Making Steam the RN Way

I had a few old posts on this subject.

A-type boilers were definitely a prewar design in the USN.

How to Tell If That Script Was Written or Directed by an Amateur

If you're watching a naval-themed movie and somebody says "fire a (name of weapon", that's amateur.

On naval ships, the word "fire" refers to unplanned conflagrations: "Fire on the Flight Deck!" "Fire in the Galley."

The only exception to that is when the word "fire" is coupled with "room": The "Fireroom" (one word) is where the boilers are on an oil-fired ship.

"Fires" (plural) refers to the act of getting a boiler going: "Light fires in 1 Alpha Boiler." "Fires lighted in 1 Alpha Boiler."

If you're going to (or have) discharge a weapon, the word is "Shoot".

If a newbie uses the word "fire" in that context, everyone else who heard that will start making fun of it: "Ready to fire Mount 51." "Oh my God, there's a fire in Mount 51."

I can't think of the movie's name right now, but a few months back, I watched a naval movie in which the characters said "fire" so much, that I almost needed to visit an ophthalmologist to unroll my eyes.

(My hazy recollection is that Sink the Bismarck! got it right.)

Fair Winds and Following Seas, Charlie Oscar

I don't keep in touch with my ex-service buddies. It's been a hell of a long time and we all change.

So it was with a little sadness that I learned of the passing, last year, of CAPT Guy R. Campbell, III, USN, ret.

Captain Campbell was one of the captains whose crews would have followed him into Hell, without hesitation. When I knew him, he had relieved a captain whose crew would have cheerfully sent him to Hell. He believed in mentoring and training his crews, not in chewing them out. An expression of mild disappointment from him would be devastating, as the person receiving it knew that they had let down the Old Man.

One weekend in home port, his ship was open to the public for topside tours. Unbeknownst to him, his kids (ranging from teenagers to pre-teens) took the public tour. When the sailor giving the tour pointed out the Captain's Gig and explained its function, one of the kids giggled and told a sibling: "That's Daddy's boat." The sailor giving the tour overheard that and told the OOD after the tour group left. The OOD told the CDO, who passed it along to the XO. Captain Campbell went to the sailor's workspace the next work day and apologized for what his kids did. He sure as hell didn't need to do that, but word of it spread through the waterfront like wildfire. That's just one example of why he was beloved by his crews.

Captain Campbell was not one of those captains who would step on his crews in order to please his bosses' in-port horseshit. To him, the welfare of his crew was all, for he knew that if his crew had his back, there was nothing that both they and his ship couldn't do.

Fair wins and following seas, Captain.

Unrep (Pt. I)

I have hesitated for a long time in writing about underway replenishment. For I was mostly an engineer. I'd sit either in Main Control or in the Oil & Water Lab and monitor the progress of refueling. If the ship wasn't taking on fuel, then I'd normally be in Main Control to keep an eye on the plant. There were a few times as an ensign that I was technically "officer in charge" of the forward refueling station, but make no mistake about it: The Second Class Bosun's Mate ran it. My job was to look for safety violations, like someone stepping into the bight of a line.

So I don't know a whole hell of a lot about Unrep. The blogger over at Chaotic Synaptic Activity served aboard an unrep ship. What to me was a weekly or so affair for fuel and monthly for supplies was what he did.

So first, let's talk about supplies.

In port, in the US, supply was more or less a constant thing. If you really needed something, you could walk a chit though at the local supply center.

If the ship was deployed, then all but the most critical parts came on a monthly basis. Sometimes, it came in port. There would be a series of trucks showing up at the pier. An "all hands" working party would be called away to unload them and then pass the supplies from the trucks, up the gangway, through the ship and down into the storerooms. The Supply Officer and his chiefs acted as traffic directors. Department Heads and the XO were safety observers. Everyone else who was not on watch, including chiefs and junior officers, were in the working party. it took several hours.

In-port resupplies of that magnitude were rare. All of the goods had to be brought by a supply ship to another pier or port and offloaded into trucks. There were, understandably, security concerns that ranged from basic theft to terrorism. In foreign ports, the trucks had to be guarded for customs reasons. Both the Navy and the country where the resupply was taking place pretended that the trucks were never in the country.

And it was a pain in the ass. In a foreign port, where the idea was to try and get time of to see the sights (or get drunk and/or laid), nobody wanted to spend a precious day in port humping truckloads of supplies.

The vast majority of monthly resupply evolutions were done at sea.

Sub Sunk- Plus 55 Years

55 years ago today, the USS Thresher (SSN-593) was lost. She was the lead ship of her class, which was renamed the Permit class.

The loss of the Thresher uncovered a number of problems with quality control and submarine construction methods. They weren't so much of an issue during the war, but the then-new nuclear submarines could dive about a thousand feet deeper than the American submarines built during the war.

The procedures for constructing and QCing submarines was radically changed with the development and implementation of the SUBSAFE program. No SUBSAFE-certified submarine has been lost, as of today. (USS Scorpion was built before the loss of the Thresher )

The Inspection From Hell

This is no shit:

A few months before this incident, the same ship was visiting another port. Each month, the captain of a ship was supposed to hold an inspection. It could be a zone inspection (working spaces), a messing and berthing inspection, or a personnel inspection.

This particular time, the captain chose to hold a messing and berthing inspection. He started aft at 0900. Farthest aft was Airdale Berthing (the ship had an embarked helo detachment). That was fine.

Next up was the After Head, used by the sailors in Engineering and Aviation Departments. The captain ran his finger under the rim of the toilet bowls to check for a buildup of scum. What he found was some enterprising sailor had packed fecal material under the rim of one of the toilets.

The captain's rage was towering. He went into Engineering Berthing and, basically, tore the place apart. He flipped the mattresses from every bunk on the pretext of looking for contraband. He yanked the sheets from every mattress to see if the mattress was stained. He did the same to every pillow. He was in there for hours. (It seemed longer.)

Next up was the Mess Deck and it got similar treatment. The turmoil was such that the cooks served sandwiches for lunch instead of a planned hot meal with a selection of two main courses. The captain was a little more restrained when he got to the Goat Locker, but not by much. Then it was the turn of Supply Berthing, which got almost the same treatment as the Engineers did.

The Forward Head was immaculate, as everyone knew what was going on. Weapons and Operations flooded the place with sailors to make sure that the head was clean enough for doing brain surgery. Try as he might, the captain could only find a little dust in a conduit bundle.

The scary thing was it had now been ten hours since the Shitter Incident and the captain was still in a full-blown rage. it was one thing to be angry, but he was acting as though somebody had shot his dog and then rubbed the carcass in his face. He truly was, at that moment, insane.

Liberty had been secured for the day. At 2000, the XO persuaded the captain to end the inspection for the day, to resume the next day. The XO called the department heads together and told them that the inspection would resume at 0900 the following day, with the uninspected areas up first, then a reinspection of the unsat areas (everything else).

And yes, there were areas that had not been inspected. The inspection of the berthing compartments for Weapons and Operations took five minutes each. Inspection of Officers' Country took ten minutes, including the Wardroom Galley (the captain basically glanced into each stateroom). The reinspection of every other area took about five minutes apiece. The captain made the XO run his finger under the rims of the toilet bowls in the After Head.

Nobody was stupid enough to try a repeat. And just to be sure, the engineering chiefs personally had checked each toilet.