In The Navy (On the Boat), Part 7

Sub Safe was a Submarine Safety concept someone came up with after the Thresher sank http://www.nationalgeographic.com/k19/disasters_detail2.html. A terrible thing for me to even think about.
I think that was when…

It was certainly an eye opening disaster that should have been averted. None the less, the Navy learns its lessons and imposes a thing called Sub Safe. It is really a common sense thing, like, “don’t leave a hatch open when you dive the boat”. Christ, you will all die, right? Not rocket science. Sub Safe was a bunch of extra checklists that we had to follow any time we touched any opening that breached the hull. I could probably research and find out what Congressman pushed it though, but I am not that interested. I just wanted to make the point to you that the Navy cares.

I was finally on board now and getting to know people, important stuff on a Sub. Then I got a real life lesson on PMS. You would think PMS would not be an issue on a Boat full of men, right?

PMS stands for “Planned Maintenance Subsystem”. It is a devious way that you can find out if the equipment you have purview over is working up to par. The tests were devised by the designers to identify anything (and I mean any-fucking ting) amiss in a certain piece of equipment. These were great for the simpler systems, like IC or navigation, but caused havoc on the analog side of the Mk 113 Fire Control System.

The aged synchro and servo equipment were impossible to tweak into specifications. Twist one synchro one way, and it threw another one out of whack, then another…you could not win!! We all racked our brains for hours on end trying to figure out what needed to be fixed to make these tests pass. I will speak only for myself and say that I signed off passing results that were really just barely (if) that. The tests were completely unrealistic anyway, at least the problematic ones were.

The one test that drove us mad was this one where a target and our boat start approaching each other from 10K yards, then we pass under the target and are expected to have no wild deviation in bearings. Um, the dials on the Attack Director are not so precise that a 1/32 degree wouldn’t occur. It pissed us off because we could never pass this test and even called in a Tiger team once, who blew it off like we did after a few days of scratching their heads.

For most of the Weapons System, these tests were straight forward. The LPO keeps a Calendar of which tests have to be performed when and conditions permitting, we would carry these out based on the steps listed on little pink or white cards. They were very detailed and told you exactly what settings to plug into the equipment, and what the results needed to be (often a “between” this and that.).

We had weapons simulators that we would have to plug into the inside of the Torpedo Tube Breach (the door on the inside of the Boat). This connection required an over ride of several safety locks that are built into the Torpedo Tubes. A little scary thing to do.

The Subroc simulator was the largest and actually served as a bench in front of the Weapons Launch Console, there in the Torpedo room, when not in use. It was a bitch to move and get hooked up. It used all 3 umbilical cables that connected it to the inside of the tube.

The Harpoon, Tomahawk and Mk-48 Torpedo Simulators were all rolled into one unit (If I recall right). It was much easier to use, regardless, as it was pre wired. Anytime we used the simulators, we had to have one person in the Control room and one in the Torpedo room. You would have to put on communication headsets (stinky things with worn rubber ear and mouthpieces). You had to follow all the steps (including aligning the monstrous Switchboard for the specific weapon) of making the weapon ready to launch and sending commands, before and after the simulated launch.

Like I said, most of this was pretty routine stuff, especially testing the Digital components of the system. They never failed at all. Burnt out indicator light bulbs were the most common thing we had to fix. The unusual problems were the most fun, as we were technicians. We were meant to fix problems.