Fam training in armed forces

[Rwy in Sight]

Last week, I visited a submarine and we had a small talk about ASW and how aircraft pose most problems comparing to a submarine hunting vessel. I asked them if a member of the submarine crew flies on asw mission with a chopper or a P-3B much like ATC fly on fam flights to see how airline crew operate.

For those who have served do you think in would useful to see how the"enemy" operates and behaves?

[CharlieOneSix]

I flew ASW helicopters but I never took a submarine crew member for a flight but did fly a St Mawgan Nimrod pilot and Nav once on a Wessex 3 ASW exercise.

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

Yes.
It's also a good idea to see it from the position of those one is working with, or protecting if air defence.
It used to be normal during the Cold War. As maritime air defence we had an air defence sister ship with exchange visits, some aircrew would always do exchange flights when we did affiliation training with other types of aircraft (e.g. kipper fleet, helicopters). One would also visit ATC, fighter control, tanker aircraft, etc. I went up in an AWACS, and also was with two SAM sites (Patriot and Crotale) during airfield attacks. I've been on everything except a submarine, I think.

I do recall a British tank commander going flying with fast jets attacking tanks (I was on the exercise in another aircraft). It scared the life out of him seeing how vulnerable the tanks were to air attack, and he resigned his commission and went to work in daddy's merchant bank.

[Sisemen]

Works right across the spectrum. When I was posted to MOD the Treasury wonks who worked there had never seen a blue uniform never mind a real RAF station. I organised a few visits and the occasional flight. It worked dividends and I was able to get agreement to many improvements in pay and conditions which had previously been stonewalled.

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

Works with kids too. I have had a kid following me around all one normal day to see what a teacher does. Them having to get up at 6am was the first thing they didn't like. They weren't that keen on still being in an impromptu tutorial on Economics (no, I didn't teach Economics) at nine thirty the same evening either.
I've also had three kids in Grade 9 in a different school ask if they could teach a lesson, so I said yes. A ton of extra work for me, of course. After three weeks intermittent preparation - how to meet learning objectives, setting up lab equipment, how to frame questions and check understanding, common misconceptions and how to overcome them...(continues for hours, see p94) - they taught 10 minutes of one lesson, quite well. The positive effect of that for the staff as a whole lasted for years.

[Pontius Navigator]

Made a post earlier, obvious got lost.

We took some Perishers on a secret op, we weren't supposed to as they had not been indoctrinated. Anyway out target was making a racket and kept speeding up. Suddenly the noise stopped and it slowed down. They said it was a hull deck plate that had come loose and been held by a safety chain. Fine in the dockyard but a bugger if you were trying to make a covert transit.

It also showed them what we were doing as we tracked it - no hiding place.

[Pontius Navigator]

I do recall a British tank commander going flying with fast jets attacking tanks (I was on the exercise in another aircraft). It scared the life out of him seeing how vulnerable the tanks were to air attack, and he resigned his commission and went to work in daddy's merchant bank.

A good example of air versus ground point of view is in Team Yankee by Harry Coyle. I didn't meet Harry but did meet his next door neighbour in German. In his WW3 story I think they saw about 3 aircraft in the whole conflict, a Conflict where their war was just a few miles but for the airman just a minute or two.

Never did Red Flag but an excellent exercise where players met other air forces and other tactics which serves to broaden everyone's knowledge. How to find a Buccaneer - look for the sand trail. How to wax an F15 with a Jaguar - 3 pairs in trail numbers 5 and 6 were unexpected. How to spot a Vulcan - wait until he turns.

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

By a spooky co-incidence, I am rereading Team Yankee at this very moment! Harry's main character has just worked out it's kick-off time as, whilst his aircraft recce isn't that hot, he does remember none of our lot have red stars on the side ;)
I well recall a huge NATO exercise where we had at least 20 pairs in trail, mixed types including some fighters in there. Never turn your @ss to anybody! One great advantage of the F3 was that you could take a long look down threat to make really sure you'd passed the last one, do a 180 to find yourself 5 miles in trail, then wind it up to over 800 kts and still catch the b#ggers!

[Rwy in Sight]

Fox3 nice story about the tank guy. I thought it would have more confidence on his craft. PN I take the noisy vessel was a submarine. What I don't understand is the indoctrinated part. I thought that all crew had the same clearance as they were doing similar jobs.

C16 special thanks for the answer.

