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Unfortunately the real threat from the Iranian theocracy has nothing to do with its Navy (if we could only be so lucky).

The real threat is that by using a nuclear weapon as a deterrent to retaliation (either economic or military) they can extend and increase their funding of terrorism with impunity. Unlike the terrorism of Anarchism (with a big A from the late 1800's and early 1900's) or even the terrorism of the IRA the Iranian terrorism has a realistically achievable goal (indeed it has been quite effective in Lebanon). That goal is the Dhimmification of non Muslim countries and reduction in prominence of non Shia Islamic Theocracies relative to Iran itself. If we (Europe and the US) are lucky the latter will take precedence but I wouldn't count on it. Both of these processes have already started even without the bomb as a deterrent to retaliation. They will only escalate (substantially) if they publicly get the bomb (it is remotely possible that they already have it which is why the kid gloves are on).

Europeans will be at the greatest risk in terms of substantial change to their existing environment in this scenario. With their large and demographically monolithic Islamic communities they are ideal breeding grounds for this kind of strategy. At this point these communities lean toward other regional variants of the belief system but I suspect that would change if there is less restricted actions on Iran's part. Even without specific belief changes (which are unlikely) alliances, actions (in the form of increased aggression to the European indigenous population) and meme systems can change. In many cases Europeans are already being forced to alter their liberal belief systems to avoid violence or the threat of violence. Imagine if they didn't have the ability to stop funding and intentional state action that was intended to facilitate this violence. The tilt point isn't that far aways so something has to be done soon or the only two alternatives are extreme levels of violence or functional Dhimmi status (probably coupled with extreme violence to maintain it).

Obviously other countries in the region with Iran are also at great risk. I am somewhat surprised they are not taking fairly aggressive action right now. They are clearly the most likely to be subject to aggressive military and terror funded actions. Indeed some of them such as Lebanon already are and frankly loosing the battle.

Until recently countries that achieved nuclear weapons have to a certain extent become more mature in their actions. They were less likely to go to open war with their neighbors, they begin reigning back their clandestine activities (especially with other nuclear powers) and in general they have behaved in a more globally mature fashion. I don't know if the is part of MAD or if it is just the ultimate realization of the terrible possibilities and responsibilities attendant with nuclear weapons but it does seem to be true. Although I wouldn't have predicted it this has even occurred with India and Pakistan. Unfortunately even with the maturity and sophistication of the Persian society as a whole with its current leadership I think this pattern is very unlikely in Iran.

Now that I think of it leadership might be the key. Russia, the US, France and China have all had periods of aggression as a Nuclear power even if that aggression might have been muted compared to pre nuclear levels. Right now the political and theocratic leadership in Iran does not inspire me with confidence in their ability to be mature.

The real question is what are the regional powers and European powers (who are at the most risk) going to do about it. The US has chosen to trade (intentionally or not) military strategic advantage (in the form of ownership of the crossroads in Iraq) for political strategic advantage so we are now unable to realistically respond to the threat. Sun Tzu says that seizing the remote crossroads is best done politically so perhaps this was an error. On the other hand we are not one of the countries at greatest risk of a true loss of our identity here.

I suppose we will see how this will play out.

Sorry for the depressing start of the day.

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Now that is cold

Hey the Pig

My old boat.

I used to love standing manuvering phone talker on the way in. When you round Montauk Point you know you are almost home.

That must have been a miserable trip even coming home though.

That ice came from salt water so it is a lot colder out than just freezing.

Welcome back to port guys I hope you have had a chance to warm up.

Embrace the Suck - MilSpeak

Forget Sublinguese

Austin Bay has a pocket guide to Mil Speak.

Only 4 bucks.

Bet you it is grunt centered.

There is room for one from you Bubblehead.

I'd buy it.

Update:

Austin Bays post

Trackback

Nubs

are funny

Sublinguese

"What the heck is an MG"

"TG?"

"I didn't understand a word you said in that post."

Just a sampling of the scintillating reviews of "Channeling The Ancient Submariner"

Oh Yea from Chris "you may want to tell people what a nuke is, not everyone will know a nuke is someone who works in engineering, most will probably think of the warhead. " - Quite True

Until this weekend I hadn't realized I was a polyglot. I thought I was limited to English and a few sparse phrases of German (who Austrians politely nod to then ignore).

