- 6 months ago
sprinter-ep04
Category
🎥
Short filmTranscript
00:00It only takes one person, one person on a boat who is an amateur, and the situation is fraught with dire consequences.
00:25You have to be really mature to be able to survive.
00:27And in the submarine fleet, it's really an elite force.
00:30And I felt like I'm going to be a part of that.
00:57Mad battle stations.
01:04Somewhere, hundreds of feet below the eastern Pacific, the crew of the USS Topeka is being called away to battle stations after picking up a contact on their sonar.
01:19They will maneuver into position to fire a torpedo.
01:24Submariners always operate as though they're actually at war.
01:29From Commander Jablonski to the most junior enlisted man, they are here by choice.
01:35Their training is as rigorous as any in the armed forces.
01:38It begins right after boot camp.
01:44Good morning, gentlemen.
01:47Rise and shine. Let's go.
01:50Roll out.
01:515.30 in the morning. Let's go.
02:01Wake your sleeping beauty up down there.
02:04By the way, let's go. Wake your shipmates up.
02:08Aged between 17 and 25, these young men are beginning an intensive six-week course.
02:15At the end of it, if they pass the weekly test, they could find themselves at the controls of a billion-dollar nuclear submarine.
02:24Let's go. Ten more minutes to get dressed. Can I get this place cleaned up?
02:31Look, Mom, no hands.
02:34Look, Mom, no brains.
02:35Across the world, another submarine goes to action stations.
02:47A Russian typhoon is preparing to dive.
02:50Taking the world's largest submarine beneath the water requires immense precision and teamwork.
02:57Twenty years ago, Captain Zhigilyov started his training at the Zherzinski College of Naval Engineering.
03:05In Russia, two years military training is still compulsory, but you can select the service in which you'll train.
03:19Many choose submarines from a sense of family tradition, but some of the 2,000 trainees here will join the surface fleet.
03:26Twenty-one-year-old, you will be going to be built in Perinor.
03:28Russia has a proud naval tradition dating from the time of Peter the Great, who commissioned an experimental submarine in 1719.
03:46Here in St. Petersburg, he laid the foundation for what was to become the largest submarine force in the world.
03:55The school in which these cadets train is located in the old Admiralty, built by Peter nearly 300 years ago.
04:06In the course of the Cold War, nuclear submarines became one of the principal pillars of Soviet strategic doctrine.
04:17But the diesel electrics which fought their campaigns in both world wars still form a major part of their fleet.
04:24These museum pieces are not far removed from submarines on which some of these trainees will serve.
04:37While the U.S. force is religiously nuclear, its submarines designed to hunt for or hide from the Russians,
04:44Soviet interests have included confined waterways more suited to the capabilities of diesel boats like this Foxtrot.
04:57At 10 submarine academies across the former Soviet Union, courses are conducted in both technologies.
05:04They are hard to get into, easy to fail, and the demands are intense.
05:08As well as becoming familiar with reactor rooms, control rooms, and communication centers,
05:14the trainee will have his nerve tested in simulators.
05:27These students are practicing how to plunge their boat into a crash dive.
05:31It may look antiquated, but the trainee's response to such an emergency must become second nature for the day when they face the real thing.
05:41...
05:48...
05:59For the trainee, the principles of submerging and surfacing apply as much to the Foxtrot as to the 24,000-ton typhoon.
06:07Typhoon. But there, the similarity ends.
06:37Learning to drive this submersible mountain is only part of the story.
06:58When your boat contains unimaginable explosive power as well as a couple of nuclear reactors the size of a bus,
07:05safety is everything.
07:13The most dangerous thing is unprofessionalism and a lack of expertise among the crew.
07:19It only takes one person, one person on a boat who is an amateur and the situation is fraught with dire consequences.
07:27A submarine is not simply a hollow cylinder.
07:31It is divided into various compartments like the engineering and propulsion plant, weapons spaces, the control center and living quarters.
07:41Each must be capable of being sealed off because each is vulnerable to two major threats.
