Regarding chain of command responsibility for USS Connecticut's seamount encounter, on October 12, 2021, I commented:
"Pete said...
Hi KQN [your Oct 12, 2021, 2:53:00 PM]
I think the USN will hold a Board of Inquiry given the likely US$millions taxpayer money repair bill.
To justify sacking Connecticut's Commander, Officer of the Watch and possibly some Petty Officers reasons will likely be published. After a Judicial and Public Relations pause.
If a Chinese ship/"fishing boat" rammed it - then that might change things.
Pete"
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On November 5, 2021 The Sydney Morning Herald reported:
"As a result, the statement said [Vice Admiral Karl Thomas, commander of the US 7th Fleet, based in Japan] relieved Commander Cameron Aljilani as commanding officer, Lieutenant Commander Patrick Cashin as executive officer, and Master Chief Sonar Technician Cory Rodgers as chief of the boat, “due to loss of confidence.” The chief of the boat is the senior enlisted adviser to the commander and the executive officer.
The Navy has yet to publicly explain how or why the USS Connecticut, a Seawolf-class submarine, struck a seamount, or underwater mountain, or to reveal the extent of damage to the vessel."
7 comments:
Hi Pete,
Hope you are in good health.
For your weekend reading and entertainment:
Tony Abbott has been getting on the news for his speech on the RAN using old US/UK submarines
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/43005/australia-could-push-to-aquire-retired-us-navy-los-angeles-class-nuclear-submarines
My thoughts? Any available LA or Trafalgar boat will be older than a Collins class, so there would be little real practical utility, especially as there's no yard space for refurbishment. The Trafalgars also have reactor issues, so getting a 'power plant training unit' and basing it in Garden Island for training would be great for hands on damage control experience.
A more practical idea is to start seeding RAN submariners onto US and UK submarines, and start nuclear engineering training, but that's likely already on the agenda.
As I mentioned previously, HHI churns out thousands of new welders and ship fitters every year through their 2 to 4 year training school - so ASC should start a scholarship program to start sending young Australians there.
H I Sutton published a very interesting article on the Dreadnought Class Submarine
https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news/2021/11/first-submarine-to-use-new-stealth-technology/
Hi Shawn C
Yes I have been informed that a former PM wants to be PM again, but I don't believe that. My friend further informs me that former PM's round the world speaking tour (funded by?) exhibits a rather worrying ignorance of SSN issues.
Yes re: "The Trafalgars also have reactor issues, so getting a 'power plant training unit' and basing it in Garden Island for training would be great for hands on damage control experience."
The Trafalgars reactor ends leaking at Garden Island, Sydney Harbour, would provide submariners, newly created Australian Defence Nuclear Safety Agency emergency crews, and the Sydney civilian population generally:
with real world "interesting times" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_you_live_in_interesting_times
More later.
To Shawn C.
Re: "and start nuclear engineering training, but that's likely already on the agenda." Likely.
Re: "As I mentioned previously, HHI churns out thousands of new welders and ship fitters every year through their 2 to 4 year training school - so ASC should start a scholarship program to start sending young Australians there."
"HHI" being Hyundai Heavy Industries? Or the US welding specialist? https://www.hhicorp.com/portfolio-item/welding/
Hi again Shawn C.
Re: "A more practical idea is to start sending RAN submariners onto US and UK submarines"
That in fact happened with Australian sailors from about 1910 to the 1960s seconded on, or actually integrated with, UK Royal Navy submarines. The last subs being Oberon SSKs.
Australia subsequently bought 6 Oberons then started to very successfully use them from the mid 1960s https://www.submarineinstitute.com/submarines-in-australia/The-RAN-Oberon-Class.html . I knew some of these Australian "O-boat" submariners including some who had trained on UK O-boats.
But. note, there was a necessary multi-decade learning curve for Australians to accustom themselves to even having a common "diesel powered" submarine service.
