April 03, 2006

Honolulu to be retired

Associated Press

HONOLULU — The attack submarine Honolulu will leave Pearl Harbor for its final voyage after a farewell ceremony April 15.

The 360-foot vessel has been in service since 1985, and its April departure will be its 10th deployment.

The Honolulu will carry 120 enlisted sailors and 19 officers on this deployment, which ends in October at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Washington.

Mayor Mufi Hannemann said it’s “sort of sad that we will lose the namesake of our city and such an important submarine in terms of what it has done for Pearl Harbor and what it means for our country.”



After the sub is retired, “there will be a scramble to see who gets the surfboards” representing each of the USS Honolulu’s 10 deployments during the past two decades, said Cmdr. John Russ.

Each of the six-foot surfboards were signed by members of the crew during deployments. Three of the boards are kept on the sub, and the rest are stored at Pearl Harbor.

The submarine is the third vessel named after the city of Honolulu. The first was a cargo ship that was part of the Navy fleet from 1918-1919. A light cruiser commissioned in 1938 and placed in the inactive fleet in 1946 also bore the city’s name.

Hannemann said he would like another Navy warship to eventually be named after Honolulu.

But in the meantime, Pearl Harbor will have to settle for a new Virginia-class nuclear submarine. The $2.6 billion, 377-foot Hawaii is expected to arrive next year.

Russ, who became the sub’s ninth and last skipper in October 2004, said he will miss serving on the USS Honolulu.

“So many of these submarines have a namesake city but they are so far away,” Russ said. It has been “a nice opportunity to serve on a namesake city submarine in its namesake city.”

The Navy deactivated another Hawaii namesake, the submarine Kamehameha, five years ago. The only other Hawaii-related ship is the 609-foot dock-landing ship Pearl Harbor, which is berthed in San Diego.

The Honolulu, a Los Angeles-class sub, has been part of the Pacific Fleet since 1986. USS Honolulu is the 24th Los Angeles class fast-attack submarine and the 97th nuclear attack submarine.

It is armed with Tomahawk missiles and MK-48 torpedoes, and it can travel faster than 20 knots, or 23 mph.

My buddy did a tour on a 688 sub.  He was not happy for a long time after he got off the boat.    

And another one bites the dust.    

Nice BOV, group buy? Anyone know how to drive it?

Quoted: Nice BOV, group buy? Anyone know how to drive it?

I betcha the Taiwanese would like to do a group buy.

Damn,it's not that old!

Quoted: The 360-foot vessel has been in service since 1985, and its April departure will be its 10th deployment.

It's 20 years old and has only been deployed 10 times?  Is that normal?  I thought they used "A" and "B" crews, or something like that, to get maximum utilization.  And are subs only good for 20 years?

I know hardly anything about subs, so maybe I'm just demonstrating my ignorance, but it seems like it'd be good for another few years  

Quoted: Quoted: The 360-foot vessel has been in service since 1985, and its April departure will be its 10th deployment. It's 20 years old and has only been deployed 10 times?  Is that normal?  I thought they used "A" and "B" crews, or something like that, to get maximum utilization.  And are subs only good for 20 years? I know hardly anything about subs, so maybe I'm just demonstrating my ignorance, but it seems like it'd be good for another few years

No, the "early" retirement is indicative of a very troubled history compared to her sister ships.

Quoted: Nice BOV, group buy? Anyone know how to drive it?

Bubblehead597 has the conn.

I got the engineroom...

The reactor is critical, Electric plant is in a normal full power lineup, answering bells on both main engines, the engineroom is manned for the maneuvering watch...

Just in time for tax day.

