With the
Naval Submarine League symposium going on last week, there's a lot of interesting submarine news on the web. Here's a roundup:
1) Enlisted women could start reporting to submarines
as early as 2016. I expect this will be more problematic that the integration of female officers -- due to berthing and maturity concerns (not wanting to sound elitist, but, c'mon, anyone who's been around Navy female enlisted women recognize that there are, in general, certain differences between them and female officers in various areas relating to self-control and considerations of the long-term effects of decisions they may make...). I hope I'm wrong. (My data set is based on one deployment aboard an aircraft carrier in 2000.)
2) VADM Connor
warns of a submarine shortfall due to the upcoming retirement of
Los Angeles-class boats. The "we might have to extend the service life of some boats" suggestion always worries me, since a
LID boat has obvious tactical liabilities -- unless they've got more engineering data that says they can increase hull life safely or have figured out a way to anneal the hull.
3) A very good .ppt presentation of the future direction of the
Virginia class and
Ohio Replacement can be found
here. Here's a cool slide from the presentation:
Here's
an article discussing this slide.
4) Yesterday marked the 10th anniversary of
the grounding of USS Hartford (SSN 768) off La Madd. As I've
mentioned before, that one was kind of personal for me.
5) Interesting story from Down Under about an O-Boat Cold War mission that
almost went very bad.
6) Topside watchstanders in Norfolk reportedly are
now required to wear life jackets at all times as a result of the
tragic loss of a USS Boise (SSN 764) crewmember in July. Not sure if the change is being implemented Forcewide.
7) Lastly, in Meridian, Idaho, local retired Submarine Officers are still able to reduce property values throughout their neighborhood but putting up gaudy decorations for Halloween, although with their sons off at various schools they don't feel the need to put up
roof inflatables anymore:
Read the complete post at http://bubbleheads.blogspot.com/2013/10/news-from-nsl-symposium-and-other.html
Posted
Oct 26 2013, 08:18 AM
by
The Stupid Shall Be Punished