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Navy vets and guys: what is it like to live in a submarine?
I have always been civilian and am curious. Is it claustrophobic?`
The navy interests me but sub or ship life sounds hard to me.
Navy vets and guys: what is it like to live in a submarine?
On my last boat, I slept in a nine-person bunkroom located between nuclear missiles.
In the Missile compartment where all of these bunkrooms are located, there are two heads [room with showers, sinks, toilets, urinals] and one laundry room.
The messdecks are fairly large we can fit one-third of the crew in a single seating. For each meal, the cooks stock a steam-heated buffet line.
Each crewman spends most of his alert time standing watch at a designated compartment.
I worked in a computer center that navigates the sub and supports the launch of nuclear missiles.
For most of my patrols I spent the time in 'three-section' duty, Working 6 hours on-watch followed by 12 hours off-watch. Though I have spent a few years in 'port-starboard', working 6 on / 6 off.
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... I have always been civilian and am curious. Is it claustrophobic?`
Claustrophobia may be a mental issue that a specific individual may suffer. Claustrophobia is not an example of a thing that a room or house could have.
If you suffer from claustrophobia, then you might have issues living on a sub.
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... The navy interests me but sub or ship life sounds hard to me.
Nah, not hard at all, the Navy has a great way of making things pretty routine, thus you get use to it pretty quick and think nothing of it.
Standard life in a sub; wake up, eat, go to watch for six hours, eat again. Then in your 12 hours of off time before your next watch, you have maintenance, training, drills, quals, entertainment, etc, of course not all at once every single day.
Drill typically ran in the mornings monday through friday, afternoons training twice a week (some jobs more than others), evening and midnight shifts usually the quiet "normal" times.
As for claustrophobia, the subs are really big enough not to have this feeling at all, you would have to have an extreme case of it, and you likely would know this anyway in your life if you had such an extreme issue.
If you are a Reactor Operator, then you stand in front of a panel of gauges and make slow adjustments to keep the reactor temperatures within their normal band and you monitor steam pressures.
If you are a sonar tech, then you sit in front of a panel of displays that analyze sounds in the water.
As an Electronic Tech, my computers monitor multiple Inertial platforms, when they sense variations in the gravity field we have to figure out what has caused those variations and we calculate compensations for them. My job is very math-centric. You need to be able to understand gravity fields and how they work.
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... What is there to do?
A lot of the time your off-watch time is consumed by doing maintenance on your systems. But if all of your equipment is functioning at optimal capacity, then you could watch a movie, read books, play poker or D&D, cribbage tournaments. Sometimes someone will volunteer to teach college classes [it looks good on their resumes if the college will document them as a professor].
On my first boat, I read through all volumes of their encyclopedia.
On my last boat, my seniority had landed me into the position of 'ships intelligence officer'. I was in charge of a dozen safes where we stored hundreds of volumes of all the CIA/OSI periodicals and message traffic. Whenever we detected a given vessel within 500-mile radius, I would dig through my safes to find as much details about that vessel as I could [captians name and bio, his crew, what cargo they are hauling, where they are homeported, and where they are going]. Then I would prepare a briefing for the wardroom.
Every hull in the water radiates sounds at specific frequencies depending on what machinery they are operating at the time. Depending on how much we know about a given hull, we may know who manufactured each system on that vessel, so I could write a list of what frequencies each system makes. To give to sonar so they would know what to listen for. Sometimes when a ship shifts from using their port bilge pump to using a starboard bilge pump that change in ship's noise could be enough to distinguish whether they are a fishing trawler or a guided-missile cruiser.
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... What is a "qual"?
When a new sailor reports onboard, during their first year they focus on 'qualifying'. They must learn every ship system. How each system is powered, where it gets inputs from, where it sends its outputs, and all modes of operation of that system. When the sailor has demonstrated a comprehensive knowledge of how all ship systems integrate together, and what must be done with each system during ship casualties [fires, flooding, pipe ruptures, etc] then that sailor is recognized as 'qualified on submarines'.
If you are playing cards in the torpedo room when a pipe bursts and begins flooding water into the boat, you need to know what things must be done in that compartment and how you can help those men. There are systems in that each compartment that needs to be used in the proper manner to assist the other compartments to deal with each casualty.
A 'qualified' crewmember needs to show proficiency in every compartment, using each system in each compartment, to keep the boat and her crew safe.
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... What is the entertainment?
Card games, movies, reading, college courses.
Every boat I have served on has always had at least one goofball who thinks he wants to learn to play bagpipes. I do not entirely appreciate the sound of bagpipes. On a sub when someone is trying to play bagpipes it is hard to get away from that noise.
Some guys like to work out. Every sub is required to have a large set of free weights. But usually, within the first few days on patrol, someone will drop a weight on a steel deck plate, and that triggers when all free-weights get welded in place.
My last two boats both had running machines. But when 135 men all focus on 3 running machines, the machines rarely last more than a week.
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... Many women there?
I have never been out to sea with females.
