[ssbn642blue]

Quote:       Originally Posted by privateer

Ok my turn to chime in. I was an attack boat sailor (SSKN - SSN 597) we served a different duty then my friend ssbn642blue on his SSBN but are in agreeent that women have no business at all on the boats. I would spend an average of 9 months out of the year at sea and this may sound silly to some of you folks but its like a self induced prison sentence and a mans world. It's either to hot or to cold , it's long ass watches and hot racking in the torpedo nests, the air sucks and the smell is something only a sub sailor knows, and when the shit hits the fan you gotta be at your best even if it means jumping out of the shower and manning your battlestation stark ass naked. we dont have all the room and accommodations that the big surface ships have and you really have no privacy at all. For sure It's not the version you see in hollywood . John

John,

Well said. While we didn't have torpedo nests, I did have to sleep on torpedos for a few days,(long story).

It's not like we disapprove of women serving in the military. They just don't fit the boats.

If you think college hazing is bad, try qualifying on a boat to earn your Dolphins, (ie. like pilots wings on submarines) and everyone must qualify or get kicked off.

I would not want a crying man OR woman who can't handle it. I HAVE to depend on them for my life and those of my shipmates. There is no such thing as error allowed. It could cost you your life or mine.

The qual process started going down hill about 1982, that's one of the reasons I got out. I could no longer trust the newly qualified guys after a 1 hour qual board where they could not even draw a basic diagram of the air systems.

[danf6975]

Quote:       Originally Posted by ssbn642blue

If you think college hazing is bad, try qualifying on a boat to earn your Dolphins, (ie. like pilots wings on submarines) and everyone must qualify or get kicked off.

actually getting wings is easy . its more like getting your EIB and Surface pin with a lot more damage control thrown in . hazing was just good old fashioned fun back in the day .

[Redbeernuts]

Quote:       Originally Posted by ssbn642blue

Besides, how would we tack on their Dolphins?

The same way we got ours tacked on


SSN 688, SSN 721 Fast Attack. Is where I was, a little newer Boat from what I'm reading you all were on. But just the same women would not make it 2 days on a Boat. And I couldn't afford the sexual harassment cases that they would put on me just because everything out of my mouth would have been offensive.

[G. Green]

I've only been on tours of WWII subs (geeezzz), but I've been in law enforcement 31 years, and I figured out REAL soon that a cop's most important attribute is the ability to "THINK". I have seen some real weak thinkers, none of them were women.

[Redbeernuts]

Thinking is not the problem. There is berthing (sleeping areas), bathing and other facilities that would need to be seperate. The fact is there is just no room for a men and Ladies restroom on a boat. Theres just the head, with the showers. Sleeping arangements would be very difficult.

[Redbeernuts]

On top of that I have yet to meet a woman who wants to be on a Sub.

[Redbeernuts]

Quote:       Originally Posted by G. Green

I've only been on tours of WWII subs (geeezzz), but I've been in law enforcement 31 years, and I figured out REAL soon that a cop's most important attribute is the ability to "THINK". I have seen some real weak thinkers, none of them were women.

I have been in Law Enforcment for about 10 years now and the only time my partner didn't back me up it was a woman. That doesn;t mean they are all like that but this one was. Beside Cops and Submariners are not even close to being the same thing.

[SightNSqueeze]

Quote:       Originally Posted by Redbeernuts

The same way we got ours tacked on SSN 688, SSN 721 Fast Attack. Is where I was, a little newer Boat from what I'm reading you all were on. But just the same women would not make it 2 days on a Boat. And I couldn't afford the sexual harassment cases that they would put on me just because everything out of my mouth would have been offensive.

