25 Feb 1966 - USS Queenfish (SSN 651) is launched

USS Queenfish (SSN-651), a Sturgeon-class attack submarine, was the second ship of the United States Navy to be named for the queenfish, a small food fish found off the Pacific coast of North America.

The contract to build Queenfish was awarded to Newport News Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company in Newport News, Virginia, on 26 March 1963 and her keel was laid down there on 11 May 1964. She was launched on 25 February 1966, sponsored by the Honorable Julia Butler Hansen (1907–1988), U.S. Representative from Washington's 3rd Congressional District (1960–1974), and commissioned on 6 December 1966 with Commander Jackson B. Richard in command.

Queenfish was launched one day ahead of the lead ship of her class, the Sturgeon, despite being laid down 18 months later, and as a result of a multi-million dollar bonus offered by the Navy to the Newport News shipyard.

Queenfish was deactivated on 21 September 1990, decommissioned on 8 November 1991 and stricken from the Naval Vessel Register on 14 April 1992. Her scrapping via the Nuclear-Powered Ship and Submarine Recycling Program at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard at Bremerton, Washington, began on 1 May 1992 and was completed on 7 April 1993.

Thanks to Stephen Hallquirst

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Sen. Mc Cain: Raytheon’s Tomahawk important to avoid use of ground troops

 

Raytheon's operations in Tucson should stay busy as the U-S sends more sophisticated weapons into battle, instead of ground troops.

That's the message Arizona Senator John McCain brought to Raytheon workers Tuesday as he spoke at the Raytheon Center in Rita Ranch.

The Senator says weapons like the Tomahawk cruise missile, built in Tucson will stay a key part of the U.S. military and he sees plenty of potential for Raytheon in other sophisticated systems.
       
Raytheon is Tucson's largest private employer so keeping Raytheon, and its workers busy is important to the economy.  Senator John McCain told workers there he foresees plenty of demand for what Raytheon builds.

Raytheon says the Tomahawk Cruise missile has been used more than 2000 times in combat in places like Iraq and Libya.  Its ability to launch from ships and submarines, fly a thousand miles and hit with precision makes it a favorite for maximum impact, with minimal risk.
      
Senator John Mc Cain helped reverse the U.S. Navy's decision to stop Tomahawk production here.  He told Raytheon workers it made no sense to stop building Tomahawks until a replacement is ready.
       
The Senator's calling for more air power to help the Kurds fight Islamic extremists in Iraq with only enough US ground troops to make sure aircraft and missiles hit their targets.

He says, “We would just have to have some but not a massive injection of ground troops.  But we do need and we have got right now boots on the ground in the form of Special Forces and Forward Air Controllers to identify these targets and to help with the Iraqis as they fight against ISIS."

The Israeli made Iron Dome anti missile system has been protecting Israel's cities against Hamas rockets.
        
Now Raytheon will help make Iron Dome systems and market them internationally.
        
Mc Cain says he helped secure money to make that happen.

"It is my understanding and it's still my understanding that that 225 million additional Iron Dome missiles will be co-produced and obviously that co-production will be here. I intend to follow up on that to be sure that is specifically the agreement that we have with the Israelis."

Senator Mc Cain says he will fight efforts to ground the A-10.  He says it's still the best plane to protect US troops, and essential to keeping Davis-Monthan a strong part of Arizona's economy.

U.S. Navy eyes greater presence in Arctic

The U.S. Navy is mapping out how to expand its presence in the Arctic beginning about 2020, given signs that the region's once permanent ice cover is melting faster than expected, which is likely to trigger more traffic, fishing and resource mining.

 

"The Arctic is all about operating forward and being ready. We don't think we're going to have to do war-fighting up there, but we have to be ready," said Rear Admiral Jonathan White, the Navy's top oceanographer and navigator, and director of the Navy's climate change task force.

 

"We don't want to have a demand for the Navy to operate up there, and have to say, 'Sorry, we can't go,'" he said.

