Posted on 02/19/2009 3:28:36 PM PST by SandRat
NAVAL SUBMARINE BASE KINGS BAY, Ga., Feb. 19, 2009 The officers and enlisted members who serve aboard the U.S. Navys Trident strategic missile and guided-missile submarines are elite sailors requiring specialized training and skills.
Tridents are nuclear-powered, Ohio-class submarines, Rector said. At 560 feet long and 42 feet wide, Tridents are the largest submarines in the U.S. Navys inventory. The $1.2 billion training facility here was opened in 1987. At more than a half-million square feet, Rector said, it is the second-largest building in the Defense Department, after the Pentagon. We have everything here, from a virtual nuclear-reactor control room all the way up to simulated missile tubes, where we can simulate the launching of missiles, Rector said. The Kings Bay facility also teaches sailors how to drive, or pilot, Trident submarines, Rector said, as well as how to extinguish shipboard fires and control flooding. The facilitys equipment, he said, is identical to what they would use aboard their submarine. The duration of courses offered at Kings Bay ranges from a few hours to up to two years for the assistant navigators course, Rector said. Trident submarines have two crews, called Blue and Gold, which rotate patrols. One crew is at sea for 60 to 90 days, while the other trains ashore. In this way, the vessels can be employed at sea 70 percent of the time, when not undergoing scheduled maintenance in port, Rector explained. Trident sailors returning from sea duty take refresher training thats used to re-certify their skills before they embark on their next patrol, Rector said. At the end of their re-certification training, the sailors are 100-percent ready to take that submarine at sea, at 100-percent operational capability, Rector said. Attention to detail is everything in the Navys submarine fleet, he added. If you make a mistake while out to sea, you risk killing a shipmate or losing your submarine, Rector explained. None of those [possibilities] are acceptable; we have to make sure that we do not make mistakes. A Tridents crew consists of about 160 officers and enlisted sailors. The original ballistic missile versions are nicknamed Boomers, and they feature the designator SSBN. The Boomers are capable of carrying as many as 24 Trident II D-5 nuclear missiles. The vessel also carries Mark-48 torpedoes. Inside the training facilitys bridge operations room, Navy Lt. j.g. Walter McDuffie, the assistant operations officer assigned to the Trident ballistic-missile submarine USS Marylands Blue crew, used a computerized training program to direct his surfaced submarine. The bridge is the outside observation post located atop a submarines uppermost structure, called the sail. Some training, Rector noted, can be performed only at sea. Meanwhile, with his virtual glasses in place, McDuffie watched his submarine cruising along the waters surface and communicated his observations to shipmates in the control room below. The computerized training program, McDuffie said, provides a great experience, without the actual consequences that could happen out in the real world. The U.S. government agreed to reduce the number of its strategic-missile submarines as part of the 1992 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty. Consequently, four of the Navys 18 Trident submarines were modified to exchange their nuclear missiles for Tomahawk guided cruise missiles. These vessels carry the designator SSGN. The first Trident ballistic-missile submarine, the USS Ohio, was commissioned in 1981. In 2006, the Ohio was converted into a guided-missile submarine. Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay was established in 1980, replacing a closed U.S. ballistic submarine facility that had been based in Rota, Spain. In 1989, USS Tennessee was the first Trident submarine to arrive at the facility. Another, smaller, Trident training facility that serves submariners based on the West Coast is located at Bangor, Wash. The U.S. Navy has not lost a submarine since the Atlantic Ocean sinking of the USS Scorpion in 1968, Rector said. That is due to the training programs that we now have in place, Rector said. |
Related Sites: Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay |
One Ping Only
It’s a long way from Tipperary,
Oops...I mean the USS Patrick Henry (SSBN 599 Blue).
We would have kicked any Trident’s butt!
Hide with pride, baby.
Our Gun Boss didn't seem to appreciate me singing Eddy Arnold's "Make the World Go Away" while we were at Battle Stations Missile.
Eh...seagoing hotels. :-)
All that training just to perfect the 3M system...
Meals
Movie
Mattress
They sure seem like it to this old Grenadier diesel boat sailor.
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