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Old 09-06-2007, 11:53 PM   #21
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Submariners never allow their incidents to surface.
Nuclear missile allegedly damaged
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Old 09-07-2007, 12:06 AM   #22
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You'd think that by now I would've learned to see that coming...
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Old 09-07-2007, 07:43 PM   #23
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I haven't heard the term "Two man conrol" for many years. As Navy couriers whenever we transported two man control material we went everywhere together. If one courier had to make a head call then the other went with him.

We were somewhat terrified of making an honest mistake and spending time in Levenworth prison because of it.

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Old 09-11-2007, 03:13 AM   #24
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Ok I understand why it is a major screw up etc, but...

My understanding is during all of the 50s and much of the 60s and 70s. B52 armed with nuclear weapons were in the air. I know of at least one case a B52 crashed carry nuclear warheads near Spain. No mushroom cloud, no radiation leakage despite bombs ending up on the deep ocean floor.

I once spend a couple weeks with a Russian submarine nuclear engineering officer. The stories he told or alluded to of illiterate Russian peasant operating poorly designed and poorly maintain nuclear reactors were pretty hair raising.
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Old 09-11-2007, 10:48 AM   #25
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Ok I understand why it is a major screw up etc, but...

My understanding is during all of the 50s and much of the 60s and 70s. B52 armed with nuclear weapons were in the air. I know of at least one case a B52 crashed carry nuclear warheads near Spain. No mushroom cloud, no radiation leakage despite bombs ending up on the deep ocean floor.

I once spend a couple weeks with a Russian submarine nuclear engineering officer. The stories he told or alluded to of illiterate Russian peasant operating poorly designed and poorly maintain nuclear reactors were pretty hair raising.
I defer all comments to Nords........ I thought nukes couldn't be detonated without some sort of code??
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Old 09-11-2007, 03:37 PM   #26
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I once spend a couple weeks with a Russian submarine nuclear engineering officer. The stories he told or alluded to of illiterate Russian peasant operating poorly designed and poorly maintain nuclear reactors were pretty hair raising.
The Russian ECHO submarine class was referred to as "Widowmaker" by the crews.

It drove the Navy-- particularly Rickover-- crazy. When the EISENHOWER nuclear carrier left Norfolk for a 1960s deployment, escorted by nuclear cruisers, they headed east at 30 knots expecting to leave the ECHO surveillance in their wake. Instead the submarine loafed along across the entire Atlantic, easily keeping pace at a time when American THRESHER and STURGEON class subs could maintain, at best, a 25-knot SOA. Short of sinking the sub as soon as they found it, there didn't seem to be any way to get outside of its missile-threat envelope.

In his inimitable manner, Rickover screamed at the Naval Reactors engineering staff to come up with a comparable U.S. submarine design. The best they could do was a humongously awkward hull that made all sorts of design, safety, & habitability sacrifices in the name of speed. (Today we call that the LOS ANGELES class.) The only way the engineers could come up with an ECHO-size hull capable of that much speed was to leave out most of the reactor's lead & water shielding... but not only would the federally-legislated radiation-exposure rules not allow that, no one would be so foolish as to risk killing the crew every time the OOD ordered up a flank bell.

When the Berlin Wall came down and the U.S.-Russian submariners started talking amongst themselves, it still took a long time for everyone to believe the truth.

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I defer all comments to Nords........ I thought nukes couldn't be detonated without some sort of code??
During the Cold War there was some concern that communications reliability would be badly affected-- even wiped out-- by the electromagnetic effects of nuclear-warhead detonations (EMP). It was such an issue that back then submarine radiomen actually had to be able to copy CW-- Morse code-- at 16 words per minute. Because it was hard enough to be confident of getting a launch order through to the subs, let alone the permissive action links (unlocking codes), submarines were exempted from the rest of the military's PALs. So a launch order would still require authentication of the message, but the submarines carried everything else needed to make mushroom clouds. It was hypothetically possible for boomer COs (with one willing assistant) to launch armed nuclear weapons anytime they wanted to.

Today submarines are required to comply with the same system as the rest of the military. It's a lot different than the Cold-War days, and I don't know how the boomer guys maintain the will to live-- let alone patrol for 30-45 days. I guess it's the same blissful ignorance I had while serving on a boomer before an attack sub: you don't miss it if you don't know it exists.

Let me think about it for a second... nope, don't miss any of it!
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Old 09-11-2007, 08:42 PM   #27
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Nords I'm sure you have heard this old cold war navy joke. How do you tell a Russian submarine sailor from an ordinary sailor? He is the one who glows in the dark.

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Old 10-20-2007, 09:43 AM   #28
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Looks like the Air Force has dropped its own "neutron bomb" remediation program on this base's ability to handle nuclear weapons...

Three O-6s and an O-5 relieved, and 65 others "withdrawn" from the program.
Air Force fires commanders over nuclear mix-up | Reuters

Secretary of the Air Force quote: "We would not be this upset with ourselves, nor be striving to restore confidence, if this did not involve nuclear weapons," he said.

Nords amplification: "Because it happens all the time with our conventional ordnance!"

Glad I'm not in the PRP anymore... REW, better turn off your phone ringers for a couple weeks.
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