From what I’ve heard, long showers are pretty much impossible on subs, given the amount of water available. Can you really get as clean when you only have two minutes to do it? It seems to me everyone would have a certain level of funk after a few weeks with only a couple minutes in the shower each day.
That’s two minutes (give or take) with the water running.
You can get pretty clean in two minutes. You run the water for 30 seconds to get wet. Turn off the water and lather up. Rinse for 30 seconds and get your hair wet. Turn off the water and wash your hair. Rinse for 60 seconds.
Also, it’s not like anyone’s running a timer on you. You just get a world of shit if you’re perceived as taking too long with the water running, known as a “Hollywood shower.”
No, it’s the people who go weeks without showering that stink. My petty officer who never bathed apparently felt that if no women were around, he didn’t need to bathe. I ordered him to take a shower at least once a week whether he needed it or not.
Also, I was on the typical 1-in-3 watch rotation, meaning I stood one watch out of three. This translated into 6 hours on watch, and 12 hours off. If I bathed at the beginning of every watch, I’d be showering every 18 hours.
I simply didn’t have time for that, so I generally shaved and showered every other watch, which meant that I bathed every 36 hours.
Holy hell! That’s revolting! Not to be all hijacky, but I feel itchy and gross after a few days without a shower, let alone a week . . . I guess being below the surface brings out latent crazy tendencies.
As a civilian contractor that has recently been on a week-long ‘cruise’ aborad an SSN, I feel barely qualified to make the following comments:
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I think that “Focus on schedule” is more fitting. The routine is “eat-work-eat-sleep” and every other moment is dedicated to studying for quals.
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I think that subs used to get ‘special rations’ but sometime in the last 30 years or so, they were switched to “normal rations”. The food aboard started out as normal cafeteria fare and quickly went downhill as the cooks tried out some fairly unorthodox leftovers recipes. But there is a lot of it, and the crew seemed fairly content to go along with the lie.
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The main recreation seemed to be Gameboys. As soon as guys would start to line up for chow, out would pop the handheld games. Then in the evening, off-going crew would usually be allowed to ‘burn a flick’. Although, why they insisted on watching “Sin City” every night for a week, I’ll never understand. They had an Xbox in the crews galley as well and Madden Football tournments were popular. But these entertainments are for qualified submariners only. Lesser shipmates are required to be in their rack studying. One of the radiomen were saying that some of the crew had PS2s in thier bunks. Evidently, it is possible to velcro it to the overhead and then use a tiny monitor to view it. I was skeptical because there is hardly room in the bunks to roll over, much less focus on a video screen and play a game.
The arming and launch of strategic ballistic missiles and activation of strategic bombers carrying nuclear weapons is performed by a system of what are generically referred to as Permissable Action Links or PALs. Without going into detail on the system–mostly because it’s not my area of expertiese–it is a system of interlocks all of which have to be activated in order to allow the arming mechanism on the “physics package” to function.
The specifics of the system have changed over the years–the original PALs were nothing more than padlocks that secured arming mechanisms–but the modern versions use electromechanical actuators that are controlled by an embedded processor. The processor has an encrypted code segment in its firmware, and requires a complementary encrypted code segment to be transmitted in order to operate; this is transmitted from some central command, like NORAD or a NECAP, which itself has to receive the appropriate launch code from the National Command Authority, i.e. POTUS or his (or her) successor. This command has to be confirmed by another official who has authority; that could be the Vice-President, the Secretary of Defense, the Speaker of the House, Secretary of the Treasury, but I believe it is invariably either an elected official or someone who has undergone Congressional appointment.
For land-based strategic ballistic missiles, the silo ops cannot independently launch their birds; there is a complex and highly redundant communication system which ensures that they’ll be able to get the launch orders regardless of state of attack, and they can effect a launch in spare seconds. The same was true for the Strategic Bomber forces, though with the dissolution of SAC and virtual elimination of strategic bombing capability that’s not really an issue anymore. I don’t know about subs; I imagine that they probably do have some contingency scenerio that permits independent launch with the confirmation of all senior officers or somesuch, but under normal conditions they only launch after receiving launch confirmation orders, which I assume includes some kind of PAL codes.
There was a big hash back in the early to mid-Eighties when Reagan and his cohorts wanted to release tactical control of “battlefield” nukes and arm the Pershing II IRBM forces with enhanced radiation (neutron) payloads and, under certain conditions, release control of them to theater-level commanders. This never happened–the hubaloo over it quenched the notion, thankfully–and so under anything but the most extreme scenerios launch orders can only be given and confirmed by direct NCA approval.
I’m not familiar with Soviet PAL-type systems, but given the Soviet era paranoia regarding the potential for military coup I highly doubt that they permitted local control of nuclear weapons, and it’s a sure bet that the approval of the Political Officer was required for any launch operations.
As has already been noted, ELF (extreme low frequency) radio transmission is used to communicate with subs while submerged. This is very slow–on the order of a character a second–and so is generally used only to send pre-approved code sequences or to instruct the sub to ascend to periscope depth in order to receive a radio message from satellite. Some research was done regarding the use of tunable dye lasers to effectively penetrate to several hundred foot depths but I don’t know if anything ever came of it.
