Submarines

[Aspman]

My mate just phone and asked if I'd like to get a tour of his sub.

It a Vanguard Class nuclear missle sub (SSBN)

I'm quite childishly excited about this.

http://www.royal-navy.mod.uk/static/pages/177.html
Don't know which one he works on.

[dalek]

That's a nice looking Boat, can't believe there are actually two yes two cooks in the same galley at the same time, looks like a floating "hotel"

At least you might not have to duck when entering other compartments, it looks huge, but then if you do, remember to duck as the hatches are very unforgiven.

I wonder if they "Hot Bunk" on those, used to on the older classes, but where those ones are "boomers" they are loaded with extra space, well maybe, after serving on British made subs (Oberon) and seeing first hand the US Nukes and the RN Nukes, it quickly became apparent that the US built their equipment around the men and the RN fitted the men around the equipment, made for quite the comfy feeling we used to get, nothing like sleeping in a bunk where your nose is probably 4" from the bottom of the bunk on top of you, and your feet if you are unlucky to be over 6' hang over the ends( course if you were over 6' you had no business being on a boat, made coming down the conning tower hatch a nightmare if your under the guy who is 6').

Enjoy the tour though, be careful of the "press gangs"

Aspman you must be close to "Faslane" eh! aaaahhh the memories.

[Aspman]

It is Faslane I'm going to but it's a 120 mile trip for me. Worth the effort though.

My mate is a Petty Officer so he has his own bunk but some of the lower ranking crew do hotbunk and a few string up hammocks between thel silos to get a bit of space. They have a gym in the silo hall(room?) too.

There is a bar and a cinema on board as well apparently. But breweries don't make the small sized beer kegs anymore so no pints on board anymore just bottles and cans.

My mate is coming off subs now for a 2 year land based post. He's not sure if he'll be staying on much past that so this might be the last chance he'll get to let anyone look round the boat. So his wife and a few friends are getting the tour.

I'm not that tall so the top of the head should be ok. The other friend that is goin (Doug) is 6'3 so he might have some problems

[dalek]

Originally posted here by Aspman
It is Faslane I'm going to but it's a 120 mile trip for me. Worth the effort though.

My mate is a Petty Officer so he has his own bunk but some of the lower ranking crew do hotbunk and a few string up hammocks between thel silos to get a bit of space. They have a gym in the silo hall(room?) too.

There is a bar and a cinema on board as well apparently. But breweries don't make the small sized beer kegs anymore so no pints on board anymore just bottles and cans.

My mate is coming off subs now for a 2 year land based post. He's not sure if he'll be staying on much past that so this might be the last chance he'll get to let anyone look round the boat. So his wife and a few friends are getting the tour.

I'm not that tall so the top of the head should be ok. The other friend that is goin (Doug) is 6'3 so he might have some problems

A gym, LOL, that's really slumming it. A bar and cinema, our bar was the After Torpedo Room tubes, could hold over 200 cases (2fours) of prime Keiths or O'Lands, I mean who were we going to shoot from the assend eh! besides that would mean we were running (flex musckels), although storing our beer in the tubes can be a big mistake, coming over to the UK in 78, the head weapons mate decided he wanted to fire some water shots, you know keep up the deadly skills type of thing, well didn't he accidentally fire over 200 cases of beer into the pond, talk about weep all we had to look forward to (for the next 3 months) after that was Heinekin for at sea, good thing we got ashore for the real stuff.

I can symphasize with your mate though, if I remember a tour on one of those meant you could spend upwards of 6mths at sea, and in a boomer that meant no ports to visit, (one of the reasons I am glad we stayed with the Diesel Boats), oh yeah the older boats before they were mothballed I remember one crew actually made the after torpedo room drain tank into a full size beer fridge

[Aspman]

fire over 200 cases of beer into the pond, talk about weep

That a belter. The beer ration is his highlight of the week. Or he'd save it up and try to get pissed.

His tours have always been 3-4 months but no ports like you say. The only place they will surface is in the States but he's never had a visit. He find it quite boring but the money makes up for it.

He started out on a Type 23 Frigate. He really liked that though he was only on for 9 months. He's a Marine Articifer [sp] (mechanical engineer) so he did a long shore apprenticeship.
Half his ship got arrested in Brazil when they were doing a visiting trip down South America(running though the town and beach naked). We asked him how he got out of it - "I was in a brothel".
He got married last year and he's on the straight and narrow now. Lots of stories the wife will never know.

I'm really looking forward to the tour. One of things most people never get to do. Don't think I'd ever want to work on one though a visit will be just fine.

[phishphreek]

Aspman: I've been on a couple of them. Both my Dad and Step Dad were stationed on nuke subs. (SSBN) I recently got to see one in dry dock on the Bangor Base out in Washington State... wow!!!

Amazing ships... but the insides are so small. It'd be hard to imagine spending 6 months on those things under the ice! My pop is always telling me stories about them. He's got some awesome pics too.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/facility/bangor.htm

My brothers godfather is still active and takes me down to them when I'm in town.

If you get a chance... check out the torpedo rooms... that may or may not contain nuclear warheads.. lol Man, I got to see a LOT of stuff I shouldn't have been able to see. He is in very high places... I'm surprised they let me in. Both of us were in plain clothes and they were saluting us (well, him really).

I wonder if they "Hot Bunk" on those,

My pop talked about that too. Luckily he didn't have to, but there were plenty of people on the ship that did.

[ech0]

Wow, that's awesome Aspman! Try and take some pics... if they dint put a gun to your head and call you a traitor. I would love to see'em.

[Relyt]

That will be a great hoot. Most of the crew's racks are in the center section on the port and starboard sides near the skin. Not much room between the tubes. When you get down in the forest you’ll note that the trees are different shades or contrasting colors will be present. Depth perception can be a real issue after being submerged for a while. Also, the major health issue during every deployment is the common cold. The pecker-checkers load up on off-the-self cold meds and for the first two weeks the colds rotate through the crew and then it's gone because the air is santized and revitalized by burning etc.

cheers

[|3lack|ce]

I never could see the sane-ness of someone willing to sail aboard a ship that was designed to sink.

[dalek]

I never could see the sane-ness of someone willing to sail aboard a ship that was designed to sink.

That's just it, who said they took "sane" people , when I went to join the Boats (you can carry a boat on a ship but you can't carry a ship on a boat), they made us fill out this 365 page multiple choice questionaire (only 2 answers Yes/No) and it was to be sent to the Mayo Clinic for study. Some of the questions were bizarre, like, do you like to play with dolls?, do you like to run in the woods with a bayonet, do you love your Mother.
Which upon reflection was basically a test of patience, because question 122 may have been do you love your Mother and question 332 may have been do you like your Mother, which say you loved her at 122, by the time you got to 332, you hated the Bleeping world. I think they were looking for contradictions.

Well everybody passed, I managed to spend 5 yrs on the pigs, and in that time I witnessed a few lose their cool, we had one guy chase the skipper with an axe, needless to say he was airlifted off in a jacket and flown home. What used to worry us the most were the ones who liked to play with valves and buttons, one wrong valve opened and it was "Davey Jones" for sure.

And speaking of recycled air, on the old O Boats where showers were reserved for the Cooks (thank God), and "bird baths" were the only way to scrub up, you would be out to sea only about 2 weeks and the first person to use Irish Spring you could smell it throughout the boat, made you wonder where he was going for the night.