July 16, 2010: USS Pampanito

[Gravdigr]

Start with one large nookyalur submarine;
Add one under-sea mountain.
Combine in a very large ocean.

That'll pretty much make lunch outta your sub...

[Diaphone Jim]

I've toured the Pampanito a couple of times. As Bruce says, it is seriously cramped. It is also really retro without trying; reminds me of my grandparents' house during and after the war, with Bakelite the most modern material.
I didn't know until I read Wikipedea today that it was "credited" with sinking the Kachidoki Maru on September 12, 1944. The Kachidoki Maru carried 900 British and Australian prisoners of war; the Pampanito picked up 73 survivors 3 days later. This seems to have been part of a wolfpack operation that resulted in the sinking of Japanese ships carring 2,100 POWs, of which only 127 survived.

[Diaphone Jim]

I guess I need a red face here. The stats I got from three Wikipedia subjects about the numbers of POW's on board the Japanese ships and the number rescued differ from what are probably better sources.
It is more likely that there were at least 951 survivors, about a third rescued by American subs and the rest by the Japanese.
It must have been an unimaginably chaotic and tragic scene.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Thanks Djim, I hadn't realized the Pampanito was part of that debacle.

[ZenGum]

I have some submarine questions to throw out here, and none of them involve a treadmill.

When submarines dive in the movies, the hull makes groaning sounds as the pressure builds up. Do they really do that, or is that just Hollywood being dramatic?

In movies, we often see a submarine hiding below while a destroyer lobs depth charges at it. Why can't submarines strike back? They could push mines out through the torpedo tubes which would float to the surface and endanger the destroyer. There could even be a special vertical launch torpedo they could fire. Why not, huh?

[skysidhe]

My uncle who is approaching his 90s and still going strong was a cook on a submarine.
He is Filipino and oh man can he cook. ...still.

Great tour thanks for peek.

[Gravdigr]

Originally Posted by skysidhe

My uncle who is approaching his 90s and still going strong was a cook on a submarine.
He is Filipino and oh man can he cook. ...still.

It must be in their blood, I have a friend who moved back home to Olongapo City a few years ago, that man is a cooking fool. Especially when fire is involved.

[Adak]

In WWII, we were unable to even get our early torpedoes to explode on contact. No shit. Our torpedoes had been given a new controller, ("fuse"), and it simply didn't work.

The Germans had seen the value of their subs in WW I and had continued their development ever since. True for tanks, also.

We had not, and our subs and tanks (especially our Sherman Tanks), just weren't good, in comparison. Can you imagine a gasoline engine driving a tiny tank with a tiny gun, and almost useless armor?

Torpedoes in WWII were "aim and fire", and unable to "acquire" a target and follow it. There was no facility to fire a torpedo, upward. They're longer than you think, so the tubes are only horizontal (bow and stern).

We did develop a proximity fuse which was great, but that came about later in WWII.

It's interesting that the Russians have a vectored thrust new fighter plane, the Brits have had one for a decade or two, and just unveiled a brand new unmanned fighter concept plane. Canada is buying the new F-35 vectored thrust fighter. And we're still giving our Navy pilots F-18's that are 35 years old, to fly in war zones.

But YOU BET! we are "supporting the troops"!

[GunMaster357]

Originally Posted by ZenGum

When submarines dive in the movies, the hull makes groaning sounds as the pressure builds up. Do they really do that, or is that just Hollywood being dramatic?

True with old submarines, less so with modern ones. They're built with better materials. And don't forget that the objective is to stay as silent as possible.

In another area, the Concorde plane when flying at Mach2 was known to elongate by 28 centimeters (nearly a foot) due to speed friction and less external pressure.

Originally Posted by ZenGum

In movies, we often see a submarine hiding below while a destroyer lobs depth charges at it. Why can't submarines strike back? They could push mines out through the torpedo tubes which would float to the surface and endanger the destroyer. There could even be a special vertical launch torpedo they could fire. Why not, huh?

From the pictures, you can imagine that space is at a premium. You have to put in that tin can over a hundred men,torpedoes, engines, computers for detection, targeting firing, counter-measures, communications.And everything to keep them going for a minimum of three months. And I nearly forget, ballistic missiles when the sub is a boomer. My brother served for 3 year on a Nuclear Attack Submarine. He told me that, at the start of the missions, cans of food were stacked everywhere. He also told me that an active submarine smell of, I quote, "death, unwashed bodies and beer".

Also, letting a mine float up to the surface is fine... but to be effective, the ennemy ship has to be more or less at the exact vertical of the sub. And just the sending of the mine will create a noise giving the sub's position to the ennemy.