Quoted: Quoted: The 360-foot vessel has been in service since 1985, and its April departure will be its 10th deployment. It's 20 years old and has only been deployed 10 times?  Is that normal?  I thought they used "A" and "B" crews, or something like that, to get maximum utilization.  And are subs only good for 20 years? I know hardly anything about subs, so maybe I'm just demonstrating my ignorance, but it seems like it'd be good for another few years

Figure six months out and that much or longer for maintenance when it returns.  There was also a refit and refueling in there, too.  Probably spent about eight years at sea, but thats a SWAG.  I'm sure a submariner will give us the scoop.  The missile subs rotate crews, IIRC.  

Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: The 360-foot vessel has been in service since 1985, and its April departure will be its 10th deployment. It's 20 years old and has only been deployed 10 times?  Is that normal?  I thought they used "A" and "B" crews, or something like that, to get maximum utilization.  And are subs only good for 20 years? I know hardly anything about subs, so maybe I'm just demonstrating my ignorance, but it seems like it'd be good for another few years   Figure six months out and that much or longer for maintenance when it returns.  There was also a refit and refueling in there, too.  Probably spent about eight years at sea, but thats a SWAG.  I'm sure a submariner will give us the scoop.  The missile subs rotate crews, IIRC.

Sure, most subs will do a full deployment every two years or so.  Between deployments there may be weekly operations, or even a few mini deployments.  Also there are short cruises for reasons such as training, evaluation, and support of other fleet activities.

Attack boats don't rotate crews.  That's why SSN is sometimes referred to as "Saturdays, Sundays, and Nights).

On older boats the reactor would have to be refueled every 20 years or so.  On the newer boats it's set up to last the life of the ship, or about 30 years.  They probably figured it wasn't worth the cost of refueling.

Any more questions...

tag

And the rapid decline of the US Navy begins...

Look at ship procurment vs average age of ships in the fleet and of current purchase rate. We're screwed.

Quoted: Damn,it's not that old!

Yes, it is! Subs are in use  constantly. Two decades is a long time in sub years, it's probably not worth upgrading/maintaining/repairing to our current specs with our current budget.

From FAS, about 1999 or so.

Between 1998 and 2001 the US will retire 11 Los Angeles class submarines that have an average of 13 years left on their 30-year service lives. SSN-688 class submarines could operate for much longer than 30 years; one of the shipbuilders stated that 10 to 20 years of additional service would not be unreasonable. Past Navy actions indicate that extending a submarine's service life may be feasible. After a 5-year study was completed on the SSN-637 class submarine--the predecessor of the SSN-688 class--the design life was extended from 20 years to 30 years, with a possible extension to 33 years on a case-by-case basis. The 18 SSN-688 class submarines that will be refueled at their mid-life could make good candidates for a service life extension because they could operate for nearly 30 years after the refueling. After these submarines serve for 30 years, they could undergo a 2-year overhaul and serve for one more 10-year operating cycle, for a total service life of 42 years. The cost for the additional overhaul of SSN-688 class submarines would be about $406 million per boat. Eight older Los Angeles-class submarines, without a vertical launch system, could be refueled at a cost of $210 million more than it would cost to inactivate them. FY2000 - SSN 713 Houston FY2001 - SSN 698 Bremerton FY2001 - SSN 699 Jacksonville FY2001 - SSN 714 Norfolk FY2005 - SSN 716 Salt Lake City FY2006 - SSN 717 Olympia FY2007 - SSN 718 Honolulu FY2008 - SSN 710 Augusta These submarines can still be used in strike missions, however, by firing Tomahawk land attack missiles through their torpedo tubes.

A question for the experts, are the 688s still competitive and survivable in todays arena?   Obviously we already have more modern attack boats.  But do they still have the ability to go toe to toe against the best Russian boats?  Or even diesel boats?

Yes.   The diesel is currently the only genuine foe.  Although they are inherently quieter, they still have limitations such as requirement for snorkeling to recycle air and recharge batteries, which requires them to make noise at certain intervals, and that is their undoing.  


To my knowledge (a few years removed from active duty now), the ruskies can't put very much into the water as they let almost all of them rust and rot since the iron curtain fell.  

