Jump to content

women to begin serving on USN subs


Ivanhoe

Recommended Posts

http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2010/10/22/women-to-begin-serving-on-u-s-submarines/

 

Women will begin serving on four U.S. submarines in December 2011, the U.S. Navy announced Thursday.

 

Twenty-four are in training to be the first women to serve aboard U.S. submarines, the Navy's Submarine Group 10 said in a statement. The subs on which they will deploy are the USS Wyoming and USS Georgia, both homeported in Kings Bay, Georgia, and the USS Ohio and USS Maine, homeported in Bangor, Washington.

 

The Navy said it will not identify the women until they have completed their submarine training. The 24, chosen from graduates of the U.S. Naval Academy, ROTC programs and Officer Candidate School, began their training in July, the military said.

 

All officers, it seems. I guess the bubbleheads will have to start leaving the seat down. :D

Link to comment
Share on other sites

http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2010/10/22/women-to-begin-serving-on-u-s-submarines/

 

 

 

All officers, it seems. I guess the bubbleheads will have to start leaving the seat down.

They are doing it the right way, placing officers, then CPOs then sailors in that order. The SSBNs are so huge, it will not pose anything different from the surface USN, I'd wager. The SSNs -- also pretty large these days -- maybe a bit tight for privacy, but so are the troop showers for the landlubbers.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

IIRC the RN doesn't* put women on it's subs for health reasons, presumably pregnancy risks. Is the RN overly cautious then?

 

* The paragraph on it does seem to have vanished from the RN website.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

* The paragraph on it does seem to have vanished from the RN website.

 

http://www.royalnavy.mod.uk/operations-and-support/submarine-service/submarine-faqs/more-submarine-faqs/

 

Q. Why are women not permitted to serve on submarines?

 

Service in submarines is closed to women because of medical concerns for the safety of the foetus and hence its mother. This restriction is purely medical and does not relate to combat effectiveness. The potential risks to the foetus do not arise from hazardous radiation, but from contaminants in the submarine's atmosphere.

 

The Institute of Naval Medicine (INM) reviewed the exclusion in 1999, as did subsequently both the Defence Scientific Advisory Council and Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. Their outcomes supported the conclusions of the INM report, that the exclusion was justified.

 

But I do seem to recall reading recently that the line was softening and we are following the USN's lead. ;)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

IIRC the RN doesn't* put women on it's subs for health reasons, presumably pregnancy risks. Is the RN overly cautious then?

 

* The paragraph on it does seem to have vanished from the RN website.

 

Considering the pregnancy rate on US warships underway, they're wise to do so.

 

Granddad (4 combat patrols, USS Gato) is spinning like a top in his grave.

 

But then, considering what we heard from his nurses, the women would be kept off his boat to protect them...

Edited by Jim Martin
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Didn't the USN command ship in the Gulf get that nickname? It was converted from a cruise ship and a relatively high percentage of its female crew ended up up the duff.

LPD=cruise ship??; well, in a matter of speaking.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

LPD=cruise ship??; well, in a matter of speaking.

 

It was USS Acadia - a repair ship:

 

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,972913,00.html

 

The Acadia was sunk as a target in an exercise last month:

 

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Acadia_%28AD-42%29

Edited by Chris Werb
Link to comment
Share on other sites

It was USS Acadia - a repair ship:

 

....

 

OK, shows how far behind the times I remain; USS Coronado was MidEast Cmd ship for only a short period.. But a repair ship is a tender, no cruise ship, unless you refer to the precentage of women sailors and resulting pregnancies?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just wait til a boomer on a 6 month cruise has to divert back to port because some chippy got herself knocked up (by whom, anyone's guess--and I mean that, considering what goes on), and develops pregnancy complications 4 months in. <_<

Edited by Jim Martin
Link to comment
Share on other sites

She would be evacuated from the ship just as any 40 year old, moustachioed chief having a heart attack or any petty with appendicitis would.

 

I thought USN SSNs and SSBNs had a MD onboard -with his appendix removed- for those circumstances.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just wait til a boomer on a 6 month cruise has to divert back to port because some chippy got herself knocked up (by whom, anyone's guess--and I mean that, considering what goes on), and develops pregnancy complications 4 months in. <_<

 

It's no secret to anybody . . . men and women soldiers, sailors, airmen etc. living in close proximity for durations of time WILL result in sexual relationships and possibly will result in pregnancies. It cannot be avoided. It is only natural for that to happen. And what is th edefinition of "durations of time?" I figure any mixed-sex unit being deployed for at least one month will result in such. I've seen it happen. People get lonely, people get horny, etc. after a short while without relief.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Not sure, but the book "Big Red" by Doug Waller (1999 - Non Fiction) of an SSBN cruise has one of the sonarmen coming down with a fully ruptured appendix and the only solution was for the corpsman to pump him full of anti-biotics until he could be evac'ed.

 

Either way the point remains - She would be evac'ed just as any other sailor or officer would be.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Subs do not carry docs, just corpsmen, soon maybe corpswomen who can thus do their own procedures....

 

The Gates Commission that set up the all-volunteer forces ending the draft in 1973 forecast a need for a 10-12% women force ratio. No reason that subs can't be part of this. Tank crewmen, that's something else....

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Subs do not carry docs, just corpsmen, soon maybe corpswomen who can thus do their own procedures....

 

The Gates Commission that set up the all-volunteer forces ending the draft in 1973 forecast a need for a 10-12% women force ratio. No reason that subs can't be part of this. Tank crewmen, that's something else....

 

Tank crewmen based at an FOB alongside lots of nurses and female admin types etc., that's something else, too. ;)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Not sure, but the book "Big Red" by Doug Waller (1999 - Non Fiction) of an SSBN cruise has one of the sonarmen coming down with a fully ruptured appendix and the only solution was for the corpsman to pump him full of anti-biotics until he could be evac'ed.

 

Either way the point remains - She would be evac'ed just as any other sailor or officer would be.

 

Yeah, except that women have this nasty little habit of getting themselves knocked up intentionally to get out of cruises and long deployments. Oh, I'm casting aspersions? I'll tell that to my ex-gf, Army Captain currently deployed to Iraq, who's absolutely disgusted with the orgiastic idiocy going on around her. She's by no means a prude (believe you me, she's not a prude)--but she's a professional.

 

Boomers aren't supposed to be giving up their positions in the middle of a cruise. Solution: make getting knocked up while underway an Art 15 or Summary Court offense. Gonna happen? Never, the Navy would be called jackbooted thugs by the usual suspects.

Edited by Jim Martin
Link to comment
Share on other sites

According to my son there are warning signs at the tank garages/repair shops (Camp Casey, Korea in particular) that pregnant women are not to go inside. I wonder how that is going to work on nuclear submarines if the women are assigned there?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...