07:48The two great fears of South Mariners are of course fire and flood.
07:52Fire because you are in an enclosed space and even a smouldering rag can fill a compartment with smoke within a matter of moments.
08:01And of course you can't get rid of that smoke.
08:04You can contain it, but you can't get rid of it unless you get up to the surface and ventilate the compartment out.
08:10So fire is the rail, is the really serious threat.
08:14Flooding, well the noise of running water, one of the first things you are trained on training class is you always run towards the sound of running water and never away from it.
08:22Because if you run away from it, it can certainly ruin your entire day.
08:29We will now see, we will witness the training session to be undertaken by 4th and 5th year cadets to develop their practical skills.
08:44Each time they perform this basic drill, the water will get deeper and colder until finally they can stop the leak even in the dark.
08:56But at operating depths, the ocean would enter with the force of a steel rod smashing anything in its path.
09:03You can become concerned over a long submarine career, and I think most people do, at some stage, as you settle into your bed at night, nestling alongside the pressure hull.
09:15And one inch away from you, of course, is a thousand feet pressure of water.
09:20Well, I think they need to set tougher conditions because the exercise is simple to perform.
09:34It's relevant only to shallow depths. You can't do this to save your ship at great depths.
09:38But the exercise is good for getting over that psychological barrier. It is mental training.
09:43It is mental training.
09:45It is mental training.
09:46It is mental training.
10:03These cadets are about to face a simulated engine room fire.
10:07They must isolate and control it as quickly as possible.
10:11For even a short delay could jeopardize lives and possibly the ship.
10:37It's a straightforward, almost routine exercise, but it holds particular relevance for the Russians.
10:44They have lost sailors and nuclear submarines to fires, some very recently.
10:50The Russian submarine, the Mike class, the Consomolets, which sunk in the Norwegian sea a couple of years ago, was destroyed by fire.
11:00And the Yankee class strategic submarine that sank off Bermuda, almost certainly, again, it was fire that got out of control.
11:07Norwegian defense forces were tracking and photographing the Soviet submarine before the fire and before it went down.
11:14So I think there is a question mark over the Soviet firefighting capability, as it has been demonstrated in the last five years.
11:21We believe, based on the Soviet Mike submarine sinking, part of their problem was the fact that the crew got exhausted before they could solve the damage control problems they were faced with, and they ultimately lost the ship.
11:40Aware of the potentially catastrophic results of such emergencies, all nuclear navies reject criticism of their safety standards.
11:51The Titanic was the unsinkable ship, but it sunk. Things do go wrong. Accidents have happened.
11:57The Americans have lost two nuclear-powered submarines at sea. The Soviets have lost possibly up to seven nuclear-powered submarines at sea.
12:04The last one had been a couple of years ago in the Mike class, off of Norway.
12:08These fifth-year cadets face the immediate prospect of service in a military with a poor record of nuclear safety.
12:16Though information has been scarce, senior officers admit that there are problems.
12:27It is not surprising that accidents occur on board American ships and on board Soviet ships,
12:32and they are related in the first instance to the fact that the level of training lags behind the adaptation to new technology.
12:39Nuclear accidents on board submarines, like the one described in this film, are bad enough.
12:50But 40 years of nuclear power have produced a deadly legacy.
12:55So what's happening in the Soviet Union is that these submarines are just stockpiling up.
13:02When you go to the big ports like Seredinsk, Seremorsk, you find that there are defunct submarines just laying there.
13:09No-one knows what to do with them.
13:11With more to decommission than anyone else, the Russians have the biggest problem.
13:18But they're not alone.
13:20None of the nuclear navies knows how to dispose of a worn-out nuclear submarine.
13:26The sensible, rational, scientific solution would be to take it out into deep water and sink it.
13:33It would then give off less radiation than the average granite outcrop in places, for instance, like Aberdeen in Scotland.
13:42What you put in the ocean today stays there.