[Rossian]

For RiS: Perishers are the trainee submariners of the future being trained by the RN. Possibly, PN's "target" could have been one of our own subs and as other nations submariners are on the course they might not have had the clearances to see the characteristics of our boats. The US has a classification "NOFORN" but as I had to explain to one USN commander "so do we!" we just don't plaster it about on documents and areas in buildings. If you can find a copy of "Silent Deep" by a Brit academic and historian "Peter Hennessy" and the first part of it describes the Perisher course in detail noting the brutal nature of the course eg if you cock up on one exercise you are helicoptered off the sub and you never set foot in a UK sub again in your naval career. HTH

The Ancient Mariner

[G~Man]

When I flew Nimrods back in the 80's we regularly flew Navy pepes on our training flights. I also spent 2 weeks on a RN Frigate during one of the Nato exercises.

[Rwy in Sight]

Rossian thanks for the explanation about officers from other nations subs. The only thing is that I am fairly surprised the limitations imposed on other NATO navies - after all they are supposed to exercise together at those yearly exercises.

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

There are things in aeroplanes that NATO nations don't tell each other. There are things that you don't even tell your own crews until war breaks out. And that's a serious war - in one case I know about the Gulf War did not count. It's not necessarily not trusting them, it's just an extension of the Need To Know principle. There is also the problem of not being able to use the equipment when foreigners are around. I had a case in a US aircraft where I was not allowed to switch on my display for a particular box of tricks, but from the way the front seater used it I was able to work out what it did. Dangerous things, aircrew with engineering degrees.

[Pontius Navigator]

Three points:

1. It was an Echo II.
2. We did not know if they had been indoctrinated for that particular operation.
3. Visiting a RNlN station some trainees asked how we found submarines. The best we could tell them was we laid a Jezebel field. What we could not tell them was how we knew when and where.

In contrast, as members of a V-bomber crew our TS clearance was taken on trust when we had a tour round the SAC bunker at Offutt.

[llondel]

I remember many years ago working on something very TS. We weren't supposed to know what it was going to be used for, but various bods turned up and did various things with what we'd built and it wasn't hard to figure out what they' wanted to do with it. Time moves on, you can now buy commercial gear that does easily what our big box of equipment did back then. Some of what was tricky, required a whole board of components and a day of careful tweaking to get it to work is now a single digital chip connected to a computer.

[Rwy in Sight]

PN, what is a Jezebel field? The submariners I talked to and mentioned that P-3 had a lot of submarine silhouettes painted on (submarines killed) they pointed that it was because they knew where to look.

[k3k3]

RiS

Jezebel: Anti-submarine passive sonobuoy system.

[ian16th]

I remember many years ago working on something very TS. We weren't supposed to know what it was going to be used for, but various bods turned up and did various things with what we'd built and it wasn't hard to figure out what they' wanted to do with it. Time moves on, you can now buy commercial gear that does easily what our big box of equipment did back then. Some of what was tricky, required a whole board of components and a day of careful tweaking to get it to work is now a single digital chip connected to a computer.

At Yatesbury when training on new kit that was 'Confidential' or above, the students weren't allowed to take their notes and the circuit diagrams out of the classroom.

At the end of the course, they were handed out to be taken back to their Units!

When I was trained on Green Satin in 1958, it had just been downgraded and we were allowed to take things back to the billet to swot up on.

Ricardian will have many war stories about Signals classification.

But if he tells you, he'll have to kill you!

[Rwy in Sight]

RiS

Jezebel: Anti-submarine passive sonobuoy system.

Thanks for the clarification as a matter of fact I should have guessed it based on PN trade.

[Pontius Navigator]

The buoys were made by Ultra and would have a hydrophone lowered to 450 feet. A pattern of 16 buoys would be laid at 1.5 median detection range - given a detection range of 5 miles the buoys would be 7.5 miles apart. You could expect contact on any two buoys if the target is in the field. Using various techniques we could localize down to kill range.

The other name for these sonobuoys was named after their function, LOFAR, or low frequency analysis and recording. A pen would trace across a range of audio frequencies marking a chart with each sound it heard and its intensity. If the noise was continuous a line would appear over time and it was possible to measure its frequence, determine the speed of the target and ultimately its range from the buoy and with two or more buoys in contact its position. Using various techniques up could drop a torpedo right on it.

With the later enormous Soviet submarines a lightweight torpedo would probably only cause damage. Remember our small carriers, their submarines were a similar size.

PS, that is the simple story, the longer one was a mixture of maths, science and alchemy. You just had a feeling in your water. Once got a photograph of a submarine underwater.