Films/DVD Asylum

• Where to start? - dado5 11:10:50 07/22/02 (0)
  In Reply to: I was a bubblehead for 10 years..... posted by mikenyc on July 22, 2002 at 07:25:03:

  First and foremost, most films have unrealistic sets. Hunt for Red October stands out as one of the worst. The Con (thats the main control room where the Officer of the Deck dirves the boat) on the Dallas looks nothing like the one on HRO. They simply do not look as high tech as most films show. And they are certainly not as spacious.
  I think the deliberate "closed-in-ness" of films like Run Silent and Das Boat is accurate. You are never more than 10 feet or so from an outside wall on a boat.

  I can't comment on the drama of survival as I was never on a boat that was in jeopardy, but the general level of excitement during drills was more than enough for me.

  A slice of real submarine life:

  - about 110 men go to sea on a modern nuke boat.

  -18 hour days; 6 hours on watch 12 off. In those off hours you eat, sleep and otherwise keep busy.

  -Drills are run twice each day, morning and afternoon watches. So if you just got off the mid watch, good luck sleeping. The specific nature of the drills are always unknown to the active watchstanders, so as to simulate actual emergencies.

  - You shower once every two to three days. Your working division is on a rotation and assigne a time of day to shower. Again, good luck if you happen to be on watch at this time.

  -On all boats but the big Tridents (Ohio class), enlisted men rated E-5 and below share beds. This is called hotracking. Usually three men to two bunks, with each man on a differnt watch (remember 3 6 hour watches make up a workday.). Cooks and Medics get their
  own bunks for hygine reasons. Officers are usually two to a stateroom, with the CO & XO having their own cabins. On bigger boats sometimes the Navigator, Chief Engineer and Weapons officer have private digs as well. Usually makeshift berthing is set up in other spaces such as torpedo rooms and missle compartments.

  - Fresh food lasts about the first week of a deployment. From there it is powdered and canned down to the last days of the run where it is often ravioli, potato balls and brussel sprouts for all three meals.

  -The air is beyond foul. You get used to it wihtin a day or two, but once you get off the boat and into fresh air, your oder becomes very apparent.

  -You have got to be a diplomat as you have no way of avoiding anyone you have a run in with. Grudges make for long trips.

  -In port you work regular 8 hour work days with a rotating 24 hour duty. Usually you have duty every 3rd or 4th day and you stay on the boat the full 24 hours, usually standing sentry watches or roving security patrols on the boat and/or pier.

  -you are expected to know the boat inside out. There is a formal qualification for this, after completion of which, you are a certified submariner (pronounced sub-mair-iner, not sub-marine-er)and get to where the famous "Dolphin" pin on your uniform. This takes about a year.

  -I was a nuclear reactor operator, so i missed out on all the 'gee-whiz' stuff that goes on up front. But when requests from the Con for rapid speed changes came in, we knew we were either dogging or being dogged. We would get the details from the forward guys off watch.

  So back to the movies.

  I noticed a unique change in the mid 90's. The language used in most movies was a joke. But after 94 or so it became very accurate. The commands bantered about on Crimson Tide were spot on. The missle commands they used were the real thing (although agian the sets were a bit grandiose). This stuff used to be hush-hush, so I guess alot of it was declassified after the cold war.

  Man I could go on and on. Throw me any specific questions and I will be gald to answer them.

  Thanks,
  Rob
  
  

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