Of course I have now discovered that after a beer and some pseudo self hypnosis I am able to speak in tongues. Now that I think of it it usually takes several beers to get to the incoherent stage for most people. Is this a gift of mine? My own Hero's power? The one Beer babbeling sublinguese guy?

Ok that was cheesy.

Here are some definitions and descriptions to explain the lingo in Channeling The Ancient Submariner and Contrasts - Submarines.

Sea Story - A genre of stories told by bored (and often boring) sailors when either bragging in a bar, (or for the newer lightweights a bookstore), Standing a long boring midwatch or in front of a class of new soon to be real sailors.

While not essential Sea Stories almost always take the following formats.

They start.

"No Really"

"This is a no shitter"

"Ok Ok"

or for the really true to the genre ones all three.

They are frequently interrupted but the teller is never able to hear what the person interrupting has said. (this is doubly true if he is a NUB)

Something bad or stupid or preferably both always happens.

It is never that bad (well almost never) because the really bad things you don't want to dwell on.

There is almost always a moral. Kind of Darwin Awards with a specific format.


Next term

NUB - A NUB is a non useful body. Anyone who is not yet qualified. Think Plebe or Pledge but worse because the other people actually suffer because the NUB is not yet qualified. In RC Division there are only 7 people assigned to each boat. One of these 7 (the chief usually after all we took his tweaker) stands EWS so doesn't count. When underway there are at least 2 watch stations that have to be manned at all times. This is usually done in 6 hour watches. So you get up eat go stand a 6 hour watch (I'll describe these some other time) Eat again. Do Maintenance. Study for your weekly tests. Then if you are luck you get 2 to 3 hours of sleep before you get up to go on watch again. This is with 6 people. If even one of them are not qualified you go port and starboard watches. The Maintenance still has to happen so that cycle usually goes. Watch (6h), Maint (6h), Watch(6h), Easy Maint(1-3h), Short sleep(2-4h), Watch. Repeat. Similar cycles happen for every other group on the boat. So if someone isn't qualified they make everyone else have to pull their weight. So until they are qualified something they are NUBs. Guys that have been on the boat more than 3 years tend to look at everyone that is not fully qualified (every qual complete) as Nubs.

First Run 688 - 688 is the hull designation of the USS Los Angles which was the first boat of its class. They are fast attack boats. That means that their primary job is to do everything that the boomers can't or won't (not that a boomer would do anything that it can't). Basically they hunt other subs and ships and protect carriers. I'm sure they do other things but well... go read Blind Man's Bluff (I think that was based on Freedom of Information Act stuff) As Bruce says "you have no privacy get over it". I can't remember which boat is the dividing boat but the first run 88's have planes on the sail and no vertical launch tubes. There are a few other differences but I can't remember if I can talk about them. For that matter I can't remember them.

Port Vital Bus - Not worth talking about unless you are on a boat. It is an electrical bus on the port side and it is vital (really important). nuff said.

Roving Watch - Actually Shutdown Roving watch. His job is to roam around the engine room when the reactor is shutdown, take logs and make sure nothing bad is happening. Some say his real job is to stop by Maneuvering every so often and make sure the Shutdown Reactor Operator (SRO) is watching his gauges (not asleep real bad juju there) . If he gets caught in maneuvering to often he gets yelled at. But how do I say this... Have you ever been stuck in a place for 6 hours where Nothing Ever Changes . (UPDATE: Oh wait that is a cube) Over and over again for years? Unless he hates the SRO he goes and talks to him every so often. Sometimes even if they hate each other they still end up talking. Some of the greatest mysteries and problems of the universe have been solved by the SRW SRO and SEO (Shutdown Electrical Operator) and no one knows because they can't let anyone know they were talking. Same for underway for that matter.