13:45You can't take a vacuum cleaner to the ocean and clean up the mess in ten years' time
13:49because you found out new information about the radiation dose effects.
13:54These recruits follow in the footsteps of 6,000 submarine engineers who've trained here in Pushkin.
14:01And in Groton, 50 new recruits start training every week.
14:06Here we go again! Here we go again!
14:10Same old song again! Same old song again!
14:14Marching down the avenue! Marching down the avenue!
14:18Few more weeks and we'll be through!
14:21Few more weeks and we'll be through!
14:23I won't have to look at you!
14:25I won't have to look at you!
14:27Am I right? Am I right? Am I right or wrong?
14:31Are we weak or wrong?
14:32First thing I want to do is welcome you to the submarine force.
14:35If you're wondering and asking yourself, am I where I belong?
14:38The answer is yes.
14:40You're going to get the best training the Navy has to offer in the submarine force.
14:44No BS.
14:45They say we've got to have four eggs.
14:47But I don't know.
14:51This base is called the heart of the submarine force and it is.
14:54I know that might sound a little corny, but it is.
14:56I mean, every submariner starts here and he will at some time be back here.
15:03Submariners have been training at Groton since 1916.
15:08The most complex, the most compact, the most deadly ship of war, ton for ton, ever conceived by man as the submarine.
15:19No training is more rigid, no training more intense than that of the submariner who must fight his battles imprisoned in a carcass of steam, sailing in the deeps of the world's water basins.
15:29The purpose of this school is to screen you guys.
15:34We're going to do that several ways.
15:36We're going to look at you academically.
15:38We're going to look at you environmentally.
15:41And we're going to look at you militarily.
15:44I've been telling you this since last week.
15:46I'm not listening to it anymore.
15:48I'm not going to listen to myself talk.
15:50If somebody's got a stencil kit here, share it.
15:53Use it.
15:57We want them to start taking responsibility for themselves because a lot of them, it's their first time away from home.
16:03Mama's not here to lay out their clothes for them in the morning and stuff anymore.
16:07You look good.
16:10The classes load them with information, all of which they must retain to graduate.
16:17It's a crash course, and only the motivated survive.
16:20We've got this thing called a cord.
16:23It's a muffler.
16:24Being able to pack all this information, they throw a lot of stuff at us in this short period of time, and they make us learn it all.
16:30All right, how many people in here want to go to an SSBN?
16:33That is your first choice of duty, SSBN.
16:35Put your hands up.
16:36But they can choose what kind of submarine they want to serve on.
16:45Some choose an SSN, the fast attack or hunter-killer submarine.
16:50Its varied missions, including stalking other submarines and covert operations, seem to promise adventure.
16:59Others prefer the SSBN, the strategic ballistic missile submarine, the floating hotel with its regular routine of deterrent patrols.
17:17This class of submarine is almost constantly at sea, manned by alternating crews.
17:24Whichever submarine they choose, the trainees must learn to drive it, to turn thousands of tons around within four times its length, and to ascend and descend at a rate of several hundred feet per minute.
17:39They learn on a simulator they call dive and drive.
17:47I'm really nervous about this now.
17:49I've never done this before.
17:51I did it once, but...
17:52In real life, you watch out, because sometimes you lose the indications.
17:55Sometimes you may only lose one of the indications.
17:57Make sure you call what it is.
17:59You need to let us know that there's a problem first.
18:02Yeah, talk.
18:03Let people know.
18:04Get the word out, right?
18:05Every casualty.
18:06Get the word out.
18:07Every casualty.
18:08Or jammed on full dive.
18:09Or 25 dive.
18:10Okay?
18:11What are you going to say?
18:12Serious planes jammed at 15 degree dive.
18:15Now, do you think they heard you back there?
18:17Did you guys hear that?
18:18What did he say?
18:19Didn't hear that.
18:20Serious planes jammed at 15 degree dive.
18:22Okay?
18:23That's a little better.
18:24Okay?
18:25Manly and commanding.
