Thursday Submarine Tidbits 28 May 2015

Category:  An Intense Odor of PC Recruiting Woes for U.S. Navy

Last year the Navy spent $39.6 million on measured media, according to Kantar Media.

The U.S. Navy confirmed today that WPP’s Young & Rubicam is being awarded its new advertising and marketing services account in support of the Navy Recruiting Advertising Program.  In 2000, Y&R was acquired by the WPP Group, a London-based company.

The contract being awarded has an annual value of $84.4 million. The contract contains one “base year” and four one-year optional periods, which if exercised, would bring the contract’s cumulative value to $457,461,287.  source

Why the switch...?

"The U. S. Supreme Court said it would hear an appeal from Campbell-Ewald during which the agency will argue that federal contractors can't be sued under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act.

The court appearance stems from a campaign the agency created for the Navy that involved the sending of text messages through a subcontractor to thousands of cell phones, including one belonging to Jose Gomez. Gomez says he never consented to receiving the texts and filed a class-action lawsuit." [ibid].

Category:  The U.K.'s Faulty? Able Seamen Selection Woes - Part II 

 

Four years ago, M.E. had asked (Part I):  How could a rap musician (Reggie Moondogg) who wrote a series of violent rap lyrics ever be placed in the crew of a nuclear submarine crew in the first place? That question was even raised by a senior member of British Parliament, defense expert Mike Hancock.  here

May 2015 - (Part II):  Able Seaman McNeilly published 18 pages of 30 alleged security and safety flaws with the Trident submarine fleet.  Only one problem, barely qualified on a Vanguard-class submarine of the Royal Navy he is very junior, and hardly in a position to really know whereof he spoke.

"Concerns about Trident raised by Royal Navy submariner William McNeilly were either incorrect, the result of misunderstanding or based on historic events, and safety has not been compromised", Defence Secretary Michael Fallon has said. Britain’s nuclear weapons on his mobile phone and appeared to have been learning Russian before he went absent without leave. here

Submarines are always silent and strange.

Next Blockbuster Submarine Movie: "THE KILLING DEPTHS"

Vigilis promised to review Martin Roy Hill's  submarine novel THE KILLING DEPTHS after reading the thriller. After reading Hill's pageturner, however, he realized the  best way to review it without spoiling the thrills and action was by simple comparison with another outstanding submarine novel, the late Tom Clancy's The Hunt for Red October:

What's to Like

• Action in KILLING DEPTHS, which includes an active NCIS homicide investigation on the U.S. sub, differs entirely from Red October. Interesting updates and enhancements (since 1984) also include:
• female SSN crewmembers
• female accomodation in space commonly occupied by 4 of 12 VLTs;  (most boats in service as of 2011 have a 12-tube VLS) Hmmm!
• slot buoy comms
• CAPTOR (encapsulated torpedoes) intelligent, deep-water, anti-submarine mines anchored to the ocean floor. 
• Helo transport of key civilian character to USS Encinitas was fairly humorous.
• plot keeps reader guessing for a long time.
• CO is a black.
• Engineering officer is a woman.

What's not to Like 

• Use of single ping sonar (common element of both novels) although barely more credible in DEPTHS as  El-Wazir, the enemy sub captain in THE KILLING DEPTHS,  uses his ping from desperation in a deadly kill or be killed action.
• Editing is generally appropriate, but in some rare instances appears to have relied more on computerized text-editng than human skill. Annoying instances were "Condition Dog Zebra", which has an urban definition unlike the navy's Condition "ZEBRA", oddly scattered use of present tense verbs instead of appending an "ed", and a single use of "fairweather" that should have been "fairwater". [Red October was published by the Naval Institute Press. Unlike Clancy, Hill did not sell his to USNI for $5,000.]
• Rather than answering the political question of how psychological screening of U.S. submarine volunteers could have deteriorated to the point of allowing a psychopath on board, the author simply asks the same question I had before reading the book. -Vigilis

Submarines are always silent and strange.