Eng - Short for Engineer Think Scotty without the accent. In reality they are the 3rd senior officer on board usually at a Lt Cmd but sometimes a Junior one is a Lt. Always intelligent but sometimes you cannot tell because they are under so much stress that most of them freak out periodically. These guys are almost always career guys who want to be XO next time around but if someone sneezes at the wrong time during ORSE it is all over for them. We called my first Eng red because his bald pate would turn bright red when he was pissed which was pretty much all of the time. He liked to throw hard objects but never hit anyone or anything important so I think it was mostly for show. My second we called thumper because if he was aft in Maneuvering and his hand started tapping you knew a drill was about to kick off. We had another guy we called thumper (an a-ganger) but I won't go into how he got his name.

ORSE – Operational Reactor Safeguard Exam.

At least every year a bunch of Naval Reactor Experts visit every boat (and ship but who cares about skimmers). The audit they do makes a SOX review look more like a homeless guy getting his taxes reviewed by a social worker from San Francisco.

If a boat fails an ORSE the Engineers career is over and the CO's is in jeopardy. Most of the Officers and many of the enlisted personnel might never advance further in their Naval career's. At the very least they will have to pass another one very soon and forget about shore leave or seeing your family. (I always get irritated when the people on "Survivor" complain about missing their family. For god's sake it is only a month suck it up. Try going 4 months wihout even knowing for sure that they are alive let alone being able to talk to them or see them. Put a submariner on your show Jeff. Sorry sidetrack.) Failing an ORSE is Bad other people come to take over and lots of people either loose their job or might as well have. Never happened on a boat I was on but saw it afew times.

The ORSE Board looks at every single piece of paperwork done during the year. If a t isn’t crossed and an I isn’t dotted you get hit (litterally). If you use the wrong color ink you get hit. enough hits you (you is the whole boat for these) fail. If a calculation is wrong on maintenance paperwork (or heaven forbid an ECP) you might fail.

Every Nuke has to take three or four tests a month. If they fail they go on remedial training which means no free time and if in port less time at home. If they fail twice they might be disqualified so they become NUB’s again which is far worse than remedial training.

The ORSE team makes sure the average score on the tests hovers around 3.2 out of 4 and that they are hard enough that some people fail them. They don’t grade on curves so if the people taking them get better the tests just have to get harder. Some of these people have been taking variants of these tests for over 20 years. These tests cover hydrodynamics, Material sciences, Nuclear Physics, electronic fundamentals, plant design, control systems designs, chemistry, basic calculus, other advanced math, casualty response, and most of the time combinations of all of these in one question. There is no multiple choice.

If your training group messes up on grading the tests the ORSE team hits you. If you loose the tests (the physical copies) you get a hit.

They then take a sampling of your questions combine them with some of their own and give every nuke the test to take. If people do poorly on questions they did well on in the past the whole boat can fail the ORSE. While all of this is going on other ORSE team members run drills. These take a number of forms. Sometimes they simulate certain events then monitor how you react. Sometimes they break things in a carefully controlled way and monitor how you react. They take what they learned from your tests and logs they have reviewed and use that to create scenarios of the drills that see if you learned from the mistakes you made in the past. (We did many many electric plat shifts in different plant conditions in the ORSE after the incident I mentioned in my earlier sea story) All of this is done over the course of 3 to 5 days. During those days no one gets more than an hour or 2 sleep in total.

So if you are ever hiring a nuke ask him what station he stood during his ORSE’s. If it was anything other than Drill Monitor (we put the people we were worried about there) he will handle stress alright.

Nuke – Slang for engineering department staff on a sub. Not Nuclear Weapons which don’t talk and I can neither confirm nor deny the presence of on any boat I served on. Nukes were generally considered to be the RC Div (Reactor Controls) E Div (Electrical Division) M Div (Mechanical Division) and ELT’s (Engineering Laboratory Technicians)

RC Div’s responsibility was taking care of and operating the controls systems for the reactor. This included level control system, pressure control systems, the electrical and electronics portion of valve and pump controls, and nuclear instrumentation. Primary underway watch stations for RC div were Reactor Operator (RO) and Reactor Technician (RT).