18:26That's the key here.
18:27Your first couple times you're very nervous, especially if you're the man in charge and stuff, but after a while you get used to it.
18:31And that's how you survive, though.
18:34If you have a casualty, you need to be ready to handle it.
18:37And you're going to fight a casualty the way you train to fight a casualty.
18:41You're not going to do it correctly if you've never practiced.
18:44So, submarining is stressful.
18:46Do you understand the bubble?
18:48What is it showing you right now?
18:50This?
18:51What angle is the ship at?
18:52It's not a perfect trimmer.
18:54Oh, you got that right.
18:55What's the number?
18:56What degrees of dive do we have on right now, bubble on a ship?
18:58Five.
18:59No.
19:00The first time I was doing it, I was trying to concentrate so much on actually maintaining control and things like that.
19:05And then, midway through the training simulation, I just said, hey, might as well enjoy it now.
19:10This is the best it's going to get.
19:12Diving officer, submerge the ship to 150 feet.
19:19Die. Die. Die. Die.
19:25Die. Die.
19:27It's been said that American submarines are overmanned and under-automated.
19:34In theory, that may be true until something goes wrong under 50 feet of Arctic ice.
19:41...that are stressful.
19:43We got a building that simulates part of the engine room.
19:46We're going to set it on fire.
19:48And you guys put it out.
19:50You guys.
19:51Not John Wayne.
19:52Not Chuck Norris.
19:54You guys.
19:55Hey, the word was just passed.
19:57You guys.
19:58That's your key.
19:59Let's go.
20:00Let's go.
20:01Make sure your bail assembly is up before you pull a pin.
20:04And charge.
20:05You got to get track of your people.
20:06Let's go.
20:07You got a space.
20:08Burn it out of control.
20:10Let's go.
20:11Make sure your OJ is perpendicular to the hose.
20:20Bring your hand around, down and under.
20:23Put it on the outside of your shoulder.
20:25There you go.
20:29When something goes wrong, you need people who can figure it out very quickly,
20:34take the appropriate action, and maybe combat the casualty for long periods of time.
20:39Okay, go to shuttle three.
20:52Also on week five, we're going to send you what we call the wet trainer.
20:55Its technical name is the damage control trainer.
20:58We just call it the wet trainer because you're going to get wet.
21:01It simulates part of the engine room on a submarine.
21:04Lower level this time, not upper level.
21:06It's facing forward.
21:08It's full of pipes, valves, pumps, motors.
21:12The instructor, he has it nice.
21:13He sits in a little glass booth.
21:15He stays nice and dry.
21:16He flips switches.
21:18And all the water in the world starts coming into that trainer.
21:21You all heard the horror stories about the flange.
21:24It's located.
21:25It's got a three-quarter-inch gap in between the two faces.
21:27It's a metal-to-metal surface.
21:29Your job is to actually tighten up the bolts, bringing the two surfaces together.
21:35If you were on a submarine and there's no switch thrown then, but the water starts coming in, it is all the water in the world.
21:42It's the ocean.
21:43It's 1,200 gallons per minute.
21:45It's the largest leak that you'll be facing in here.
21:47You guys don't stop it.
21:49It gets deep.
21:52If you're a short guy, you're going to be real interested in getting it stopped quicker than the tall guys will.
21:56Fighting a casualty is no place for individual heroics.
22:08Teamwork is the key.
22:10The instructor monitors the exercise, communicating with the team leader through an air phone.
22:16How many personnel are in the space?
22:20How many personnel are in engine room lower level?
22:24Uh, weight one.
22:27Weight I?
22:34Where are you going?
22:35Get out of there.
22:36There's one guy up there on this side standing and holding it.
22:38Right.
22:39You.
22:40That's always there.
22:41These men might be enjoying this spectacle now, but it's their turn next.
22:46Oh, my God.
22:48The pressure is relentlessly increased.
22:51Go ahead and give me the ASW discharge flange.
22:53We're flying.
22:54Let's start the system.
