Happy 112th, undersea warriors!
April 11th, 2012 | Submarines | Posted by Sam Fellman
April 11 marks the 112th anniversary of the date the Navy bought its first fully submersible vessel, Holland IV, and the web is lighting up with birthday greetings, official and unofficial. The official video above was released by Naval Submarine Forces and features sailors from across the force.
Operation Homefront, a nonprofit that provides financial help to sailors and wounded warriors, hailed the 112th birthday in a Tweet that noted the sub force’s abiding virtues: “Ever silent. Ever vigilant.”
Former submariners celebrated by wearing their dolphins — as the silver or gold pin, worn by qualified submariners, is known — to work. And officials released birthday salutations.
“Happy birthday, submariners!” wrote Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy (SS/SW) Rick West, himself a submariner. “You may be called the silent force but your contribution to our great Navy speaks volumes.”
“Going deep…” he signed off. “HOOYAH!”
Hunting narco-subs remains a challenge, officials say
March 14th, 2012 | Submarines | Posted by Sam Fellman
Intercepting drug subs, like this one captured by a Coast Guard cutter in July, remains a concern for military officials. // Coast Guard
Drug cartels rely on trucks, small planes, ships and speed boats to smuggle narcotics into the United States. And in recent years, they’re building increasingly sophisticated submarines, some of which can travel submerged. These drug-running subs are proving to be an issue for the Navy and the Coast Guard, a top official acknowledged Tuesday.
“It’s a very expensive proposition to try and find them, follow them, detect them as they work through the maritime environment,” Gen. Douglas Fraser, the Air Force general who heads U.S. Southern Command, said at a Senate hearing when asked about the subject.
In July, Coast Guard cutter Seneca intercepted a semi-submersible smuggling drugs off of Honduras, and recovered 7.5 tons — roughly valued at $180 million — from the fiberglass vessel, which sank. It was the first time a drug-running sub was spotted in the Caribbean and evidence that the cartels were expanding their reach, Fraser said.
“The use of those vessels continues to expand with the transnational criminal organizations,” Fraser said, adding: “Our focus is really on where they’re built and where they arrive, to address the problem with trying to detect and then intercept them.”
These vessels are built and moored in remote locales. For instance, Colombian authorities seized a fully submersible vessel in February 2011 on a jungle river, hundreds of miles from the country’s coast. It was 99 feet long and capable of hauling 8 tons while fully submerged.
The Navy in Leap Year: WWII, Vietnam and the modern sub inventor’s birthday
February 29th, 2012 | Historical Leap Year Navy Photos Submarines | Posted by Bill McMichael
Every four years, Leap Year adds one day to the calendar to keep our timekeeping in alignment with the Earth’s revolutions around the sun. I thought it’d be neat to find an event in naval history to highlight and mark the unusual day.
Unfortunately, there aren’t any of those major anniversaries that one would normally note — say, one of the World War II island assaults. A web search yielded nothing. Nada. The Navy agrees. According to navy.mil, “There is no Navy historical data noted at this time for Leap Day (Feb. 29).”
The Navy’s reference is to the big stuff, however. Things happened, and things that involved combat operations and risk to sailors, as well. According to the Naval History & Heritage Command, there are two Leap Year events of significance, both from the 20th century and 44 years apart:
1944 – PB4Y-1s from squadrons VB-108, VB-109, and VD-3, conduct a low-level bombing raid on Japanese positions on Wake Island.
1968 – Four North Vietnamese trawlers attempting to simultaneously infiltrate supplies into South Vietnam were detected. Three of the trawlers were sunk in battle on the following day and one survived by turning back.
Today also marks the 1840 birthday of John Philip Holland, the inventor of the modern submarine — one that could successfully operate on internal combustion afloat and electric battery power while submerged.
According to website of the Clare County Library, Ireland, Holland, an Irishman and engineer who emigrated to America in 1873, has his first submitted design for a submarine rejected by the Navy; the Navy Secretary called it “a fantastic scheme of a civilian landsman.” But he persisted and he launched his first sub, the Holland 1, in 1877, in New Jersey’s Passaic River.
Unfortunately, someone forgot to insert two screw plugs, and it began to sink. But the following day, several successful dives were made.
Holland kept at it. The Holland 6 was launched in May 1897, passed U.S. Navy trials in 1899, was bought on Apr. 11, 1900, for $150,000 and became the USS Holland — the Navy’s first sub.
