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USSVI Bremerton Base, P.O. Box 465, Silverdale, WA 98383-0465 |
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Issue 5-24-10 Updated Friday, May 28, 2010 06:59 AM |
DETERRENT
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Ivy Green Cemetery
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u5-28-2010
Submariners Gather
at Keyport to
Remember Their
Fallen Comrades
By Ed Friedrich
Thursday, May 27, 2010
KEYPORT —
Fifty-two U.S.
submarines and their
crews never came
home from World War
II. They’re on the
ocean bottom, the
final resting spot
for 374 officers and
3,131 enlisted men.
On Thursday, they were honored during a tolling the boats ceremony at Keyport’s Naval Undersea Museum auditorium. Each boat’s name and the fate of its crew was read, followed by the tolling of a ship’s bell. See the rest here u5-24-2010 View a Short Clip of Base HC Induction and Speaker: Base Cdr Dave Niemy, assisted by HC Chairman Dave Davenport, D4 Cdr John Mansfield and NC Pat Housedolder present Neil Wollam with his credentials for being qualified in submarines for 50 years. This was followed by a short historical presentation by Life Member Greg Fessler's granddaughter. (Dave Niemy & Pat Householder sent images) u5-24-2010 USS ALABAMA Commemoration - Tuesday 25 May - 11am - Keyport Undersea Museum Ladies and Gentlemen,
This e-mail is
intended for the
widest
dissemination.
USS ALABAMA's 25
years of service to
the nation will be
honored at the
Keyport Undersea
Museum in Keyport WA
at 11am Tuesday 25
May 2010. The event
will be hosted
by the USS Columbia
Chapter of the
Universal Ship
Cancellation
Society. A reception
with light
refreshments will be
held after the
commemoration.
The Museum has
graciously opened
their auditorium for
the commemoration.
Parking is free and
no base sticker is
required for access
to the Museum
grounds.
Commanding Officer,
USS ALABAMA, the
Executive
Officer, the Chief
of the Boat, and
crewmembers will be
in attendance.
Invited guests
include members of
the Military
Officers of American
Association,
the Navy League, the
Submarine Veterans,
and the Museum's
staff.
Chapter President
Mike Brock will
begin the
commemoration
and introduce the
Commanding
Officer, who in
turn will introduce
Admiral Frank
Caldwell, Commander,
Submarine Group
Nine. Admiral
Caldwell
will introduce the
guest speaker, CAPT
Mal Wright USN
(Ret), the
Commissioning
Commanding Officer
(Gold) of USS
ALABAMA.
Admiral Stan Bump (USN
(Ret), ALABAMA's
commissioning Group
Commander and CAPT
Paul Skarpness USN,
current Commander,
Submarine Squadron
SEVENTEEN, will be
in attendance.
The Governor of the
State of Alabama,
Bob Riley, has
honored the crews of
the USS ALABAMA with
a special
proclamation in
recognition of their
service.
Following the
commemoration, which
is expected to last
about 45 minutes,
there will be
informal light
refreshments
served at the Museum
for ceremony guests.
The Chapter will
honor USS ALABAMA
with the support of
the US Postal
Service through the
use of a special
postmark for that
day only. Postmark
and cachet
activities will take
place at the
reception. There
will be a display of
postal memorabilia
(envelopes,
postmarks and
cachets) from the
USS ALABAMA and
previous ships named
in honor of
the state, and ship's
memorabilia will be
available to guests
for purchase.
Respectfully,
Peter M. Leenhouts
CAPT USN (Ret)
USS COLUMBIA Chapter
member
Universal Ship
Cancellation Society
u5-24-2010 Tolling of the Boats: Thursday 27 May, 1000 The Naval Undersea Museum will conduct Tolling the Boats again this year. It takes place on May 27th at 1000 outside in front of the sail. Please consider attending
u5-24-2010
Summer Submarine Races
and Skills Tournament
17July Picnic
Come to Illahee State Park
and enjoy the Submarine
Races with your favorite Gal
After the Races we will hold
a challenge tournament of
Acey-Duecy, Cribbage,
Horseshoes, Tobacco
Spitting, and Arm
Wrestling. The EAB race is
cancelled due to an OOC
HiPac. A $5.00 entry fee
per event will win you half
the pot and one year's worth
of Bragging Rights. All
contests subject to change
based on the Plan of the
Day.