The required learning curve will need to be more prolonged (probably 30+ years) for an Australian nuclear propelled submarine service.
Pete
And finally Shawn C.
Re your: "H I Sutton published a very interesting article on the Dreadnought Class Submarine
https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news/2021/11/first-submarine-to-use-new-stealth-technology/ "
My earlier inclinations have been "I'm so jealous of H I Sutton".
However H I Sutton's polymath https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polymath talents, extending from:
- terrific drawings and photos
- written articles at Covert Shores http://www.hisutton.com/
- at other publications, including https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news/2021/11/first-submarine-to-use-new-stealth-technology/ of which you speak
- other multi-media ventures, recently his Youtube video collection https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWHq3kn8PWCb66fhJD8lskQ/videos
has shifted my earlier jeolousy to being deeply impressed.
So take that broadside H I Sutton!
Pete :)
Hello Pete,
Apologies, I wrote that off the cuff and didn’t double check. Meant Huntington Ingalls Industries (for some strange reason I thought it was Huntington Hills Ingals)
https://careers.huntingtoningalls.com/
HII has academy courses for apprenticeship - if ASC intends to cut steel on a new SSN design in five years, they would need to start spooling up their junior welders now as they need the years of training and learning experience, especially when a wrong weld can cause a nuclear steam pipe to burst and sink your sub.
Sutton seems to have transitioned from freelance contributor - I’ve seen his articles in Business Insider and Forbes to main OSNINT contributor for Naval News and USNI News, though his big focus on narco subs hasn’t been picked up.. yet. He’s the right guy at the right time - there are many military historians now turning to YouTube for success (I just sat through a 5 hour Drachinifel QnA last week while working, while Ian McCullum at Forgotten Weapons is brilliant for his content - he just tried the extremely rare Sten Mk 2S).
The ability of social media for these people to ‘get their stories out’ leads to amazing stories and I’m waiting for a sub v airborne subhunter story from Jive Turkey and Ancient Subhunter, who both contributed to The War Zone recently:
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/42900/the-truth-about-the-growing-diesel-submarine-threat-from-a-veteran-sub-hunter
Ancient Sub Hunter was an S2 sonar operator in the mid-1980s, while Jive Turkey was a senior sonarman on LA and Ohio submarines until the early 2000s - I used to watch him on YouTube when he was posting videos of a game I like (Cold Waters) but I happened to stumble on his his livestream on the ARA San Juan on the day the ‘sonar datum’ was revealed, and it was simply astounding how he used a simple sound editing program to measure the number of signals picked up and correctly deduced, live, that it was a submarine suffering an internal explosion, with the crew trying to emergency blow, then imploding at crush depth…
I personally reckon that wasn’t the first time he heard a submarine suffer an internal explosion…
Suttons skills in MS Paint are brilliant - if I could draw I’d personally stay far away from that program (I’m a Mac User with an iPad Pro)
Hi Shawn C. [your Nov 7, 2021, 7:14:00 PM]
Yes I thought Huntington Ingalls Industries (HII) was a possibility.
Your "if ASC intends to cut steel on a new SSN design in five years". I think cutting steel in about 10 to 15 years would be more on the money.
I've been looking at H I Sutton's Covert Shores since 2014, always impressive. Covert Shores was very much drawing-centric about very small minisubs, diver delivery vehicles, then narco-subs in 2014-2016. By 2017 it had moved up the "foodchain" to full sized subs drawings, photos, prose now youtubes.
"Jive Turkey" aka Sub Brief is chock full of useful Youtube info and updates. Very Yankee delivery. He has unique ex-USN, ex-sonarman physics-scientific perspectives. Often its very useful when he says he cannot talk about things - that inadvertently permits inferences to be made.
Compared to what were ex-USN "old salt" veterans' blogs (and uneven forums) up to 2010 - now things have gradually developed into a balanced group of regular civilian bloggers and Jive Turkey, who build on each others skills (in a positive way).
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