"Five, four, three, two, one, mark." "Clear." "Diving stations diving stations all compartments make your reports to DCHQ." "Swapping one and two main beds." "These men are about to be confined and isolated in a freezing cold pitch dark place that is in many ways more dangerous than outer space." "This is the world of the submarine." "Submarines can be small or massive." "Some are fast." "Others are agile." "Some can descend miles." "Others can go around the entire world underwater." "This is the biggest." "An undersea missile launching pad called a boomer." "It carries more destructive power than any other machine on the planet." "Destruction that is unleashed from here the missile control center." "Man battle station missiles." "Spin up all missiles." "The submarine can carry 24 missiles each armed with multiple nuclear warheads." "Man battle station missiles." "Spin up all missiles." "Con weapons." "Weapons system 1SQ for WRST." "Only the President can give the order to fire." "No individual on board can ever launch the missiles without that permission." "And each step in the firing sequence needs authorization and security clearance." "Initiate the firing order." "Initiate the firing order." "One." "Away." "The missile can hit a target 6,000 miles away." "The boomer carries more explosive energy than all the bombs that were dropped during World War Two." "The submarine's strength is its stealth." "It must hide from threats." "Any chance I can..." "There are no windows because the crew does not look for enemies they listen, the job of the sonar men." "Light travels poorly in water but sound travels well." "Each line represents a sound that is being tracked for course speed and range." "We are taking in any noise that's out in the ocean and listening to it but we're not actually transmitting any type of pulse or anything and looking for a return." "We use the characteristics of sound to detect, track and classify our contacts." "Vessels that are hundreds of miles away can be tracked and a warship distinguished from a cargo vessel just by the sound of its propellers." "Just keep an eye on those biologics there on the left." "Submariners share their world with what they call the biologics." "Every sound in the ocean speaks volumes." "Even the flow of water over the hull produces a unique sound signature so submarines are built to be quiet." "Propellers turn slowly to avoid making noisy bubbles." "Active sonar uses a pulse of sound energy that will bounce back from an underwater object." "Submariners can even avoid this by hiding under layers of water of different temperature and density." "Water density effects the speed of sound." "So much so that sonar pulses can be deflected when they hit a boundary layer." "The boomer has achieved its most critical task to remain concealed." "A boomer's mission begins." "From here on, its location and course will be top secret." "The crew will receive a few brief messages from home called "family grams"" "but they can't reply." "For the next three months they will be cut off from the outside world." "We make our own water." "We make our own air." "We have an unlimited gas supply so fuel's not a concern." "The only thing that we're limited by is by how much food we can carry." "We can easily go out to sea for a three month time frame so we have a, a large endurance that we can go out and and hide in the middle of the ocean and be undetectable for a long time period." "To make itself undetectable the ship must dive." "It's handled rather like an aquatic airplane." "A rudder moves the ship left or right." "It can also dive or climb by moving small wings called hydroplanes that will pitch the ship up or down once it is submerged." "Diving is a procedure as disciplined as an aircraft's preparation for takeoff" "Captain, sir, the ship is ready for dive." "Request permission to submerge the ship." "Submerge the ship." "Submerge the ship aye sir." "Periscopes are used more to keep a lookout on the surface than they will be when the ship is underwater." "She's a launch lowering number one scope... number one scope..." "Dive, submerge the ship." "Make your depth one, six, zero feet." "Submerge the ship one, six, zero feet Aye sir." "Cue the watch on the 1MC dive, dive." "Two blasts on the dive alarm dive, dive." "Dive, dive." "All vents open dive." "All vents open dive." "Tanks that were filled with air are now flooded with water to make the ship heavy enough to slip beneath the waves." "What looked like jets of steam is actually air being pushed out of the tanks by the pressure of water rushing in." "It takes 2,000 tons of water to take this ship weighing over 18,000 tons, under." "When the submariners want to surface compressed air will drive the water out of the tanks and the ship will be driven up." "Five four." "Five six." "Six two." "The process is controlled by the diving offiicer who calls out the increasing depth of the submarine." "Seven zero feet." "Check that side." "Once the submarine has reached its cruising depth its weight will be adjusted by moving water in or out of central trim tanks." "When the submarine's weight