Posted on 10/18/2004 10:24:35 AM PDT by SmithL
Aboard the Virginia — Some of the most noticeable changes on the Virginia are not what is new, but something that is missing.
Gone are the two periscopes in the control room, long the centerpiece of submarine movies and news reports, replaced by a television screen.
A new photonics mast that can be raised and lowered from the sail uses a video camera to capture images from the surface and relay them via cable to television monitors in the control room, where the junior officer of the deck can scan the horizon and snap still images or video with the click of a button on another joystick.
That has freed submarine designers to put the control room where it makes sense, rather than right below the sail where the periscope entered the hull. It also means no hole in the hull for the 'scope, long a source of potential leaks into the “people tank.”
More important, the new photonics system incorporates an infrared imaging system that gives a view as clear as daylight even on night with solid cloud cover; and a laser rangefinder that automatically calculates the distance to whatever it's pointed at.
“You can actually see people smoking topside on the surface ships you pass from quite a ways off,” said Senior Chief Torpedoman Joseph Blackwell. “Infrared is wonderful.”
Combined with the laser, it's an impressive new capability to avoid collisions at sea.
Gone also from this ship is the traditional “sonar shack,” typically a separate room right off control. Sonar, radar and weapons control are all managed from three dozen computer touchscreens in the control room of this highly computerized submarine.
Though Virginia is still keeping standard paper roll-out charts on this voyage, they cover up a new computerized charting system that will go into use as soon as it is certified. In fact, a lot of paper is missing on Virginia, thanks to the massive computing power it has brought to the fleet.
The ship's daily calendar, for instance, would normally have been printed out and plastered in several passageways, but now sailors can use one of more than 100 hookups to the computer network to download it and review it.
In addition, the men who used to walk around with clipboards reading gauges and writing information in their logs now enter it into handheld computers and upload it to the network, where it is instantly available to all the people who need it.
“For us old guys who've been around for 18 years, it's a little hard to get used to,” said Chief Yeoman Robert York. “But everything about it is great.”
Actually, aircraft have had glass cockpits for years, so it should be no problem aboard a sub, either.
I remember hearing about an year ago that the Russians showed a model of a modernised Kilo '636' class D/E sub at an Indian military exhibition with an AIP system & also an optronic mast(1st time ive heard of a D/E sub having it).Since the Indian navy operates about 10 Kilos,a MLU may incorporate it,though It's not certain whether the Russians have infact tested such a system or it's likely results.
Wow. This is a lot different then when I was in.
85-92
Of course, even THEN I was on the oldest pig-boats we had. All my buds were on Ohio Class.
I know how you feel there my friend, my last boat was the USS Shark SSN 591, which I decommed, before going to shore duty and retirement *L*. How things have changed in the last 20 years!
Wait until some hacks the system so it plays nothing but "Crash Dive" and "The Enemy Below".
Decommed the Skipjack (SSN585) and the Lewis & Clark (SSBN644)
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