 

The Navy this week released an "aggressive" update to its 2009 Arctic plan after a detailed analysis of data from a variety of sources showed that seasonal ice is disappearing faster than had been expected even three years ago.

 

The document said the Bering Strait was expected to see open water conditions about 160 days a year by 2020, with the deep ocean routes of the Transpolar transit route forecast to be open for up to 45 days annually by 2025.

 

The document includes dozens of specific tasks and deadlines for Navy offices, including calling for better research on rising sea levels and the ability to predict sea ice thickness, assessment of satellite communications and surveillance needs, and evaluation of existing ports, airfields and hangars.

 

It also puts a big focus on cooperation with other Arctic nations and with the U.S. Coast Guard, which is grappling with the need to build a new $1 billion ice-breaking ship.

 

The Navy is conducting a submarine exercise in the Arctic next month, and plans to participate in a joint training exercise with the Norwegian and Russian military this summer.

 

White said the Navy's new projection was aimed at answering "the billion dollar question" of how much it would cost to prepare for an increased naval presence in the Arctic, and trying to determine what investments were needed when.

 

"We're trying to use this road map to really be able to answer that question," White said, noting that early smaller-scale investments could help avert bigger bills in the future,

 

He said efforts were under way now in the Navy to identify specific requirements for weather-hardened ships and other equipment, land-based infrastructure, and etter bandwidth for satellite and shore-based communications capabilities.

 

The Office of Naval Research and the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency are already funding numerous Arctic-focused projects with industry, White said, predicting increased public-private projects in recent years.

 

He said he realized U.S. military budgets are under pressure, but hoped the plan would help undergird Arctic-related budget requests in coming years by showing lawmakers that the Navy had carefully studied and evaluated its options.

 

"As far as I'm concerned, the Navy and Coast Guard's area of responsibility is growing," White said. "We're growing a new ocean, so our budget should be growing in line with that."

 

The Navy's plan does not alter any current funding, but calls for identification of future ships and other weapons by the third quarter of fiscal 2014, which ends September 30, in time to be considered for future budget deliberations.

 

"Our challenge over the coming decades is to balance the demands of current requirements with investment in the development of future capabilities," Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Jonathan Greenert wrote in an introduction. "This roadmap will ensure our investments are informed, focused, and deliberate as the Navy approaches a new maritime frontier."

 

The Navy has long operated submarines in the region, and flies surveillance and unmanned aircraft as needed, but by 2020 it plans to boost the number of personnel trained for Arctic operations. By 2030, as the Arctic Ocean becomes increasingly ice-free, the Navy said it would have the training and personnel to respond to crises and national security emergencies.

 

The Navy's updated road map noted that the Arctic has significant oil, gas and mineral resources, including some rare earth minerals now supplied mainly by China, and estimated hydrocarbon resources of over $1 trillion.

 

Those resources are attractive to big multinational corporations and other countries, but they face big financial, technical and environmental risks due to the harshness of the environment, and the unpredictable weather, White said.

 

"If we do start to see a rush, and people try to get up there too fast, we run the risk of catastrophes," he said, urging a more gradual, measured move into the region by the private sector. "Search and rescue in the cold ice-covered water of the Arctic is not somewhere we want to go."

Local submarines chosen for first female crew members

Two Navy submarines built in part in Rhode Island and based in Groton, Conn., have been chosen as the first U.S. attack submarines that will have women in their crews, the Navy announced Tuesday.

 

The Virginia and the Minnesota, members of the Virginia class of nuclear submarines, will each have three female officers beginning no later than January 2015, Navy Secretary Ray Mabus announced in a statement.

 

U.S. Sen. Jack Reed, of Rhode Island, a member of the Armed Services Committee, applauded the announcement. "I think it's a strong, positive step forward," he said in an interview. "It will increase the talent available to operate" Virginia-class submarines.

 

The three female officers on each of the submarines will share a three-person stateroom in a part of the boat reserved for officers, according to Lt. Timothy Hawkins, a spokesman for the submarines based at Naval Submarine Base New London, in Groton.

