where they used to do God’s work.
In this case Rota Spain was where the Detachment was when working the Med. Hence Rota Det
If i live long enough to tell what all i saw up north i will be shocked. Cold war never ended just went deep. Civilian people would crap down their legs if they knew where subs are and what all we actually do.
You signed the same Page 13’s as most of us, you won’t live long enough.
Nudge, nudge. SAY NO MORE!
Ahem…
I thought “sea stories” were “No shit!”
……
I always had the highest respect for those that served on submarines.
I toured the USS Nautilus (SSN-571) in CT. and thought to myself, fuck that.
Nautilus felt extremely spacious to me compared to today’s boats.
Some day, you should go take the tour of the U-boat at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago. Tight space is an inadequate word for it.
Oh, diesel boats are another world altogether. Tight doesn’t begin to describe them.
Back before my hometown lost their collective minds, I toured the USS Olympia, the only time it actually visited the city of Olympia. The two main thoughts scurrying through my tanker brain were; these dudes are crazy, ballsy, but crazy and my freaking M60A1 has more space on it for humans than this does…
Blind Man’s Bluff is a great book! Again some crazed stuff going on there.
Watching you Bubbleheads communicate must be like it was listening to the Navajo Code Talkers.
Salute to you. I couldn’t do that…I’m afraid of an MRI.
BTW, what’s the origin of “Bubblehead”?
Great question. Damned if I know. I looked all over the internet with no luck.
Now there are other sub terms that are easily explainable.
A-ganger for auxiliaryman.
O-ganger for officer.
Glow in the dark for someone who works in engineering on a nuke boat.
Any others?
Sonar girls for sonarman.
Stick rider for an STS TAD to a boat.
Latest theory I have heard is it originated to describe the hard-hat divers and somehow got translated over to the submariners around or shortly after WWII.
The only two subs I’ve ever been aboard were museum pieces, the USS Clamagore in Charleston and the USS Bowfin at Pearl Harbor. My hat’s off to all subbies, I’d likely go batshit claustrophobic being permanently stationed aboard one of those! Are today’s Nuke Subs any roomier than one of those Diesel Subs I walked through? They reminded me of a part of Marvel Cave in Missouri called “Tall Man’s Headache, Fat Man’s Misery”!