22:55Stop it or discharge.
22:56We need two personnel on the flange.
23:00Get him up there.
23:01He's the man in charge.
23:02I think he's crawling up there.
23:03Is that the man in charge?
23:04That's the man in charge right here.
23:08We want to see if they're physically and mentally capable of handling a stressful situation that we put them in with just the water spraying around everywhere.
23:15And see if they can actually handle it, be able to work in that kind of environment.
23:16I'm a hero.
23:17If they have a problem working in the water, well, then we need to know about it.
23:18If they have a problem working in the water, well, then we need to know about it.
23:49So, if they're working in terms of trying to work and accomplish this situation, it could be detrimental to themselves and personnel around them.
23:55These exercises test psychological suitability more than practical skills.
24:00skills they will come later the real training starts for them when they get
24:09on the guys really gonna learn the nuts and bolts of the system be able to
24:12touch the valves trace the pipe look at the breakers see his gear work on his
24:18gear when he gets to the submarine buddy officer Torkelson buddy officer Whipple
24:23Mastadler front and center
24:34ready to all of these men have achieved the award about to be presented to their
24:40shipmates their dolphins silver for the enlisted men and gold for the officers
24:45they're like a pilot's wings and just as hard to earn to qualify the raw
24:52submariner must learn every major system on board be able to describe how it
24:57works draw it and recite its specifications all this on a boat with seven million
25:03parts my confidence it marks the coming of age of a submariner and the end of a
25:09tough first year on board first time you get underway expected to learn all this
25:19and it's a lot of pressure on the new guys you can't support the ship or or a
25:24watch station or watch bill then you need to get hot verbal harassment by the
25:31others which is all in good fun I mean they're in a non-qual status non-useful
25:37body and the qualified guys have to razz them a little bit to to get light the fire
25:45under the boat congratulations thank you
25:50get over here
26:02in all submarine fleets junior officers aspire to one thing above all others to
26:09captain their own submarine it remains one of the most challenging of commands
26:14if there's one thing that we've learned and I think that the united states navy has learned as
26:23well a submarine commanding officer cannot have a rule book okay sure there are some things which
26:28he can't do and some things which he must do but he can't have a rule book there is no set tactic
26:33or set thing to do in such and such a circumstance he must use his own initiative and adapt and adapt
26:38very quickly in split seconds to what's happening at first the royal navy did not believe it necessary
26:45to train its submarine captains a good eye for shooting partridge was considered qualification enough
26:51this is the submarine command team trainer where basically the submarine officers come in here to
27:09learn the basic skills of being a submarine officer operators collect information from many sensors keeping
27:15the captain informed piecing the picture together enables him to make the tactical decisions in fighting
27:22the submarine they're ascended to a medieval night on the hill the captain can sit there he can look over
27:29the top of these young men and they will get all that information and look at jigsaw put all the bits in
27:35but for a true sense of the pressure involved there's nothing like the real thing 30 miles outside glasgow a royal
27:45naval frigate is charging straight towards a royal naval submarine this man wants to captain a submarine
28:05this man must decide whether he's capable of doing so look at the ball two minutes a british commanding
28:20officer is trained in what's known as the perisher course a perisher derives from an old expression
28:25periscope school but as a matter of fact it's not sort of bad expression because a lot of people perish
28:30along the way it's an utterly ruthless preparation for command totally ruthless and being british we're
28:43more used to people being rude to us very rude to us than i think people are in the united states navy
28:49as a whole come on engineer engineer you're gonna go and put up your ass if you don't get this boat on
28:57that's very very brutal a lot of people fail but at the end of it you come out tough and able to face
29:06any tactical situation on your own without support and take full responsibility for it
29:19i'm not saying that's not true of united states naval officers as well but it's my opinion that they
29:24were more inclined certainly in the early days of nuclear power to look back after that big kettle
