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.
It’s runtime. Most systems on a submarine never stop. The reactor stuff may get shut down in port, but we bring on shore power and everything else stays on. It never turns off. After a decade, stuff is getting old. Then it’s just a constant battle against stuff breaking. There is plumbing everywhere. Thousands and thousands of valves. They go bad. Pumps go bad. Motors go bad. Electronic boards burn out. Hydraulics leak. It’s never ending. Just the way it is with something so complex that operates in such tough environment. The ocean never gives up trying to get in. A void space in the water is unnatural. Nature never gives up trying to restore things.
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.
It’s runtime. Most systems on a submarine never stop. The reactor stuff may get shut down in port, but we bring on shore power and everything else stays on. It never turns off. After a decade, stuff is getting old. Then it’s just a constant battle against stuff breaking. There is plumbing everywhere. Thousands and thousands of valves. They go bad. Pumps go bad. Motors go bad. Electronic boards burn out. Hydraulics leak. It’s never ending. Just the way it is with something so complex that operates in such tough environment. The ocean never gives up trying to get in. A void space in the water is unnatural. Nature never gives up trying to restore things.