E Div was responsible for all power generation and distribution systems. This included the Turbine generators (TG) Which are large 3 phase electrical generators powered by steam from the reactor plant. Each of these is big enough to power a small town. Motor Generators (MG’s) convert AC to DC power and vice verse when needed. They are large heavy motor generator’s spinning at a high rate sufficient to power a large subdivision. They were also responsible for all of the other switching and breaker systems. (Except for a few controlled by RC Div). Primary Watch stations were Electrical Operator (EO) who controls the Electric Plant from Maneuvering, Auxiliary Electrician Aft (AEA) who gets coffee for everyone.

M Div – Was responsible for all piping, pumps and valves. No long descriptions here because I didn’t mention them much in the story. The Roving Watch is usually an M Div guy.

ELT Div is responsible for maintaining the chemistry of the reactor and secondary plants. They are also responsible for anything that involves radioactive exposure or contamination. They do more paperwork than anyone on the boat and other than RC Div they spend more time than any other Division in school and taking tests. (Officers excluded of course) ELT’s often stand Engine Room Forward watch for a number of reasons. We liked to tell them they were just radiation sponges.

EWS is the engineering watch supervisor they are the senior underway enlisted watch station. Most of them are Chief’s (E-7 and above) a few are First class and a very rare second class sneaks in (usually trying to make first).

The EOOW is the Engineering Officer of the Watch. They are the senior engineering watch station. They sit in Maneuvering and direct the actions of all of the other watch stations.

CO is the Commanding Officer – The Captain of the Ship.

PD periscope depth – In the North Atlantic without ventilation it is close enough to the surface to get everyone sick.

That took longer than I thought. If you got down and are actually reading this last line you must be really bored. Next time just get a babblefish.

Translation complete.

Contrasts - Submarines

A friend of mine pointed out that my Channeling of the Ancient Submariner wasn't particularly flattering. In retrospect he is right. My intention was absolutely not to paint a bad picture but to give a feel for what it was like to be on the boat to be true to the time.

It is somewhat of a cliche but my time on the boat and in the Navy was a study of contrasts for me. There were very good and very bad moments but in the long run it was overwhelmingly a beneficial experience.

Like every navy member out there now and in the past I spent a lot of time away from my family. I basically missed the first two years of my son's life and the first year of my oldest daughter. My marriage was strained to the breaking point.

Homecomings were the greatest highs you could possibly imagine. They were the sweetest feelings and I could not possibly do them justice in words. I am not even going to try. It was a terrific and painful heat to temper my marriage that happily has lasted to this day.

Sadly many of my shipmates were not as lucky and it was not unheard of to return from a run and find a lawyer as opposed to a wife on the pier. In those times the camaraderie is what helped to take the individuals through the pain. In most cases it was a tempering experience for them as well.

It is not possible to get a true sense of comradeship without a suitably high barrier for entry. The barriers for acceptance are high and need to be. Lives rely on it and in some of my more serious memories that manifests in a direct and immediate way. If you understand the implications of the event I mentioned earlier you know that despite my flippant attitude what happened was very bad. It was treated with corresponding significance and integrity by all involved after it happened. In a very real way sea stories are a healthy part of the response to mistakes. Perhaps that deserves a post later.

The barriers to entry for the comradeship take many forms. Demonstrated integrity, time, knowledge, skill, emotional fortitude, lingo, persistence and sheer intelligence are a few of them.

All submariners develop a knowledge of the boat that is instinctive. The nukes and the officers culture a nearly eidetic memory and to this day I remember hundreds of numbers, settings, and procedures. Given a few days of thought I could probably recite them verbatim and I expect this would be the norm. The officers (even the Ensigns who I was less than properly deferential to) and many of the other nukes could quickly and accurately do complex math in their heads. This instinctive knack for the right answer doesn't leave you but it does have to be periodically exercised or it weakens.

To be honest I only knew one officer that deserved the term butter bar and the system worked and weeded him out early.

Integrity and confidence are possibly the best legacies that come from the experience.

Believe me presenting to the board of directors in multi billion dollar company is less stressful than your first final qualification board and the integrity required in an incident review is stronger than multiple SOX audits.

The treatment by senior sailors when you are a NUB (Non Useful Body) is harsh but prepares you well for the politics that exist outside and frankly if you are unable to handle that pressure you shouldn't be operating a nuclear reactor or manning a station controlling a billion dollar piece of machinery whether it be the helm, sonar of or any number of other positions.

