[Llarry]

Originally Posted by c1pher

Reunion is in Milwaukee this year. Kind of difficult to go unless you live somewhat nearby or don’t work.

I quit working years ago but have a small farm with animals so it's tough to get away. Plus as an "I" brancher my social circle was somewhat restricted.

[c1pher]

Originally Posted by Llarry

I quit working years ago but have a small farm with animals so it's tough to get away. Plus as an "I" brancher my social circle is somewhat restricted.

It might not be because of that lol.

[Llarry]

Originally Posted by c1pher

It might not be because of that lol.

Well, I was at NSGA Philippines 1981-82 as a CTIC and worked as the Command Career Counselor and the DAPA, so I did work with all branches. That was a pretty good tour; being a Chief was good. Then I got short-toured because I got picked up for LDO. Being an Ensign was not as good.

[Llarry]

Cool photo: USS Key West at PD

[Llarry]

LOL

[Llarry]

I went through AN/WLR-6 school at Submarine Training Center Pacific, Pearl Harbor, in 1972 and had all the submarine masts down cold, but this photo puzzles me; nothing looks like a periscope. It's my impression that the boats are going to video masts to replace optics. Anyone have any insight that doesn't violate OPSEC?

[Llarry]

Answering my own question here The two masts directly aft of the sailor on the sail are photonics mast -- they've got all sorts of whiz-bang stuff on them: laser range-finder, low-light video, regular video, ESM antenna and possibly also draft beer dispenser... Very cool!

[Llarry]

Originally Posted by jselander44

They're called Photonics Masts. It uses HD video in a non hull-penetrating mast, and has been considerably upgraded since USS Virginia in 2003. (I commissioned Virginia and Missouri, and have been part of the Virginia program from 2002 to the present.)

OK, fine -- I'm just a little out of date here, having retired in '95. They sound awesome.

[Llarry]

I'm really falling behind the power curve on the latest U.S. Navy developments. It looks like the surface-launched Harpoon missile is on the way out. Both the LCS and the new forthcoming FFG will use the Norwegian-developed RGM-184A Naval Strike Missile. It looks to me like a pretty useful weapon -- either anti-ship or land strike. And good range, too.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naval_Strike_Missile

[Llarry]

I discovered the Naval Strike Missile when checking out the Constellation class frigates. The class leader is FFG 62 and, as usual, the names do not follow tradition. FFG 63 will be the Congress, 64 will be the Chesapeake and 65 will be the Lafayette. U.S. Navy ship names have become "whatever."

Anyway, the FFGs look to be a definite improvement on the LCSs. A little slower than DDGs and the only gun armament is the 57mm mount plus .50s or 20mm or whatever. But maybe guns are sort of yesterday. I'm also not seeing CIWS in the illustration, but see a RAM launcher atop the hangar. (I do note that CIWS is still on the latest carriers, as well as RAM and ESSM: three different close-in defense options. )

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Co...ation_(FFG-62))

[Llarry]

Submarines continue to fascinate me, although I got just a tiny taste in 1972-73. I'm sure they've come a long, long way since then.

The first (Diesel) boat I was on had Mark 14 (ancient) torpedoes, Mark 37s and Mark 45s. The second had Mark 48s, which were brand-new in the fleet then, and SUBROC. The Mark 48 is all that's left, but in greatly-improved form.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_48_torpdeo

In particular, I did not realize that the Mark 48 is powered by fuel that burns without oxygen, which has got to be a major savings in internal volume. Very cool.

[Llarry]

I'm sure the Virginia class boats are extremely capable, but the Navy is currently planning for a successor class, currently designated SSN(X). It will be quite a while before the first boat is commissioned: 2043?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SSN(X)-class_submarine

At this point any characteristics are both classified and speculative in open sources, but here's an illustration for what it's worth. One interesting speculation in the illustration is that the SSN(X) may be equipped with lightweight torpedoes in addition to the traditional heavyweight (Mk 48) fish.

[Llarry]

Join the Navy and see the world?

[Llarry]

Chinese type 093 nuclear attack submarine

(quite a bit of freeboard in this photo, huh?)

[Llarry]

The first three Royal Australian Navy officers have graduated from U.S. Navy nuclear power school. The three officers -- two LCDRs and a LT, who are already qualified in RAN submarines -- will now complete training at a moored training ship and in the future will be assigned to Pearl Harbor-based Virginia class nuclear attack submarines.

This is the first step in the AUKUS plan to provide the RAN with SSNs.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AUKUS

[Llarry]

Originally Posted by Llarry

The first three Royal Australian Navy officers have graduated from U.S. Navy nuclear power school. //snip//
This is the first step in the AUKUS plan to provide the RAN with SSNs.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AUKUS

It is not clear to me what boats the Australian Navy intends to buy. The UK Royal Navy Astute class attack boats cost UKP 1.3 billion-plus per boat.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astute-class_submarine

The latest Virginia class attack boats (Block V) have been enlarged considerably to accommodate the Virginia class payload module with far more BGM-109 Tomahawk cruise missiles and now exceed 10,000 tons. They run USD 4 billion apeice -- far more expensive than the Astute class. Note that the AUKUS Wikipedia article states that the RAN plans to buy 3-5 (presumably used) Virginia-class SSNs as an interim measure to replace their Collins-class conventional subs.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia-class_submarine

[Llarry]

Several of these U.S. SSN photos show two telescoping tall masts that remind me of the AN/BRA-21 high-frequency radio antenna masts of the 1970s. Is HF radio still a thing on a modern submarine?

