Transition from Submarine to Surface Fleet

[Len61]

Yea usually about once a week they run General Quarters where the ship is pitted against Enemy Red or Yellow or Plaid.  Basically it is a boat wide firefighting, flooding, damage control, and whatnot game for 2 hours or so.  Airdales also run some drills on the flightdeck with planes that catch on fire, or can't land right, or bomb goes off, etc.  Nukes run drills everyday(usually in the mornings from Mid to noon or so) but if it is going to be the major one(Dual Plant DOWN or Dead In Water) they usually let the rest of the ship know before hand, including the watch team.  Most of the time they don't run drills on nukes in the plant during GQ.

Maybe things have changed.
My experience is:
The GQ drills were run mostly during daylight hours, but PPCCD (propulsion plant casualty  control drills) were run 95% of the time at night (read airdales at sleep, no flight ops) so away the Nuke casualty control teams when you may have had some rack time.

[shehane]

Going surface to sub or the the other way is mostly trading one set of bad conditions for another set.  In 84 there were shortages for sub volunteers.  After having volunteered for sub I called many times trying to get a carrier billet.  I got a tender out in Kings Bay and then a boomer slot.  Just depends on how you look at it and what you want to find.  Hope it works out.  don

[Preciousblue1965]

Maybe things have changed.
My experience is:
The GQ drills were run mostly during daylight hours, but PPCCD (propulsion plant casualty  control drills) were run 95% of the time at night (read airdales at sleep, no flight ops) so away the Nuke casualty control teams when you may have had some rack time.

Well on my old ship( ) we would usually run GQ at 1900-2100 on Thursdays or whenever the XO felt froggy.  PPCD was usually run on the 03-07 and 07-12 watches.  Occasionally if we had some flight ops that had to be done in the morning it was 22-03 and03-07 watches that got drills and we had a designated Casualty Team that was made up of senior guys that didn't stand watch except for proficiency watches. 

Justin---Well I was class 9903 back in the day

[withroaj]

Wait. On Carriers there are enough people that nukes don't stand watch.  On a boat only the EDMC, Leading YN, Cooks and Doc don't stand watch.  Wierd.

[Preciousblue1965]

Well it goes in flows.  At our best we were 10 section duty and we usually didn't go anymore than 4 section watch rotation underway.  Underway, after a while they will set the "watch teams" for ORSE even though other people get qual'd they only usually augment the "watch teams"  In short, yes there are nukes that don't stand watch except as needed.  My last few months on board I was on the Drill Team so I didn't stand watch, instead I went down and ran drills on the watch standers. 

[Khak-Hater]

As far as I know, Nub-hating has always been an art in RL-Div on the E.  As a Sea-returnee and particularly a Tuber-reject, you should be able to tell them to F#*% Off [from the start], and they'll let up after you've been qualified for a few weeks.  Competency is always the best defense.

Yes, on the E in the late 80s and early 90s, there were so many nukes on board that five or six nukes were constantly assigned to clean Reactor Department berthing full time [the Coop], four or five were loaned out to the Master At Arms to hand out hair cut and uniform discrepancy chits, and a couple of guys did admin duty in the Reactor Department office.  None of these guys stood watch.  You also had dudes from each division assigned as full-time Reactor Training Div instructors [no watches].  That's all just Reactor Department [with about 600 nukes].  I don't know what they did in Engineering Department [where they had another 3-400 nukes].  

Nobody in RL div stood a mechanical watchstation unless he wanted to (e.g., for proficiency, if he took the time to qualify a mechanical watch station, which wasn't required).  The exception to this was the handful of ELTs who qualified Watch Supervisor [Those Chiefs liked to get themselves on a better watch rotation], but once you were on the Watch Supervisor  rotation you didn't have to stand any ELT watches [except proficiencies].  It was always a toss up who had a better rotation between the two (i.e., there was no real advantage to qualifying as PPWS - it was simply a motivation thing like qualifying ESWS or EAWS).

[Gamecock]

there was no real advantage to qualifying as PPWS - it was simply a motivation thing like qualifying ESWS or EAWS).

In today's nuclear navy, you will not make chief if you don't qualify PPWS! 

Also, as I previously said, you will not get a recommendation for E6 if you are not warfare qualified.  The exceptions are the SPU's or other people who never had a chance  to get warfare qualified until now (i.e. never served onboard a seagoing command until they were senior E5's), but even they have to get warfare qualified in a reasonable amount of time or face the consequences.   