29:30boiling up back there than they were to look forward to their torpedo tubes and the enemy ahead
29:39submarine captains can polish their skills in the calmer atmosphere of the attack teacher
29:44computer scenarios simulate potential do-or-die situations
29:50outside the deck take her deep and look back up and clear to the right
29:53kalma hit two-thirds
29:54hit two-thirds how much
29:55sounding one five zero thousand below the keel check the chart
29:58no right 10 degrees runner listen up in the fire control party just received flash traffic
30:04due to the deteriorating political situation in the orange republic and their perception of our
30:10disarmament the orange republic has launched attack against the united states a hot war exists
30:16we're open ocean received traffic indicating an orange submarine is entering our area from the west
30:24we've received orders to prosecute and attack any enemy forces in our area any questions
30:34carry on the navy has this idea and policy and tradition of true accountability 100 accountability
30:43to the captain of the ship he is responsible for the way the garbage is dumped all the way up to
30:49the way the torpedo is shot or the guns are shot
30:56annapolis is the premier officer training academy for the u.s navy the courses are heavy in nuclear science
31:04but some say too light in humanities and the art of war
31:13next you see the 41st and last of the polaris submarines
31:20i'm a little bit biased toward the submarine myself because frankly i was the first skipper of it
31:25in their final year the midshipmen are addressed by senior officers it's a recruitment exercise
31:32their example might inspire the fledgling officers to share their passion
31:37following that in the motif of any place any time here's a uss archer fish given some qualities that
31:46i would look for is first you got to know your job you got to know your stuff you got to know your
31:51weapons you got to know your ship we have a very small bearing rate indicating that the contact is
31:57either distant or that we're on a lead possible over lead line of sight range 10 to 12 000 yards
32:06carry on stand by to mark minute three two the good skippers i had when i was young allowed me to make
32:13torpedo approaches to make landings when only skippers were making landings and when you're going in
32:20with a current either against you or with you and you've got to kind of shoot the thing on the fly
32:25well sometimes you hit the pier pretty hard sometimes the pier almost goes over some people
32:30have hit their own automobile at the head of the pier uh but these are things that really give you
32:36great confidence uh in when you're the person doing it oh i'm steady course three four five
32:44okay close two thousand yards all right four two five six point six
32:54under the captain's eye the team maneuvers into the best position to fire here's the best solution from
33:00primate there are certain things that you have to be vitally interested in and involved in and one of
33:07them is safe navigation of the ship you must not run aground the other one is safe navigation is
33:16pertains to hitting another ship you will not have a collision either one of those can ruin your whole
33:21day not to mention a career as well as technical training there are other vital qualities less tangible
33:30but still essential for successful command the attributes of leadership that i think are essential
33:38combine management competence with enough charisma that one can inspire people to follow
33:48the responsibility of commanding a submarine is rather unique best described in short terms as run
33:55one silent run deep one is totally alone far less subject to the kind of minute-by-minute guidance that a
34:03surface commander is likely to be in a task force particularly when one commands a ballistic missile
34:11submarine with the awesome responsibility of not only ensuring that there is never an accident or never
34:18an accidental launch but that the machine is in instant readiness to fire when directed
34:26requires a tremendous attention to detail a tremendous sense of teamsmanship get on my back
34:36lie flat on me put your feet on my feet don't kiss me on the ear even at 70 years of age you can
34:45still have the right stuff all right you ready yes sir
34:56there are some old adages that some people print up and put around like know your stuff
35:01be a man take care of your men and that's not too bad i mean you've got to take care of your crew you've
35:08got to know your crew you've got to be human and you've got to be able to laugh at your mistakes because
35:13you're going to make them all your people are going to make them and you may make the most colossal
35:18ones so if you've been smiling at them maybe you can laugh at yourself a little bit i'll weigh 120
