You rode nukes? Underwater? And you didn't tell us??

Did you, like, wear a 10 gallon hat and yell out yeeeehaaaaaaw?

I don't mean to upstage dakkon, but your's truly also had those bad boys beneath my butt in the 1970s in our CF-101B Interceptors - no 'yeeeehaaaaaaws' though - deadly serious stuff!

Given the onerous procedures & security measures around these nuclear rockets, they were a complete PITA with which to operate - very stressful. Give me a conventional Gattling Gun any day, ha!

Here is a pic of the F-101B Voodoo in USAF colours with the little darlings rotated on their bomb bay door, exposed & ready for firing (Russian Bombers were the prey):

http://www.boeing.com/history/mdc/genie.html

CF-101B in Canuck colours:

http://www.canadianwings.com/Aircraft/aircraftDetail.php?VOODOO-36

TAM

Why on earth would you have an air to air nuke?! Talk about overkill!

I had no idea that an air to air nuke was ever made. I understand the advantage of something that makes a very, very big boom on the ground, but what is the value of an air to air nuke?

You beat me to it Ken.

The only thing I can think of is firing it into a squadron in tight formation that doesn't see it coming.

Ask the USAF - it came out of their devious minds, ha!

The missile had no tracking ability. It was launched straight ahead in front of the target (like leading a duck) & it detonated quite soon later, taking out the intended target & hopefully not incinerating us too. There was an elaborate escape manoeuver to try to avoid self destruction.

Thankfully none of these were ever used...

TAM

Wow. What an incredibly bad idea.

I'll say.

The 'bad' idea was around for 30 years; however, that was the technology of the times. In fact we had only vacuum tube computers in the aircraft, so its computing power was pretty weak.

Remember in the Cold War, fleets of Russian Bombers had a myriad of their own nukes on board targeted at your home & mine.

Any method to stop as many as we could was used, including this one...

OK, I'll revise that to scary idea! Thank god we are mostly past that stuff.

Don’t assume anything Fred, we practice for it all the time.

I didn't "ride" nukes.. I operated a Nuclear power plant.... I was on a fast attack submarine, the USS GREENVILLE 772... One of the few U.S. submarine's to sink a ship since world war II... google it.....

Ever see "The Simpsons"? well, that cartoon was based off of what i did in the Navy, no joke... Sit at a pannel for 6 hours at a time and hope like hell none of the meters moved.... well, not "that" stressful, but if certain meters did move, bad things could happen fast, chernobyl, 3 mile island.....

I can't really say much about "where" we went... The one thing i can say is that i have been to the north pole... We were going to surface, but a stupid door that protects some of the sensors on the bridge messed up, and we couldn't punch through without causing like 10,000,000$ worth of damage... so, that part was a no go....

I was a "throttle man" for a while basically i controlled the throttles, hence the name ... being in control of 35,000 hp is kind of cool.... that number is from wikipedia, so take it for what you will... The torque number is classified... let's just say you could tell you were in charge of an A$$ Load of power, and leave it at that.. That was probably most fun part of the job...

bzzzt crackle... "This is the captain speaking. Throttle dude. Step on it!"
.
.
.
Yeeeeeeehaaaaaw!

Sounds like a mostly boring job sprinkled with some big exitement.

Das Boot is supposed to be a very realistic depiction of what it was like to be on a WW2 u-boat. Not my idea of fun.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUcxtttoKiI

There are 4 parts...

Cool... until now I don't think I even knew anyone who had *heard* of the Genie...


My understanding is that it compensated for the relatively new and unreliable missile guidance systems of the time.

"Dude, you missed him by half a mile... he almost got away !"


Did this get discussed during training, or just the "you'll be safer if you're far far away when it goes off" line ?

EDIT... just noticed the CF-101 page included the Genie under "armaments"... we didn't use Genies in Canada, did we ? Or does that just mean it *could* carry Genies if desired ?

Wow, I bet they sounded really great!

Ref the Genies in Canada - when asked, the standard reply was 'We are unable to confirm nor deny...'