David Niemy
Commander USSVI Bremerton Base ssbnswo@aol.com
u5-23-2010 USSVI OFFICIAL BUSINESS: A brief overall USSVI Survey update
Date:
5/14/2010
u5-21-2010 USSVI OFFICIAL BUSINESS: Our Scholarship Program
Date: 5/20/2010 u5-16-2010 USSVI Bremerton Base Wins Mayor's Award for Best Towed Entry in Annual Armed Forces Day Parade. Go here for parade details.
u5-12-2010 USSVI OFFICIAL BUSINESS: USSVI Survey - We need your help
Date: 5/8/2010 http://www.eSurveysPro.com/Survey.aspx?id=99956f44-c84b-4b1f-8869-6365d502819c
u5-5-2010 A Book of "No Shitters" A member suggested we start a writing project preserving our sea stories for posterity. He would call it a book of "No Shitters". Cdr Dave has suggested we start a 3 ringed note book that would be present at meetings so you could put your tales in writing in the notebook and others could read. A goal of developing a formal book would be the final result.
uupdated 3-4-2010 Base By Laws to Undergo Updating in 2010 (Input Deadline, 31 July 2010) Members are urged to review the base bylaws and make suggestions to the E-board for changes, additions or deletion. The base by laws may be accessed at http://gertrude-check.up-scope.org/BL.htm. Make your suggestions to the base commander at ssbnswo@aol.com The members of the E-board have started the process to review the by-laws and make improvements as needed. The by-laws were last amended in 2005 and it is about time for another periodic review. Every member is encouraged to review and submit changes to the bylaws that will help to improve the operation of the base. Remember that our base by-laws must not conflict with the national by-laws. The procedures for by-law amendments are as follows: ARTICLE XI. BY-LAW AMENDMENTS Section 1. Any member in good standing may submit recommendations to amend these Bylaws to the E-Board
Section 2. All recommendations to amend these Bylaws shall be placed on the Base Commanders docket to be read to the membership.
Section 3. All amendments to these Bylaws must be read at three consecutive regular meetings. The third reading a Vote will be taken and a two-thirds majority vote 'yes' shall be required to pass the amendment.
Section 4. All amendments certified as being passed shall become effective immediately.
Section 5. The secretary shall record in the minutes’ book the vote count pertaining to the balloting under this Article.
u 5-24-2010 USSVI OFFICIAL BUSINESS: SubVet News - #2010-020
Date: 5/18/2010 u 5-12-2010 USSVI OFFICIAL BUSINESS: SubVet News - #2010-019
Date: 5/5/2010 uSoup Down: Fri, May 28, 1130, Airport Diner, Bremerton Airport Letter for Requesting Gift Certificate from Restaurants Check out this link for latest images of events. http://www.ussvi.org/base/Bremerton.asp Then Click on Meeting Photos
Don Bassler Gertrude Check Founder & Editor
More News of Interest to Submariners
On-Line Scuttlebutt
Ahoy All,
Our
on-line Scuttlebutt is updated with links to
uploaded images from Navy Day, Homecoming Statue
& Battle of Atlantic, along with our mid-Island
Meeting.
I'm
also pleased to announce the beginning
of new feature 'History From Below', courtesy of
our Historian Paul Lang.
Please browse on-line to
www.saocwest.ca
& Click on Scuttlebutt.