Same problem with trying to escape at full speed, you create noise due to the cavitation of the propeller. Even worse, the performance of detection systems are so degraded that the sub is nearly running blind. Since the major risks of detection are in coastal areas, it's like going full speed on a highway with Steevie Wonder at the wheel.

Nowadays, subs can be very fast, at least nuclear ones, and can outspeed most anti-submarine ship. But torpedoes can do the job nicely, can be launched from a chopper, and some of those fuckers are real fast.

[Lamplighter]

Not to mention breaking the back of the sub in the process.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by Adak

It's interesting that the Russians have a vectored thrust new fighter plane, the Brits have had one for a decade or two, and just unveiled a brand new unmanned fighter concept plane. Canada is buying the new F-35 vectored thrust fighter. And we're still giving our Navy pilots F-18's that are 35 years old, to fly in war zones.
But YOU BET! we are "supporting the troops"!

And those Navy F-18s are fighting what? The likelihood of coming up against a superior aircraft is somewhere between slim and none. Where there might be a real threat, they send the F-22s, which are unequaled anywhere.
But the reality of the world today is they don't need $160 million dollar F-22s, which is why they are building the F-35s. Actually, I think the F-18 with a hot pilot, might be a match for an F-35.

[skysidhe]

Yeah, true grav

and it was a great post. I sent it along in e-mails to people.

[Adak]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

And those Navy F-18s are fighting what? The likelihood of coming up against a superior aircraft is somewhere between slim and none. Where there might be a real threat, they send the F-22s, which are unequaled anywhere.
But the reality of the world today is they don't need $160 million dollar F-22s, which is why they are building the F-35s. Actually, I think the F-18 with a hot pilot, might be a match for an F-35.

Here's an example: landing on an aircraft carrier (especially at night), with an F-18 is one of the most difficult things you can imagine doing. Difficult, and dangerous. We lose men and women (and aircraft) doing this. We are the only service in the world that does night landings.

With the newer jet (F-35), the vectored thrust landing is a gentle drop downward, from a speed of zero knots. You can even press a button and let the computer do most of the landing, for you.

There are many tricks you can do with vectored thrust - in a dogfight, or against a ground to air-missile, that you just can't do without it. Once you learn those tricks, you have a distinct edge over non vectored thrust aircraft. We learned that from exercises with the Harrier what, twenty years ago?

You might recall that we helped the Afghani's chase out the Russian's, by giving them shoulder-fired AA missiles, and training them in how to use them.

Most of our military mistakes - like Mogadeshu ("Black Hawk Down"), failing to capture Bin Laden, etc., have been caused by not committing the resources we needed, to get the job done. Whether it's deterring the North Koreans from attacking the South, or the Chinese from attacking Taiwan, or the Russians from taking over Baltic countries they owned in the past, we need modern military hardware, all around.

Including fighter jets. Maybe we don't need the F-22 today, but we should have the F-35, clearly.

Another example:
In Afghanistan, they have a LOT of mountains. Thousands of years ago, the Afghani's learned to take the high ground, and shoot down on the hapless (Romans, Mongols, Brits, Russians, etc.), because they generally couldn't fire back that far.

We're too cheap to put the right length of barrel on our soldier's rifles, so we're having a problem with snipers and such, shooting at us, before we can shoot back with our rifles. The army now has "rationed" longer shooting rifles, out to the troops. Ideally, some day, one in ten army infantry soldiers will be able to have one.
As for the marines? Well, no.

I'm not sure you can fight a war "on the cheap". I'm sure, if you try hard enough to pinch those pennies, you'll increase our casualties exponentially. In Vietnam, in the early years, we didn't have sniper rifles newer than WWII. The snipers had to order their own rifles, from Remington or Winchester.

We do this all the time. During peace times, we close our eyes and dream that there won't be another war, and if we dream hard enough, peace will prevail. But it doesn't - human nature hasn't changed. Putting our fingers in our ears too, won't help, really.

Most people don't know that our number of Naval ships, has been cut by about one-third since Reagan's term as President. Likewise our defense budget. Meanwhile, the fact that we can't USE nuclear weapons unless the other side tries to uses them first, has really sunk in, around the world. That advantage, is no advantage, for the kind of wars we're fighting these days.

What would you guess in our current percentage of Gross Domestic Product is, for all of our Department of Defense (All services)?

I'll let you ponder that, but here's a hint: it's less than you think.

[xoxoxoBruce]

snip~ In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together. ~snip

[Scriveyn]

Originally Posted by GunMaster357

...In another area, the Concorde plane when flying at Mach2 was known to elongate by 28 centimeters (nearly a foot) due to speed friction and less external pressure. ...

Gives a whole new notion to taking a ƒlying ƒ*ck