Impressing The New QMC

I’ve mentioned the QMC who relieved Chief McLean on the USS Springfield (SSN 761); I cannot recall his name. A friendly fellow, long-experienced. I impressed him on several occasions with my general ability.

Shortly after he reported aboard, he was in the control room while I was on watch, just looking around to get a feel for how I did business, I guess. We were at periscope depth for a routine communications check, and I was quietly chatting with the QMC and someone else. The QM stand, as it is called, on a 688-class is behind the two periscopes and the little raised platform that surrounds them: the conn, where the OOD stands. The helmsmen, diving officer, and Chief of the Watch are all forward and to port of the conn. There are two plotting tables, between which the QM stands, with the chart on the port plotter. Over the starboard plotter is a plasma display that has several modes; the QM usually will keep it showing heading and speed.

It was time to come down from periscope depth. The OOD ordered the radio antenna lowered, spent some time rubber-necking around on the scope waiting for permission to go down from the CO, and when he got it, ordered, “Ahead two-thirds. Make your depth XXX feet. Lowering number-two scope.” That was my cue to log the orders; the QM logs all course, speed, and depth changes, as well as antennas and masts raised and lowered. The OOD had messed up; the periscope depth excursion has its own litany of commands, one of which is “Lower all masts and antennas.” It’s a handy catch-all, and it triggers the Chief of the Watch to lower any raised masts and verify them down, and report such: “All masts and antennas indicate down.” I liked it because I could make one log entry rather than logging the lowering of each individual mast. The OOD, knowing that he had already lowered the radio mast, didn't bother with the extra command. But! I had logged that they “bumped” the ESM mast, a sort of fancy radar-detector. Not raising it fully dulled its senses, but all you need in that situation is a warning, not a detailed signal analysis. All masts are more fragile when they are being raised or lowered: they are not wedged firmly in their full up or down positions; and the ESM mast was more fragile than most: you could not exceed a certain speed or depth while raising or lowering it, or while it was bumped.

In less time than it takes to tell, I had realized the ESM mast was still bumped: in that position it indicates neither up nor down on the Chief of the Watch’s display, so he would not have a light shining on his panel saying “Up”. I spun around to the plasma display, punching up the mast schematic, to the amazement of the QMC: what was I doing? The display showed that they had not snuck the order to lower the mast by me: it was bumped. It was the Chief of the Watch’s responsibility, but of course the OOD needed to know right away before the mast was damaged.

“Chief of the Watch!” I said loudly, effectively to the OOD, standing between us about eight feet away. “The ESM mast is bumped!” The OOD immediately ordered all stop, and came shallow, and when we reached an acceptable speed and depth ordered the mast lowered. So fast had I reacted that we were still slow and shallow and there was no harm done; although I suppose the Chief of the Watch did not love me. There wasn’t time to discreetly tip him off, and after all it was his duty to check the masts automatically. That’s the way a sub has to operate: everyone needs to back each other up. The QMC was suitably impressed.

It must have been on the same run when we ended up in the Gulf of Mexico; again I was on watch, and again the QMC was hanging around: we were going to run some drills.

Submerged submarines navigate using inertial navigators (on 688s they are called ESGN) that sense the accelerations acting on the sub and apply that to the last known position to determine where the sub is now. Nowadays they are extremely accurate. Without them, you are limited to using dead reckoning in various forms: by hand, and electronically: both plotters (on either side of the QM stand) can run a DR and display latitude and longitude, and also run a little light (called a bug) under its glass surface that shines through the chart, marking where you are: provided the chart is aligned correctly, and the bug is accurately set to match the scale of the chart in use.

The first drill the CO (Commanding Officer; at this time CDR Paul Bloomfield) chose to run was a loss of inertial navigation drill. No more positions for me. I immediately got permission from the Nav to reset all DRs to the last known good inertial position, fired up the starboard plotter and started it running a DR, too, and quickly established a position-keeping logging routine that included the hand DR, both DRs off the plotters, and the position marked by the bug. Also, we had to shift steering to the backup gyrocompass, and I had to begin making compass checks using that. I also had to determine what to use for fix expansion, apply, and plot it. All told I had the position log, compass log, and deck log to enter all this in; and at the same time, the CO, bless his heart, began his next set of drills: crashbacks. This is where you go to flank speed, as fast as the engines will turn, and then immediately go into reverse, back full. It fulfills some engineering function, no doubt, but it is guaranteed to drive a QM whacko. A DR is based on course and speed: you are traveling at X speed, for Y amount of time in this direction, at time Z you will be here. But we were never at a steady speed: we kept speeding up and slowing down, turning to stay within our area, changing depth, and generally raising hell for a couple of hours. I was busy plotting and keeping the various logs and the deck log: my first instructor at QM “A” school had a phrase for it: “As busy as a cat covering shit on a marble floor.”

Finally the watch was over. The CO decided to keep the loss of inertial navigation drill going, for the benefit of the QMs. The Navigation ETs got a copy of the chart to use to track our position using the ESGN. I was allowed to plot one position: the QMC was watching to see how far off I was. On a chart that had about 5 miles to an inch, I was off by less than a mile. The bug was further off than that. The QMC, delighted and amazed, promised he would buy me a beer when we returned to port (I’m still waiting, Chief!).