It’s not a surprise. It’s not possible to get that many subs underway at one time without months and months of planning. When subs are not deployed, they are being repaired. Period. They are stuffed full of machinery, piping, electronics, valves, wiring. All of that shit breaks constantly. The repairs require planning. What parts will you need, what systems are going to be taken down for repair, it’s carefully choreographed. The maintenance and deployment cycle is already set on paper for years ahead.
So that means if you have 6 subs sitting at the pier, maybe one or two of them can scramble on a day or two notice. The rest are going to have dozens of systems tagged out and offline as repairs are done. It could take weeks to scramble these boats. You would have to first put everything back together. If you fucked with plumbing or components that face sea pressure, those have to pass quality cert tests. You can’t just put a trim pump back in place and call it good.
If all these boats deployed in the same week, a year ago it was on the schedule. Or more. That would be the only way to assure that when the call came, half the trim system wasn’t off the ship. Or reactor controls weren’t half installed as electrical work is completed.
This is a nuclear power plant combined with communication, sonar, torpedo, life support, potential nuclear missiles and trim system. Try to imagine the complexity of the equipment, and how much has to work perfectly. No way this was just a phone call.
I interviewed an ex sub tech for a job once. Its hard to find techs that are curious enough to dig in and fix something when its not working. Today's kids want everything to work and call a consultant when it doesn't. I asked the sub tech for examples of when he knew he had to call an expert. Without hesitation he said, "we didn't ever give up because there was nobody to call. Our motivation was that if we didn't fix our critical systems then we all die.". He was deadpan serious so I said good enough and moved on to other questions.
It’s a great career choice. There are several headhunting groups that specialize in only AF and Navy tech rates. I had a job before my end of service was up. Didn’t have to do shit but send my resume into the head hunter. My first job, half my department was ex military. It’s just more useful than a degree for most jobs. You can start ready to fix it shit, while the college guys have a woeful lack of real world experience.
I was a sonar tech. And he’s right. There is no one to call. You just have to fix it or the mission is compromised. Although I will say I was lucky. Lockheed Martin owns our most advanced gear. When we would do post deployment, contractors would come in from LM and do the most complex work. That’s unusual. Most divisions are just fucked and own everything.
I’m glad I did my time, it set me up for life. Also glad I got out. It’s dangerous. I had several fires and casualties in my time and it was starting to give me sleep problems and nightmares.
Nothing more terrifying than being woken up by silence or an unplanned general alarm on a submarine. They’re always fans and ventilation and background noise, always. Even in port. Sudden total silence is horrifying. It means something is bad enough we just lost electrical, or they killed electrical on purpose. Either scenario could be a death sentence. Fire is the same. Waking up to an alarm and announcement of fire somewhere sucks. You got minutes to figure it out before that bitch fills with smoke and that’s not a place I want to be.
Hard on sleep patterns and general mental health. You don’t feel totally safe closing your eyes to sleep and after months of that in a row your brain starts to hurt.
It’s not a surprise. It’s not possible to get that many subs underway at one time without months and months of planning. When subs are not deployed, they are being repaired. Period. They are stuffed full of machinery, piping, electronics, valves, wiring. All of that shit breaks constantly. The repairs require planning. What parts will you need, what systems are going to be taken down for repair, it’s carefully choreographed. The maintenance and deployment cycle is already set on paper for years ahead.
So that means if you have 6 subs sitting at the pier, maybe one or two of them can scramble on a day or two notice. The rest are going to have dozens of systems tagged out and offline as repairs are done. It could take weeks to scramble these boats. You would have to first put everything back together. If you fucked with plumbing or components that face sea pressure, those have to pass quality cert tests. You can’t just put a trim pump back in place and call it good.
If all these boats deployed in the same week, a year ago it was on the schedule. Or more. That would be the only way to assure that when the call came, half the trim system wasn’t off the ship. Or reactor controls weren’t half installed as electrical work is completed.
This is a nuclear power plant combined with communication, sonar, torpedo, life support, potential nuclear missiles and trim system. Try to imagine the complexity of the equipment, and how much has to work perfectly. No way this was just a phone call.
This was planned ages ago.
I interviewed an ex sub tech for a job once. Its hard to find techs that are curious enough to dig in and fix something when its not working. Today's kids want everything to work and call a consultant when it doesn't. I asked the sub tech for examples of when he knew he had to call an expert. Without hesitation he said, "we didn't ever give up because there was nobody to call. Our motivation was that if we didn't fix our critical systems then we all die.". He was deadpan serious so I said good enough and moved on to other questions.
It’s a great career choice. There are several headhunting groups that specialize in only AF and Navy tech rates. I had a job before my end of service was up. Didn’t have to do shit but send my resume into the head hunter. My first job, half my department was ex military. It’s just more useful than a degree for most jobs. You can start ready to fix it shit, while the college guys have a woeful lack of real world experience.
I was a sonar tech. And he’s right. There is no one to call. You just have to fix it or the mission is compromised. Although I will say I was lucky. Lockheed Martin owns our most advanced gear. When we would do post deployment, contractors would come in from LM and do the most complex work. That’s unusual. Most divisions are just fucked and own everything.
I’m glad I did my time, it set me up for life. Also glad I got out. It’s dangerous. I had several fires and casualties in my time and it was starting to give me sleep problems and nightmares.
Nothing more terrifying than being woken up by silence or an unplanned general alarm on a submarine. They’re always fans and ventilation and background noise, always. Even in port. Sudden total silence is horrifying. It means something is bad enough we just lost electrical, or they killed electrical on purpose. Either scenario could be a death sentence. Fire is the same. Waking up to an alarm and announcement of fire somewhere sucks. You got minutes to figure it out before that bitch fills with smoke and that’s not a place I want to be.
Hard on sleep patterns and general mental health. You don’t feel totally safe closing your eyes to sleep and after months of that in a row your brain starts to hurt.