Partly out of curiosity, and partly as reference for my Nanowrimo (fictional amateur writing) outline, I’m curious, what is living and working on submarines like? Anything interesting would be great, but in particular I’m curious what aspects people were surprised by, or what a young, newly-trained sailor might notice most, or find hardest to adapt to working on a boat?
paging Robby to GQ
Ask a nuclear submariner. will give some info .
It depends. If it’s the yellow submarine variety, that’s a whole 'nother can of worms…
You called? 
(I wasn’t doing a vanity search, either. It’s just that thread titles with “submarines” tend to catch my eye.)
It’s like living in confined quarters for extended periods of time under stressful conditions with lots of other people, and constantly being short on sleep. There’s never enough time to do all the work that’s expected of you, and you never know when something you missed is going to bite you in the ass.
On the other hand, I was just in my mid-20s, and put in charge of an operating nuclear reactor (as Engineering Officer of the Watch), and later, the entire submarine while on duty (as Officer of the Deck). My crewmates and I were well-trained, and we knew we could handle just about anything that was thrown at us. So that part was neat.
Re-reading that thread–I agree.
My uncle wont even talk about his naval service because he hated his time on submarines so much.
Oh that’s a great thread, thanks!
Hmm, I notice that crew turnover was mentioned there- exactly how high does turnover tend to be between deployments? Is it like the surface fleet where you are always in the position of losing large numbers of enlisted sailors and having to re-train people from scratch, or will boats build and retain a certain amount of core crew who will potentially work together for a long time?
The average length of time onboard is about 3 years. Some enlisted personnel may stay as long as five years, and senior officers (like the CO and XO) are generally in their positions for just 2 years. People are constantly rotating in and out, though not usually during a deployment.
If it’s your first sea tour, you spend your first year as a newbie, your second year as a fully qualified watchstander, and your third year as an expert. On subsequent sea tours, the “newbie” part is abbreviated, as you are expected to get up to speed more rapidly.
However, even sailors and officers on their first sea tours show up having been fairly rigorously trained. Nuclear-trained enlisted personnel and officers get about 18 months of training before they ever see a submarine. Non-nuclear trained personnel get about 12 months of training.
Alright, that makes sense. The only other thing I’m wondering is, what is continuing education like after you finish your newbie phase? Is it just a matter of finishing your quals and then hyper-specializing in your personal department/area of expertise, or are career submariners always in the process of picking up new skills beyond what they need for their immediate job?
A friend of mine was an enlisted man aboard a US Navy nuclear sub, if you have any specific questions about life from that perspective post 'em and I can forward them along. Dunno if they would differ from robby’s - correct me if I’m wrong but you were an officer, right?.
Some of what he’s told me is exactly the same though - close quarters, wishing there were more hours in a day to get everything done. Lots of training; while he didn’t like everything about the USN he said that their training was quite good. Somewhat like the US Marine’s motto of “Every Marine a rifleman”, everyone in the sub was trained as a firefighter.
Limit to how long they could stay down was food since a nuclear boat can produce fresh water and clean the air indefinitely, and overall he said the food was really quite good (people will put up with a lot if you feed them well).
I was a junior officer on a submarine, so I’m more familiar with the career progression for officers.
For officers, you never stop picking up new skills, nor do you ever really finish all of your qualifications. Also, officers do not specialize at all–as you move up the ranks you become more and more of a generalist (i.e. knowing something about everything, or more cynically, “jack of all trades; master of none”). 
A prospective submarine officer, after receiving a commission following college and being selected for nuclear submarine duty, first completes a year of nuclear power training followed by three months at Submarine School.
Upon reporting to a submarine, a newbie junior officer will be assigned as a Division Officer running a division of 10-15 sailors while also completing his initial quals, including Engineering Officer of the Watch, Officer of the Deck, and qualifying in submarines. After a year or so in that first (usually in Engineering) division, you usually rotate to a different division. Around this time, you are expected to complete your Engineer qualifications, which includes a round of exams at Naval Reactors in Washington.
After three years on a submarine, you rotate for a shore assignment for two years to allow you to forget how bad it was at sea, then attend the Submarine Officer’s Advanced Course at Submarine School, setting you up to return to another submarine as a Department Head, with several Division Officers under you. During this tour, you are expected to complete your command quals.
You then rotate back to shore, then back to sea as the XO on a submarine, then back to shore, and after being selected as a prospective commanding officer, a CO on a submarine.
You’re never in any particular job for longer than 2-3 years. The whole career progression consists of constant learning and expanding your skill set. An officer who stagnates in a particular job will not be promoted nor will he progress to the next job. Officers who fail to promote are put out of the Navy.
It’s very similar on the enlisted side–you have to constantly work to advance. On the other hand, you won’t necessarily be put out of the Navy if you are content to stay at a particular point in your career–you just won’t be advanced.
Thanks robby, that’s exactly what I was looking for! 
I never served in the navy, but I got to go on a couple of rides on submarines for sea tests.
