I've been reading 'The Silent Deep - The Royal Navy Submarine Service since 1945' by Peter Hennessy and James Jinks (2015, Allen Lane Penguin). It's a mighty tome, more than 800 pages. Dunno what it costs because it was a present and the giver snipped that bit off the paper jacket. However it should be obtainable from a public library.
It does seem to me a serious piece of work, with a lot of photos, diagrams and outline drawings of numerous 'fish', some of them from recent years therefore vaguely familiar. Of course much of the content won't be entirely new to ON, but it will look good on his bookshelves and remind him of a few things he's seen and done.
Not of interest only to matelots of course. Others here will enjoy all the tech stuff and military chat.
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I am sure it would be of interest to many but not me. I used to train, examine and qualify new submariners, and like all submariners I know how every system works. Even the sewage system. For obvious reasons I find them sadly lacking in operational detail. I am not trying to be clever, when you have inside knowledge of anything, much of which is not in the public domain books on the subject can seem a little lacking. Thanks for the thought AC I might sneak a look. :-)
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>> when you have inside knowledge of
>> anything, much of which is not in the public domain books on the subject can
>> seem a little lacking.
I'm sure that's true. But isn't there a counter-argument that people who are deeply immersed in something might not appreciate the wider issues and context?
Just thinking along the naval lines - there would have been people in the navy before the war who knew everything there was to be known about battleships, and would have found any book on the subject lacking in knowledge and depth. But what they didn't know was that the battleship had become obsolete. They knew how the loos worked, but not that a battleship without air cover was worthless, and that within a few years the navy was to fire its last ever broadside at another battleship.
I'm not saying submarines are obsolete, but one day they will be. Who will be the first to realise that - submariners?
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I started off in a 1944 built submarine and served in Polaris submarines throughout the cold war. As the cold war ran down it became more than obvious that major changes were being implemented. During my time there were several major steps in technology, the introduction of computer proccesing and the capacity of data proccesing probably the greatest, and no doubt things have moved on.
Last edited by: Old Navy on Wed 20 Apr 16 at 20:28
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Missed the edit -
When I joined the submarine service we had submarine squadrons in Canada (Halifax), Malta, Singapore, and Sydney. When I retired we were in the post cold war run down, you could count the operational submarines on one and a half hands, less now. I am well aware of change.
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>I started off in a 1944 built submarine..
Welcome aboard Seaman Buckman!
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Down_Periscope
:-)
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I prefer the movie "Operation petticoat".
I have seen similar performances, dropping a small shark into the swimming pool at the Navy base in Sydney just before the scheduled female swim session for example. Not us said the Brits, must have been Aussies. :-)))
Last edited by: Old Navy on Wed 20 Apr 16 at 22:14
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Would it interest ON I wonder? - Old Navy