 

They will share bathroom and shower facilities with male officers, but the facilities will be scheduled so that they are for men part of the time and women at other times, Hawkins said. That same arrangement is used aboard Ohio-class ballistic- and guided-missile submarines, larger boats that already have women on their crews.

 

"No modification is necessary for the Virginia-class submarines that were selected," Hawkins said.

Each of the two subs will have one female supply officer and two female officers who are nuclear-trained and will work in a variety of departments onboard, such as engineering, navigation and weapons, Hawkins said.

 

Female supply officers already served aboard Navy surface vessels, so they will be selected as more seasoned officers to mentor the other two, more junior officers, Hawkins said. He said that, typically, the junior officers will be ensigns when assigned to the submarine, while the supply officer will be a lieutenant junior grade or a lieutenant.

 

It will take until near the end of next year for the officers to report to the subs because the junior officers need to undergo a year of nuclear training before reporting for duty.

 

"There's a number of women in the training pipeline that have yet to receive their assignment," Hawkins said. "Only upon passing are you assigned the next step."

 

Women had been barred from serving on submarines until the Navy changed its policy in April 2010. Since that time, the Navy has assigned 43 women to six Ohio-class boats: the ballistic-missile submarines Wyoming, Louisiana and Maine; and the guided-missile submarines Florida, Georgia and Ohio.

 

Virginia-class submarines are built by General Dynamics Electric Boat in cooperation with Newport News Shipbuilding. Hull sections and interior components are built at Electric Boat's shipyard in Quonset Point, then barged to either Electric Boat's Groton shipyard or Newport News, in Virginia, depending upon which of the partners has been assigned final assembly of the boat.

 

USS Buffalo Back at Naval Base Guam After 11-Week Deployment

Fast attack submarine USS Buffalo (SSN 715) returned home to Naval Base Guam, on Sept. 29, after an 11-week deployment conducting 7th Fleet operational tasks.

This deployment, which included several multinational exercises, community relations projects is Southeast Asia, and missions vital to national security, was the last operational period for USS Buffalo while assigned to Commander, Submarine Squadron Fifteen.

“We feel really good to be home. During this deployment we showed hard work, initiative and carried out our missions in a very professional manner,” said Chief of the Boat (COB), Machinist’s Mate Master Chief (SS) Vance McKinsey.

Of those who showed up for the homecoming, 11 friends and family members were allowed to board the tug and had a chance to be apart of the ship and crew’s arrival home.

“I missed him,” said Jennifer Villasana, speaking about her husband, Sonar Technician (Submarine) First Class Edmund Villasana. “Even though he was out to sea, he was very supportive in his emails. Also, having wonderful friends around me made [this deployment period] easy.”

With their operation period complete, USS Buffalo expects to conduct a change of homeport in early 2013 to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii to perform a major maintenance and overhaul availability while dry-docked.

'Fireballs' on US Submarines (USS Silversides)

This will bring fond memories to the flangeheads who worked the After Engine Room and had the balls to sit in the doorway to maneuvering...

In WW2, there were reports of Ball Lightning type fireballs on board U.S. Submarines. It was suspected that these rare events were caused by the very high inrush currents when the switch was closed from the huge capacity battery banks into the powerful DC electric motors which propelled the submarines. In his 4 decade search to understand some of the many possible causes of Ball Lightning, Robert K. Golka managed to 'Borrow' a submarine for experiments, using the many thousand amp generators used to recharge there huge battery banks. On Board the USS Silversides Submarine, he short circuits the DC generator outputs in attempts to duplicate this inrush current with the hopes of creating the rare fireballs reported only in this series of submarines.

First female submariners find few obstacles

Since reporting to their boats in November, 25 women who broke one of the Navy's final gender barriers have gone on patrol and been accepted among their crews.

