How big is a sub? do officers share a room? do high ranke enlisted?
I was just wondering, we got a glipse of some enlisted but never the officers sleeping quarters.
share[deleted]
MovieChat Forums > Crimson Tide (1995) Discussion > How big is a sub? do officers share a ro...
I cannot speak with authority as to the Officers sleeping quarters.
Crew's berthing that I saw aboard USS West Virginia were outboard of the missile tubes. The racks were the same as the racks we had aboard Surface ships. 6" deep Coffin lockers.
As to size of a Sub... It depends on what sub. They do come in different sizes you know.
As to the two featured in this film;
OHIO CLASS SSBN
Length: 560 feet (170.69 meters)
Beam: 42 feet (10.06 meters)
Displacement:
Surfaced: 16,764 tons
Submerged:18,750 tons
AKULA CLASS SSN
Length: 354.3 feet(108.0 meters)
366.4 feet (111.7 meters) -Akula II
Beam:13.5 meters
Displacement:
5,700-7,500 tons Surfaced
7,900-8,140 tons Surfaced - Akula II
7,900-9,100 tons Submerged
7,900-12,770 tons Submerged - Akula II
I joined the Navy to see the world, only to discover the world is 2/3 water!
Officer's berthing on an Ohio is forward of the missile compartment, above the wardroom, and below and forward of control. Two and three-bunk staterooms from what I've seen, and the CO and XO have their own cabins, usually with a shared head. They're very cramped, but they are private. There's an officer's head just aft.
Oh, and I think it's been mentioned, but the whole fishtank thing in enlisted quarters was completely hosed. On a sub you can get upwards of thirty-degree down or up angle, so any containers like that would have serious issues.
Yeah the fishtank think was out of place
shareprobably right, but there is no reason why a fishtank can't be designed to handle 30 degrees angle. It just means an enclosed glass lid. If you can do it with a jug, you can do it with a fishtank.
But you're probably right that it wouldn't happen.
SpiltPersonality
I KNOW it wouldn't happen, if only for the reason that COB would flip a *beep* if he heard about it.
Other considerations aside, there simply wouldn't be enough room for something like that. Also, if you ever have the chance to experience 'Angles and Dangles', you will realize just how crazy those angles really are. EVERYTHING starts breaking loose.
In one particular instance, we had a drill for a flooding casualty forward. We were at depth, which is bad, so the Dive pulled full rise. I was in the rack at the time and I start to tumble out, then I heard the guy above me swear as he flew out of his rack and onto the deck.
The Museum of History in Chicago had a captured German sub on exhibit. On the tour, the guide mentioned several interesting facts: the doorways were about 5’8” so at the start of WWII, only sailors 5’ 7” or shorter were allowed on subs. Toward the end of the war, they were accepting anyone, so guys who were 6’ would run in the ship and slam into the doorways and get knocked out cold.
He also mentioned that the submariners would sleep in shifts and sheets were never changed. That plus the fact that many of them smoked and cabbage was cooked constantly made the sub a bit “ripe.”
When the sub was captured, it had to be aired out for 90 days before anyone could go into it to inspect it.
Cats are delicate dainty animals who suffer from a variety of ailments ... except insomnia.
yea the level of filfth on old subs is pretty disturbing, add the toilet to the horror, not much ventilation, and they didn't have many, so you'd be constantly walking into a freshly used one.....
i think todays subs still do have a bed rotation for lower level folks on the sub. but i'm sure their sheets get washed eventually lol
It's not as much of a problem anymore, but the toilet horror was even worse. In order to use the toilet, you had to line up the system correctly so that the system could overcome the outside sea pressure, a process that was nearly impossible to comprehend.
The result? One mistake could send the contents of the toilet into your face at high pressure...
As a general rule, U.S. submarines had more creature comforts during the war, but all submarines stank from fuel, cooking and the close confimement of men.
In the words of the Navy: "MORE DUDES! LESS SPACE!"
However, my grandfather said (after touring a captured U-Boat) that he really apreciated his Gato-class a lot more. U.S. submarines had some very nice amenities, including in some cases unheard-of luxuries like ice cream machines and deep-fat fryers. (BTW, deep-fat fryers on subs then and now are still charlie-foxes in terms of the problems they cause.)
Today, I've heard of limited 'hot-bunking' on smaller attack submarines, but the enlisted berthing on USS Henry M Jackson (SSBN-730) was actually nicer than some surface ships I've been on.
There's no hotbunking on British Astute or Vanguard subs, but I'm not sure I agree with it, it may boost morale a little but an unused bunk is a waste of space on an already cramped vessel. I heard that the Soviet Typhoon class was quite oppulent, spacious messes, a gym and even a small pool.
Opinions are just onions with pi in them.
German U-1206 sank because the toilet was operated improperly.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_submarine_U-1206