Military BS Stories or the last liar wins.

[actaeon277]

Here is a Navy submarine recruiting video.
Notice, there are no scenes of people waxing decks, scrubbing bulkheads and decks, painting, removing paint, etc.

(I do like this quote, though it is directed to the WWII submariner, so I can not claim any part of it)
"It is to the everlasting honor and glory of our submarine personnel that they never failed us in our days of peril."
Fleet Admiral
Chester W. Nimitz


[video=youtube;A4FvP9pdAFA]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4FvP9pdAFA[/video]

 

[2A_Tom]

But there is nothing more fun than jumping out of those rickety pieces of junk that the Air Force flies.

 

[actaeon277]

And, they frown on us going around torpedoing ships, we occupy time by surveillance and deploying special mission personnel.

 

[Dave A]

Here is a Navy submarine recruiting video.
Notice, there are no scenes of people waxing decks, scrubbing bulkheads and decks, painting, removing paint, etc.

(I do like this quote, though it is directed to the WWII submariner, so I can not claim any part of it)
"It is to the everlasting honor and glory of our submarine personnel that they never failed us in our days of peril."
Fleet Admiral
Chester W. Nimitz


[video=youtube;A4FvP9pdAFA]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4FvP9pdAFA[/video]

You mean like scrubbing the deck in control with nylon pads, soap and water to clean up the hydraulic oil from the "pipe locker" in front of the helm and planes station? Done it many times before going off watch.

 

[actaeon277]

You mean like scrubbing the deck in control with nylon pads, soap and water to clean up the hydraulic oil from the "pipe locker" in front of the helm and planes station? Done it many times before going off watch.

Well, no brooms or mops on board.
Only foxtails and greenies.


Hello brother of the 'phin.

 

[Dave A]

Well, no brooms or mops on board.
Only foxtails and greenies.


Hello brother of the 'phin.

Ops ET, USS Barb(SSN596) for 4 years. Had a couple RO friends that wished they worked in the cone.

 

[2A_Tom]

If there are no brooms on board then how do they find the leak in the steam line?

 

[actaeon277]

Ops ET, USS Barb(SSN596) for 4 years. Had a couple RO friends that wished they worked in the cone.

That's cause you guys were slackers

 

[actaeon277]

If you want some good WWII submarine info, Hell Below is a good series. I think it's on Comcast on demand.
Also, "Silent Service", which you can view for free at https://www.youtube.com/user/Subsim/videos?disable_polymer=1



Though, I find the actors to be extremely stern in their expressions.

 

[Dave A]

[video=youtube;TkOO8qQ26bE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkOO8qQ26bE[/video]

And the flush water is 32 degrees.

 

[Dave A]

That's cause you guys were slackers

Slacker maybe but those poor nukes seemed to always be under staffed and over worked.
Caution: Sea story follows. We or "they" (the nukes) failed an ORSE and those poor bastards really got the **** until they passed. 6 on 6 off, scrams and other drills and tests. Anyway, during the drills, etc. a cable for some of the sensor/monitoring equipment became "intermittent" causing scrams every hour or two, so they decided to keep the reactor shutdown and troubleshoot the problem. The boat was surfaced and the diesel generator was running for hours while they worked on the source of the problem causing the scrams. So I, being a slacker ET and wasn't needed to operate the radar or update our position on the SINS or monitor for any threat radars on the ECM equipment, I requested permission to go to the bridge. That was OK with the OOD so I spent the next couple hours enjoying fresh sea air or diesel exhaust, beautiful views of Guam and dolphins swimming past the boat. To this day diesel exhaust reminds me of that day. Sometimes life came be relatively good on a boat as long as you are not a crank, nuke or an A-ganger.

 

[actaeon277]

To interpret the story for everyone.
ORSE is Operational Reactor Safeguards Exam.
It is 3 days of engineering casualty drills, written exams, oral exams, engineering evolutions, and records review.
If you fail it, well your submarine can not go to sea. Which makes it useless as far as the navy is concerned.
So you work everyone to death to prepare for a retest.

ET is Electronics Technician.

SINS is Ship's Internal Navigational System. Uses accelerometers to dead reckon your position.

ECM is Electronics Counter Measures

OOD is Officer Of the Deck

Crank is a mess crank. They clean dishes and the mess decks. Everyone has to mess crank for awhile.

A-ganger is a machinest mate (non-nuke).

