Torpedoes and Sandals
Israel’s Ynetnews has a pretty interesting article up on life aboard one of the country’s German-made diesel submarines.
“The most sensitive part of the drill – sinking into the deep after leaving the harbor – is accompanied by an endless flow of orders, read allowed by every soldier and officer according to his role.
Even the tone is mandated: A report of a switch flipped, valve released or wheel moved in unclear tone will have the commander demand the report repeated. In a depth of several hundred meters, the submarine under the heavy pressure of the sea, the heavy silence can be misleading.
After the giant tanks were emptied of air and filled with hundreds of tons of water, causing the submarine to sink like a giant weight, the lights in the vessel’s combat intelligence center go off and the mission is on. The goal: Search and destroy two enemy ships, simulated by two Navy Dabur-class patrol boats.
Every several minutes a soldier passes and shines a beam at the ceiling, chock-a-block with valves and dials, to make sure there is no leak. The tension on board can be cut with the navigator’s compass, whose eyes are glued to the map on his desk.
Without radar, the ship’s only sensory data comes from the ears of the sonar operators, the “sonarists,” who can decode the sound waves echoed from every object in the sea, according to distance, range, and quality. It’s as if a man could identify every type and model of vehicle with his eyes closed, based on hearing the sound of the motor alone. ”
