Weapons on Submarines?

[priv8ter]

Nope

No, please don't think I'm underestimating it. I was trying to address csslingers questing regarding someone running off with a boat. I don't think that would be all that easy, nor do I think they would get much use out of it if they did.

Now, the sabatoge thing that you are talking about..almost painfully easy.

Heck..I think about three years ago, an RC-div guy on the USS Alaska went in and cut and rewired some of the CRDM cables...the ship was laid up for over two months while ALL the Reactor Instrumentation was rechecked. They caught the kid, and I guarentee you his punishment was not severe enough(Since it wasn't a time of war).

Unless you come in on the water side, of course

Well, at Bangor, that would be a bit tough. There is a floating chain link fence that runs the length of the base. You haven't seen a government boondoggle until you've seen a two-mile long chain length fence on bouys floating in the middle of Hood Canel.

Greg ex-EWS/EDPO qualified LELT(S6W) and still a general nuclear guy because I didn't look hard enough for a real job so I'm stuck as a RadCon Tech.

 

[GEM]

What happens when a giant squid tries to eat the boat and you surface to fight it? Do you run a charge through the hull?

Oh, that was Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea?

 

[Hkmp5sd]

Do you run a charge through the hull?

Nah. We just stop on the bottom and connect a huge gator clip to the underwater telephone line and phone home for help.

 

[MillCreek]

Huh. And here I thought that only the USS Parche (now retired) could do that. Shades of Ivy Bells.

Edited to add that I see Benjamin has also read Blind Man's Bluff, which is where I lifted the Ivy Bells reference from. My wife, a retired HMC (SW), was married previously to a QMC (SS) who spent some time on the boomers out of Bangor and the Parche. She occasionally went out on sub shakedown cruises as the IDC when they were carrying female tech reps or guests.

 

[Eightball]

Steal a sub?

I am not/have not been in the Navy, so I'm not quite so proficient at knowing security drills. I would guess that if you manage to neutralize basically every guard at the port, get in the sub, and get it moving without getting blown into next week--i would assume someone would know about it and have called in some help, and that you would not make it out of port. If you did, there's other US ships to deal with. And, odds are the "high-priority" stuff would be gone, so no nukes. And if you were well enough trained to execute such an activity, odds are you're in the US Spec. ops anyhow .....but, if you could do it, you'd die shortly thereafter, or spend a looong time in the slammer. And make an interesting subject for numerous movies from now until the end of time.

 

[mete]

GEM, there have been ships attacked by giant squid.!!! There was an excellent photo of that with damage to the rubber cover of the sonar dome in the bow . They identified it as a squid since some teeth were imbedded in the rubber . They're not just tall tales !

 

[PromptCritical]

I heard that a shutdown watch section performed an unauthorized startup late one night just to see if they could do it. They got caught because the instruments read higher activity in the core the next morning.

My boat had M9's, M16's, a couple M203's, a couple Mk43's (shortened M-60), and a bunch or shotguns. Nukes were not required to qualify. I did get to do force on force simunitions training.

I figure a USS Cole type incident would be a waste of time as several inches of high strength steel would preclude most damage to the ship. Look at the USS San Francisco: She hit a MOUNTAIN at full speed (>25 kts) and the pressure hull remained intact.

It would take, in my estimation, about a dozen trained people to steal a submarine with a lot of planning. Even if they did, what would they do with it then? The US Navy WOULD find them shortly.

As a side note: Disgruntled Nukes are not too difficult to find. Easy way: When returning to port, find an Electrician rigging shore power and ask him how he feels watching the Coners go on liberty. If he says something negative, tell him "That's why you get Pro-Pay." Duck.

 

[Benjamin]

I figure a USS Cole type incident would be a waste of time as several inches of high strength steel would preclude most damage to the ship.

'_ _ _ _ YOU, GOD! Nothing gets through HY-80!!'

-Blind Man's Bluff



Edit - remembered the book.

 

[Eightball]

Lmao!

 

[Hkmp5sd]

When returning to port, find an Electrician rigging shore power and ask him how he feels watching the Coners go on liberty.

