Answers to Submarine Q.O.T.W. from 17 MAR 17

Related information and links for questions are found in the original posting here. 

Questions of the Week (Q.O.T.W.) with ANSWERS

1- Was current President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin's father a submariner?  ANS: Yes , Putin's father, Vladimir Spiridonovich Putin, was a conscript in the Soviet Navy, serving in the submarine fleet in the early 1930s.

2-  Did the U.S. navy require Cold War submarine volunteers to have their sound wisdom teeth extracted in order to prevent the possibility of mission interference / interruption?
ANS: Yes, authors here were some of them.

3-  Is it true that submariners are superstitious and as so unable to cope with deviations from daily routine for their fear of tempting fate?  ANS: Certainly NOT.  Just consider the number of subs sunk during WW2. By necessity and selection, submariners are among the least superstitious and most cerebral of any branch in the armed forces. As Juan Caruso says in the first line of his poem Extreme Creatures, “... (they) Who suffer no attrition upon news their kind are sunk”. More Examples.

4- How recently was the snow-flakey assertion in question 3 published? ANS: On March 17, 2015 an author remarked, "Submariners are a superstitious lot at the best of times and any deviation from this routine is an unacceptable risk in tempting fate."

Submariner's Quote of the Week
... [F]ood rationing at that time was a challenge because it got to the stage where breakfast was just one sausage with a teaspoon of beans and dinner was pasta and tomato sauce, but we had to get on with it as there was an important job to carry out.
 
5- The man quoted above received his fleet's commendation for (inter alia) "excellent work in difficult circumstances".
-a) Is he a culinary specialist? ANS: No, he was a communications and information systems engineering technician.
-b) i - In what navy does he serve? ANS: The U.K.'s Royal Navy.
-b) ii - Name the type of commendation awarded.  ANS:  The award was a Fleet Commander Commendation.
-c) For service aboard which sub (ship's prefix and name) was his coveted commendation awarded? ANS: The commendable service was rendered aboard HMS Torbay.
-d) During what period of time (approximate) did the underlying submarine mission take place?  ANS: His commendable efforts were performed in late 2015 and the first half of 2016. 
NOTE:  Excerpts leave no doubt that he fully deserved his commendation, in our opinions he performed far above expectations at critical times: 

"‘During this prolonged and uncertain period of operations, Blackburn’s leadership, mentoring, guidance and development of his team was instrumental to delivering the communications capability of the submarine and contributed significantly to HMS Torbay’s effectiveness. ‘Despite facing numerous technical and procedural challenges throughout a number of operations, he worked effectively to deliver this key operational capability, displaying characteristics expected of a far more experienced and longer serving individual. ‘Indeed his performance, attitude and ability matched and often exceeded that of his qualified and more senior peers despite the high intensity and challenging operations the Torbay was conducting at that time, which included the adoption of food rationing to prolong her endurance in response to continued tasking.’"  source

Blackburn

Read more at: http://www.morpethherald.co.uk/news/special-fleet-award-for-daniel-1-8442241

in late 2015 and the first half of 2016.

Read more at: http://www.morpethherald.co.uk/news/special-fleet-award-for-daniel-1-8442241

What is slightly troubling is journalism's unfamiliarity with some privations of submarine service. For instance, outages of potable water and food limitations have been experienced more widely than some journalists may be aware.  Generally, one survives without food for 3 weeks; and even without drink for 3 days. Submarine service has never been acceptable for  'snowflakes'.

 -e) - What is the official ship prefix used by Russia's Navy?  ANS:  Neither Jane's Fighting Ships nor the International Institute for Strategic Studies list a ship prefix for Russian Navy vessels.  The Russian Navy does not use a ship prefix convention (e.g. HMS, USS).







Submarines are always silent and strange.

 

Submarine Quotation & Related Questions of the Week - 17 MAR 17

Background

Should "snowflakes" or prima donnas ( = very temperamental people with inflated views of their own talent or importance) be recruited for submarine duty?  That decision is up to each navy. Vladimir Putin's navy does not think so. The U.S. Navy once agreed and even administered psychological tests to eliminate the patently unsuitable among its less suitable submarine volunteers.

The Center for Naval Analysis had found that the "unplanned loss" rate (23 to 25 percent) for female sailors was more than two-and-a-half times the rate for men (8 to 10 percent). Proportionate loss rates on submarines, combined with surfacings and evacuations made necessary by disciplinary problems, can obviously compromise stealth missions typical of submarines. 

Since the Fall of 1999, however, new submarine designs have been required to include berthing and privacy arrangements appropriate to mixed gender crews. The gender example does NOT serve to dismiss all women as unsuitable sub sailors, but illustrates convincingly that our U.S. Navy now finds itself compelled to marginalize some of its once prized recruiting standards despte the Russian Federation Navy's trend toward the opposite.  Either way, the inevitably in such stark choices seems bound to result in grit for future notes.  Loosely related QOTW follow.

Q.O.T.W.

1- Was current President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin's father a submariner?

2-  Did the U.S. navy require Cold War submarine volunteers to have their sound wisdom teeth extracted in order to prevent the possibility of mission interference / interruption?

