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!).

Space Shuttle

(Cross-posted from www.qmss.com)

I was on the USS Kamehameha (SSBN 642), Gold crew.  We had completed our overhaul in Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, in Portsmouth, NH (actually, Kittery, ME) and had been doing post-overhaul workup out of Charleston, SC.  The Kamehameha was a Poseidon missile boat, and part of the workup was to test the missile system by launching an actual missile.  For this, we were sent to Port Canaveral, FL.

As the name suggests, Port Canaveral is the harbor at Cape Canaveral, and a portion of it is part of the Cape Canaveral Air Force Base. This base houses the Kennedy Space Center.  The approach is an easy one, coming up heading about 315°, and then turning left to 270°.  There are three basins to the north for the base, and the rest of the harbor is devoted to fishing boats, cruise ships, and pleasure craft.

The launching of a test missile is called DASO, Demonstration and Systems Operation, and several days are devoted to practicing for it.  We would go out in the morning, submerge, man Battle Stations Missile, and spend the day practicing for the launch.  It required so much practice not only to work up the crew, fresh out of overhaul, but because of all the monitoring and test equipment that would have to be operated.  A telemetry mast was stuck in the sail, a tall non-retractable pole designed to project out of the water while we were submerged at launch depth for the test.  This mast can be seen in many photos of missile launches, a red stick with various antennas hanging on to it.

One of the things this mast did was get fix data from a local Loran-A system set up for just that purpose.  Loran-A is a short-range version of Loran-C, which probably doesn't explain much in this GPS age.  In any event, fix data was plentiful, we didn't move around much, and we pulled back into an easy port every night with Cocoa Beach down the road and an Air Force club, the Greenhouse, right there at the piers.  Life was good for a Quartermaster.  In fact, since the local charts used an aerial photograph of the port on the chart, the Greenhouse was on the chart; occasionally Lt. Chuck Saunders, the Navigator, in a jovial mood, would use it as a navaid.

During our operations there, a space shuttle was scheduled to go up in a day launch.  When that happens, a prohibited zone is established to seaward of the Cape that is off-limits to all craft. This apparently didn't apply to us, because there we were.  We completed the day's run early, and surfaced early on the way in, so that the crew could come topside and see the launch.  The crew on watch of course had to miss it.

The navigation team was stationed, so technically we were all on watch, but part of the surfacing routine was to rig the bridge, and the Quartermasters did it: I took that duty this day.  I was a seaman at the time and so I would probably have been doing it in the normal course of things, but I made sure of it this time. The Quartermasters were also in charge of the binoculars; naturally every officer wanted to be on the bridge, and every officer wanted a set of binoculars.  I made sure I kept a pair for myself, and was up rigging the flying bridge, and dawdling at it, so as not to be sent below during the big event.  I was allowed to stay, even though it was getting a little crowded: the bridge on a 640-class submarine is about the size of a refrigerator-freezer on its back, with everyone standing inside it: three can fit fairly comfortably. The flying bridge is a set of stanchions or poles screwed into the top of the sail after surfacing and connected by chains or poles to provide some standing room with a degree of safety on top of the sail.  Men on the flying bridge still had to wear safety harnesses, though, to catch them if they fell.

Various small craft were about, despite the prohibited zone.  They seemed to be dividing their time between watching for the shuttle and staring at the submarine moving past.

Finally, the launch.  We were pretty close, and of course had an unobstructed view.  I do not think we were in sight of land, though, so we must have been maybe 15 miles offshore (my memory is pretty fuzzy on this).  What I do remember is watching it go up almost directly over us, and being able to see the solid rocket boosters separate; the shuttle was past the zenith when that happened.  I don't recall the sound, although we must have been able to hear it. After it was gone, we proceeded into port.

This was the launch where one of the SRBs sunk; the mission highlights page on the web states: Two solid rocket booster casings lost when main parachutes failed and they impacted water and sank.  I distinctly recall one being returned, since the recovery tugs brought it back to the same pier we were using.  I was standing topside watch observing the TV news crews busily filming where the SRB wasn't.

The date of the launch was April 4, 1983, and the shuttle was the Challenger, STS-6 (the Challenger's first launch).  Details of the mission are at the STS-6 Mission Page.

That was the closest I have been to a launch, although when stationed on shore duty at Orlando Naval Training Center I saw many over the course of two and a half years: they could be seen from the base.