35:24well it gives you something to work on okay
35:46so you got firing solution i have firing very well firing point procedures sierra 2
35:59tube 3 single fire head cap
36:01the climax of the hunt but the atmosphere in the control center remains low-key and disciplined
36:13generated bearing set stay by fire torpedo course one three two runs enabled 6 000 yards
36:25very well running normally
36:28shot looks good 2 000 yards to torpedo enable
36:35bearing 125 range 900 yards target is going 110 speed 10 knots
36:41one two five way one terminal homing
36:48cloud explosion on the bearing of a sierra one we've got our quarry we'll open down them and look out
36:55for any uh companions oh this is a very successful attack we acquired the contact
37:01target did not counter detect us we controlled the tactical situation throughout we obtained an optimum
37:08firing position where we could attack him with the impunity we're at the perfect weapons range
37:16perfect solution we probably wasted too much time making the solution too good
37:21the uh torpedo uh functioned properly acquired the contact when it should have and
37:28uh exploded we're just waiting for the breaking up noises
37:40torpedoes are not the only weapons a hunter killer captain trains to fire as was demonstrated during desert
37:47storm no u.s submarine had fired in combat since world war ii
37:52i'm speaking to you next to one of the tomahawk vertical launch hatches forward on the ship
37:59out of which came the tomahawk which on the 19th of january 1991 was fired by this ship to an
38:06unidentified iraqi target
38:10the use of cruise missiles by the louisville expanded the submarine's role into the realm of
38:16strike warfare its crew received a triumphant homecoming
38:23and we were greeted by a special edition louisville slugger back says louisville slugger the ship's
38:31hull number ssn 724 and over here in the periscope crosshairs kicked saddam's butt january 19 1991
38:39the prime responsibility of command is the nuclear reactor according to its high priest admiral rickover
38:52but a submarine's purpose involves more than just intimate knowledge of its propulsion
38:58admiral rickover made a big point of you can't get there if the power plant doesn't get you there and
39:02that's right but the name of the game is being able to fight a war to win a battle and you've got
39:09to develop your tactics we have chosen in the royal navy to continue focusing on tactics what you do
39:15with a sharp end and to let an extremely well trained specialist a technical guy to look after the
39:23kettle back off we run things a bit differently from the british for example where the officers in the
39:29royal navy are engineering specialists or operational tactics specialists and we are trained to
39:40to be good at both ends it doesn't mean to say that our commanding officers know nothing about nuclear
39:44power they know a very very great deal about it indeed they do but they don't feel that they have to be
39:49technical to the degree that a united states naval officer feels he has to be indeed has to be
39:55under the regime which admiral rickover started if you're on your way to a nuclear engineering exam
40:04tradition claims this will bring you luck such is the admiral's legacy
40:12but whether propulsion or tactics are more important in nuclear submarine warfare
40:18has only been tested once having attacked um well normally in the attack teacher we'd all stop and
40:25have a cup of tea smoke or something but it wasn't quite like that at sea
40:29the only submarine commander to have sunk a warship with a nuclear submarine is this man
40:43during the actual attack it was very much like countless other ones i'd done for practice before
40:49both at sea on live targets and indeed in our attack teacher
40:58hms conqueror was sent to the falklands in april 1982
41:03the british were reacting to an invasion of their territory by argentina
41:08in what was to become the most controversial incident of the brief war
41:16reefer brown quickly made sonar contact with a group of argentinian warships
41:24i entered my patrol area to the southwest of falklands on the evening of the 30th of april
41:30and having settled down to patrol i quite rapidly gained detection on one of my sonars
41:36the general belgrano was an aging cruiser with more than a thousand men aboard much was to be made
41:43of her movements immediately prior to the attack we spent the whole of that night just just following
41:49them from deep which is not particularly difficult for an ssn sending uh location reports back i think
41:55about every six hours or so the british had declared a total exclusion zone but the belgrano was
42:02outside it and could not be attacked so reefer brown followed her and waited for instructions