A Christmas tale, submarine-version
December 21st, 2011 | Submarines Video | Posted by Sam Fellman
“ ‘Twas the night before Christmas and what no one could see / The men with dolphins were under the sea.”
So begins the epic 8-minute Christmas video from the submarine force, with sailors from Kings Bay, Ga., to Yokosuka, Japan, reciting verses of “ ‘Twas the night before Christmas — Submarine Style.”
In the the tale — written by former Interior Communications Technician 2nd Class (SS) Sean Keck, who left the service in the early 1980s — a navigator spots a certain reindeer-pulled sleigh through the periscope, but is laughed at by the crew. The sub dives. Then a message arrives in radio.
“Along with the gifts I’ll take to your kin,” Santa tells the submerged sailors in the message, “I’ll visit their dreams and leave word within.”
What do you think? Has the sub force overtaken all other Navy holiday videos?
You never marched like this
December 21st, 2011 | Army Coast Guard Marine Corps Navy Sports Submarines | Posted by Joshua Stewart
No matter how much you loved your sub and how well you can march, or the weird ideas that fermented in your brain after weeks underway without sunlight, you never, not once, thought of doing anything like the formations the West Virginia University Marching Band pulled off.
The whole clip is good and worth a peek, but the Navy stuff starts at 2:50.
It’s tough to say what detail is the best – the submerging sub or the turning screws.
It’s not clear when the band performed, but the clip was uploaded Nov. 6, the day after the Mountaineers lost to the University of Louisville 35-38.
The sub force’s first female trailblazers
November 22nd, 2011 | Historical Submarines Women in the Navy | Posted by Sam Fellman
Women attended nuclear power school in the early 1980s to qualify to stand engineering watches in the submarine force, an initiative that was later abandoned. // Jane Reoch
With female officers reporting for duty this month to the submarine force, news stories have hailed these trailblazers as the first female submariners. While that may be true, they’re not without forebears, one reader told Navy Times.
In the early 1980s, roughly 120 women were recruited into the nuclear Navy to join the submarine force, according to Jane Reoch, a former machinist’s mate first class who joined the Navy in 1979 as part of this effort.
“Our mission was to get qualified so that we could stand engineering watches at the various ports where submarines were stationed,” Reoch said, adding that the aim was to “augment ship’s force, so that they could spend more time with their families.”
Yet before female nukes ever stood engineering watches aboard subs, the Navy shelved the program — an outcome that Reoch believes can be traced to resistance from chiefs of the boat.
Instead, Reoch ended up working at a repair facility and later as an instructor at the nuclear prototype in Ballston Spa, N.Y. Now, she’s developed a website to reconnect with women in the program.
“I’ve even received emails from other men that served,” she added, “and they said, ‘Well, jeez. I wish you had been able to do that!’”
The warm relationship with Chile
September 2nd, 2011 | 3rd Fleet Diplomacy Submarines Training | Posted by Gidget Fuentes
The quiet diesel-electric submarine Carrera slid through San Diego Bay on Sept. 1 for the start of a three-month deployment to the United States, where the Chilean boat will train with 3rd Fleet’s ships, subs and aircraft.
Carrera’s presence in a U.S. port – it calls the submarine piers at Point Loma Naval Base its short-term home – marks the fourth time the Chilean Navy is sending one of its small, stealthy subs to play with the U.S. fleet. The goal of the Diesel Electric Submarine Initiative, of course, is for the U.S. Navy and its foreign seagoing allies to train and operate together, namely with the mission of hunting down those quiet subs that get into the hands of rogue states or terrorist organizations. The stealthiness of the quiet diesels posts quite the challenge for sonar techs, aerial sub hunters and tacticians, and their growing proliferation in the Pacific region continues to worry naval commanders and is seen as a growing threat to U.S. national security and that of its allies.
Last year, Thomson, a Type 209 boat in Chile’s fleet, trained off Southern California and in November headed back to their homeport of Talcahuano with good memories and a few smiles from some victories in the cat-and-mouse game at sea with U.S. sailors – including the crew of fast-attack submarine Asheville.
Chilean submarine Thomson at the pier at Point Loma Naval Base in San Diego in November 2010. This fall, a sister sub, Scorpene-class Carrera, will train with 3rd Fleet in San Diego./Photo by Gidget Fuentes
Thomson’s presence here in San Diego last year came months after a devastating 8.8-magnitude earthquake and tsunami struck Chile. Mother Nature’s fury devastated many communities, including homes of crew members assigned to the sub. But even as their military helped in recovery efforts in the ensuing months, the Chilean navy kept to its commitment and deployed the sub and its crew to San Diego.