 

[KellyinAvon]

But there is nothing more fun than jumping out of those rickety pieces of junk that the Air Force flies.

Pope's C-130s?

 

[woowoo2]

Crank is a mess crank. They clean dishes and the mess decks. Everyone has to mess crank for awhile.

In the world of Destroyers, Crank is what kept the Boiler techs awake.
The Fire Control techs, and the Electronic Techs never did mess duty.

 

[actaeon277]

In the world of Destroyers, Crank is what kept the Boiler techs awake.
The Fire Control techs, and the Electronic Techs never did mess duty.

On my sub nukes did 30 days.
Everyone else did 60 days.

 

[Dave A]

To interpret the story for everyone.
ORSE is Operational Reactor Safeguards Exam.
It is 3 days of engineering casualty drills, written exams, oral exams, engineering evolutions, and records review.
If you fail it, well your submarine can not go to sea. Which makes it useless as far as the navy is concerned.
So you work everyone to death to prepare for a retest.

ET is Electronics Technician.

SINS is Ship's Internal Navigational System. Uses accelerometers to dead reckon your position.

ECM is Electronics Counter Measures

OOD is Officer Of the Deck

Crank is a mess crank. They clean dishes and the mess decks. Everyone has to mess crank for awhile.

A-ganger is a machinest mate (non-nuke).

Good job explaining the lingo. The QM's didn't trust the SINS but preferred LORAN A when we could get a couple signals and Loran C otherwise. For a year or two the chief QM was the COB and he didn't hesitate to ***** about our navigation equipment. We didn't get a SatNav or was it NavSat receiver until late 1975 and things were easy after that. We even changed our routine of going to periscope depth based on satellite passes. Our boat was a little different in that I don't ever remember any 3rd class cranking and definitively no nukes cranked. The nuke guys were prima donna's when forward of the reactor compartment. We did go to sea after an ORSE failure but we have a few special riders on board. If I remember correctly they rode us from Pearl to Guam and retested at Guam. And that begins another sea story which involves an old BUFF and made the Barb famous for a day.

 

[actaeon277]

They said they wanted EVERYONE (enlisted of course) to crank.
Because we were one team.
Also, so everyone would understand the work involved, and take more care.


To some extent, this extended to the officers.
Not the mess crank stuff. But cleanliness.

When firing a "water slug" (simulates a torpedo launch for the landlubbers), everyone usually found others that needed to do it, and then everyone in the group did a manual launch.
Then a torpedoman climbed in the tube and cleaned.
But, we had an officer that was too impatient to wait for a group, and he was an OFFICER.
So, conditions were right (meaning no nasty Russians tracking us) and he got his water slug launched.
(Water slug is when you fire a torpedo tube, follow all the steps, but there is no torpedo in the tube, just a slug of water)
Well, when the officer was done and preening on knowing an intricate procedure, a torpedoman handed him a towel and told him to "get to it".
The officer stared at him, and said, he was an officer, so he didn't have to.
But, the Old Man knew this would happen, and snuck in behind the officer.
After that statement, the Captain cleared his throat, and stated that he didn't remember anywhere in Navy Regs that stated an officer couldn't get dirty.
And thus, the officer climbed into a narrow, dark, slimy torpedo tube.
And he learned, next time someone told him to wait for a group, to WAIT FOR A GROUP.
And he learned, surface pukes may be exempt from getting dirty if they were an officer. But bubbleheads got dirty, even if they were an officer.

 

[actaeon277]

Maybe you could tell us the BUFF story.
If it's not, "I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you".

 

[Alamo]

Maybe you could tell us the BUFF story.
If it's not, "I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you".

I’m guessing this was rescue of B-52 crew that had to eject in middle of a typhoon.

 

[actaeon277]

I’m guessing this was rescue of B-52 crew that had to eject in middle of a typhoon.

So I just looked it up and found..
At about 23:00, Barb surfaced about 12 miles (19 km) from the reported location. The heavy weather had already forced surface ships to turn back, and caused the round-hulled submarine to roll and corkscrew violently.
WOW
The surface ships, which are DESIGNED TO OPERATE ON THE SURFACE turned away.
The ship NOT designed to operate on the surface, stayed.
I've been on a sub on the surface during some bad storms. Normally we dove under them.
But I can tell you, SUBS DON'T BELONG ON THE SURFACE DURING A STORM.
No they don't.
I can't remember the force of the storms I did go through, but I remember being thrown of a bench. Out of a bunk. And knocked off my feet.