Posted on 06/17/2008 5:23:18 AM PDT by naturalman1975
AFTER months of gliding silently underwater, stalking imaginary enemies, submarine commander Matt Buckley decided to give his 45 exhausted crew a treat.
He ordered his HMAS Collins submarine to surface off the coast of Tasmania and flipped open the hatch.
"We were at the entrance to Port Arthur," Buckley recalls. "It was one of those classic misty mornings and we sailed up to the convict ruins. As we glided through the water about 30 dolphins swam alongside us, it was just an incredible moment."
It is moments like these the Royal Australian Navy would love to bottle and hand to every prospective recruit contemplating a life as a submariner.
No other arm of the military, except perhaps the SAS, has as much mystery and aura. Yet there is no mystery about the current sad state of affairs.
The navy has a 37 per cent shortfall in submariners and only has enough crews to operate three of the six Collins-class submarines. It is a crisis being fuelled by low unemployment and the mining boom in Western Australia which is hungry for skilled technicians: the same skill sets the navy needs.
"We know that mining companies in WA hover around (the submarine headquarters) HMAS Stirling on pay day, seeking and hoping to pick up technicians to use in their own industry," federal Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon says.
The irony is that life in the submarine service has never been more comfortable, better paid or more family friendly.
Old submariners shake their heads at the relative comforts enjoyed by Collins-class crews compared with their spartan existences aboard the old Oberon-class U-boats during the Cold War.
(Excerpt) Read more at theaustralian.news.com.au ...
The absolute dominance about every part of our military is leading all of our allies to shirk their duties, figuring that as long as they are our friends they don’t really need a military.
The article stated that pay for submariners starts at $76,000.00/yr. Must be incorrect.
If true, I’m surprised they have any trouble with enlistment at all.
How do they compare to ours?
In addition to that base salary, they'd get service allowance of about $10,000 a year, and submariners allowance of about $15,000 a year - so yeah, $76,000 sounds about right.
That's good money - but a person with good technical skills can easily earn $100,000 as a miner over in Western Australia right now.
At this time, the US Military has no known Diesel-Electric Submarines in operation, so there is no comparison. Nuclear Subs are far more efficient for the standard long-range and strategic missions of our military.
That being said, there are very good things (Silent Service) about this kind of Submarine, it is inherently quieter and can be smaller. The US Navy has a new emphasis on 'littoral' / coastal operations and it is considering D-E Subs. This kind of vessel works well there but a large nuke is problematical.
I assume the figures quoted are $AUS not $US
Since it is quoted in an Aussie paper, I think you're right. That figure would be $71,500+ US at current exchange rate.
Some years back I bought a couple of Alvey side cast fishing reels from Australia and their dollar was then worth about 50c US. How the mighty hath fallen.
Er...bzzz? At least in the U.S. Navy.
Pay grade is based on rank. It takes about 10-15 years to make E-7.
I was an E-5 after eight years. 1993. I never made more than $25,000/yr in 1993. A chief (E-7) made about $35-40 after 10 years.
According to my calculations from a chart I googled on 2008 pay, and E-7 with 14 yrs, sea and sub pay, makes about $55,000/yr. Total.
Maybe you were talking Aussie navy or dollars?
In addition, D/E subs are considerably cheaper-most nations can’t afford meaningful number of N-subs.
I was talking about the Royal Australian Navy, yes - as the article was, and so was the reference to submariners starting at about $76,000 a year.
In the RAN salary is based on two things - rank and pay grade. There are 16 pay grades at present (moves are afoot to streamline this to 10) and what grade you are at depends on your employment category.
Basically, there are 16 rates of pay for every rank.
An Ordinary Seaman (E-1 in American terms) without any special training (his employment category is General Experience and he is pay grade 1) earns $36,658 a year.
On the other hand, an Ordinary Seaman rated as a Boatswains Mate Grade 1 (Submariner) is pay grade 7 and even though he is the same rank as the other sailor, his special training puts him on a much higher pay rate - $49,476.
Rank does make a difference as well - the higher your rank the higher your pay for whatever pay grade you are.
In addition to salary a submariner is entitled to three allowances as standard - service allowance of $10,672, submarine allowance of $15,518, and uniform allowance of $419.
All up - $76,085 minimum for a submariner.
That is Australian dollars - but there’s not a lot of difference at the moment with A$1.00 buying US$0.94 - about $71,600 in US terms.
It’s difficult to make exact comparisons because the RAN’s Other Ranks rank structure doesn’t perfectly align with the USN’s enlisted rank structure, but a Chief Petty Officer in the RAN, if he was pay grade 7 would be on a base salary of $67,329 - plus at least $10,000 or so in service allowance on top of that.
A Petty Officer in the RAN - again, looking around at pay grade 7 earns $56,610 before allowances - add roughly $25,000 to that if he’s a submariner.
The Australian Defence Force pays very well. That’s one of the few advantages to having a reasonably small defence force - they can afford to be very generous with its members.
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