The US Navy has been pushing hard to get females to serve at sea. I have read a few articles about the efforts to get females to be full-time permanent crewmen on subs. But that is another interesting topic of discussion.
Well, often enough yes, depends on the job, but even if doing things, it is a routine, not uncommon in the world of jobs, lol. But it is not viewed in the sense of "being bored", you are doing what you are trained to do, the receptive nature of it is what makes you proficient. It is not Navy SEAL level excitement, but it is not exactly flipping burgers either.
In port watches are the most boring though, basically a security guard, lol.
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Originally Posted by carnelian
What is there to do?
Aside from your watch and other mandated tasks, you can read, exercise, play computer games, watch movies, etc.
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Originally Posted by carnelian
What is a "qual"?
A qual is you have to qualify watches, and have to qualify submarines. Basically qualifying is learning how to do the job, and qualifying submarines means you are learning about, well, submarines, and go to a board that asks you questions, then you pass, get your submarine warfare insignia (dolphins).
So say you are a nav ET on a boomer, so you would be qualifying strat nav, QM, topside, POOW, and rover, maybe will be helms and planes as a nub (nub meaning non useful body, a new person from boot camp via school), also piled on top of this is your submarine quals.
This is what you do in your free time mostly as a new person, lol. You are actually not even allowed to do things like watch movies and stuff until you get submarine qualified, you are expected every waking moment to be working on it.
There will be a path for the other quals though, like you qualify topside before POOW, rover comes after that. You are looking at two years of doing nothing but working on quals.
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Originally Posted by carnelian
What is the entertainment?
Now days it is awesome, we have laptops, back in my day, there were no feasible laptops really, pretty pricey at that. So with a laptop, life is great. Aside from that, entertainment is reading, watching movies when available, and general social interaction, and exercise.
We also had a gambling thing going, all legal, so can join in, cash you lose is owed within a certain back in port, or if you win owed to you. No legal authority if you do not pay, but life will be hell on board if you do not. There is a cap on how much they allow you to lose.
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Originally Posted by carnelian
Many women there?
No, back in my day there were none, and even now very few on a boomer, none on the fast boats.
To add more, enlisted get to crank, meaning work the mess decks assisting the cooks, everyone scheduled for a minimum of 4-6 weeks or so spread over 2-4 patrols (speaking boomers, have no idea about fast boats). So basically washing dishes, cleaning, prepping for meals, etc. This is the time to shine and get to know the entire crew, and you will be judged by everyone as well regarding your attitude.
I've slept in 9 man berthing and forward/aft crew berthing on Los Angeles class fast attacks. 9 man was more comfortable in that there was less disruption to your sleep from people entering/leaving the room and/or getting dressed. But it was pretty cold all the same.
I hated submarine life and hope to never have to deploy on one again. I counted down the days to when I was to get off of the boat (probably not the best attitude, but whatever ) as soon as I embarked.
The crews were generally good and the food decent (one of the best thanksgiving meals I've had was actually on a boat, believe it or not), but I could not stand not having regular access to the outside world.
There were things that made living on a boat somewhat bearable for me, to include the crew and the workout spaces (we have a couple of benches, some weights, a rowing machine, treadmill, and exercise bike), but boy was it rough on me otherwise.
I've toured a few World War II submarines, and what struck me is how cramped everything was (except that the mess hall was relatively roomy) and how little privacy there was. The captain got his own room, all the other officers shared a single room, and the crew bunked in packed-in berthing spaces. Four "heads" for 80 men. Obviously the modern boats are more technologically advanced, but how do they compare in terms of roominess, comfort, privacy, and general habitability?
Also, speaking of heads, on the modern boats, are the bathrooms separated by officers and crew, or can anyone use any of them?
I've toured a few World War II submarines, and what struck me is how cramped everything was (except that the mess hall was relatively roomy) and how little privacy there was. The captain got his own room, all the other officers shared a single room, and the crew bunked in packed-in berthing spaces. Four "heads" for 80 men. Obviously the modern boats are more technologically advanced, but how do they compare in terms of roominess, comfort, privacy, and general habitability?
Diesel boats were a lot smaller.
In comparison imagine a parking garage four-stories tall by two blocks long.
I am 5 foot 10 inches tall. I can stand up straight anywhere on a sub without hitting my head.
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... Also, speaking of heads, on the modern boats, are the bathrooms separated by officers and crew, or can anyone use any of them?
On my last boat, the crew shared two heads. The chiefs shared a head, the officers shared a head, and the CO and XO shared a head.
On an Ohio class, there is one stall/shower for the CO and XO that they share. Then one for the officers. One toilet for the con. The chiefs have a head but forget how many toilets and showers it has. The rest of the crew have two heads, each as three toilets, two showers, four sinks but the aft head has three sinks (if recalling all this correctly). But something like that.
Someone mentioned food, yea, cannot complain about it, pretty good given the circumstances, but often it was downright good, talking decent restaurant quality. Your cooks can influence this a lot, there are of course guidelines, but good ones but their own spin on it and made it taste great.
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) as soon as I embarked. 