We never actually fired any except on a weapons range. These were time-expired rockets with no warheads.

I may have mislabeled them previously - these were unguided rockets, not missiles. We carried 2 heat seeking missiles as well that were fired only as a pair because they were so unreliable in actually hitting a target. So, in all we had 3 separate shots.

A lot of this may seem ridiculous now, but this was longstanding deadly & serious business up until the fall of the USSR. There was a lot of paranoia on both sides back then. You had to be there I guess...

Anyway, it was great that young guys like me had the opportunity to strap on to your a$$ something like the mighty Voodoo to fend off the Hun that thankfully never came.

TAM

That's pretty cool. A buddy of mine did the exact same thing on another attack sub, the name escapes me. He saw some action in the first gulf war that he couldn't tell me about.

Just to clarify - no CF-101 ever even turned over an engine with a rocket on board unless it was an unarmed time expired unit. It was strictly prohibited & rigidly enforced (with deadly force if required) so there was never any danger of an unforeseen circumstance.

In training exercises on the ground we never knew whether or not there was anything on board, at our airfield, or even within our borders. No one ever knew for sure & they certainly weren't about to tell us. It might have been a big ruse for all I know. It was best to keep it that way I guess, but we had to play the game with all seriousness in case that real conflict did arise.

Anyway, the madness of the Cold War seemed to work as we're all still here...

TAM

Extremely interesting stuff. Thanks for sharing and keep it coming.

Murph. As you wrote in another thread. Everybody's got some interesting stories.

Unfortunately some of the best stories that some of us have, we are unable to share....

Is that a dare?!

depends on how you take it... Many of my best stories, i can only share with people who were there with me...


lets just say, the purpose of a fast attack submarine is to kill other submarines, as well as surface ships.. Also, they are stealth machines read into that what you will....


One story that i can share was when we were going to Hong Kong. We were with a battle group, a carrier and several other surface ships... Well, we were infront of the battle group, and had to surface prior to pulling into HK.. Evidently when we surfaced, some of the people on the bridge of the cruiser we surfaced infront of were not use to a submarine "appearing" infront of them... The word that we heard, was that some people on the bridge of the cruiser was "WHAT THE F*CK IS THAT???"... To which they were told, "that's our submarine"... Evidently many people didn't even know we were part of the battle group....

The cruiser was even out of the same home port as we were, and had moored across the harbor from us many times!! When we were in HK, we moored next to the cursor above, we got electricity from them... The story above was recounted to quite a few of us, so i am going to guess it was true....

Reminds me of one of my favorite Navy jokes/tall tales/urban legends:

---

This is the transcript of the ACTUAL radio
conversation of a U.S. naval ship with the Canadian
authorities off the coast of Newfoundland October
1995. Radio conversation released by the Chief of
Naval Operations, 10-10-95.

Canadians:
Please divert your course 15 degrees to the South
to avoid a collision.

Americans:
Recommend you divert your course 15 degrees to the
North.

Canadians:
Negative. You will have to divert your course 15
degrees to the South to avoid a collision.

Americans:
This is the Captain of a US Navy ship. I say again,
divert YOUR course.

Canadians:
No. I say again, you divert YOUR course.

Americans:
THIS IS THE AIRCRAFT CARRIER USS LINCOLN. THE
SECOND LARGEST SHIP IN THE UNITED STATES ATLANTIC
FLEET. WE ARE ACCOMPANIED BY THREE DESTROYERS, THREE
CRUISERS AND NUMEROUS SUPPORT VESSELS. I DEMAND THAT
YOU CHANGE YOUR COURSE 15 DEGREES NORTH, I SAY
AGAIN,THAT'S ONE FIVE DEGREES NORTH, OR COUNTER
MEASURES WILL BE UNDERTAKEN TO ENSURE THE SAFETY OF
THIS SHIP.

Canadians:
We are a lighthouse, your call.

S'good thing for that lighthouse that it wasn't an Italian ship.

Yeah, that's a tall tale.

Only when Peter, Ray, or I tell it.

Marfan Mythology?