Nuclear Submarine Behind The Scenes | Submarine E3 | Our Stories

[Music] last week in submarine super b's refit has cost 200 million pounds and a lot of heartache but after a 42 month refit hms superb and a crew are back the super b is buzzing again set up new contact superb's first voyage was a surface sale of three days around the northern tip of scotland now comes the subs first real test the dive everything for this nerve-wracking exercise has to be meticulously prepared superb has been in dock for three and a half years and nothing could be allowed to go wrong safety is paramount and any surface vessels within a range of 1500 meters nearly a mile have to be contacted and warned one two zero is a fishing vessel fishing vessel morning dawn morning dawn morning dawn this is surface submarine channel one six [Music] was that uh young smith i heard on the uh on channel eight transmitting continuously as usual over the mood is relaxed but there is an underlying tension commander humphreys has years of experience in submarines he has always wanted a career in the navy but there was something about the trade that drew him in i joined the navy because i got a place at university because i passed the interview board and because i was physically capable of doing the job went to university did my training time in general service and decided in surface ships and as a young impressionable arrogant sod decided that i wasn't going to fit in in general service and started to look around for something else something more you only get one shot of this life so i thought i want to be in an elite i have a mild form of hay fever so i couldn't be a pilot anyway silk scarves don't suit me so submarines was my first choice i joined submarines in 1979 so i've been doing it 20 years now on and off so it was an accident really but uh the thing that attracted me from the start was actually i thought for me for my character i had the best chance of achieving command which in my branch is what it's all about it's the only job worth doing at sea as far as i'm concerned the trade is all about taking submarines beneath the surface and that is about to happen depending on who you talk to this is the nerve center this is where the ship is controlled from in terms of its course depth and speed um this is where we fight the ship from this is where we navigate the ship from that bearing but for other people within the ship's company there are different control centers back aft in the maneuvering room as we as we call it the engineers sit goggle-eyed watching their gauges controlling the reactor and the secondary systems because actually we're steam driven so everybody has their station this is the control room yeah it's this is the nerve center it's where the brain lives that's me by the way block captain secure radar a sharp brain under pressure and sometimes a sense of humor but what else do you need to command a submarine you need to have a sort of confidence part of the reason it's worked for me is because i did an apprenticeship in the first eight years whereby i did all the jobs that the young executive officers of my branch do i did the casing officer the accounts the classified books uh the watch leading the navigating uh the sub specialization in the warfare disciplines so by the time i'd done the eight years um i was ready to do the command course the perisha i sort of changed if you like metamorphosized maybe a bit grand but that's where i suddenly discovered that yes i could do it so then apart from the arrogance and the fundamental ability which is no great shake so i actually got the last thing in place which is confidence and that's what the course gives you and then it's just experience and i've been doing it a long time also watch captain i have a submarine clear the bridge come below shut and clip the upper lid it does take confidence and experience to dive a 4 200 ton boat beneath the surface not all the crew has been on a dive before but chip controller for today is cox and paul kennel from gosport experienced as he is there is some worry i don't think it's uh nervousness is such it's just a little bit of apprehension probably on hoping that the dockyard have done all the jobs and tested all the valves correctly and everything's in the right place ship control really is is a thankless task of just getting all the checkoffs done within a time scale while the captain's at your back saying come on i want to dive in ten minutes and you've you've got to get on and just get through your check-off space you're quite busy you don't have time to worry about what might happen on debt crashing search of control right number one you ready ready make mega pike diving now five diving now diving now dive in now open three and four main venues hms superb has been inside the dockyard for three and a half years today the 125 officers and men will rely on the expertise of dockyard workers they've never met the aim will be to let the barrel come up as far as it as it can before we open one or two simply expressed that expertise has to be trusted to make sure that superb systems work if they do break the crew could be in serious trouble the boat could be underwater unable to surface let me know as soon as the bubble is steady it's creeping up it's not just a case of getting the angle of the dive right also vital is literally keeping an even keel the bubble is like a glorified spirit level which with no access to the horizon is used to correct any imbalance all the vents are now open to the sea and super b begins her first descent it's a time when everyone on board wonders what could happen if things go wrong well um this is the pointed end of the submarine um foreign escape platform this is where the ship's office is over in the corner and this is where we're supposed to escape from in the event of an accident sinking or any sort of problem like that the escape tower is over on the left there it's a one-man escape tower so only one person can escape at any one time and we're then supposed to flee around this area and into the tower and escape through the tower and that's supposed to fill up with water equals the pressure equalizes with the pressure outside of the submarine and then the lid opens the tower