Yeah, I remember the Los Angeles when it was brand new and tied to the pier at New London. It was next to the Richard B. Russell (SSN 687), last and newest of the 637-class. I remember too that John’s boat, the Tullibee (SSN 597) was in port. I was still in Submarine School at the time and you could tell the Sub School students from the boat sailors who often had longer hair, beards, green deck jackets and blue wool ball caps. Most of us were right out of boot camp or A-school. It was icy cold with swirling snow outside on the weekend that our class reported aboard base. Some of us spent that Saturday morning getting a tour of the Andrew Jackson (SSBN 619). The Jackson was a 616-class like the submarine that I eventually ended up on and almost identical to the 640-class SSBNs which were used as the basis of submarine design and operation for the purposes of sub school instruction. All of those submarines are gone now. Even some of the 688-class were decommissioned. The idea now is to maintain the 18 Ohio-class, the newest of the F-II & III 688-class (about 40 boats), the 4 new Seawolf class, and the 20-30 new Virginia-class being built that will eventually replace some of the remaining 688s as the years go by.

As far as women on submarines, the argument is still raging on the Military.com forums. Some of you guys might want to sign up with them long enough to give your opinions. I heard that some congressional staffers are getting some insight from the opinions being given by us submarine vets and active duty personnel. Even the wives are getting involved. This thing is definitely being driven by politics and political correctness from the Administration and an “overly compliant” CNO and SECNAV, neither of whom ever spent a day on submarines. I try to stay away from the “tampons clogging the sanitation tank” argument and simply concentrate on the 1995 studies that say that women aboard submarines will jeopardize the natural unit cohesion and fighting effectiveness of the submarine service which is now the determining factor in victory in a naval war with a technologically advanced enemy with similar capabilities. I also stress that casualties will be high among submarines and surface units alike even in victory and that America’s daughters, mothers, and wives don’t need to be among them. I use the “Marine Corps model” as an example of how one branch of the service said no to the political correctness that affected the other services in the mid-90s. The women Marines are trained to fight, armed to fight, and always prepared to fight like any male Devil Dog, but as a matter of Marine Corps policy, women Marines are never purposely placed in harm’s way. I think that that will be a better argument than the Tampon/PMS in the sanitation tank route. If anybody here wants to use my arguments as their own, you’re all welcome to it. Feel free to customize as you see fit. It’s not too late to turn this thing around as it happened in 1994/95. I already emailed my congressional delegation too.

[jmabbott888]

Hve to agree with the other "squids" in here as to no I don't think women should be on subs. I was on the USS MCkee (AS-41) in the aerly 90's & we had a large crew of women. BTW this was a Subtender but we were always losing personell due to marraiges to other crew members, pregnancy, etc. If there are any women here I am not saying this as anything against you at all, hell my boss was a female & VERY MUCH ABLE to do her job on the subs repairing stuff & in the shop too. She knew more than any of us did, thats probably why she was in charge. SAme goes for the other women in the shops including welding, pipefitting, lagging (insulation work) etc.

[SightNSqueeze]

Welcome to the forum, and to G&G for that matter, jmabbot. News that the SECNAV and the CNO were going to comply with the White House desire to reinstate the previously failed move to put women on submarines really hit a nerve with me. As you can see from my previous posts, I really joined this site to talk about guns, hunting, and Second Amendment legislation. Even here on this thread, I try to keep it light about personal experience, advice to new active duty personnel, and my basic views on the GWT. But this move looks almost like an attempt to jeopardize the fighting capabilities of the Submarine Service for the sake of political correctness and personal career advancement over what is for the good of the service and the country. As a fairly recent surface sailor who served with a mixed crew of men and women, your experiences are valued and welcome. Like you, I know that women have served admirably and with dedication and distinction in the services, but like you and many others, it was never intended that women be placed in immediate combat situations beyond that of close support, such as practiced only by the Marine Corps. Sending women to sea aboard ships was bad enough. Placing them aboard submarines is totally insane. I have written to my congressional delegation on this subject, but to date, only one member; Representative Joe “You Lie” Wilson (R-SC) has answered me back. I think I'll have to pursue my two senators; Lindsey Graham and Jim Demint to take this more seriously than they have. These are the leftist actions that commonly slip in under the radar when big ticket news issues are more vocally in play, and at the same time.

