Drug cartels rely on trucks, small planes, ships and speed boats to smuggle narcotics into the United States. And in recent years, they’re building increasingly sophisticated submarines, some of which can travel submerged. These drug-running subs are proving to be an issue for the Navy and the Coast Guard, a top official acknowledged Tuesday. “It’s a very expensive proposition to try and find them, follow them, detect them as they work through the maritime environment,” Gen. Douglas Fraser, the Air Force general who heads U.S. Southern Command, said at a Senate hearing when asked about the subject. In July, Coast…
Browsing: Submarines
Every four years, Leap Year adds one day to the calendar to keep our timekeeping in alignment with the Earth’s revolutions around the sun. I thought it’d be neat to find an event in naval history to highlight and mark the unusual day. Unfortunately, there aren’t any of those major anniversaries that one would normally note — say, one of the World War II island assaults. A web search yielded nothing. Nada. The Navy agrees. According to navy.mil, “There is no Navy historical data noted at this time for Leap Day (Feb. 29).” The Navy’s reference is to the big…
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KL6uhaP_KSA&context=C3c3da81ADOEgsToPDskKYBGl6tws5CmFsKmQQeY97[/youtube] “ ‘Twas the night before Christmas and what no one could see / The men with dolphins were under the sea.” So begins the epic 8-minute Christmas video from the submarine force, with sailors from Kings Bay, Ga., to Yokosuka, Japan, reciting verses of “ ‘Twas the night before Christmas — Submarine Style.” In the the tale — written by former Interior Communications Technician 2nd Class (SS) Sean Keck, who left the service in the early 1980s — a navigator spots a certain reindeer-pulled sleigh through the periscope, but is laughed at by the crew. The sub dives. Then…
No matter how much you loved your sub and how well you can march, or the weird ideas that fermented in your brain after weeks underway without sunlight, you never, not once, thought of doing anything like the formations the West Virginia University Marching Band pulled off. The whole clip is good and worth a peek, but the Navy stuff starts at 2:50. [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MjPmmCtHmfE[/youtube] It’s tough to say what detail is the best – the submerging sub or the turning screws. It’s not clear when the band performed, but the clip was uploaded Nov. 6, the day after the Mountaineers…
With female officers reporting for duty this month to the submarine force, news stories have hailed these trailblazers as the first female submariners. While that may be true, they’re not without forebears, one reader told Navy Times. In the early 1980s, roughly 120 women were recruited into the nuclear Navy to join the submarine force, according to Jane Reoch, a former machinist’s mate first class who joined the Navy in 1979 as part of this effort. “Our mission was to get qualified so that we could stand engineering watches at the various ports where submarines were stationed,” Reoch said, adding…
The quiet diesel-electric submarine Carrera slid through San Diego Bay on Sept. 1 for the start of a three-month deployment to the United States, where the Chilean boat will train with 3rd Fleet’s ships, subs and aircraft. Carrera’s presence in a U.S. port – it calls the submarine piers at Point Loma Naval Base its short-term home – marks the fourth time the Chilean Navy is sending one of its small, stealthy subs to play with the U.S. fleet. The goal of the Diesel Electric Submarine Initiative, of course, is for the U.S. Navy and its foreign seagoing allies to train…
The Navy today commemorated its 2,000th Tomahawk cruise missile combat launch during a ceremony at Naval Station Norfolk aboard the destroyer Barry, which took part in the March air strikes on Libyan military facilities in support of U.N. Resolution 1973 and was credited with the 2,000th launch. Check this great pic of a launch from Barry the night the milestone was reached: We don’t know if that is THE 2,000th or not, but you get the idea. Even better: Check the video. The commemoration honored the Barry crew members for their role in the milestone launch. Tomahawks have been around…
Naval Academy midshipmen captured top honors at the 11th International Submarine Race, held in late June, with their entry, S.S.H. 11 Mighty Mid. Mighty Mid, a two-man fiberglass sub built by the academy team, sported waving fins that can be powered by pedaling, which they adapted from use on some kayaks. Mighty Mid hit 6.1 knots underwater on the 100-meter course at the David Taylor Model Basin in West Bethesda, Md., besting a Canadian team who had previously held the title and record for non-propeller subs. “It felt great, just to represent the Navy,” Midshipman 2nd Class Cheng Han…
Think your underway life is tough? How about having to build you own sub and race it under your own power? From June 27 to July 1, teams of students, clubs and companies from around the world will be converging on a Navy testing pool in West Bethesda, Md. to race their home-made subs through an underwater course. The 11th International Human-Powered Submarine Race, to be held at the model basin at the Naval Surface Warfare Center, Carderock Division, aims to challenge and inspire the next generation of engineers. One of the contestants is the Scubster, a pedal-propelled sub…
When submarine vets gathered last Thursday in Manitowoc, Wis., they found an accurate – and edible – tribute to their years of undersea service: a 22-inch-long sculpture of attack submarine Jallao made of pure cheese. It was the creation of Sarah Kaufmann, a.k.a. the Cheese Lady. You won’t be surprised to know that this “nationally-recognized cheese sculptor,” according to a press release, hails from Wisconsin, the nation’s cheese capital. (Jallao was built with sturdy two-year-old aged Wisconsin cheddar.) Behind the conning tower of the surfacing sub is its hull number, 368. Jallao was one of 28 subs built by…