Though not as “first hand” at actually serving on a sub, I thought some observations that always struck me might be of some value. I was on board two different Ohio class (missile) subs.
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Rotating schedule. Shifts are on for 6 hours, then off for 12. So it is an 18 hour day - you don’t work the same hours from day to day. Not sure how easy it is to get used to.
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Lack of sky/daylight not a big issue. Any time we were on the surface, I would try to see if they would let me go up into the sail (best seat in the house, IMO). A couple times we tooled around on the surface, and they set up a makeshift railing so that people could sit on the tops of the missile tubes. I was surprized how many sailors opted not to go topside - preferred to just spend the time in their bunk.
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Height is a disadvantage, but is quickly adjusted for. I am short and had no problem fitting in my bunk. But I felt sorry for the tall guys. Similarly, the lights in the corridors tend to be a bit low, so the taller guys would have to duck (like every 10 steps or so) as they went down the hallway.
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Reasonable workout equipment. That scene in “Crimson Tide” with Denzel hitting the punching bag was not made up (I used to hit the heavy bag they had on one of the boats). Treadmills, weight machine, stationary (old) bikes were on both boats I was on.
Hope this helps
Four years on USN subs as an enlisted person. As mentioned, close quarters, lack of sky, etc., but not all submarines and periods are the same.
I was on an older (SSN639 hull laid in the 60s) and a new (SSN721, hull laid in the 80s) fast attack sub. I never served on a missile sub, but they had more room. Once you get used to sleeping in a coffin sized space (my first bunk was so tight I could not read a hardback book) it kind of depends on what you are doing and when. Normal operations while not on deployment usually are consist of being in for a few days to a week, then out to sea for a few days to few weeks.
While out to sea you are usually on an 18 hour watch cycle (6 hours on watch, 12 off). During your off time you usually have maintenance, training, studying, and cleaning to do. Meals are served every six hours at watch changing time, so you usually eat to meals each 18 hour period. That sleep schedule makes going into and out of port a bit disconcerting as you switch to and from the short schedule.
You aren’t working all the time. Training is usually during the morning and afternoon watch. If you have the morning or mid watch, you go to training. If you have the afternoon or evening watch, there are usually movies or card games in the galley space. The galley space is the common area for most of the crew. That is the only place to train or hang out. Otherwise there is just your rack, and other people are sleeping around you.
Once you are deployment, the real shocks happen. The real limit on how long a sub can stay out on its own is food. They make their own water and air, but food has to be loaded. The limit is about 90 days. But to do that you put food everywhere. Cans in every nook and crany. A layer of cans covering the walk ways. It is a little ridiculous to see. Things get tense when you see the same people all day, every day, on little sleep, with no where to go to get away. Luckily, I never did a 90 day underway, but friends who did tell me that fights were not uncommon.
Exercise was encouraged, but haphazard. If you were lucky, there may be a place that some weights could be stashed and you might have an exercise machine stashed in engine room. Usually you had pull up bar somewhere. It used to make the engineer nervous when he would walk back aft and see guys curling 50lb dumb bells right next to reactor instrument and control panels.
Was it a Trident with all that exercise equipment?
My father described it as like living in an underground lockerroom for months. He transfered back to surface ships the first chance he got.
Yes. The Florida had the punching bag. But both the Florida and the Alabama had stationary bikes and treadmills, as I recall. If memory serves, the Alabama had a stairmaster. Jogging on the treadmill when the sub did a little rolling made it even more challenging.
The weight machines, since 1) they needed to be assembled, and 2) couldn’t take up much space, were the old “universal” type machines I remember from high school. 4, maybe 6 stations around a “cube”.
Not everyone on a submarine went cagey. I’ve heard of submariners going on to aircraft carriers and flipping out. You usually find out who can and who can’t after the first patrol. In general, you are kept too busy to worry about the claustrophobia, especially while earning your dolphins. That takes about a year, so you should be used to it by then.
As far as training goes, remember the three months the crew are on shore. Submariners train there too.
Incidentally, how does socializing end up working out? I knew an intelligence analyst who went on a few deployments and told me that he ended up in a very tight clique with his fellow analysts and had very little to do with the rest of the crew. Does the same thing end up happening across the board, where you end up spending your free time with the same people you work with, or is it more like prison where your social group is different from your barracks/work group?
Also, my understanding is that a lot of recruiters try to lock smart guys into nuke school, but how are non-nuke enlisted personnel assigned to their specialty or department? Do they get a choice of advanced schools, or are they simply assigned to a specialty straight out of basic sub school based on their performance and the current needs of the fleet?
Also, this is more of a general Navy question, but I’ve heard the terms “A school” and “Q school” thrown around- what, if anything, is the difference? Are they both just different types of advanced programs?
I can’t find answers to my questions in the previous thread so I’ll put them here:
- How often are uniforms/bedding laundered? Is the laundry a special duty on board?
- Can you feel the sub moving? Can you feel it turn? Does it tilt when turning?