• Please take a moment and update your account profile. If you have an updated account profile with basic information on why you are on Air Warriors it will help other people respond to your posts. How do you update your profile you ask?

    Go here:

    Edit Account Details and Profile

Submarine/Cruiser collision

Spekkio

He bowls overhand.
Well, we'd sure hope it wasn't a purposeful collision.

At least no one was killed. Interested to see the details, but suspect that there's nothing new to be learned here. Now the Hartford has company, and not in a good way.
 

scoolbubba

Brett327 gargles ballsacks
pilot
Contributor
Just had the opportunity to interact with JOs from a boomer. They remarked how we've never had a reactor accident in 55+ years of nuke power, but we run aground or collide about once every three years or so.

Weird, considering they spend 2 years in nuke school and about 4 months in sub school.
 

Brett327

Well-Known Member
None
Super Moderator
Contributor
...suspect that there's nothing new to be learned here.

Currious as to your thinking about this statement. My experience with aircraft mishaps is that there's almost always something to learn, which is why the investigations are so thorough.
 

Spekkio

He bowls overhand.
brett327 said:
Currious as to your thinking about this statement
Because after reviewing about a dozen training products regarding collisions, the "root causes" always boil down to similar categories. Even the O-6's and above put a statement saying this in the "managing the risk of collision and grounding" section for the manuals for operating.
schoolbubba said:
Just had the opportunity to interact with JOs from a boomer. They remarked how we've never had a reactor accident in 55+ years of nuke power, but we run aground or collide about once every three years or so.
Part of that is how the reactor has been engineered to be mostly Sailor proof. There's really not a whole lot you can do to cause core damage unless you really, really try. But nothing will stop you from hitting something except your own operational knowledge, experience, and situational awareness.

However, I agree that there is a huge disparity between engineering training and shipdriving training onboard submarines. FYI, SOBC is 2 1/2 months, not 4 months. If you want to include the 1 week JO schools for shipdriving, which a pre-schooler could pass, you get up to a whopping 3 months and 1 week. Shipdriving training is mostly trial by fire in trainers or an underway submarine. With tours being only 32 months, and only approximately 1/3 of that time spent at sea for a SSN, it is difficult for every JO to get adequate shipdriving experience on a real sub. Some of those JOs with little or no shipdriving experience will become DHs and be expected to conn the ship on mission. There is a 6 month SOAC course prior to the DH tour, but there are still things the trainers can't emulate (e.g., no environmental traces).

One thing to note is that we don't know if there was a JO or DH driving the boat in this incident. From what I hear, DH's don't stand watch on boomers except to maintain proficiency, but they are typically in the 3-section rotation as OOD on SSNs (or stand JOOD to help the newbie JO OOD).
 

scoolbubba

Brett327 gargles ballsacks
pilot
Contributor
However, I agree that there is a huge disparity between engineering training and shipdriving training onboard submarines. FYI, SOBC is 2 1/2 months, not 4 months. If you want to include the 1 week JO schools for shipdriving, which a pre-schooler could pass, you get up to a whopping 3 months and 1 week. Shipdriving training is mostly trial by fire in trainers or an underway submarine. With tours being only 32 months, and only approximately 1/3 of that time spent at sea for a SSN, it is difficult for every JO to get adequate shipdriving experience on a real sub. Some of those JOs with little or no shipdriving experience will become DHs and be expected to conn the ship on mission. There is a 6 month SOAC course prior to the DH tour, but there are still things the trainers can't emulate (e.g., no environmental traces).

That was the gist of what they were saying. Most get one U/I pulling into port, then the next time it's their show. It was funny trying to watch someone used to their formalized comms say something that didn't fit into their standard phraseology....ie bridge to bridge.

"uh....merchant vessel...uh..atlantis...this is us submar-er....us warship hailing you...uh...come left."
 

BigRed389

Registered User
None

hscs

Registered User
pilot
Now this is an observation (from the aviator sitting in a cruiser wardroom half watching a movie and half watching a stressed out Ensign study across the room), but I feel that standardization seems to be missing wrt shiphandling. We live and die by 3710/NATOPS, but I don't really see a single source document for the SWO/Sub types for shiphandling. Am I missing something?
 

BackOrdered

Well-Known Member
Contributor
Now this is an observation (from the aviator sitting in a cruiser wardroom half watching a movie and half watching a stressed out Ensign study across the room), but I feel that standardization seems to be missing wrt shiphandling. We live and die by 3710/NATOPS, but I don't really see a single source document for the SWO/Sub types for shiphandling. Am I missing something?

The Watch Officers Guide, the Rules of the Road and the CO's standing orders. I use to own a really good moboard book but I forgot the name.
 

Uncle Fester

Robot Pimp
None
Super Moderator
Contributor
Now this is an observation (from the aviator sitting in a cruiser wardroom half watching a movie and half watching a stressed out Ensign study across the room), but I feel that standardization seems to be missing wrt shiphandling. We live and die by 3710/NATOPS, but I don't really see a single source document for the SWO/Sub types for shiphandling. Am I missing something?

Standardized docs, yes. Training, performance and evaluation standards, not really.

Still, sub pops up in front of you, there's not really a lot you can do. "Boat this big doesn't stop on a dime."


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD
 

Schnugg

It's gettin' a bit dramatic 'round here...
None
Super Moderator
Contributor
Ship may be out of trouble, unless they were where they weren't supposed to be... :confused:
 

BigRed389

Registered User
None
Ship may be out of trouble, unless they were where they weren't supposed to be... :confused:

Because it's a cruiser, I doubt it.

I'd bet there are some cruiser crews getting real worked up to find out who gets to be "it."
This isn't going to be an easy fix.
 
Top