Enlisted Warfare qualification was a joke on my CVN (we were in RCOH).  We held a two week course that essentially got all your PQS signed off....you only had to study and pass a cheesy board.  We had undesignated seamen that were dual warfare qualified. What a joke...But,  CO was proud of all his IKE "Warriors".

[withroaj]

Another question here:  Any of you fellers ever serve on a Pre-Commisioning Unit carrier in the last little bit?  I'm headed to the PCU GEORGE H W BUSH, which is in the water now but not delivered to the Navy.  Any TRUMAN or REAGAN folks out there have some insight into the PCU carrier experience over the last ten years?

[withroaj]

Any of you fellers know of good fishing in the Hampton Roads area or elsewhere in Eastern Virginia?  I've checked out Newport News Park, which seems decent, but I think I'd like to expand my horizons here.  Any Ideas?

[Marlin]

Any of you fellers know of good fishing in the Hampton Roads area or elsewhere in Eastern Virginia?  I've checked out Newport News Park, which seems decent, but I think I'd like to expand my horizons here.  Any Ideas?

Try the break waters off of Ocean Side, particularly when the Blues are runnimg.

[withroaj]

Try the break waters off of Ocean Side, particularly when the Blues are runnimg.

I appreciate the advice.  Might as well make a day of it while I am still on transfer leave.

[withroaj]

Well, USS GEORGE WASHINGTON (CVN-73) is back in the news and I have some questions based on this new (mis)information.  I'm sure all of us not directly connected to GW have heard by now that the fire, which turned out to be quite a bit bigger than originally stated, was started by a stray butt in a reboiler space in intimate contact with some waste oil containers.  Apparently the fire took hours to get under control and affected over 80 spaces (any GW folks, please set the record straight for those of us who haven't heard any messages in the past several months).  This brings up a few questions for me.

1)As nukes do we own reboiler spaces?  Specifically:  I am an ELT.  Will I own reboiler chemistry?

2)While we all know our Hero Adm. Rickover said responsibility is: 

"…a unique concept: It can only reside in a single individual. You may share it with others, but your portion is not diminished. You may delegate it, but it is still with you. You may disclaim it, but you cannot divest yourself of it. Even if you do not recognize it or admit its presence, you cannot escape it. If the responsibility is rightly yours, no evasion, or ignorance, or passing the blame can shift the burden to someone else. Unless you can point the finger at the man who is responsible when something goes wrong, then you have never had anyone really responsible."

COULD the Commanding Officer of GW have possibly prevented this mishap, or did he just fall under this responsibility statement?  It seems to me that a carrier is just too damn big for the CO to police the spaces by himself.  While we saw the CO just about every day on the boat, he didn't have hundreds of spaces and thousands of people to keep after.

[retired nuke]

COULD the Commanding Officer of GW have possibly prevented this mishap, or did he just fall under this responsibility statement?  It seems to me that a carrier is just too damn big for the CO to police the spaces by himself.  While we saw the CO just about every day on the boat, he didn't have hundreds of spaces and thousands of people to keep after.

It was up to him to establish a culture of personal ownership, responsibility and pride - evidently the culture was one where a sailor thought it was OK to smoke in an area where flammable material was stored, at sea, where you can't walk out of the building....
Had the CO of my boat relieved of command in the Med - bounced off the bottom...he had a culture that allowed the details of our location to not be up to date, and an OOD that allowed the Captain to direct sailors on his watch without assuming the watch.....too many cooks, and nobody knowing who was in charge.
No, you can't patrol every space, but as Capt, you are responsible for everyone's behavior on board.

[HydroDave63]

"…a unique concept: It can only reside in a single individual. You may share it with others, but your portion is not diminished. You may delegate it, but it is still with you. You may disclaim it, but you cannot divest yourself of it. Even if you do not recognize it or admit its presence, you cannot escape it. If the responsibility is rightly yours, no evasion, or ignorance, or passing the blame can shift the burden to someone else. Unless you can point the finger at the man who is responsible when something goes wrong, then you have never had anyone really responsible."

COULD the Commanding Officer of GW have possibly prevented this mishap, or did he just fall under this responsibility statement? 

Rickover answered your question for ya. As CO, clear reinforcement of the expectations needed to be communicated to the Dept. heads and junior officers.

Just remember.... " YOKE is no joke! "

[withroaj]

As far as some guy smoking a cigarette in an inappropriate location, a random stupid act doesn't always reflect on the way a command does business.

I think that was my issue here.  Even though the overall consequences of the fire were pretty hefty (the news says $70 million), some guy having a smoke where he isn't supposed to doesn't mean the CO doesn't have a grip on his command.