You gotta reenlist to get pro-pay!

If you have a good E-Div and EOOW, you can have shore power on and the plant shutdown in 20-25 minutes. We used to have lots of help because the Engineer required all nukes to stay until the plant was down.

There were ways to get even the coners though, like not signing off their electric plant checkout until they had come back and helped drag the shore power cables once.

 

[ETCss Phil McCrackin]

Ohh maaaan, here we go with the cryin nuc's, "Why are we last to go on libs?", "Life sucks, I'm so disgruntled!", "What am I going to do with a $60,000 SRB?"...... oh wait, I've never heard the last one. You guys only come foreward long enough to eat and pick crappy flicks, then you leave before its over!!!

 

[priv8ter]

Actually...

Last I heard, the Zone B bonus was up to 100K, with a Career Cap not to exceed 200K.

Heck Phil, someone's got to make the water for your shower and fix the ice cream machine.

To keep this gun related, I am somtimes jealous of the shotguns the topside watches carry. Most of them are normal pump guns, but at least two of the boats have folding stock pistol grip pump guns..and to my calibrated eye, they certainly look less than 26-inches over all length.

Greg, who's glad he works on submarines so he can see reminders every day of why he got out.

 

[geekWithA.45]

So, lemme get this straight:


-The average sub's armory looks more or less like the average THR denizen's _spare_ gunsafe.

-I've seen zodiacs more heavily armed than that patroling the potomac.

Capt Kirk: Scotty! Fire up the engines so we can steal the half decommissioned Enterprise to go save Spock!

Scotty: No problem keptin! We'll just sneak around on impulse power for 3-4 hours, and then we'll have righteous warp, alright!

 

[Pilgrim]

I'm dating myself, but the diesel-electric boat I did a summer midshipman cruise on had two M2 Browning .50 calibers. The captain scrounged up a M-79 grenade launcher. There was an assortment of M1 rifles, sub-guns, and pistols.

The captain was an avid shooter, so a number of the crew had their personal weapons stowed away in their bunks.

Pilgrim

 

[jkswiss]

No, you don't have to re-enlist to get pro-pay. You get that $100 regardless. And yes it makes up for the crappy hours.

Hi, everyone. I was just browsing through and had to say hi when I found a surprising number of submariners on this thread, not to mention nuke submariners.

I'm a six and out guy. I just got done with my service in May. Served on the good old Hyman G. Rickover, SSN-709 as a nuke MM.

MARK TIME, ITS SEVEN OH NINE!! YEAAAAAAAA!!!! Sorry private joke.

Oh yeah, being a nuke really blew. You coners have it easy, you just don't know. And don't let me even get started on my carrier brethren, you pampered babies.

Just so you know, the month I left, Squadron 8 implemented the whole SRW carrying a 9mm pistol. I know me and my buddies where shaking our heads, wondering whos going to be the first guy to shoot themselves. We have to go to some awkward places (awkward enough without a gun strapped to your legs) for logs, not to mention we have to vacuum, pick up debris in bilges/outboard, wipe up oil, pump FBCT to ABCT, then ABCT overboard. Yeah..and not to mention most of us are real bad shots, seeing as we shoot once a year to qualify.

The reason why the fast attack submarine crew is not a bunch of Delta Force rambo's is that we simply do not have the time. On top of workups, upkeeps, training, and qualifications, we hardly had time to sleep.

Man, I do not miss those days at all. Civilian life is a dream come true.
Yes, yes, I was the quintessential disgruntled nuke. I just loved to hate it.

 

[Hkmp5sd]

we simply do not have the time. On top of workups, upkeeps, training, and qualifications, we hardly had time to sleep.

Do they still do ORSE boards on subs? I was in back when Rickover was alive and you can be we did them.

 

[jkswiss]

Yeah, we still do them. I think as long as there is nuclear power aboard a Navy ship there's gonna be ORSES...man those sucked.

 

[oweno]

Long, long ago on the diesel boats, we had 4 or 5 1911A1s, a couple of M-1s, a couple of BARs, and a couple of Thompsons.