equals the weight of the water it is displacing the ship becomes practically weightless balanced at its center of gravity like a playground see-saw." "Trim tanks at the front and rear are linked so that water can be pumped back and forth to balance the shifting weights aboard the ship as people move about and food stores are eaten." "Water is constantly being moved between the trim tanks to balance the ship." "Nine five." "100 feet." "Catching the trim by pumping water back and forth is a continuous process when the ship is submerged." "One three zero." "Offiicer deck one six zero feet trim set, sir." "Request to set initial conditions..." "Beneath the submarine's outer hull is the water tight pressure hull the four story people tank that houses the crew." "The 24 missile tubes, each over 40 feet tall pierce the submarine." "Each tube holds a massive intercontinental missile weighing 65 tons." "The world of the submarine remains for the moment, an all male preserve." "The crewmen actually sleep in small rooms between the missile tubes with their deadly cargo." "There's very little space a man can call his own." "This is me." "All right Ray." "I'll talk to you later." "All right catch you later, bro." "The only private space you have on board is your rack where you sleep and could read a book or a family gram." "And underneath the bunk itself is what we call a bunk pan." "It's where you can keep your underwear socks, towels and civilian clothes." "I'd say the majority of our crew is between the ages of 20 to 28." "Probably with the main average right around 23, 24 at most." "It's a pretty young crew." "While one shift eats another is occupied with training or drills and still others tend to their duties on watch." "Even while crewmembers rest the ship itself never sleeps and the lights are always on." "There is a continual tempo of activity on board." "But even as the crew busy themselves with their chores they can never forget that they are there to serve the boomer's three basic duties." "To remain hidden to be able to receive the order to fire" "and to be ready to launch its lethal missiles if that order comes." "Passive avert." "Perform OCP logic tests." "The giant missiles and their launch systems are checked" "Continually to make sure they are always ready to go." "OMM at sea remote display lamp test." "One through 24." "If boomers cannot be detected they cannot be destroyed." "Any attack on the United States with a weapon of mass destruction means mass destruction for the attacker." "Launch." "The tubes that house the missiles are also monitored constantly." "Step one, inspect cooling chamber cyclast to verify water level is maintained at or above top full mark." "Understand." "It's above full mark." "Above full mark." "Step two..." "But just how do you launch a missile from a submarine?" "If the rocket motor is simply ignited as it would be on land the ship would explode." "Instead a small rocket motor heats a canister of water at the bottom of the missile tube." "The steam and exhaust gasses expand rapidly into the tube blowing the missile out of the ship and up to the surface of the sea." "When sensors on a missile detect it is slowing its rocket motor is fired." "Submarines are some of the most complex machines ever built." "So the crew never stops learning even when the ship is on a mission and underway." "Every young crewmember spends at least two hours each week studying for exams that test his knowledge of the ship." "Thousands of system drawings and millions of parts are required to build a boomer." "The crewman must know his own area of responsibility intimately." "The standards for crew training are extremely high." "The submarine branch takes the top two percent of the Navy's intake." "But when the very first submarine attack took place things were much less elaborate." "And surprisingly the idea of attacking a warship with a submarine is exactly as old as the United States." "This is the Turtle, built in 1776." "One man inside pedaled propellers that moved the craft back and forth up and down." "The plan was to come up underneath a British warship carrying a bomb drill a screw into its hull and leave the bomb hanging by a rope." "But it didn't work." "The hull was too tough." "The drill wouldn't go in and the man in the Turtle by now running out of air had to crack away." "Submarines clearly needed more power than human muscles alone could provide." "Powering a submarine underwater has always been the problem." "Most engines need air to work." "But batteries don't so for over a hundred years submarines have been powered by batteries while underwater like this tourist boat." "Tourists don't need to travel fast or far." "That's just as well, because batteries are heavy lack the power to move a boat fast and very quickly run out of energy." "The great advance came in 1900 with the Holland Boat." "A gasoline engine drove it on the surface." "When it dived it switched to battery power." "It wasn't very big though." "50 feet long it couldn't go any deeper than 75 feet." "And its crew of seven could only use it in sheltered waters." "Just 40 