# Do US Navy submarines have urinals?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-us-navy-submarines-have-urinals/628164
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [July 14, 2012, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-us-navy-submarines-have-urinals/628164 "2012-07-14T00:58:29Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 3
### Author:  [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)
#### Post date: [July 17, 2012, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-us-navy-submarines-have-urinals/628164/41 "2012-07-17T01:11:29Z")
Per mrAru yes 688 class subs have urinals - midlevel head, officers head both have urinals.
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### Author:  [@SCAdian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCAdian)
#### Post date: [August 23, 2012, 5:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-us-navy-submarines-have-urinals/628164/42 "2012-08-23T05:55:51Z")
I was on three 688s.
CO/XO head: Toilet, shower. (Sinks in their staterooms.)
Wardroom head: Toilet, urinal, shower, sink.
CPO head: Toilet, shower, two sinks.
Middle level head: Three toilets, urinal, two showers, four sinks.
Lower level head: Toilet, shower, two sinks.
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### Author:  [@SCAdian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCAdian)
#### Post date: [August 23, 2012, 5:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-us-navy-submarines-have-urinals/628164/43 "2012-08-23T05:57:47Z")
> [@kombatminipig](#):
>
> I’ve heard that it’s ‘targets’.
There are two kinds of ships: Submarines and targets.
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### Author:  [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)
#### Post date: [August 23, 2012, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-us-navy-submarines-have-urinals/628164/44 "2012-08-23T13:53:07Z")
> [@Missy2U](#):
>
> I texted my son (currently a submariner) and his answer was, “Mom you ask me some wierd assed questions.” So sorry, I can’t really help. 😃 Hopefully he’ll answer me (he’s most probably at work right now and can’t text anything by way of explanation and answering the question) later and I’ll let you know what he says. He’s on the [The USS Wyoming.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Wyoming_(SSBN-742))
So what’d he say?
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### Author:  [@Mr.Excellent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Excellent)
#### Post date: [August 23, 2012, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-us-navy-submarines-have-urinals/628164/45 "2012-08-23T14:10:32Z")
> [@muldoonthief](#):
>
> There’s a reason the surface navy calls subs “sewer pipes”.
>
> Though the submariners’ nickname for surface ships was probably even more offensive.
“Targets”?
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### Author:  [@Missy2U](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Missy2U)
#### Post date: [August 23, 2012, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-us-navy-submarines-have-urinals/628164/46 "2012-08-23T15:00:42Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#):
>
> So what’d he say?
Still hasn’t answered me. I think he forgot. I’ll try him again today.
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### Author:  [@Ashley\_Pomeroy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ashley_Pomeroy)
#### Post date: [August 23, 2012, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-us-navy-submarines-have-urinals/628164/47 "2012-08-23T19:03:13Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#):
>
> As it happens, John Ericsson designed a very complicated flush toilet for his innovative ironclad USS _Monitor_ during the Civil War. If you didn’t do every step exactly right, the story goes, the toilet would spew whatever was in it all over you.
I’m reminded of the tale of U-1206, a Type VIIC U-boat that sunk less than a month before the end of the Second World War. Quoth [uboat.net](http://uboat.net/boats/u1206.htm):
_"In many sources it is stated that U-120 was “sunk by a toilet” (probably a very bad way to go! :). However, the story should rightly be attributed to U-1206, one of the late model boats fitted with a new high-pressure toilet allowing the toilet to be used at greater depths than before (though in reality the culprit was not actually the toilet itself)._
_On 14 April 1945, the boat was quietly cruising at a depth of 200 feet only 8-10 miles off the British coast, when the commander, Kptlt. Schlitt, decided to use the toilet without consulting a rating trained in its operation (the procedure was complicated). Something went wrong, and when the specialist arrived he misunderstood the situation and opened the wrong valve, which resulted in large quantities of seawater entered the boat. The water reached the batteries directly under the toilet, causing the production of chlorine gas, and the boat was forced to surface immediately; unfortunately right underneath an enemy aircraft. The crew managed to blow clean air into the boat, but were at the same time bombed by the aircraft, causing extensive damage which left U-1206 unable to dive. Considering the hopeless situation, Schlitt had no choice but to destroy the secret material and order abandon ship to save his crew. (Brennecke, J. (2001). Jager and Gejagte)"_
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### Author:  [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)
#### Post date: [August 24, 2012, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-us-navy-submarines-have-urinals/628164/48 "2012-08-24T00:51:26Z")
Now _that_ would look bad in an after-action report to Adm. Doenitz.
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### Author:  [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)
#### Post date: [August 24, 2012, 4:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-us-navy-submarines-have-urinals/628164/49 "2012-08-24T04:32:45Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#):
>
> Now _that_ would look bad in an after-action report to Adm. Doenitz.