lid opens and we go i don't and whether that works i'm not going to try and test that one so but this is where we would escape from if we needed to escape no one wants to do it for real but training is everything it's in the case of such an emergency that submarine crews are put through the deep escape tank at hms dolphin in gosport all submariners have to go through it [Music] every four and a half years we go to dolphin to do the uh escape tank re-qualification that's the hundred full tanks three meter tank that we have to train in every four and a half years and they build your confidence up to say that this is how you would escape but whether you would i don't know [Music] it's not a thing any of us would wish to do another of superb's crew petty officer doc mcgonigle went through his emergency training at gosport and he got the benz a potentially lethal condition i've only done it in the water once and i for what for some reason nobody's quite sure i suffered um from the bends when i did the tank and spent i had to spend um eight hours in a recompression chamber on compressed oxygen and the stuff it was and that my then time in hospital said they don't let they don't allow me to do it anymore i just have to go and specialize in a swimming pool instead of going in the water so we've got a dock that works on a submarine he's seasick it's got the bend do you like the sight of blood i don't mind actually yeah that's not too bad you get used to that the other things i can do i can deal with that but the sea sickness and that's a bit different on her way down for the first time it's up periscope the captain's eyes when the submarine is stalking its prey he's not happy with his lenses can we clean the periscope windows before we dive yes yes the dive is what makes the submarine so radically different to any other warship the bar is not coming down as fast as it ought put some water into into the boat trim it for us it defies all the laws that govern surface ships or skimmers in submarine parlance level bubble 10.4 meters shut between four main vents it purposely sets out to sink itself by replacing air in its tanks with sea water it's not the speedy process you see in films it can take 10 minutes to dive on this first dive for the crew it's going to be a long 10 minutes slowly gently superb slides beneath the surface six down 30 meters back to 17 and a half 30 meters back to 17 and a half six down stop trimming have control of the bubble plans we have control of the bubble circle 14 and a half meters submarine passing 16 meters before all hatches fall forward it's a first tentative dip beneath the surface just down to 30 meters and then back up again to periscope depth nothing too strenuous but despite the massive 200 million pound refit she is a middle-aged lady of the sea at 25 years old she has to be treated with care and respect or she might bite back and nobody on board wants that effect system seems to be uh passing some sort of uh water size quickly through the checklist all seems nominal the old girl has passed her first test even a drip of water where it shouldn't be is dismissed what we thought was a leak through there is no longer a leak and a boat is in fact tight number one a tight dry boat it's all that could be hoped for reggie perrin admits there's relief we might not have shown it but there was because she's just been in drydock for three years and everything's been put back together again is it in the leak especially under pressure it's not nice every single creek that comes up what was that commander humphreys is going to rely on information below the surface from regis station in the sonar room controller new passive contact on a bearing of two one zero okay when the submarines dived us and here do become the eyes and ears of the submarine if you can imagine you're listening to an orchestra that is what we're doing at the front here we're listening to a whole orchestra here which is what your ears are listening to now if you can appreciate the ear can't hear everything so we've got special equipment in here which is tuned to different frequencies to listen to things that the ear can't hear so um that's why i mentioned the orchestra if you've got the whole orchestra playing that's what we listen to at the front which is a whole lot of noise coming in and we separate that into little bits and then if we want to listen to one particular part of that orchestra say um the flute section i have other sonar equipment within this sound room we will listen to just a flute section of that orchestra at the moment we're listening to the whole picture now we're listening mainly to there's where's one just went off then seismic explosions is what that is that's a survey vessel is out surveying the ocean bed the operator now is just trained onto a fishing vessel which should listen carefully you can hear the beat of the propeller going around and the actual noise of the diesel engine now if i wanted to i could separate that engine noise from the propeller noise and work out what speed that engine's doing whether it's a two-stroke or four-stroke engine and also how many pistons it's got and when it comes to hunting for another submarine that's a whole different ball game that's when we've got to bring in our other sonar systems we've got in here to look for that particular one noise in the water amongst all the whole noise all together it's like looking for a needle in a haystack when you're looking for a submarine but we have the capability as they say reggie has a whole ocean to listen to but the one person he can't listen to is his wife gail and find out her problems on a submarine there is absolutely no way that we can contact our family to find out if anything is wrong which is always on the back of your mind especially when you come back in again you it's always dreading so back in mind if you get called up to the captain's cabin what is it about it could be bad news derriford hospital in plymouth gail is visiting for another appointment cancer runs in her family it claimed the life of her grandmother and mother she has to be closely monitored it's a situation she has to bear alone without reggie's support when he's at sea six nine classified one shaft four blades two