Quoted: Anyone know how to drive it?

As a matter of fact, YES.

<--- Qualified Helmsman/Planesman and Enlisted Submarine Qualified.

Quoted: Quoted: Nice BOV, group buy? Anyone know how to drive it? Bubblehead597 has the conn. I got the engineroom... The reactor is critical, Electric plant is in a normal full power lineup, answering bells on both main engines, the engineroom is manned for the maneuvering watch...

I call  ERS    oh wait....I just remembered that going to sea sucks!

Quoted: A question for the experts, are the 688s still competitive and survivable in todays arena?   Obviously we already have more modern attack boats.  But do they still have the ability to go toe to toe against the best Russian boats?  Or even diesel boats?

The answer to your question is a resounding yes, for now.

The once formidable Russian submarine fleet is now slowly oxidizing at their ports with insufficent funding to maintain them at a useable level. Also very little R and D work has gone into new subs or upgrades since the fall of the Soviet Union, even their last generation boats had very noisy reactors and much less capable battlemanagement, command and control, and damage control systems then comprable US boats.

As far as the the modern disels, like the ones that the Swiss built that use a liquid oxygen supply to run their engines underwater aren't really a match for a nuke boat, although they can be very quiet. I would wager to guess that the Navy has some very slick non acoustic based underwater detection gear that we are using now, magnetic anomaly detectors and gravatation anomaly detectors are likley pretty standard equipment and are pretty much an open secret. I would also guess that advanced LIDAR and passive microwave sensors are also likley fitted to the 688i's and Seawolf boats.


The problem is that their role is now geared primarily to brown water opperations and the older Los Angles boats are not equiped with verticle launch tubes. The real issue if you ask me is that the Navy in a budget cruch has killed it's Virginia class order to just one a year, an unacceptable level since we can not maintain our sub building infrastructure building only one ship a year. It is also highly dangerous that we have no new sub classes in development now. Sub building (and reactor building for that matter) are very specialized tasks with very specific facilities that in the case of the subs themselves have no other uses in the economy. We can't let them die, because if we do we won't be able to get them back.

Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Nice BOV, group buy? Anyone know how to drive it? Bubblehead597 has the conn. I got the engineroom... The reactor is critical, Electric plant is in a normal full power lineup, answering bells on both main engines, the engineroom is manned for the maneuvering watch... I call  ERS    oh wait....I just remembered that going to sea sucks!

Quit whining and start up the evaporator, the Sonar Techs need their showers.

Zaphod, you have been promoted to Chief of the Watch.  Any one of these clowns can drive, we need someone experienced to run the %&#$ing Trim/Drain system.

Quoted: Zaphod, you have been promoted to Chief of the Watch.  Any one of these clowns can drive, we need someone experienced to run the %&#$ing Trim/Drain system.

I never qualified COW.

Got a piping tab or SIM I can study?




ETA: Damn. It's been 18 years. Was it Ship's Information Manual (SIM) or Ship's Information Book (SIB)?

Sir, WADR, we often use the SIB here in the Newport News Shipyard.  Generally, we have to demonstrate system operations to the people that are supposed to be qualified operators.  FWIW, SSN 775 is still tied to the pier a few feet from where I type.  JMHO, 7zero1.

Quoted: I call  ERS    oh wait....I just remembered that going to sea sucks!

Going to sea on the USS ARFcom won't suck.
Topside gun drills at 1000 everyday.  

Quoted: Quoted: I call  ERS    oh wait....I just remembered that going to sea sucks! Going to sea on the USS ARFcom won't suck. Topside gun drills at 1000 everyday.

First time I got to play with full-auto toys....topside of SSN 761, somewhere south of FL. One of the few times they let me out of the engineroom

They are even repairing the San Francisco, instead of scrapping it.  Yeah, that should say something.  

On my old boat, with about 15 years afloat, we had only used about 35% of core life when I left.  The boat was decommisioned about 5 years ago.  688's were built to last a half century.  