Yours
Aye,
Bob Emery
Submariners Association of Canada ~ West Coast
Branch
North Korean Torpedo Sank Warship: Investigators Agnece France-Presse, May 19, 2010 SEOUL — A torpedo fired by a North Korean submarine sank a South Korean warship with the loss of 46 lives, investigators said Thursday. "The evidence points overwhelmingly to the conclusion that the torpedo was fired by a North Korean submarine," the multinational team said in its report on the March 26 sinking near the disputed inter-Korean border. "There is no other plausible explanation." Torpedo parts salvaged from the Yellow Sea "perfectly match" a type of torpedo which North Korea has offered for export, the report said. A marking in Korea's Hangeul script was found on one recovered section, and matched markings on a stray North Korean torpedo recovered by the South seven years ago. The communist North overnight again denied involvement in the attack, the worst cross-border provocation since the downing of a South Korean airliner in 1987 with the loss of 115 lives. It said the South was using the "fiction" as an excuse to push cross-border relations towards catastrophe. But the investigators, including experts from the United States, Australia, Britain and Sweden, laid out apparently damning evidence of its involvement. The ship was split apart and sank due to a shockwave and bubble effect produced by the underwater explosion of a 250 kg (550 pound) homing North Korean torpedo, the report said. It said torpedo parts recovered by a dredging ship on May 15th -- including the propellers, propulsion motor and a steering section -- "perfectly match the schematics of the CHT-02D torpedo included in introductory brochures provided to foreign countries by North Korea for export purposes". The report said the North has about 70 submarines and torpedoes of various capabilities. It said the attack was likely carried out by a small submarine. "We confirmed that a few small submarines and a mother ship supporting them left a North Korean naval base in the West (Yellow) Sea 2-3 days prior to the attack and returned to port 2-3 days after the attack." No submarines from other countries were in the vicinity at the time, it said. The sinking caused outrage in South Korea, which decreed five days of national mourning for the victims. But Seoul is believed to have ruled out a military counter-strike for fear of igniting an all-out war. It is likely to ask the Security Council to slap new sanctions on the North, in addition to those imposed to curb its missile and nuclear programmes. China, a veto-wielding council member and the North's ally, is unlikely to support new measures unless it accepts the South's evidence linking Pyongyang to the attack. The South could also restrict trade with its neighbour and ban the North''s merchant ships from using the Jeju Strait off the peninsula's south coast. North and South Korea have remained technically at war since their 1950-53 conflict ended only in an armistice. The land border is closely guarded. The North refuses to accept the borderline drawn in the Yellow Sea, where the Cheonan went down. The area was the scene of deadly clashes in 1999 and 2002 and of a firefight last November which left a North Korean boat in flames. Some analysts suggest the attack on the Cheonan was revenge for the November clash. Unmanned Fleet On The Horizon As Navy Strives To Do More With Less, Uuvs’ Time Seems Near By Lance M. Bacon, Navy Times Print Edition, May 10, 2010 The Navy must pursue un-manned technology that can oper-ate in near-shore environments, according to Defense Secretary Robert Gates. And sailors will likely be at the controls as this technology takes shape. The directive was carefully woven amid suggestions of cutting carriers, ballistic-missile sub-marines and amphibious vehicles in Gates’ attention-getting speech May 3 at the Navy League’s Sea-Air-Space Exposition near Wash-ington, D.C. “We must also rethink what and how we buy ? to shift investments towards systems that provide the ability to see and strike deep along the full spectrum of conflict,” he said. That includes unmanned platforms that can: ■ Provide enhanced intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities. ■ Conduct underwater missions “deep inside an enemy’s battle net-work.” ■ Increase submarine strike capabilities. ■ Operate in shallow water. The Navy is throttle-up in the development of unmanned surface and underwater technology, and with good reason: There are fewer ships and submarines to do an increasing number of missions, and ships steering independently ren-der these vessels more vulnerable. While unmanned technologies can supplement or even replace numer-ous Navy platforms, many analysts told Navy Times the service is well behind the power curve. Compli-cating the issue is the fact that there essentially are no advanced commercial or military technolo-gies on which to build. In response, the Navy has increased its focus on its unmanned fleet, an effort Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Gary Roughead called “extraordinarily important to our future” during congressional testimony Feb. 24. Mission capable Anti-submarine warfare against the Soviets was the primary mis-sion of attack subs during the Cold War. Covert ISR tops the list today, and these missions have more than doubled over several years, according to the Navy’s January 2005 Unmanned Underwater Vehicle master plan. That spells trouble for attack subs, which face a 15 percent cut and will inherit missions from the retiring guided-missile subs. The service in 2022 will drop below the 48 attack submarines needed to meet missions, according to the Navy’s 30-year shipbuilding plan. Already, 50 percent to 60 percent of high-priority, priority and rou-tine requests can’t be met, accord-ing to lawmakers. Ultimately, unmanned vehicles will have to bridge this gap, analysts agree. The smaller, cheaper unmanned vehicles are designed for nine “high-priority” missions