Stranger
Huh! Try Grease II every night for ten days until the threat of posting was vigorously proposed. (The flicks are usually picked by the off-going chief of the watch (who was an E-6), who in this case had a major case of the hots for Michelle Pfeiffer) (Bunks, or racks as they were called, consisted of a bed pan with mattress, and you lifted the bed pan to get to the storage space underneath. The bed pan was held up with a post/brace. “Posting” was the act of lifting the bed pan with the miscreant in it and slapping the brace in place, effectively coffining the poor schlub, who could not get out without assistance. A very effective calibration tool.) 
Because of all the films they had on board, that one had the highest proportion of sexy babeitude? I would imagine that that would take on rather a high priority for guys on a long cruise.
You’re very welcome. Being on the boats is something I am proud of but when I start to talk about it I feel like a veteran of some ancient Navy; “Back in my day, we had oars on the boat, and had to catch raw fish to eat! We were iron men in wooden ships!”
Regards
Testy
I should add that no matter how bad we had it, due primarily to lack of sleep and working around the clock, we still had hot meals and usually had hot showers. It wasn’t really physically demanding, and nobody was shooting at us or trying to blow us up. I think the average soldier in Iraq has it much worse than any modern submariner.
That is, “modern” in the sense of “post-WWII.”
Oh, and the crew on my sub insisted upon repeated showings of “Army of Darkness.” 
Why not the captain too?
As long as you keep out of your thoughts the constant hundreds of psi of pressure trying to crush you into a basketball-sized lump of protoplasm at the first indication of hull failure. :eek:
But I’d rather place my faith in a mechanical apparatus–even one designed to military specifications–than the vagaries of human nature in an occupied territory.
Stranger
It can smell like dirty socks after a while but, like any persistant smell, you get used to it. An odd thing is when they first crack the hatch on the way into port. That first whiff of fresh, clean sea air will almost make you gag. The “sub-smell” also gets into your clothes. I knew guys that would refuse to take their seabag into the house when they got home. They’d leave it on the porch and get their wife to unpack the thing.
The worst is on the patrols in the very far north. The sea is rough so you don’t ventilate often and despite the wall coverings, condensation builds up. A few times I’ve jumped out of the rack into a quarter inch of cold condensate on the deck. Ickkk!
Regards
Testy
We dragged a long, bouyant wire behind the boat. Speed and depth were calibrated to make sure a certain amount of the wire was on the surface all the time. Subs could also get signals from satellites if we were able to stick a very tiny antenna out of the water.
As far as unauthorized launches, it takes most of the departments operating in unison to actually launch a missile as opposed to simply jettisoning the thing. The CO and XO and, I believe the weapons office all have keys that must be used. Also, the Missile Command Center (MCC) and the navigation department has to be helping. The boat also has to come up to just under the surface and hover there. If you could convince enough people it could probably be done but almost the whole boat would have to be involved.
Regards
Testy
The commanding officer (CO) holds one of the sets of launch keys. For him to also be on the team that authenticates potential launch orders puts too much power in one person’s hands. The senior officer on the authentication team is generally the executive officer (XO).
As I mentioned previously, submarine-launched ballistic missiles did not utilize PALs, and I believe this is still true today. In the absence of PALs, there is consequently a great deal of emphasis placed on following strict procedures and not allowing any one person, including the CO, to be able to initiate a launch on their own.
If the CO is taken out of the loop for authenticating the orders, it makes it impossible for him to substitute a fake set of orders, for example.
In a way. There is a “qual” process that guys go through. On an FBM it usually takes two patrols to get through it unless you are a “hot runner” and manage it in one. You get a nice little pin when you finish. “Non-quals” get some harassment until they are done but it is usually fairly gentle. The cross-training is not so much a matter of being able to do someone else’s job as it is to make sure you aren’t a menace. For all their size and power, there are quite a few things that can go seriously wrong very quickly on a boat.
And then there are the more subtle things, like torpedo fuel poisoning someone or the atosphere going bad. Lots of things.
Regards
Testy
Who holds the other set of keys? If it’s the XO, you have the same problem, right?
It isn’t that bad. You can actually take a long shower but, since fresh water is limited, you’ll be intensely unpopular with your buddys if someone notices. They might not get a shower because you hogged the water.
Another source of funk is bedding. Some people just don’t notice how funky their sheets and pillow case are and have to be “encouraged” to wash them. (There is a small laundry, kind of like a coin-op setup but without the coins. One person I knew had someone fill his bunk with pancake syrup and carefully pull the sheets up.
Testy
Yeah, so did I every now and then. Most people took showers a lot more often than once a week. Some people just don’t seem to notice though. I don’t know if it’s a deficient sense of smell or they are just plain nasty.
We supposedly made a total of 12,000 gallons of fresh water every day from two plants. I don’t know why but it seemed like one or the other of the damned things was always down for some reason. If there were anything else that unreliable, we’d never have gotten out of port. S
Testy