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Comment by jedc | Hacker News Reader

Former US Navy submariner here. This article seems... overblown.

Now I was on fast-attack submarines (versus ballistic missile boats), but we regularly got email roughly every day when at sea. During certain operations, we would even regularly get an abridged NYTimes PDF news summary sent to us. And my grandmother died when I was underway on deployment - I got notified immediately. (Though obviously wasn't able to travel back.)

One important thing is that the IT admins on the boat had various scripts they'd run against all the email sent/received to help ensure that classified information didn't leak out, or troubling information (I think like family deaths?) leak in. But it never felt invasive.

Maybe the French Navy operates very differently than the American Navy, but... I call BS on this article.

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From what I've heard from people in the French navy, the submariners aboard the ballistic missile boats are nearly fully isolated from the rest of the world, as described in the article. But the French attack subs might be like you describe.

Key point - the variation only applies when a ballistic missile submarine is "on patrol". Which is definitely not the same period of time as when they're out at sea.

When a ballistic missile submarine is NOT on patrol they operate just like a fast-attack submarine.

The French ballistic submarines do work as described (but the attack submarines don't).

Nobody inside but the captain and the second in command know where they are.

Source : was in the French navy 2005-2007. I got to see them leave and enter through the straight near Brest. They do it surfaced as apparently the nuclear drive is hot enough to be detectable in the straight, so there is no point on doing it underwater. Take this last tidbit with a grain of salt because the sailor that told me was not a submariner himself.

Couple things - they're surfaced in the straight near Brest not because of the reactor, but because it's too shallow to operate. For example, US East-coast submarines have to transit for hours on the surface to get to the dive point because of the continental shelf. On the US West coast (Hawaii, San Diego), they can pretty much dive shortly after leaving port.

More people than the Commanding Officer and Executive Officer would know their position, though. Whoever is the French equivalent of Officer of the Deck and the on-duty navigator would need to know their position. But yeah, there are times/situations where the position of the boat is MUCH more closely held - and that may be all the time on French ballistic missile submarines.

Interesting related note about Brest (which I bet you know, but throwing it in for the benefit of the thread): in WW2, once our anti-submarine capability got up to speed, transiting the continental shelf to or from Brest was one of the most dangerous times for a u-boat. Diesel subs were really only mobile on the surface, and were easily spotted from the air. Over the shallow continental shelf there wasn’t enough depth to escape once spotted.

>More people than the Commanding Officer and Executive Officer would know their position, though. Whoever is the French equivalent of Officer of the Deck and the on-duty navigator would need to know their position

Was gonna say, how the fuck does your navigator work without knowing where he is?

I think it’s more attack boats operating very differently to bombers. Attack boats essentially operate like surface ships with tactical advantages. Bombers operate like minuteman silos with mechanical complications.

you recognize... I'm the one who spent years in the US Navy operating submarines?

Ballistic submarines operate entirely different than fast attack submarines. The article is consistent from my understanding of how UK and Russian ballistic submarines operate.

My experience was the total opposite of yours, as a former fast attack submariner. Don't know if things have gotten more strict or more lax, but my experience is now about 5 years outdated.

Things that didn't happen in "my reality" include the Ferguson race riots, San Bernadino shooting, the shooting at the heavy metal concert in France (?), the Mediterranean immigration crisis, and Trump becoming the Republican front runner. We were on pre-deployment work ups and then deployment. We were lucky to get a batch of sports scores.

I guess it depends on the mission and the command's digression.

Oh, yeah, that's a good point. My experience is also fairly old, but I vaguely remember picking up enough info during port visits, occasional NYTimes digests (when we had bandwidth to grab them), etc. that I didn't feel really out of touch. But given how much news happens every damn day lately, sailors definitely aren't getting that.

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