Canada's Submariners dive into simulated control room

VANCOUVER - Canada's submarine commanders and their officers will be getting their crucial hands-on training on dry land starting this fall, thanks to engineers from Vancouver-based tech giant MacDonald Dettwiler and Associates Ltd.

They'll be put through their paces in Halifax in a replica of a Victoria-class sub's control room that's as realistic as it is practical.

"We have curved bulkheads in the ceiling," Tom Henry, MDA's director of defence and security information systems, said in an interview. The simulated control rooms are being built in Britain and then shipped to Halifax.

"It's the exact same layout as the subs. We have the red lighting and all of the systems there, the sonar and so on are in replica cabinets."

The commanders need this level of realism, said Henry, because when they're giving orders to their officers they need everyone to be in exactly the place they would be on a real mission.

"They turn and talk to people, usually in a quiet voice, because they spend their lives sneaking around down there."

The idea, said Henry -- whose company carried out the contract worth about $17 million with British Aerospace and Lougheed Martin -- is to make the submariners respond to different kinds of situations.

"How do you safely come to periscope depth without tipping over or broaching or hitting a surface ship?

At the moment, the company is advertising for a trainer to keep the control room operational and set up simulated scenarios for the sub's commander.

While MDA was not the prime contractor, its part in the creation of the replica was significant, Henry said.

Once the control room replica is in place in Halifax, MDA has the contract for maintaining it. The Victoria-class operations room was built as part of MDA's already-established Naval Combat Operator Trainer (NCOT) for the Canadian navy which works for Halifax and Iroquois class vessels.

The upgrade was a huge piece of work, said Henry, because MDA had to add enriched acoustic modelling to simulate the sounds made by vessels from navies around the world.

"So when these submariners, who live and die by their ears, have their headphones on and they hear 'rrrrrrrrrr' they can say that's an Arleigh Burke (a United States guided missile destroyer) and it's doing 12 knots and it's in a right-hand turn and its engines need some work."

In 2002, Canada accepted four Upholder class diesel-electric hunter-killer submarines as replacements for their old Oberons.

After all four subs were leased to the Canadian Navy, the Canadian Forces renamed them the Victoria-class. HMCS Victoria operates out of CFB Esquimalt, while the three remaining boats are based at CFB Halifax.

- Weaponry: six bow torpedo tubes, torpedo room houses racks for storing up to 18 torpedoes.

- The torpedoes, operating at 40 knots speed (74 km/h), have a range of 50 kilometres.

http://www.canada.com/edmontonjournal/news/insight/story.html?id=0e9f2877-f3a3-4e57-88fa-cbcd7ff9b1ce&p=2

Life on a sub: pranks, baby wipes and no salutes

David Pugliese, Ottawa Citizen; CanWest News Service

Published: Saturday, November 18, 2006

ABOARD HMCS WINDSOR - Imagine 48 people living in a space the size of a small bungalow and you start to get an idea of daily life on board Canada’s submarines.

Living and working underwater for weeks on end in a sealed steel tube isn’t for everyone, and submariners like to see themselves as a breed apart.

Chief Petty Officer (second class) Rob Fraser likens life on the boat to living in an underground bunker. He’s right. There is no sense you’re underwater, even though as I jot this down in my notebook, Windsor is cruising 57 metres below the surface of the Atlantic.

But it’s the small details of underwater life that prompt the most questions from a newcomer. Questions like: how do crew members keep themselves clean?

There’s a shower on each of the navy’s four Victoria-class subs but they’re about half the size of a phone booth so most of the crew don’t bother using them. Instead, submariners rely on baby wipes to clean themselves and Gold Bond powder to stop the itching and mask their own smell. That works for short voyages but on the longer journeys, such as the 57 days HMCS Victoria spent at sea in 2003, such methods aren’t as effective.

So what do you do after two months at sea? I innocently ask.

“Smell like a polecat’s ass,” responds a member of the wise-cracking crew.

By the fourth day underwater, I’m starting to get a preview of what he’s talking about. My hair is matted and greasy. The smell of diesel fuel from the engines and industrial grease, which seems to cover many parts in the boat, are the most common odours. The smell permeates my clothes, skin and hair, and once back on land I’ll have to run my shirts and pants through the washer three times before it disappears.

With the help of some of the crew members, I figure out how much living space is on HMCS Windsor — about 1,600 square feet (148.6 square metres) which doesn’t include the control and engine areas or torpedo room where submariners work.

“You get used to it,” Chief Petty Officer (second class) Cameron MacDonald says of the cramped quarters.

GERMS QUICKLY SPREAD

A newcomer quickly becomes accustomed to navigating the boat’s narrow corridors, a little more than the width of a person’s shoulders.

But living in such a confined space has obvious drawbacks. When someone gets sick the entire crew usually comes down with the same thing, leading to lineups at the toilet.

Passengers sleep in the weapons storage compartment, otherwise known as the torpedo room. The bunks are set up where the Mk. 48 torpedoes are usually stored and once settled in bed I realize the space is not for anyone claustrophobic. It would be like sleeping in a steel coffin, and with the greasy rail of the upper torpedo rack directly above my face I make a mental note not to get up quickly in the middle of the night.

Crew members have their assigned shifts and operations are conducted around the clock. Damage control drills are practised almost every day to the point where reactions to an emergency situation are second nature.

“You have 10 times the responsibility than on a surface ship,” explains MacDonald. “You either perform or you don’t. If you don’t, it’s, ‘See you later.’ “

After their shift, a crew member might eat or try to sleep, a tough task since other submariners are moving about at all hours. It’s not uncommon to be woken at 2 a.m. by an officer announcing on the intercom that the vessel is surfacing.

Still, life on board is relaxed, compared to other military units.

The food is recognized as the best in the navy. In their off-hours submariners read or watch DVDs. Unlike the surface fleet, there is no saluting. Junior officers are addressed as sir but that doesn’t spare them, or even the boat’s captain, Lt.-Cmdr. Christopher Ellis, from the constant jokes.

“We’re not as formal as the regular navy,” Fraser acknowledges. “We’re more relaxed but more professional. You have to want to be here.”

While the navy can direct its sailors into various jobs or trades, no one can be forced to serve on the boats. Submariners must volunteer for such duty.

The pranks and jokes help break the monotony of being confined to such a small space. Someone slips a frozen fish into a knife sheath carried by one of the submariners, prompting bets on what type of retaliatory prank might come next. Last time I was on HMCS Victoria, I left my camera in the weapons storage compartment for a few minutes while I visited the head. Two days later when I got the film developed, there was a series of pictures of smiling crew members mooning the camera.

No one dwells on the fire that crippled HMCS Chicoutimi two years ago, killing an officer and injuring eight other submariners. It just happened, shrugs one Windsor crew member, accepting the inherent risk of operating in a cylinder hundreds of metres underwater.

As a result of the fire, there have been changes in safety equipment. Breathing masks were improved and more fire extinguishers were installed.

I get the rundown on several types of emergency breathing masks available in case of fire. One is a portable hood that can be quickly slipped over the head, giving a limited amount of breathing time. The other is a more robust mask that is plugged into air stations located at various intervals on the sub.

But no one kids themselves. If a sub runs into real trouble underwater, rescue or escape is a dicey affair at best.

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