Being underway sucked. Most of the time it was boring, occasionally during workups and particularly important runs it was slightly interesting, sometimes it was a bit frightening but overall it just really sucked. I would never voluntarily do it again but overall it was worth the experience.

More than that I wouldn't be what I am or where I am today without it.

What I described in the sea story was fairly accurate for a boat side conversation. Not pretty but true. I just should have remebered that when you get to a new boat you have to earn your quals again. You can't just take them. Now that I think of it that is applicable to where I am in life now as well.

Channeling the Ancient Submariner

So… OK, OK

This is a No Shitter

…

(… means NUB interruption so don’t worry it doesn’t matter what they said they are a nub after all)

No Really…

So back on my old boat …

It was a first run 688…

So we were a couple hundred miles South East of Halifax (gotta keep an eye on those Canadians) doing some unscheduled port vital bus maintenance…

Yea at Sea…

Like I said at sea…

[Roving Watch] Stupid

Yea Ok So? Tell the eng believe me he knows now.

So anyway we were a few days from starting our work up for [pause] For [pause] What the hell do they call that coner ORSE?

Anyway I’m sitting in middle level between the HPAC’s grading tests…

Yea Yea I know I shoulda been forward. Tell that to my mutant kids… (now that I think of it that might explain my TLD reading that month)

Anyway I’m sitting between the hipacs and the EOOW announces an Electric plant shift…

Yes a shift…

[Roving Watch] That was Stupid

Yea stupid butterbar…

So I start to get up to go to maneuvering and there is this loud bang…

Real Loud and the incandescents come on and the fluorescents go off…

Yep at Sea…

A lot of loud funny noise to my right So I look over and the Starboard MG is shaking like Shakira (so I modernized this part sue me)

No I mean that sucker was moving…

(Some context for non navy guys the MG is a chunk of metal the size of a car and spinning at ungodly RPM’s )

So I see the EWS streak up the ladder to the horseshoe…

[Roving Watch] Would you stop interrupting you stupid NUB or I ain’t signing crap. What was he doing down there?

ERF where else would an ELT EWS be on a boring watch…

So I start walking around testing the tripped breakers with the back of my hand and a few seconds later a cussing engineer comes striding through…

[Roving Watch] Bet he was pissed.

Oh yea he was steaming and the CO was right after him. Probably started moving the second he heard the electric plant shift announcement…

So anyway two hours later things are getting back to normal and we are bobing at PD in the North Atlantic at 1/3 everyone starting to puke from seasickness…

[Roving Watch] Bullshit

No…

Shut-up NUB. No really it’s a no Shitter.

So what do we learn from this?

1. A Nuclear Reactor Powered Steam Turbine will always win against an MG (even if it is the size of a car).
2. Then Breakers will open and I don’t care what the KAPL guys say you can’t always tell which ones. (Good lesson in the civy world too)
3. On the good to bad scale paralleling 120 degrees out of phase is bad. Bad bad bad
4. Never put a newly qualed butterbar on watch with half the electric plant tagged out and a Short RO, newly qualed EO and a mechanic at throttles.
5. Never let a RC Div NUB going for EO quals shift the plant at sea. Who cares what the plant status is.
6. And most importantly “The Stupid Shall be Punished”

Any questions. Not bad for a 20 year old channel huh.

Eat your heart out Iowahawk.

Oh yea if you like it Link to it.

DCSSEC [at] gmail.com

Update:

Edited slightly for readability.

Another Update:

Though true to the genre this might not have been the best sea story to start with.

Some terms definitions here.

Submarines

Update:

A sea Story

I have recently stumbled on some Submarine blogs. I guess being 15 or more years away from subs I didn't even think of them writing them.

Of course submariners being who they are I should have expected it as well as the quality.

The culture shines through.

One thing I don't get though.

Are todays A-Gangers really this wussified?

:) You would think they are ET's or ST's or something. (or heaven forbid Nukes like I was)

Now guys if you read this please don't tape me outside of the condensers (a fate I managed to dodge but other Nuke ET's spoke their way into).

Update:

Thanks for the launch Bubblehead has basically doubled my normal traffic today.

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