[Sgtsquid]

MM2 SS/DV, so I think my opinion is valid (5 yrs on SSN 690 Philly). SNS, did you read the third party report that you posted? It does seem so from the points you make are in-line with the findings of the report. Many people say that a woman can do the job just as well as a man. True, I know more than a few that can do it better. Do I believe that if a woman can do a job, should she be allowed? Absolutely. Do I believe a woman should serve on a sub next to a man? NO! The report, which was an independent third party found that in all parameters they looked at the end result was always the same... it was not recommended that women serve on submarine duty. They looked at combat readiness, combat effectiveness and several other factors and the result was always the same. In one test where carrying a portable submersible pump, of which is one of the most vital pieces of damage control equipment on-board, close to 90% of women could not perform this duty while close to 100% of men could. Besides fire, flooding is a sailors worst nightmare. This was a well thought out study with valid conclusion of which apparently convinced the Clinton administration not to pursue the idea, but Obama'ists not so much. SNS brought up many good points such as the high divorce rates in the submarine community. The idea of having a mixed gender crew would just add another stress to these marriages. What do you expect a bunch of 18-24 year old men and women to do in a confined environment for an extended period of time? On a low brow note, it'll be a bad day for women when the first A-ganger has to pull a "white rat" out of the san-pump (sorry SNS, had to go there). Another aspect which would drastically change is the day-to-day social atmosphere underway. A coping mechanism is the complete breakdown of normal socially acceptable behaviour. Adding women to the mix would force the drastic change of this because of sexual harassment. This would add an extra stress to an extremely stressful environment. OK, that's enough rambling, I'm out...

[nathangdad]

feel the Navy should put women in submarines only if the Navy is ready for the likely outcome.

There is too much temptation in a confined place over a long time.

What about the stress on the husbands and wives left at home?

A submarine can become a sort of incubation chamber with both sexes
essentially brushing into one another in tight spaces.

[SightNSqueeze]

I know I mentioned these reports before, but they really were not that long ago and their indictment of women on submarines is pretty damning. If these same studies were conducted today, their conclusions would be the same. The operational and combat effectiveness of our undersea warfare capabilities would be severely jeopardized.

The Navy commissioned a private contractor, Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) to conduct a study into the feasibility of placing women on submarines. A link to that study (.pdf file) is below.
http://cmrlink.org/CMRNotes/SAPA%20020195.pdf

Then we have this, from a retired Rear Admiral Undersea Medical Officer:

http://cmrlink.org/CMRNotes/HPScott%20061200.pdf

And finally, the Navy's answer to an inquiry made by DACOWITS concerning the assignment of women to submarine crews.

http://cmrlink.org/CMRNotes/NAVY-DACOWITS_0295.pdf

Some of these are a quite a bit of reading but well worth it to better explain the problem when writing to a legislator or arguing this issue with the less enlightened and misinformed.

[SightNSqueeze]

Quote:       Originally Posted by nathangdad

feel the Navy should put women in submarines only if the Navy is ready for the likely outcome. There is too much temptation in a confined place over a long time. What about the stress on the husbands and wives left at home? A submarine can become a sort of incubation chamber with both sexes essentially brushing into one another in tight spaces.

The problem is that the Navy "is not" ready for the likely outcome. They were not ready for the rash of pregnancies, NJPs (non-judicial punishments), court marshals, sexual harassment cases, shattered marriages, reduction in crew readiness, negative effect on the warrior esprit-de-corps, and a dangerous 2-tiered system of standards between men and women that inevitably developed when women were placed aboard surface ships. The effect on the fighting capabilities of submarines and their crews will be even worse. It was with some difficulty, but the Army and the Air Force were forced to scale back the female presence from immediately dangerous duty during the Iraq War. The Navy, however, will not be able to do that when a naval war breaks out between the U.S. and a technologically advanced maritime enemy. The very nature of naval warfare is that casualties are suffered suddenly and in enormous numbers. Surface ships will be attacked with advanced weapons that can gut and incinerate an entire ship with everybody aboard. As usual, submarine warfare will be fought brutally and without quarter. For centuries, sailors understood and accepted the terrible realities of war at sea. Unfortunately, the closest comprehension we have to modern maritime warfare is World War II, and even that terrible experience was over 60 years ago. The weapons and fighting capabilities of naval warfare are a lot more terrifying and capable today than they were then.