3-  Is it true that submariners are superstitious and as so unable to cope with deviations from daily routine for their fear of tempting fate?  

4- How recently was the snow-flakey assertion in question 3 published? 

Submariner's Quote of the Week

... [F]ood rationing at that time was a challenge because it got to the stage where breakfast was just one sausage with a teaspoon of beans and dinner was pasta and tomato sauce, but we had to get on with it as there was an important job to carry out.
  
5- The man quoted above received his fleet's commendation for (inter alia) "excellent work in difficult circumstances". 
-a) Is he a culinary specialist?
-b) i - In what navy does he serve?
-b) ii - What is the official ship prefix used by Russia's Navy?
-c) Name the type of commendation.
-d) For service aboard which sub (ship's prefix and name) was his coveted commendation awarded?
-e) During what period of time (approximate) did the underlying submarine mission take place?

Submarines are always silent and strange.

Answers to Submarine Q.O.T.W. from 14 NOV 2016

Related information, photo(s) and links for questions are found in the original posting.

Q & A: 

"In 1968, A US Nuclear Submarine Went On a Russia Super Secret Spy Mission (And It Never Came Back)" by Kyle Mizokami

1 - An unusually high number of submarines vanished in 1968, including three (3) non-U.S. subs. Identify 3 of the non-U.S. subs sunk in 1968 (by names and navies). ANS: The Israeli submarine Dakar (69 lost); The French submarine Minerve (52 dead); and, The Soviet submarine K-129 (98 lost).

2 - The U.S. sub which sank in 1968 "was in a very poor state of preservation", according to its commanding officer.
- a) Who was the commanding officer? ANS: Cdr. Francis Atwood Slattery  
- b) Some of its crew had derisively referred to the sub as (fill in blank) USS Scrap Iron.
- c) Name the vessel's major (most restrictive) known defect before its 1968 departure on a secret Russian spy mission. ANS:  Leaking valves caused the submarine to be restricted to  less than half its nominal test depth. It had “chronic problems” with its hydraulics, its emergency blow system didn’t work and emergency seawater shutoff valves had not yet been decentralized. source
 
3 -  The U.S. Navy’s report on the U.S. sub incident is inconclusive. Several malfunction theories—and at least one conspiracy have arisen to explain the loss of the ship and its ninety-nine crew, but all lack hard evidence. What is the leading conspiracy theory?  ANS: The leading conspiracy theory is that the Scorpion was somehow caught up in some kind of Cold War skirmish, and that the nearby Soviet flotilla had sunk the sub.
 
4 -  What major fact issue tends to confound the leading conspiracy theory? ANS: There is scant explanation for how a Soviet task force with only two combatants could manage to kill the relatively advanced USS Scorpion.  
 
5 -  Does it now appear at all likely that there would ever be a conclusive explanation for the loss of the U.S. sub in 1968? ANS: No. 
 
6 - What has been the convention (minimum average time) for submarine secrets to be divulged by various navies (in Vigilis's opinion)? ANS:  30 years.

7- How many years have already elapsed since May 1968? ANS: 48 years
 
8- BONUS QUESTION:  Where is the longest submarine memorial in the U.S. now located? ANS: The entire length of Route 9 in Saratoga County, NY (a fifty-four-mile stretch) has been named the U.S. Submarine Veterans Memorial Highway.  The county is home to the Naval Nuclear Power Training Unit where American sailors learn how to operate nuclear-powered submarines. The New York state submarine veterans memorial honors the fifty-four submarines lost during war and the Cold War. 

Submarines are always silent and strange.  

Submarine Quote of the Week - 6 FEB 16

Background

Poor journalism but excellent Sun Tzu strategy

Not only are Russian submarines returning to Cold War levels of operational activity, but Russian submarines have made a major jump in technological performance, Vice Adm Johnstone said, with NATO seeing "a level of Russian capability that we haven't seen before".

Submarine Quotation of the Week

"I think none of that would worry us if we knew what the game plans were or we knew why they were deploying or what they were doing … we don't understand what the strategic and operational objectives are of the Russian state."  -  Royal Navy Vice Adm. Clive Johnstone, Commander, Allied Maritime Command, IHS Jane's Defence Weekly, Russian submarine activity topping Cold War levels, by Nicholas de Larrinaga, London, 02 February 2016.

******* 

Molten Eagle's Analysis

• Why the erroneus reporting by Business Insider that quoted Vice Admiral Clive Johnstone as a "U.S. Navy" admiral when he is obviously not?  Also, why inject the U.S. into the Business Insider's reporting story at all?

• ANSWER:  Not sloppy reporting, but more than likely to make it more relevant since most of BI's readership are in the U.S. and North America.  

• Why a strange profession of ignorance by NATO's Maritime leader when the strategic significance of the Arctic to Russia has been plain from the get go?

• ANSWER:  Someone, most likely Russia, is being deliberately conned into spending lots of time and treasure in the Arctic. This could be a deliberate distraction from something of much greater significance. And what possibilities might be greater than oil? Might there be something on the order of this one, or even this one?