U.S.-Chile naval relations go as deep as the diesel-electrics. This week, the Chilean training ship Esmeralda, a masted sailing ship, is visiting Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, following visits to San Diego, San Francisco and Vancouver, Canada, where protesters complained about the ship’s seedier past as an alleged torture chamber dating back two generations to the days of dictator Augusto Pinochet. No such greeting expected in Hawaii, though.
2,000 Tomahawks and counting
August 5th, 2011 | Combat Navy Norfolk Naval Station Photos Royal Navy Ships Submarines Tomahawk Video | Posted by Bill McMichael
The Navy today commemorated its 2,000th Tomahawk cruise missile combat launch during a ceremony at Naval Station Norfolk aboard the destroyer Barry, which took part in the March air strikes on Libyan military facilities in support of U.N. Resolution 1973 and was credited with the 2,000th launch. Check this great pic of a launch from Barry the night the milestone was reached:
The destroyer Barry launches a Tomahawk missile in support of Operation Odyssey Dawn on March 19, 2011. This was one of approximately 110 cruise missiles fired from U.S. and British ships and submarines that targeted about 20 radar and anti-aircraft sites along Libya's Mediterranean coast. // U.S. Navy photo by Interior Communications Electrician Fireman Roderick Eubanks
We don’t know if that is THE 2,000th or not, but you get the idea. Even better: Check the video.
The commemoration honored the Barry crew members for their role in the milestone launch.
Tomahawks have been around for more than 30 years and have been used in every major U.S. combat operation since the first Gulf War in 1991. It can be launched from Navy ships and submarines, as well as Air Force bombers. It’s also used by the Royal Navy.
Here’s a Tomahawk close-up:
A Tomahawk cruise missile launches from the forward missile deck aboard the destroyer Farragut during a 2009 training exercise. // U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Leah Stiles
Mids win top honors at sub race
July 11th, 2011 | Naval Academy Navy Submarines | Posted by Sam Fellman
A Naval Academy team earned top honors at the 11th International Submarine Race, held in late June in Maryland. // James Contreras, U.S. Navy
Naval Academy midshipmen captured top honors at the 11th International Submarine Race, held in late June, with their entry, S.S.H. 11 Mighty Mid.
Mighty Mid, a two-man fiberglass sub built by the academy team, sported waving fins that can be powered by pedaling, which they adapted from use on some kayaks. Mighty Mid hit 6.1 knots underwater on the 100-meter course at the David Taylor Model Basin in West Bethesda, Md., besting a Canadian team who had previously held the title and record for non-propeller subs.
“It felt great, just to represent the Navy,” Midshipman 2nd Class Cheng Han Tay, a member of Team Mighty Mid, told the official blog DoD Live. “And also we took the record back from the Canadian team, we took it back for the U.S. Naval Academy and for the U.S. So everyone’s happy about that.”
Some of the propeller-driven subs were faster, but not my much. The fastest, built by Florida Atlantic University, clocked in at 6.814 knots.
“It’s a non-propeller sub that’s competing with propeller-driven submarines, which is just unheard of for this competition,” Midshipman 2nd Class Mike Pollard told Dod Live. “There’s not been a single non-propeller submarine that’s come this close.”
Twenty-nine teams competed at the sub race, coming from places as far as France and Oman. Mighty Mid won the Spirit of the Race award and top honors for overall performance, bringing home a trophy and $1,000.
You can check out the 5-minute DoD Live video – complete with Jacques Cousteau-esque underwater shots – here.
Navy hosts 11th build-it-yourself mini-sub race
June 22nd, 2011 | Navy Submarines | Posted by Sam Fellman
A race of home-made, human-powered subs is set for late June at a Navy testing pool in Maryland. // AP Photo
Think your underway life is tough? How about having to build you own sub and race it under your own power?
From June 27 to July 1, teams of students, clubs and companies from around the world will be converging on a Navy testing pool in West Bethesda, Md. to race their home-made subs through an underwater course. The 11th International Human-Powered Submarine Race, to be held at the model basin at the Naval Surface Warfare Center, Carderock Division, aims to challenge and inspire the next generation of engineers.
One of the contestants is the Scubster, a pedal-propelled sub built out of carbon fiber by a French team, according to the Associated Press. It is reported to travel up to 6.2 miles-per-hour at depths up to 16 feet underwater.
Stephane Roussan, a member of a French team, tested his Scubster mini-sub in the waters off southern France last summer. // AP Photo