years later military submarines had grown into much bigger oceangoing craft." "Conning towers were built high to keep waves out of the hatches and help the crew see further." "They were soon covered with guns and walkways." "By 1945 submarines were more streamlined to slip easily through the water." "But submerged they still ran on batteries." "Surfaced and running on diesel this American submarine could travel at 25 miles per hour and cover 11,000 miles." "Submerged and on batteries it's top speed was 5 miles per hour with a range ofjust 95 miles." "It would only dive to hide or attack." "Submarines were still very effective in World War Two." "They accounted for under 2 percent of the U.S. Navy but they destroyed over half of the Japanese Merchant Fleet." "Once immediate danger was passed submarines would surface for a quick getaway." "They almost always traveled and often fought, above the water." "World War Two ended as the nuclear age began." "And in just under ten years a submarine was built that ran entirely on nuclear energy." "In 1954 the USS Nautilus was launched." "It would travel 60,000 miles before needing to refuel." "Its nuclear reactor did not need air to work just like a battery." "But there the similarity ended." "A nuclear reactor generates immense heat which is used to boil water." "The steam spins turbines generating a practically limitless supply of electricity that is used to extract pure water and oxygen from seawater for the crew while steam turbines drive the propeller." "A nuclear submarine has a huge endurance." "In the nuclear submarine you could go on for days, weeks, months at full or flank speed." "And the tactics of submarine torpedo attacks changed perceptively just because of the advantage of speed." "We could run faster." "We could attack faster." "We could get away faster." "While submerged, there was no way a conventional submarine could keep up with a surface ship but nuclear subs could outrun them and attack them." "And if we're successful we could dive deep and get away at high speed before the escorts for the target vessel were able to get back at us." "So we had the total advantage and that advantage still exists to this day." "The submarine had finally come of age but nuclear power produces radioactivity." "Ed Chiles, an engineer on the Nautilus recalls that the radiation produced by nuclear power worried the Navy." "It was closely monitored and they found out that after years of observation that if you went to one of our beaches during the summer months you would probably receive more radiation than you would for extended cruises onboard a nuclear submarine." "Nuclear submarines built after the Nautilus have developed in two distinct ways." "There are the boomers." "They carry ballistic missiles the nation's nuclear deterrent." "They are equipped with underwater torpedo weapons only to defend themselves." "They cruise at just five or six miles an hour and hide in the depths." "And there are the much smaller fast-attack, or hunter-killer boats." "Their torpedoes are there to attack not defend." "And they can move fast about 40 miles an hour." "They are now often driven by pump jets rather like underwaterjet engines." "If life on a boomer seems cramped life on one of these is like spending weeks in a closet." "It does not have the settled routine of a boomer either." "These men don't know how long they'll be at sea." "It could be days or months." "It depends on the mission." "Though the attack boat has about as many crew as a boomer the men have to get by in much less space." "This corridor in fact, is the largest area of free space on the boat." "When the shift changes the whole crew is on the move." "There are over a hundred crewmen and only eight toilets and five showers and not a lot of hot water." "On a nuclear sub hot water could be unlimited but water pumps are noisy and there might be other submarines out there listening." "So showers are very short." "That's about how long it's on for." "And deodorants are banned because they can interfere with the chemicals that remove carbon dioxide produced by breathing" "If it was just a question of technology the boat could stay submerged at sea indefinitely." "It has the air, the water and the power." "Food stores determine the length of the voyage." "The galley is open 24 hours a day to provide the four meals that are required for the ship's company." "The two, the two main shifts are the two day workers who do a full 12-hour shift from nine in the morning until nine at night." "Their main job is lunch and the evening meal and then the night shift comes on to carry on with the bread making the vegetable prep evening meal and also breakfast." "Because space is so limited fresh food runs out in about a week." "After that, crew morale often depends on the creativity of the cooks." "Ruby?" "Yes?" "Can you do us a chicken please?" "Certainly." "There is one fridge, one freezer and three storerooms." "At the start of the voyage they are all cram stored filled right up to the doors with the equivalent of a six-year supply for a family of four." "Every boat leaves port with