six nine two six nine rpm [Music] reggie knows about the visit but there's little he can do it doesn't like i'm not they'll know that though she has to go that's the time when i'd like to be with her would you like to come and lie up on the couch keep your bag on the chair there first of all second new contact me bearing a two four five cup michael perrin at nearly two has to become the man of the house submariner's children grow up fast then your contacts gained during the alteration found one clearing in the bow arcs i had to have a scan and then also had to have an internal scan just to check that everything was okay with my ovaries and also i have to have a blood test but i didn't have to have that done today and what happens is that happens once a year just to check that everything is all right and they just told me everything's fine for another year over 500 miles away below the waters of loch goyle super b is also looking for a clean bill of health she has proved she can dive but she is designed for stealth and that means she has to run silent and run deep [Music] the next test is known as being on the wires superb will spend days running up her systems and trying to stay invisible to a shore based listening station this is where the stealth element of a hunter killer comes into play i can see you but you can't see me at the end of this period superb will be capable of silent running now the crew has got to get used to living on her and whether it's days weeks or months how do submariners cope with close confinement people say to me how could you possibly be cooped up in that black tube for so long the answer is none of us are special we just do things the right way and it works the submarine's crew is split up according to specialization and about just over a third work back aft they are marine engineers they of course live forward we don't consign them to this to some horrible build to live much as i'd like to some cases they keep the nuclear plant and the second comparison systems going they deal with defects on the rest of it howie kelly is a nuclear engineer dealing with the reactor we've just come through uh 58 bulkhead the uh forward airlock snows the florida has brought us into the tunnel where we are now and this is basically the passageway that connects forward and aft on the submarine below us is the the rc or the erector compartment where the reactor is housed and the steam generators that's an unmanned compartment at sea and then through the bulkhead afterwards through another air lock that's the engine room and all the electrical generation and diesel um where the steam that's generated in the rc goes through to drive the engines and generate electricity how much is generated is frankly awesome we generate enough power with the nuclear plants to support the electrical load of a small town there are only 125 of us but we exist we live we have a laundry we have a canteen we all eat very well um we work play and rest in the same space so we have the domestic arrangements uh and our work environment all on hand so yes we are our microcosm if you like uh let's switch to a fish now if you look this is a barracuda we're half teeth and half engine the boat is laid out so the after half is nuclear plant and steam propulsion a lot of power pushing us along and the front end where we live work and most importantly fight it's time to find out if this barracuda has real teeth this is a spearfish the latest weapon in a submarine's armory they cost a lot but you get a lot in return the torpedo can strike a target well over the horizon although its speed remains classified it's generally thought it can travel faster than the legal limit on any british road [Music] at the high cost of each fish it's prudent to test with dummies classified submarine target that is bang in the middle of two ui intercept alpha that's the first hit in his own inimitable style commander humphreys confirms their successful large pool of run smoke bodies diving in the water shark circling ship control speaking hms superb has just launched her first weapon the run [Music] superb can dive run silent and fight but to what standards it's no good doing all those things badly enough to endanger the boat and its crew this is where captain submarine see in short training enters the fray the sea riders when a submarine has been built or refitted or goes to sea for the first time after a long period alongside then see training staff suddenly see training staff go to see with their submarine to help the captain train up his crew to deal with emergencies which might confront them at sea fires or floods and so forth trials of the submarine has done up until now have been limited to shallow water the next phase of her trials is to take her into deep water so over the next five days we will be giving the submarine a series of single evolutions simulating them by smoke for fires and releasing air for hp airbus and some compulsion failures as well and we'll be checking that they can cope with those emergencies and keep their submarines safe five days 120 hours of intense pressure there is a lot at stake not least the reputation of commander humphries and his crew at the end of five days the csst team will clear the submarine uh to go into deepwater to finish its trials it's a pass or fail criteria if they fail then we just continue training and they'll not be given clearance to continue [Music] in next week's submarine the sea riders test the crew and then test again there's problems at home but no one has time to dwell on those the examination will be something the crew will never forget and it could turn out to be a nightmare

Channel: Our Stories

Views: 268,929

Keywords: Our Stories, Documentary, Observational Documentary, Real Stories, Full Episode, Full Length Episodes, Full Documentary, Fly On The Wall, Yearbook, Real Life, Documentaries, Real Lives, Behind The Scenes, submarine, royal navy submarine, nuclear submarine, life on a submarine, hms, hms superb, royal navy documentary, navy documentary, british navy, submarine documentary, submariner, life in the navy, navy training, royal navy training

Id: KXV6gySP5YM

Length: 22min 51sec (1371 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 25 2022