Submarines are always silent and strange.

Sweden's Sub Hunt: Just a Navy Training Drill?

Color emphasis added by M.E.:

Background

>  BBC's Swedish submarine hunt review in 60 seconds

•  "...Sweden's biggest mobilization since the Cold War"

•  "The Baltic is reknowned as a training area for submariners."

•   "Sweden has pointed no fingers..."

>  Sweden's Military Problem
    
(From The Strategy Page "Sweden Runs Out Of Soldiers", James Dunnigan, February 8, 2011)

Sweden is running out of soldiers. It all began when, six months ago, Sweden abolished conscription. Sweden has been reducing the size of its armed forces over the past decade, and has been discussing the mechanics of abolishing conscription for over three years. As a result of that, fewer (recently only 10,000 a year) young men were being conscripted, and for shorter (11 months) terms. With conscription gone, Sweden thought they could rely on volunteers, serving for longer terms of service. 

... Many of those officers and NCOs are simply leaving the military, or planning to. So there is some anxiety about what shape the Swedish military will be in by 2014, although at this point it appears it will be smaller than planned.

Reality (public information to date)

• Not a live-fire exercise so far

• Prominently features Sweden's latest Visby class corvette

•  According to the Daily Mail UK ...

The Swedish military said its intelligence operation began on Friday following information from a 'credible source', and involved a few hundred people. The military talked down reports in the Svenska Dagbladet newspaper that Sweden had begun a search after a distress signal in Russian was detected on an emergency frequency on Thursday evening.

And that encrypted radio traffic from a point in the Stockholm archipelago and Kaliningrad were also later picked up.    

•  According to the Independent UK ...

Anders Nordin from the Swedish Maritime Administration said a Russian-owned oil tanker, Concord, which had reportedly been circling near Swedish waters for days, started sailing in a northeasterly direction toward Russia on Sunday morning. But it suddenly turned around and headed back in the direction of Sweden, according to Marine Traffic, a website which monitors vessels in the Baltic Sea.

+++++++++++++++++++

It is highly unlikely that a cryptographic communication center (e.g. Koros Island) would reveal its interception and decryption of an emergency message from a Russian sub to Kallningrad.  It is more likely, in our experience, that a much needed Swedish Military training excercise, a PR recruiting effort, or a combination of both, have been conducted with renewed world attention.  And so we hope.

Submarines are always silent and strange.

"Cold War" vs. Climate Change and Sub Quote of the Month

History
The name "Cold War" was coined by the English writer George Orwell, after the dropping of the first atomic bombs in 1945. ...It described a world where the two major powers—each possessing nuclear weapons and thereby threatened with mutually assured destruction (MAD)—never met in direct military combat.  

The Cold War, often dated from 1947 to 1991, was a sustained state of political and military tension between powers in the Western Bloc, dominated by the United States with NATO among its allies, and powers in the Eastern Bloc, dominated by the Soviet Union along with the Warsaw Pact.

[P]ressures escalated inside the Soviet Union, where Communism fell and the USSR was formally dissolved in late 1991.

In 1990, then Senator Al Gore presided over a three-day conference with legislators from over 42 countries which sought to protect the environment." In the late 1990s, Gore strongly pushed for the passage of the Kyoto Protocol, which called for reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.

Cold War Update
Dec. 5, 2013 -  abcNEWS - Cold, Cold War: Putin Talks Tough Over US Arctic Rivalry
With many experts saying that global warming is expediting the melting of the Arctic icecaps, newly created water routes have opened up a possible treasure trove of commercial wealth to northern nations in the form of oil, mineral, and natural gases. There has been competition among countries for Arctic usage rights since the 1950s, but the accelerated melting of Arctic glaciers in recent years has resulted in the resurgence of a Cold War-like scramble ...

 
"Russian President Vladimir Putin said this week that U.S. military capabilities in the Arctic Circle leave his government little choice but to maintain a strong foothold in the frigid north, where tensions between the former Cold War adversaries in recent years have heated up as the polar ice thawed. "

Putin's mistrust of U.S. nuclear-powered submarines' proximity to Russian borders is fueling Russia's professed need for a strong military presence in the Arctic, Hans Kristensen, Director of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists, told ABC News.

Submarine Quote of the Month
Current submarine design does not allow the ship to break the ice to emerge quickly without damage to the housing. - Igor Kurdin, ormer commander of the nuclear submarine Yekaterinburg and chairman of the St. Petersburg Submariners' Club  more from source

“Surfacing from the ice is done for only one purpose – for the application of nuclear missile attack from a surface position. This is done only in the Arctic regions. After surfacing when people come on deck, the whole deck is in huge blocks of ice,” Kudrin said.

By 2016, Russian submarines will have the ability to cut through thick, Arctic ice without damaging the ship’s housing during rapid surfacing, thanks to a new design that puts advanced technology on the boats.

The new technology for the submarines will allow subs to quickly surface for Arctic missions or to rescue the crew in case of an accident, according to the Central Design Bureau for Marine Engineering in charge of the new submarine design.

Related: 2008 "Chicken Game"

Submarines are always silent and strange.