identified in the UUV master plan. Primary focus is on ISR, mine countermea-sures and anti-submarine warfare. The Navy is developing UUVs that can detect, classify and track enemy subs and mines. The vehi-cles can operate in extremely shal-low water and poor acoustic condi-tions, and will aid in port surveil-lance while putting fewer sailors ? and costly subs ? at risk. Oth-ers will be designed to clear “Q routes” for carrier and expedi-tionary strike groups. Though less sexy, UUVs also will support oceanography missions and serve as communication and navigation network nodes. They also will resupply special opera-tions forces without putting people or platforms in jeopardy. Eventually, Navy leaders say they want UUVs and unmanned service vehicles to go offensive, including everything from electronic jamming to armed vehi-cles able to hit submarine, surface, air and land targets. And all of these goals have taken a notice-able leap forward in recent years. Key breakthroughs Construction of the Virginia class’ Block III attack sub will include a mid-module payload tube comparable to those located on guided-missile subs. Before this, most UUVs had to be shot and recovered through a torpedo tube, and therefore could not exceed 21 inches in diameter. More room equates to more endurance and capability, said Don McCormack, technical director of the Naval Undersea Warfare Cen-ter. Modularity gives the ability to reconfigure UUVs for various mis-sions, and allows a variety of sur-face ships to launch, recover, com-mand and control the vehicles. The first Block III sub, North Dakota, is scheduled for delivery in 2014. In the meantime, researchers are using three small vehicles to establish tactics, tech-niques and procedures to inte-grate UUVs into the surface mine countermeasure mission. Feed-back will also be used in future technologies and purchases. For example, the UUVs will progress from side scan sonar to synthetic aperture sonar, said Capt. Paul Siegrist, program manager for Unmanned Maritime Vehicle Sys-tems, Program Executive Office Littoral and Mine Warfare. The Navy is ready to buy that technol-ogy and build that platform now. “You build a little, learn a lot, and you incorporate that up into the next set,” Siegrist said. But Siegrist also said the biggest challenge may be the integration of these vehicles into the fleet. For example, there has been resistance to unmanned aerial vehicles among pilots. This is espe-cially true in the Air Force, where only rated pilots are allowed to “stick” the UAVs. Roughead said the Navy would take a different approach. “What the unmanned system is doing at that time will determine who oper-ates it,” he said. The CNO described how an offi-cer could monitor sailors who oper-ate unmanned air, surface or sub-merged vehicles. If a UAV is mov-ing in and out of controlled air-space, you want a pilot. If a vehicle is moving in controlled waters, you want a surface warfare officer. “But if we’re in an open ocean environment or in a littoral area where there is no aircraft, do you need a rated officer? Probably not,” Roughead said. “Philosophically, you don’t always have to have a guy on the stick. You have to have someone monitoring at all times and be in a position to take the stick, but for a lot of the longer missions the activities that we’ll perform will be done by prepro-gramming.” The next hurdle McCormack said the goal is to have vehicles that have energy and autonomy for weeks and months at a time with limited interaction. Such vehicles would be “preprogrammed or [have] arti-ficial intelligence that learns and improves itself as it goes.” While his principle concern is energy, Siegrist agrees that auton-omy, communications and sensors are key to future capabilities. A vehicle must be able to oper-ate independently, accurately identify threats and respond accordingly. It must also be able to transmit information. As obsta-cles become more complex, the vehicle needs an increasingly complex set of sensors and onboard decision-making tools ? a growth Siegrist expects to be “evolutionary, not revolutionary.” “I would like to get to the point where I have one operator with many vehicles, and the vehicles having sufficient autonomy to assist the operators in executing their mission,” Siegrist said. “We are developing the vision and the framework in which to move that forward. “Ideally, you would have the abil-ity for the vehicle to go out and execute a set of operations on its own. That may be as simple as what is called ‘mowing the lawn’ [running a set of tracks], then com-ing up and reporting,” he said. The University of Maryland’s A. James Clark School of Engineer-ing is providing at least one piece to this puzzle as it translates the coordinated movement of fish to UUVs. The idea is this: Larger numbers of vehicles working in tandem can collect more data. But there also is the potential for colli-sion and interference. Researchers want to capture and apply the same hydrodynamics fish use to synchronize their school movements. These fish use tiny hair cells to sense the flow of the water and respond accordingly. As such, when one fish reacts to a threat, it starts a “wave of agita-tion.” The whole school, in response, seems to move simulta-neously. The Navy recently placed unmanned systems under its intel-ligence and communications direc-torate to help address issues of energy, autonomy and communica-tions. The directorate is developing an Unmanned Systems Roadmap and leads the UUV Executive Steering Group. That flag officer group, along with the newly formed UUV advanced development office, is a technology conduit established to ensure critical technology is developed and delivered as quickly as possible, according to Navy spokesman Lt. Myers Vasquez. “The Navy sees critical technolo-gy development as the lynch pin to begin implementing wide scale use of UUVs as a game-changing mar-itime capability,” he said
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