In port, the topside watch carried a 1911 with an empty magazine inserted and a coupe of full mags on his guard belt.

Did a 'repel boarders' drill once in port - the duty officer (Mr. Morrison) charged topside with his sword drawn. No, really.

Onliest time I ever saw the BAR in use is when we had swim call in the middle of the Atlantic. Wayne, a torpedoman, was up on the sail step with the BAR in case a shark arrived on scene. Given that he'd never fired one before, we told him that if he saw a shark fire the BAR into the air and we'd get out of the water in a hurry.

Back then, us submarine sailors didn't know much about things that fired anything with a bore size less than 21 inches.

 

[Dr.Rob]

One of my uncles did time in Fast Attacks and Boomers in the early to mid sixties... someplace I've seen a picture of him and his buddies taking "target practice" with a one of the two Navy Issued Thompson Submachine Guns on his boat (I think it was USS Dogfish at the time)... more or less a pic of motly beared sailors shooting trash/debris while standing on the hull.

I was suprised to say the least... but boarding small vessels was pretty common at the end of WW2, so small arms were SOP.

Shark watch with a BAR.. that's a redneck fisherman's dream!

 

[raghorn]

I spent four years (84-88) on a Sturgeon-class SSN, and another five years as a civilian working on them after I left active duty.

In the 1980s we carried Colt 1911s, M-14 carbines and 12 gauge pump shotguns (I think they were Win model 12s).

Back in the engineering spaces we were trained to use "weapons of opportunity" as well.

 

[sixandout]

silly sub weapons

speaking of the san fran ssn 711 glad i'm not on board that sub anymore

 

[Moonclip]

While in the USN, I remember observing folding stock 870's being deployed by sailors on guard duty topside on a SSN. I remember the guns had quite a bit of rust on them! My surface ship still deployed m14's(mostly for line launching but also deployed by security teams,most guns deployed were Mossberg 500's and 1911's though) and M60's into the 1990's, we even still had 1911's, Berettas did not appear until like the late 1990's.

 

[PromptCritical]

$45,000 SRB wasn't enough. I think I started counting the days at about 900. Long live the SNOB!

SRW carrying? God, what a dumb idea. I asked if I could carry my G21 as SRO. I would even provide my own holster and ammo. They said no.

 

[c_yeager]

Unless you take over the boat during a port visit at a non-military location. You could easily have 5-6 hours of darkness plus several more hours after sunrise with no one knowing what's going on. With the reactor in hot standby, which it always is whenever in visiting ports, you can be making steam in around 30 minutes. Even if it took longer, you can always dive and snorkel if needed.

I dont think our missle boats EVER tie up anywhere but their home port. In fact, im not even sure that our attack boards even visit non-military locations.

I think the only time your ever going to have a chance to hit a missle boat is when they are ferrying their way out to see on the surface. THis is a very short period of time, and they are moving pretty fast. Despite the fact that they are generally unescorted or very lightly escorted during this time, they are not even close to a soft-target, and bear in mind that this only happens around their home port.

 

[m1kecope]

There were a few posts there that replied. I liked the one near the end that showed just how easy it would have been to steal one. When I was a nuke(85-95) onboard security, was pretty poor IMHO, when we were in home port. The topside watch had an unloaded 1911 and maybe a shotgun. Ammo was held in a separate pouch on the belt. All the other firearms were kept locked up. Security drills were a joke also. We stood around the smalls arms locker in a cramped passageway waiting for the person with the key. It was pretty stupid.
We talked about this a lot when on watch late at night. We concluded that if we did not get sufficient warning, there was no way to isolate the engine room in time. We would only have to shut two hatches but getting to the forward one would have involved running down a passageway that ran the length of the reactor compartment on the stbd side. This would be a long "fatal funnel".
The lower hatch that went topside would have been easier to shut and closer too unless it was fouled by temp services like welding cables etc. The bad guys would have had to get past the shore power cables, or just drop a gas grenade.
I hope security has been upgraded a little in the past ten years.

Mike formerly EM1/SS (SSN-697 & 721)