Heh!  Evaporator watch.  Anyone who was caught taking a hollywood shower had to stand a 4 hour evaporator watch.  It sure did not happen often.    

Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: I call  ERS    oh wait....I just remembered that going to sea sucks! Going to sea on the USS ARFcom won't suck. Topside gun drills at 1000 everyday.   First time I got to play with full-auto toys....topside of SSN 761, somewhere south of FL. One of the few times they let me out of the engineroom

I always thought it would have been fun to shoot skeet off the boat during a swim call.  Hell, we had shotguns, all we needed was ammo, targets and a thrower...

i guess ill take ERLL. just spent 183 days down there

Quoted: As far as the the modern disels, like the ones that the Swiss built

Swedes. Switzerland is a landlocked country without a navy.

Quoted: Quoted: As far as the the modern disels, like the ones that the Swiss built Swedes. Switzerland is a landlocked country without a navy.

the swedes' boat is parked right across from mine....HMS gotland i think it is called.

Can I be the Moral Officer in charge of hookers and blow?

Don't forget that a British diesel sub just defeated an American surface fleet by scoring a kill on one of our super carriers and making a clean getaway last year during wargames.  

Ok all you New Yorkers.  How many of you know that there is a Naval Base in Saratoga Springs, NY?  It's where the Navy trains their techs in nuclear reactor operations.  

Quoted: Don't forget that a British diesel sub just defeated an American surface fleet by scoring a kill on one of our super carriers and making a clean getaway last year during wargames.   Ok all you New Yorkers.  How many of you know that there is a Naval Base in Saratoga Springs, NY?  It's where the Navy trains their techs in nuclear reactor operations.

I thought that's what they did here in Charleston at NNPTC.

Quoted: Quoted: Don't forget that a British diesel sub just defeated an American surface fleet by scoring a kill on one of our super carriers and making a clean getaway last year during wargames.   Ok all you New Yorkers.  How many of you know that there is a Naval Base in Saratoga Springs, NY?  It's where the Navy trains their techs in nuclear reactor operations.   I thought that's what they did here in Charleston at NNPTC.

both are operable prototypes.

Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Don't forget that a British diesel sub just defeated an American surface fleet by scoring a kill on one of our super carriers and making a clean getaway last year during wargames.   Ok all you New Yorkers.  How many of you know that there is a Naval Base in Saratoga Springs, NY?  It's where the Navy trains their techs in nuclear reactor operations.   I thought that's what they did here in Charleston at NNPTC. both are operable prototypes.

Used to have one in Idaho too...

Before my time,  I went to Charleston.  MTS-626 (formerly USS Daniel Webster, SSBN-626)

Hey MDC85:  How many days?  If it takes longer than 5 sec to remember, you need to buy the SNOB a drink...

Quoted: Don't forget that a British diesel sub just defeated an American surface fleet by scoring a kill on one of our super carriers and making a clean getaway last year during wargames.

That's one hell of a feat for a sub that doesn't exist. You do realize the Brits got rid of their diesel boats many years ago right?

Wow, a lot of other sub guys here.  I'm qualified engineer and OOD, so I'll stand around with my hands on my hips and look important.  

Is it the bitterness and disenchantment that causes all the gun lust?

Quoted: Quoted: Don't forget that a British diesel sub just defeated an American surface fleet by scoring a kill on one of our super carriers and making a clean getaway last year during wargames.   That's one hell of a feat for a sub that doesn't exist. You do realize the Brits got rid of their diesel boats many years ago right?

He might mean the Aussies.  Their subs and crews are top notch.

Quoted: Wow, a lot of other sub guys here.  I'm qualified engineer and OOD, so I'll stand around with my hands on my hips and look important.   Is it the bitterness and disenchantment that causes all the gun lust?

Hey, who let the Khaki in here?

Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Don't forget that a British diesel sub just defeated an American surface fleet by scoring a kill on one of our super carriers and making a clean getaway last year during wargames.   That's one hell of a feat for a sub that doesn't exist. You do realize the Brits got rid of their diesel boats many years ago right? He might mean the Aussies.  Their subs and crews are top notch.

The Aussie Navy has my admiration.  Had a few of them onboard the Blue Ridge during exercise Tandem Thrust 1995 (think thats the right year).   Ball busting guys, they were great!

Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Don't forget that a British diesel sub just defeated an American surface fleet by scoring a kill on one of our super carriers and making a clean getaway last year during wargames.   That's one hell of a feat for a sub that doesn't exist. You do realize the Brits got rid of their diesel boats many years ago right? He might mean the Aussies.  Their subs and crews are top notch.

My point is if you can't identify the country how well do you think the poster knows and understands the circumstances of the supposed exercise?

Quoted: Quoted: Wow, a lot of other sub guys here.  I'm qualified engineer and OOD, so I'll stand around with my hands on my hips and look important.   Is it the bitterness and disenchantment that causes all the gun lust? Hey, who let the Khaki in here?

Oops, sorry.  You dirty blueshirts can get back to your little conversation.

Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Wow, a lot of other sub guys here.  I'm qualified engineer and OOD, so I'll stand around with my hands on my hips and look important.   Is it the bitterness and disenchantment that causes all the gun lust? Hey, who let the Khaki in here? Oops, sorry.  You dirty blueshirts can get back to your little conversation.

I recommend you head back to the wardroom sir.  Real work to do here.  

Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Wow, a lot of other sub guys here.  I'm qualified engineer and OOD, so I'll stand around with my hands on my hips and look important.   Is it the bitterness and disenchantment that causes all the gun lust? Hey, who let the Khaki in here? Oops, sorry.  You dirty blueshirts can get back to your little conversation. I recommend you head back to the wardroom sir.  Real work to do here.

Hey, you guys are going to need an officer to be the voting officer, MWR officer, postal officer, event planner officer.....

Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Don't forget that a British diesel sub just defeated an American surface fleet by scoring a kill on one of our super carriers and making a clean getaway last year during wargames.   Ok all you New Yorkers.  How many of you know that there is a Naval Base in Saratoga Springs, NY?  It's where the Navy trains their techs in nuclear reactor operations.   I thought that's what they did here in Charleston at NNPTC. both are operable prototypes. Used to have one in Idaho too... Before my time,  I went to Charleston.  MTS-626 (formerly USS Daniel Webster, SSBN-626) Hey MDC85:  How many days?  If it takes longer than 5 sec to remember, you need to buy the SNOB a drink...

i was on the 635(as i call it, "my last boat"...pisses the old timers off)

i have like 1100 something days left unfortunatley.

Sorry for mis ID'ing the country.  There was a pretty big string about this on this forum not to long ago.  I will now skulk back to my cave,

Another 635'er here

As far as the SNOB goes....we had a belt buckle with 'SNOB' engraved on it that was passed down from sailor to sailor. I only had it a couple weeks myself.

Nobody ever complained about it. BUT....best watch out if you were ever caught with a P.A.P.E.R.C.L.I.P. on your uniform

Quoted: i was on the 635(as i call it, "my last boat"...pisses the old timers off) i have like 1100 something days left unfortunatley.

Silly little NUB.

Fun things to do while underway:

Take watch section group pic in the horseshoe while on watch (no reliefs).

Call control and "Request to secure the Flux Capacitor for maintenance."

Growl ERF repeatedly without answering until he snaps.

Shift the Electric plant from MSW bay (This was a prac fac on our Shit-Bag qualcard).

When standing ERUL, dump the evaporator to the bilge for hours so the NUB in ERLL can get drain pump practice.

Climb on top of the gears and hit the indicator button for PLO-125.

In port, page non-existant personell on the 2MC.

I'd list more, but you guys are intelligent, think of your own.