[HydroDave63]

I think that was my issue here.  Even though the overall consequences of the fire were pretty hefty (the news says $70 million), some guy having a smoke where he isn't supposed to doesn't mean the CO doesn't have a grip on his command.

What I think is being missed here is that yes, a fire in 1 space is NOT the CO's fault...but obviously combustibles were left out, class B stuff not in flam cabinets, spreading to multiple spaces...that IS a failure of the JOs to do proper space inspections consistently, and thus the failure of Dept. Heads and ultimately the CO to ride herd on cleanliness and damage control. Although many of the 80 spaces were small, we're talking roughly the same amount of real estate on CVN 73 on fire as FFG 31 Stark back in 87, for an avoidable cause.

[Mnemorath]

Avoidable or not, the CO was held accountable. The newspaper here in San Diego ran a story on the front page of the local news section. Both the CO and the XO were relieved. A previous CO of another carrier and I think the XO of the Ike replaced them.

[93-383]

1)As nukes do we own reboiler spaces?  Specifically:  I am an ELT.  Will I own reboiler chemistry?

Yes and Yes

[withroaj]

Yes and Yes

Sounds like I will have some stuff to learn.  If I am in RCTQS at NNSY for almost five months between Permanent Duty Stations, you folks think I'd be able to stop by the ship in NGNN while I am in school and maybe kick loose some cobwebs?  Any of you ever heard of that happening (I know some Big E kids who will be in my class, but they are TAD to school, not in transit)?  It's been since September '07 when I drew my last primary, and I'd like to show up to the ship at least a little better off than a kid straight out of the pipeline; maybe get a slight grasp on Section 4A chemistry even though I know I should just appreciate my time away from shipboard work and quals.  I just think it would be funny to have my RO check in interview at the same time as my ELT qualification interview.

[Preciousblue1965]

As a submariner, you already know reboiler chemistry....wink, wink.

In theory you know reboiler chemistry.  However, after talking to every ELT I have every known on a CVN, Reboiler chemistry is a just a fairy tale.  Most of the reboiler return water comes from places that nukes don't own, thus we have no idea what makes it into the feed tank.  You have just about as much chance of predicting what the samples will read as predicting the lottery numbers that week.  But Reboiler Chemist is a pretty easy watchstation to handle, one of those 24 hour watches like underway ELT or from what i am told.

[withroaj]

PS - do they have S5W's anymore?!?!?

Two of 'em.  Moored in Goose Creek.

PARCHE (SSN 683) was the last S5W boat to decommission, wasn't it?  That was a couple of years ago now.  Now it's S6G (688's), S6W (SSN-21's), S8G (726-class), and S9G (774-class).  Well that and the A2W (CVN-65) and A4W (CVN-68 class), and whatever the hell the NR-1 plant is called.

[rlbinc]

I think I remember fires as a monthly occurrance on an Aircraft Carrier.
I don't think I ever heard of casualties resulting. Some pretty serious messes, though.
Mess Decks, Bad Landings, smoking blower motors, Hangar Bay work, etc.
It seemed that about half the time they sounded a Fire Alarm while underway, it was real deal.

The worst smoke deal I ever encountered was a missile shot on the cruiser USS Long Beach.
You'd think the plant intake fans would be tripped before they fire a Terrier, but that doesn't happen. The Machinery Spaces fill with the nastiest, cough inducing white smoke you can imagine. The vent intakes were about 20 feet from the missile launchers.
 

[HydroDave63]

I think I remember fires as a monthly occurrance on an Aircraft Carrier.
I don't think I ever heard of casualties resulting. Some pretty serious messes, though.
Mess Decks, Bad Landings, smoking blower motors, Hangar Bay work, etc.
It seemed that about half the time they sounded a Fire Alarm while underway, it was real deal.

The worst smoke deal I ever encountered was a missile shot on the cruiser USS Long Beach.
You'd think the plant intake fans would be tripped before they fire a Terrier, but that doesn't happen. The Machinery Spaces fill with the nastiest, cough inducing white smoke you can imagine. The vent intakes were about 20 feet from the missile launchers.
 

Don't worry, the OTTO fuel is so toxic, it kills any of the cells that may have become cancer!

[PapaBear765]

I think I remember fires as a monthly occurrance on an Aircraft Carrier.

There was a bad one on the Stennis (?) this year.  A whole office was charred, dozens of buses were grounded. 

[JustinHEMI05]

Don't worry, the OTTO fuel is so toxic, it kills any of the cells that may have become cancer!

"One of the products of its combustion is highly toxic hydrogen cyanide gas."

 

Justin