"The men adjusted to us being there, and we adjusted to them," said Lt. j.g. Megan Bittner of the USS Ohio gold crew. "It was quick. There were no big problems. No stumbling blocks along the way. It was just learning as a junior officer how you fit on the boat."

Bittner, 24, is one of 13 women assigned to two Trident submarines based at Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor — the cruise-missile-carrying Ohio and the USS Maine, armed with nuclear warheads. Another dozen are in Kings Bay, Ga., with the USS Wyoming and USS Georgia. Each have blue and gold crews that take turns operating the boats. There are three women on each crew — two on their first assignments and a more experienced supply officer who serves as their mentor. The Ohio blue crew includes four women because fewer dropped out of training than the Navy anticipated.

It's not that hard to wash out. After the submariners graduated from the Naval Academy or ROTC programs in spring 2010, they spent six months in Nuclear Power School in Charleston, S.C., six months at the Nuclear Power Training Unit, or "prototype," also in Charleston, and nine weeks at Submarine Officer Basic Course in Groton, Conn. At prototype, they toiled 12 hours a day, six days a week in decommissioned subs with working reactors.

"It's definitely challenging," said Lt. j.g. Amber Cowan, a main propulsion assistant with the Maine gold crew. "All of it's very fast-paced compared to traditional college courses."

"You get so much information in a short time period," added Bittner, an electrical assistant from Chesapeake, Va.

A week after arriving at Bangor, Cowan, also 24, met the Maine in the Strait of Juan de Fuca and finished a patrol. Bittner flew to Guam, where the Ohio was forward-deployed, and patrolled for three months.

"It's definitely a different kind of atmosphere," said Cowan, a University of Washington graduate from Colorado Springs. "You're always working. You don't see the sun every day. You're adapting to a new routine, learning everything you need to know, getting to know everybody."

While learning their own jobs, junior officers are pulled to all parts of the boat to perform or observe things for their qualifications, which leads to earning their dolphins.

"I found it surprising the sheer amount of things we had to study," said Bittner, a North Carolina State graduate. "It's not just the engine room or ship control. You have to be a jack of all trades. I've never worked harder, slept less or learned more than my first deployment, but I never thought twice about it because everybody's in the same position."

The female supply officers, also new to submarines, provide advice, guidance and a link to the upper chain of command.

There are five officer staterooms. Women share one. There is one head for all 15 officers. It has a sign on the door saying whether it's in use by a man or woman. They also can use the watch-stander's head.

"It's not a big deal," Cowan said. "There's somebody always working, somebody always sleeping. You just go when you need to and there's no issue."

Bittner compared it to brothers and sisters sharing a bathroom.

The toughest part is the separation, they said. Cowan is married to a former submariner who's now a flight officer in Virginia.

"He knew what I was getting into, and he supported it," she said.

Bittner is engaged to a submariner on the USS Jimmy Carter, also at Bangor.

"To have all the work and stress related to doing your job the best you can and also the extra stress of separation, I would say those two things on top of each other would be the most difficult part," she said. "People do it all the time, though."

Female submariners knew when they took the job they'd be under a microscope, that people would be curious how they're doing. Cowan and Bittner accept the attention.

"It is important we are talking about our experience, not so much to say look at us but to show this is not the big ordeal some people thought it was, that it hasn't been the mistake some people projected it to be," Bittner said.

The next group of female submariners will begin arriving at boats in January, joining the ballistic-missile USS Louisiana at Bangor and the guided-missile USS Florida at Kings Bay.

What advice would the trailblazers give them?

"You're going to work hard, and you're going to get a reward," Cowan said. "You'll be fine. Once you get down there, you're not a female, you're a submarine JO."

Altogether, there are 18 Trident submarines — 14 ballistic-missile and four converted to guided missiles. Ten are at Bangor, eight at Kings Bay. The Navy began integration with them because they're 560 feet long and don't need to be modified. They would have to be changed to accommodate enlisted women, however. Fast attack subs are too small to allow privacy.

The only Navy jobs women can't hold now are with the SEALS special operations forces.