[billnchristy]

Originally Posted by Llarry

The first three Royal Australian Navy officers have graduated from U.S. Navy nuclear power school. The three officers -- two LCDRs and a LT, who are already qualified in RAN submarines -- will now complete training at a moored training ship and in the future will be assigned to Pearl Harbor-based Virginia class nuclear attack submarines.

This is the first step in the AUKUS plan to provide the RAN with SSNs.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AUKUS

Aww, they don't want to send the poor Aussies to Ballston Spa to enjoy a NY winter? Shame. I qualified on the MTS-626, we called them moored tub of shit. Those first gen SSBNs were tiny little things, bigger than wwii ships but super tight in the engine room, freaking S8G was more like a carrier engine room, that thing is enormous.

[Llarry]

Originally Posted by billnchristy

Aww, they don't want to send the poor Aussies to Ballston Spa to enjoy a NY winter? Shame. I qualified on the MTS-626, we called them moored tub of shit. Those first gen SSBNs were tiny little things, bigger than wwii ships but super tight in the engine room, freaking S8G was more like a carrier engine room, that thing is enormous.

Is training on a first-gen S5W plant useful if you're going to a more modern boat with a more modern S8/S9 plant?

[billnchristy]

It's really all the same, just bigger and better. For example, there is no carrier training plant so we all learn subs and then spend 4-6mo on the carrier learning those systems. They're the same, just bigger and with more redundancy because there is room and you can.

Operationally, a reactor is a reactor, but you can't qualify to qualify until you can draw every system to at least 80% so it takes some time to do so. I could probably still draw a good bit of it out if I had to just because it was rammed into my head so hard.

Another good, but totally different example is the engine rooms on WWII battleships are basically the same as the nuclear aircraft carriers, just a bit smaller. When we toured the Alabama I could explain the function of every component in the engine room. I was worthless in the boiler room though!

[billnchristy]

A couple stories from my time at MTG (maintenance training group) at NPTU Ballston Spa. MTG was basically shipyard for the prototypes and while there was a civilian, union shipyard group on board, they only wanted the glamorous jobs and if a job sucked they would bid it through the roof so we would get it. We spent a lot of time in the reactor compartments of MARF and a lot of valve repacks on nuclear and non-nuclear valves. Occasionally we would get some cool jobs too.

One was a condensate pump rebuild on MARF, which had a WWII surface ship engine room. I'm not sure what class it was, but it was wild seeing pumps and turbines from 1943 in operation. We rebuilt the pump in question, which like I stated, had a 1943 build tag and had moved on to the laser alignment portion of the package. The package stated to align the shaft with 5 thousandths runout and we spent the entire day trying. I think the best we got was in the 20s. We finally had to bring the package back to engineering and get them to revise the runout number as there was no way in hell a 60 year old (at the time) pump was going to have that kind of number!

Another cool job was lapping and aligning the poppets on the main engine. They have a sort of cammed valve system that opens sequentially, as the first one is opening the second cracks and so on down the line, I believe there were 7 and they were basically just big globe valve discs on a cam connected to the throttles.

They had shims that set their closing force and after the valves and seats were nice and clean we had to make sure they all shut properly. The package spec'd a metal type, can't remember the number, it was just in there with whatever the mil-spec was. The machinists found a chunk of it in our metal storage container and proceeded to use their band saw to cut the rough shims and then would grind them down to the thickness required.

We were in the plant waiting for a long time and finally gave up when we realized we weren't getting the shims right away as promised. We went back to the shop to check on the progress and the machinist was like "Man, I don't know what this shit is but I've broken 7 blades trying to cut it and I have one piece ready". We might have needed several shims for each so knew this was not going to work.

We went to the engineer with the Machinist in tow and asked what the hell the material was. The engineer clacked away on his computer for a minute and muttered something like "oh shit". It was battleship armor! We quickly got an exception and used a normal shim material instead.

I got to see the chunk we had of it and it was an impressive piece, almost like a brick or paver tile, maybe 8" square and about 3" thick and heavy as hell. I think that poor bastard would probably still be cutting if we didn't get the package changed!

Another good one was changing a condensate pump in S8G. They were on like a mid level off to the side of the upper level. The shipyard had a Russian guy that had defected during the cold war. He got his family out to somewhere in Europe and eventually walked his way to freedom, probably with many encounters he would not talk about. He was a pretty secretive dude but he knew submarines and was a hell of a mechanic. The bolts holding the pump impeller to the motor housing were torqued to 600ft lbs and this was the first time the pump was being changed so they had been there a while (decades). We had cheater bars, we were putting our backs against the other pumps and trying to use our legs to break the bolts free, we tried everything and could not get them to budge. The Russian guy was walking by and saw us struggling. He watched us for a while and eventually came down the ladder. He motioned us to get up, rolled up his sleeve and loosened the bolts one by one with one damn arm! He handed us our wrench and said "You are girls" and walked off.

[Llarry]

Originally Posted by billnchristy

One was a condensate pump rebuild on MARF, which had a WWII surface ship engine room. I'm not sure what class it was, but it was wild seeing pumps and turbines from 1943 in operation. We rebuilt the pump in question, which like I stated, had a 1943 build tag and had moved on to the laser alignment portion of the package. The package stated to align the shaft with 5 thousandths runout and we spent the entire day trying. I think the best we got was in the 20s. We finally had to bring the package back to engineering and get them to revise the runout number as there was no way in hell a 60 year old (at the time) pump was going to have that kind of number!

I'm pretty sure your problem was that you weren't using a 1943 laser.