[Sgtsquid]

Oh, the bean-counters also "estimated" a cost of $10 million per boat to retro-fit for a dual-gendered crew. We all know what "estimated cost" means.

[SightNSqueeze]

Quote:       Originally Posted by Sgtsquid

Oh, the bean-counters also "estimated" a cost of $10 million per boat to retro-fit for a dual-gendered crew. We all know what "estimated cost" means.

Yeah, additional showers, heads, racks, and storage inside the "same" hull that was already packed with … only the bare essentials. As for the cost overruns; there are no cost overruns in the defense industry that run as high as in the construction or modification of submarines. That's almost a "Navy tradition" in itself, and one that will never change.

[Cyrano]

Quote:       Originally Posted by Sgtsquid

Oh, the bean-counters also "estimated" a cost of $10 million per boat to retro-fit for a dual-gendered crew. We all know what "estimated cost" means.

At the Academy, we used to call things like 'estimated cost' a "Wild-Assed Guess."

During World War II Lillian Gilbreth, one of the greatest if not the greatest industrial psychologists and motion study experts of the 20th Century, was asked by the War Production Board what changes would be required to make it possible for women to work in factories to replace the men who had gone off to war. She replied, "Build separate restrooms!" Now while this might be true in factories ashore, a perambulating sewer pipe is not a factory.

Aboard any ship there is a distinctive social dynamic at work, to enable those who serve in her to cope with the demands of duty and discipline. This dynamic can vary from ship to ship, not just between various arms of the service; and God help you if you don't or can't fit into a ship's dynamic. (It happened to me, once, after we changed captains and about half the crew on one ship. Worst four months I ever spent at sea in my entire career!) You cannot escape from the ship. It's bad in the modern Merchant Marine, where the ships are running with crews reduced to the point that in my opinion they are not being operated safely and you don't even have enough personnel for any sort of social structure. Modern schedules permit almost no time in port, much less enough time for a run ashore if you are an officer; but at least we could look out the portholes and see there's a world out there and pull in the BBC World Service on the radio. (And today there is at least email access if not access to the Internet aboard ship, depending on how cheap the company is.)

It's infinitely worse in submarines. They go out for 60 to 90 days at a stretch, never see daylight and have damned little in the way of amenities. As I said, you can't even lean on the rail and look out over the water at the sunrise or sunset, or see the stars at night. However, they do have enough personnel for a social community with its own rituals and customs to evolve that makes their situation bearable. That counts for a lot.

But if the Navy is idiotic enough to add in the male-female dynamic to an already high-stress situation, there will be hell to pay as others have observed. The Merchant Marine has a divorce rate so high, apart from confirmed bachelors I don't think I ever ran across an officer who had not been divorced at least once. The men who serve in submarines have a relationship record nearly as bad despite the fact the wives ashore have a support structure the wives of Merchant Mariners don't. Even if nothing happens (see my earlier comments on that), the wives and significant others will beat themselves up with imagining what could be happening. That road ends up like the joke about the guy who borrowed a shovel, is asked for it back, and heaves it through the owner's living room window with a note attached saying, "I didn't want to borrow your damned lawn mower anyway!" At the very least there will be an exodus of experienced men from the boats who have been given the ultimatum, "It's me or the submarine;" or perhaps an exodus from the Navy by men who value their marriages more than their service to the country as enlistments come up.