USS Plunger

(Click on Image to enlarge)

Nautilus, first nuclear submarine, remembered on 60th anniversary

Henry Nardone, of Westerly, the project manager during Nautilus construction, points to a photo of President Harry S Truman 60 years ago at EB, which marked the occasion Thursday.

GROTON — Henry Nardone was on the deck of the USS Nautilus when it slid down the ways into the Thames River on Jan. 21, 1954.

Nardone, then 32, rested his foot on a cleat so he could distinguish himself from among the others who lined the deck in photos for years to come. Mamie Eisenhower, the wife of President Dwight D. Eisenhower, christened the ship with the traditional bottle of champagne as it moved into the water.

“I remember it like it was yesterday,” said Nardone, a lifelong Westerly resident. “I was up on the bow. There’s a very famous picture of the launching of the submarine, it’s been in hundreds of books and magazines. I can pick myself out. I’ve done it 1,000 times.”

A year and a half earlier, Eisenhower’s predecessor Harry S Truman, had chalked his initials onto the ship’s backbone during a keel laying ceremony. A welder traced over the letters, and the dignitary’s mark — a Navy tradition — was permanently fixed to the vessel, where it remains today.

SSN-571, the nation’s first nuclear-powered submarine, would spend more than two decades at sea, and laid the foundation for today’s modern naval fleet.

On Thursday, Electric Boat honored the 60th anniversary of the keel laying and recognized those who helped build and modernize the ship during its storied career.

Nardone, now 90, was joined by 96-year-old Paul Tranchida of Groton, a foundry worker who made valves and cast the Nautilus’ torpedo-tube doors; and 83-year-old J.J. Kelly of East Lyme, who oversaw engineering and inspections during the ship’s overhaul at Electric Boat in the 1970s.

The Nautilus, which carries the name of the submarine in Jules Verne’s “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea,” was built in less than four year under the watch of Admiral Hyman Rickover, who is considered to be the “Father of the Nuclear Navy.”

It was decommissioned in March 1980, and is now a museum at the Submarine Force Library & Museum just a few miles up the Thames River in Groton from where she was launched at EB.

“We’re here today to mark the anniversary of an event that revolutionized naval warfare and proved pivotal to the future of Electric Boat and the U.S. Navy,” Electric Boat President Kevin Poitras said during a ceremony in the bay where Nautilus was launched.

“With Admiral Rickover’s guiding force, Electric Boat produced the first vessel to embody the essential elements of U.S. Navy nuclear submarines: stealth and virtual unlimited endurance,” he added.

Lt. Commander Robert Sawyer, the naval officer-in-charge at the Nautilus museum, said the ship earned its place as a trailblazer early on.

“During her 25 years of operation, Nautilus proved her value and earned her place in history alongside the ironclad Monitor, the first flight at Kitty Hawk and the aircraft carrier Langley,” he said.

“She shattered submerged speed and endurance records: In the 84 hours of her [first test] cruise, she traveled submerged 1,300 miles to San Juan, Puerto Rico, averaging about 16 knots,” Sawyer noted. “In that journey she traveled continuously submerged 10 times farther than any previous submarine, and 84 times longer than any submarine had done at high submerged speed.”

In 1958, the Nautilus reached the North Pole “in a daring adventure that captured headlines and gave the United States the strategic advantage of an entire ocean at the very top of the world,” Sawyer added.

Nardone, who served on a minesweeper during World War II and later worked in shipyards before coming to Groton, said the Nautilus and its Cold War successors out-shined the Soviet Union’s underwater fleet.

“They [Soviet subs] concentrated on depth and speed, but took on the burden of noise — a very big handicap for them,” he said. “As far as we were concerned, we had a tremendous advantage in that area. Quietness is criterion for detection. If you’re quiet, you can’t be detected; if you’re noisy, you can be heard all over the world.”

Today, Electric Boat is building two Virginia-class submarines per year for the Navy, and the defense contractor is poised to start construction of an Ohio-class replacement submarine in 2020.