42:08i had quite a lot of time in my cabin to actually think how i was going to conduct the attack i mean
42:13i i felt in my own mind that at some stage uh northward our command back here would actually
42:20instruct me to carry out the attack and i i chose which torpedo i was going to use i also
42:26in my mind worked out where i was going to position myself so there was some mental preparation
42:35after trailing the belgrano for more than 25 hours the conqueror received new orders from whitehall
42:43sink it
42:46i summed seven miles of stern of them and it took me about two hours to catch them up and work into an
42:53attacking position i'd selected the mark eight torpedo to fire and i planned to fire a salvo three of
42:58those to counteract for any area any errors that i made in the fire control solution i worked myself into
43:06a position of well when we fight eventually fired as about 1400 yards on the port bow of of the cruiser
43:13um gave gave the order to fire we heard the torpedoes run on our underwater sonar you could hear them
43:22quite distinctly running out and indeed heard one and then another hit
43:31i was looking through the periscope at the time and saw a distinct cloud of smoke and flame from the
43:38first one and then i think i saw another cloud of smoke from the second a chair went up in the
43:45control room i think when we when we heard the hit the hit and i looked around and saw actually there
43:50was a lot more people in every corner than one perhaps anticipated at attack stations after that
43:58we i went deep and moved away to the to the east to uh just get out of the general area because i
44:04wasn't quite sure what the two destroyers were going to do whether they're going to come and take an
44:08interest in me and try and counter-attack the conqueror returned home to fierce debate over the
44:17decision to sink the belgrano echoing an earlier era when submarines were regarded as underhand and immoral
44:24i was a threat to the task force she had been steaming towards them and i'd been watching
44:37her for a few hours beforehand and under direct orders i went in and attacked her i think by doing
44:44so um although there was obviously loss of life on her which i regret i certainly saved considerable loss
44:51of life from the british task force i was obviously aware that i'd actually killed i don't know how
44:58many and didn't know for a long time but quite quite a few people so there was a certain sense of
45:04concern that that had happened nevertheless as far as i was concerned far as the ship's company
45:09concerned we were at war my immediate reactions after that was i think the first one was one of
45:15relief that i'd actually achieve something that the ship's company and i had been trained to do over a
45:20number of a number of number of years with all of us and a sense of um exhilaration that i'd actually achieved it
45:38so
45:50Once upon a time, to be in submarines marked you as inferior, an undersea pirate, but
46:13over a hundred years of submarine warfare have created a community which now regards
46:19itself as an elite.
46:21The recruits in Groton and St. Petersburg will become part of this tradition.
46:29We inherited from our Submariners, specifically our World War II Submariners, a mindset, a
46:52way of life, a commitment that is unmatched anywhere in the world.
46:59I mean, you have feelings for these guys.
47:06I mean, it's like your family.
47:08I'm not going to lie.
47:09There's probably a lot of Submariners out there that are going to watch this and say
47:16that, oh, that's a yes, but I mean, it really isn't.
47:18I mean, you can ask them.
47:19I wouldn't trade any memories I have on this thing or any of my friends I have on this thing
47:22for anything in the world.
47:23They're good.
47:24They're good people.
47:25In an era where the enemy is no longer as clearly defined, and where moves toward disarmament
47:32is not going to lie.
47:33There's probably a lot of Submariners out there that are going to watch this and say
47:34that, oh, that's a yes, but I mean, it really isn't.
47:36I mean, you can ask them.
47:37They're good.
47:38They're good people.
47:49In an era where the enemy is no longer as clearly defined, and where moves toward disarmament
47:55will continue to reduce the Submariners' importance, their prohibitive cost is becoming harder to justify.
48:07Yet should a new world conflict arise, it will be in the hands of young men like these.
48:29For now more than ever, such a war is likely to be won and lost under the sea.
48:37If anybody is in Iraq what you're in Iraq is not in Iraq you are wrong.
48:44Shut up!
48:46Let's go!
48:47Let's go!
48:48Everybody is in Iraq!
48:49If you're not in Iraq, you are wrong!
48:50Shut up!
48:51Let's go!
48:57Let's go!
48:58Let's go!
49:04Let's go!
49:05Let's go!
49:06Let's go!
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