Harrowing. But as someone unfamiliar with anything involving with anything naval, why the Hell did they have you do that? In conditions like that, why wouldn’t you just cruise submerged and avoid the waves entirely? And why do they have people up there “on watch?” I can’t imagine you can actually watch for that many things in such insane conditions. To my ear, it seems like they risked three lives and caused countless thousands of dollars to naval equipment for no damn good reason.
We were told at the time, that the Brits has a surface group in the area, and didn’t want a sub submerged in the same area. Neither we, nor our radar saw anything. But in 21 years spent in the navy, I’ve never seen seas like in that 1st deployment. Modern subs, with round hulls, are optimized for submerged steaming, only cruising on the surface when arriving/departing ports or when operationally necessary (i.e. shallow waters or transferring personnel).
I’ve probably been out in seas just as bad as that 1st deployment - when the boat is rocking at 600-800 feet submerged depth, it has to be really, really bad on the surface, but being submerged, I really didn’t get to see it on those occasions.
Harrowing. But as someone unfamiliar with anything involving with anything naval, why the Hell did they have you do that? In conditions like that, why wouldn’t you just cruise submerged and avoid the waves entirely? And why do they have people up there “on watch?” I can’t imagine you can actually watch for that many things in such insane conditions. To my ear, it seems like they risked three lives and caused countless thousands of dollars to naval equipment for no damn good reason.
We were told at the time, that the Brits has a surface group in the area, and didn’t want a sub submerged in the same area. Neither we, nor our radar saw anything. But in 21 years spent in the navy, I’ve never seen seas like in that 1st deployment. Modern subs, with round hulls, are optimized for submerged steaming, only cruising on the surface when arriving/departing ports or when operationally necessary (i.e. shallow waters or transferring personnel).
I’ve probably been out in seas just as bad as that 1st deployment - when the boat is rocking at 600-800 feet submerged depth, it has to be really, really bad on the surface, but being submerged, I really didn’t get to see it on those occasions.
Yeah, might as well have had them on watch while submerged, at that rate.