On 14 April 1945, Admiral Doenitz had bigger worries on his mind.
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### Author:  [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)
#### Post date: [August 24, 2012, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-us-navy-submarines-have-urinals/628164/50 "2012-08-24T20:34:56Z")
> [@t-bonham@scc.net](#):
>
> On 14 April 1945, Admiral Doenitz had bigger worries on his mind.
Seen this?: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHnyQXyuTGY](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHnyQXyuTGY)
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### Author:  [@Damfino](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damfino)
#### Post date: [August 24, 2012, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-us-navy-submarines-have-urinals/628164/51 "2012-08-24T22:54:19Z")
The grace of the fortunate “l” in his name saves Captain Schlitt from further ignominy.🙂
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### Author:  [@stuyguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stuyguy)
#### Post date: [August 26, 2012, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-us-navy-submarines-have-urinals/628164/52 "2012-08-26T01:03:55Z")
Funny story…
I am a tourguide at the world’s oldest extant nuclear missile carrying submarine. Twice a week I give hourlong tours of the boat. (Our sub, btw, was commissioned in 1958 and has only toilets in the heads, no urinals.)
Most of my tour-takers know little more about subs than what they see in those old WWII movies. But every now and then I get a veteran or current submariner. On one particular guided tour back in the spring I had a small tour, just 2 young men, both of whom were currently serving on a British sub. They were sharp and funny and eager to talk shop. We had a lot of fun comparing the old equipment on our sub to the modern stuff they told me they had on theirs; some of it, of course, was wildly different, but a surprising amount of stuff is just the same today as it was half a century ago. (After all, a pipe is a pipe, right?)
We were passing through Officers’ Country. I told them that I really admired the clever and space-saving design of the wash basin in each stateroom.
“Wash basin?” one of them said with a smile. “Oh, you mean the ‘night head.’”
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### Author:  [@noboz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/noboz)
#### Post date: [August 26, 2012, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-us-navy-submarines-have-urinals/628164/53 "2012-08-26T01:14:07Z")
I understand that because of interior design issues some toilets (they call them heads in military speak) you have to kind of back yourself in because of wall curviture. might not be the classiest toilets you have ever seen.
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### Author:  [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)
#### Post date: [August 26, 2012, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-us-navy-submarines-have-urinals/628164/54 "2012-08-26T02:20:02Z")
> [@stuyguy](#):
>
> Funny story…
>
> I am a tourguide at the world’s oldest extant nuclear missile carrying submarine. Twice a week I give hourlong tours of the boat. (Our sub, btw, was commissioned in 1958 and has only toilets in the heads, no urinals.)
Nautilus? [Last I knew the Robert E Lee was razor bladed] mrAru spent 1990-2003 bopping between NSSF and Miami and San Juan.
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### Author:  [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)
#### Post date: [August 26, 2012, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-us-navy-submarines-have-urinals/628164/55 "2012-08-26T02:30:31Z")
_Nautilus_ didn’t carry nuclear missiles.
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### Author:  [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)
#### Post date: [August 26, 2012, 7:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-us-navy-submarines-have-urinals/628164/56 "2012-08-26T07:07:03Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#):
>
> _Nautilus_ didn’t carry nuclear missiles.
I am just trying to figure out what boats commissioned in 58 aren’t razor blades …
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### Author:  [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)
#### Post date: [August 26, 2012, 7:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-us-navy-submarines-have-urinals/628164/57 "2012-08-26T07:21:02Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#):
>
> _Nautilus_ didn’t carry nuclear missiles.
Might have carried nukes though.
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### Author:  [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)
#### Post date: [August 26, 2012, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-us-navy-submarines-have-urinals/628164/58 "2012-08-26T16:20:28Z")
Georgefish was commissioned in 59 and razorbladed in 98, it was one of the 41 for Freedom subs. Washington and Ethan Allen are both 59 boats, but all of them are razorbladed. Rayburn is a floatatype, is that it? But that is a 1962 keel.
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### Author:  [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)
#### Post date: [August 26, 2012, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-us-navy-submarines-have-urinals/628164/59 "2012-08-26T16:25:22Z")
> [@AK84](#):
>
> Might have carried nukes though.
Let me correct that to nuke torpedos.
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### Author:  [@coremelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coremelt)
#### Post date: [August 26, 2012, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-us-navy-submarines-have-urinals/628164/60 "2012-08-26T16:32:01Z")
> [@aruvqan](#):
>
> I am just trying to figure out what boats commissioned in 58 aren’t razor blades …
> **[USS GROWLER SSG-577 Museum](http://www.wa3key.com/growler.html)**
>
> Homepage of the USS GROWLER
> Submarine Museum SSG-577.
USS Growler?
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