Long story short: I can't imagine that even flag officers who never served in submarines could possibly be dumb enough to set themselves up where they are in a situation with one hand tied behind their back and one foot in a bucket of cement by screwing around with manning the boats by allowing women to serve on board. Every study that has ever been done shows it's a bad idea, political correctness and moron in the government shoving it at the Navy notwithstanding. What I'd love to see is a senior admiral standing up, calling a press conference, and explaining why it's such a bad idea. If it embarrasses the government, wouldn't that just be too bad. More likely it would make the government look incredibly stupid for proposing such an unsound idea.

[SightNSqueeze]

Quote:       Originally Posted by Cyrano

Long story short: I can't imagine that even flag officers who never served in submarines could possibly be dumb enough to set themselves up where they are in a situation with one hand tied behind their back and one foot in a bucket of cement by screwing around with manning the boats by allowing women to serve on board. Every study that has ever been done shows it's a bad idea, political correctness and moron in the government shoving it at the Navy notwithstanding. What I'd love to see is a senior admiral standing up, calling a press conference, and explaining why it's such a bad idea. If it embarrasses the government, wouldn't that just be too bad. More likely it would make the government look incredibly stupid for proposing such an unsound idea.

The problem there is that certain "flag officers" like to forget who they work for and they become "political officers" for the powers that be. General Colin Powell was a case in point. Powell was a soldier’s soldier starting with his tenure as an advisor to the South Vietnamese Army, then he was an infantry commander as the war progressed. His mentors during his tense Cold War years in Korea, and later the Pentagon were generals who had themselves served under Patton, Clark, Bradley, and Truscott. Powell routinely promoted conservative ideals in his autobiography, even citing an incident where someone called the police after seeing him secure a Japanese Type 99 Arisaka rifle in the trunk of his car in a parking lot. Powell thought it was silly that anybody could be so “gun squeamish.” As chairman of the JCS, and as a general who had never commanded at the division or brigade level, Powell wisely deferred more wartime operational decisions than normal to his commanders including General Norman Schwarzkopf during the '91 Persian Gulf War.

When Powell agreed to stay over after the Clinton Administration took office in the spring of ’93, Powell made Clinton verbally promise that he would leave the issue of homosexuals in the military alone citing that “don’t ask-don’t tell” had worked well since World War II and now was not the time to disrupt a system that isn’t broken. Powell also supported the Navy’s insistence that women be kept off of submarines and surface combat ships. Again, Powell couldn’t speak from experience on all topics, but he knew to listen to people who were in-the-know in these matters. When Clinton reneged on his promises almost as fast as they were made, Powell started making retirement plans. From that point on, Powell began his decent into the field of politics under the guise of public service. The end result is the smug and shameless Colin Powell we witnessed during the ’08 elections and his endorsement of someone worse than even Bill Clinton. Political ambition? Perhaps? Feeling like he was used by Secretary Rice and President Bush? Likely. Whatever the reason, Powell had descended into the abyss. It was now easier to be a politician than a warrior. Schwarzkopf warned of that process in his autobiography and chose to dismount at the pinnacle of his career and after the final shots of the ’91 Persian Gulf War where he emerged the hero of a stunning victory.

Today, Admiral Mullen, Admiral Roughead, and Navy Secretary Mabus, all present or former naval line officers are now “political officers” of their new handlers in the White House. They are wagering that there will be no shooting war involving submarines filled with women on their watch and that this move will enhance their careers when they go into politics. Secretary Mabus was already a former governor from Mississippi and he appears to be mentoring the two admirals who undoubtedly have ambitions of their own. The cost will be in lives and in submarines against a technologically advanced enemy if this sinister scheme is allowed to continue.

[danf6975]

Quote:       Originally Posted by Sgtsquid

Oh, the bean-counters also "estimated" a cost of $10 million per boat to retro-fit for a dual-gendered crew. We all know what "estimated cost" means.

hahaha we used to call it the forgot a zero cost

[river]

Sorry but after two tours and working in the shipyards on lA Class FA, I agree with the poster that said man a whole ship with women or design a new one. There is no privacy at all on the subs. Think it will be bad for morale to imho.
River