“This 12-ship class will remain in service until at least 2080,” Poitras said. “… For the last 60 years, the common thread running through Electric Boat’s progression of submarine innovations has been USS Nautilus.”

Fate of submarine Clamagore to be decided

Patriots Point is considering its options for the fate of the submarine Clamagore, which has been a part of the maritime tourist attraction since 1981. brad nettles/staffPatriots Point is considering its options for the fate of the submarine Clamagore, which has been a part of the maritime tourist attraction since 1981.

 MOUNT Pleasant — For more than 30 years, the submarine Clamagore has served as a tourist attraction at Patriots Point Naval and Maritime Museum.

But the last surviving vessel of its type may soon go underwater one last time.

“She needs a lot of work,” said Mac Burdette, executive director of Patriots Point. “The ballasts are paper thin and the hull is in better shape, but we don’t have the money to fix it.”

He estimates the cost to repair the 1945- commissioned submarine at $5 million to $6 million, money the state agency doesn’t have and most likely won’t come from the state since Patriots Point still owes more than $8 million on the last ship the state saved from sinking into Charleston Harbor.

That leaves two options, Burdette said Friday.

One is to see what has to be done for it to become an artificial reef off Florida, he said. The other is to see if anyone else wants it.

Asked if there was any consideration for a third option about repairing it, Burdette said, “I can’t see us going to the General Assembly and asking for money. There are other more important areas to spend that money.”

The state loaned Patriots Point $9.2 million in 2009 to repair the destroyer Laffey, which sprouted so many leaks it was close to sinking in the harbor before it was hauled up the Cooper River for refurbishment that same year.

Shiny as new, it returned to Patriots Point in January and took over the Clamagore’s berth parallel to the World War II-era aircraft carrier Yorktown.

The 322-foot-long submarine was moved to the south end of the carrier in January and has been off limits to visitors since then. Once a new gangway is installed, it should reopen by Fourth of July festivities, Burdette said.

Unlike the Laffey and Yorktown, the Clamagore never saw combat. But Burdette said visitors enjoy going inside the submarine to imagine what the living conditions were like in the cramped quarters.

The Clamagore, named for a fish, called Charleston its home base until 1959 and came to Patriots Point in 1981 as a museum piece. It was decommissioned in 1975 and is the nation’s last remaining GUPPY type III diesel-powered submarine. GUPPY stands for Greater Underwater Propulsion Program.

Word of its possible demise brought sadness to former sailors of the ship.

“It pains us to think it is going to be towed away and maybe made into a reef,” said George Bass, treasurer and past president of the USS Clamagore SS343 Veterans Association. “We would hate to see it go.”

The group, which once boasted several hundred members, meets every other year in Mount Pleasant for its reunions. Last year 102 attended.

Bass, 85, of Salisbury, N.C., served on the submarine from 1948 to 1957 and is keenly aware of the Clamagore’s state of disrepair.

“It’s in terrible condition,” he said.

He also knows that Patriots Point doesn’t have the money to repair it. He has asked congressmen and senators, even media mogul Ted Turner and other well-heeled businessmen for the money, to no avail.

“They all say Patriots Point took it and they should take care of it, but they will never get the funds,” he said. “They will have a hard time paying off the loan on the Laffey.”

Bass believes they are now fighting a losing battle.

“I guess they will tow it out and make a reef out of it,” he said with resignation.

“That would be sad,” fellow Clamagore veteran Michael Burk, 62, of Ohio said. “As everybody gets old, though, I don’t know who is going to take it.”

Burdette said the board will decide on the Clamagore’s fate in about three months, but it could take up to a year for it to move, especially if it becomes a reef.

The sub still has batteries and possibly some fuel that would have to be removed, Bass said.

“It would have to be cleaned up,” the former submarine electrician said.

The Patriots Point board also approved the agency’s $9.6 million spending plan for the new fiscal year starting July 1, including $425,000 for advertising, an increase of $250,000 over the curr