enough food for 90 days at sea although if pushed enough can be packed in for 120 days." "At the moment we are carrying 116 people on board." "We can go with anything up to 130 feeding them four meals a day every single day." "Thank you." "Every six hours the shift changes and a new set of people become responsible for running the boat." "Hey Smudge." "Hello John." "These men are in charge of setting the plot making sure that the exact position of the boat is plotted and known second by second." "The tide is point four zero six three." "There is no tidal diamond." "And we're experiencing one point two knots at one three seven." "There can be no confusion about who is responsible for what." "Every activity and every responsibility is clearly marked and repeated." "Bridge plot." "Bridge." "Permission for leader to read out to take the plot." "Yes please." "Yes, please." "Roger." "Do you have navigation?" "Okay, I have navigation." "Pay attention in the control room." "We've assumed leader has the plot." "Thanks." "Actually I've just lost it." "Indeed." "Navigation in a world without windows must be clear and precise." "Submariners say they can find room for anything except a mistake." "So what does it all add up to?" "What is a fast-attack or hunter-killer for?" "And what makes it different from a boomer?" "A boomer submarine is by nature a very quiet and discreet submarine hiding in the depths of the ocean carrying out the vital role of submarine deterrence." "The SSN on the other hand the hunter-killer uses the same qualities of stealth but can be offensive if required deliberately looking for trouble if that's what the admiral requires." "Stop engine." "Read bi-log." "Roger five knots." "Speed by six." "He's on a southeasterly course." "Action stations, action stations." "Action stations for task group engagement." "All reports to DCHQ." "Going deep, going deep." "I think we're about to go underneath him." "He's about a thousand yards ahead." "Mast to zero one." "HMS Richmond." "Conduct a standard ASUW attack." "Slow left on one." "Once a target is spotted the submarine dives far below periscope deck deeper is safer, and tracks its target with sonar." "And flap valves." "Modern torpedoes are controlled from the submarine at first and once freed if they miss the target they will double back and search for it." "They can hit a ship over 20 miles away." "One and two two standard ACUW on track master zero one." "Stand." "Stand by to fire." "Master zero four." "Six hundred yards." "Ten seconds to discharge." "Ten seconds to discharge." "Fire." "Fire one." "Fire one tube." "File two tube." "Fire two tube." "Range 1,000 yards permission to carry on the attack." "Continue the attack." "Continue attack." "Climbing." "There are a few tiny chinks in the submarine's stealthy armor." "Hot spots are produced by the reactor the steam turbines and the water condensers that produce fresh water." "A large metal object can be pinpointed by tracking its magnetic field." "The surface of the sea bulges slightly as something weighing thousands of tons passes beneath." "A boat's wash can persist in the ocean for several hours." "Creating oxygen from seawater leads to surplus hydrogen being dumped overboard." "And waterproofing grease can leak from the propeller drive shaft." "Throughout the Cold War, Soviet and western submarines stalked each other gathering vital counter intelligence." "Modern submarines can travel faster submerged than on the surface because the high water pressure at depth gives the blades of the propeller or pump jet something dense to bite into making them more effiicient." "If the Cold War had ever turned hot the first job of the attack boats would have been to find, track and then destroy the boomers." "A submarine without power will soon drop to a depth where increasing pressure will crush it." "The oceans are typically three miles deep." "Military submarines are only strong enough to safely dive a few hundred feet." "Although the Cold War never turned hot nuclear submarines have gone to the bottom." "Since 1960 the Americans have lost two and the Russians seven." "This is the Russian." "42 men of a crew of 69 died when the ship caught fire and went down." "It is only possible to survive in a sunken submarine if it settles in relatively shallow water." "Then getting the men out will be the job of a special deep submergence vessel." "This underwater lifeboat is always standing by in San Diego." "It can rescue 24 crewmen on every trip." "A stranded submarine can alert rescuers by launching a distress beacon." "The mini sub can be quickly put on an airplane and then attached to a submarine to get to the wreck." "These mini subs aren't fast." "Instead, they are highly maneuverable." "Search sonar and cameras are used to find the exact location of the disabled submarine." "The mini sub can operate to a depth of 5,000 feet." "Another rescue sub, the Swedish URF is taken to the wreck scene by surface ship." "The wreck is located with active sonar then the clearly marked hatches pinpointed visually." "The URF hovers into position like an underwater helicopter." "It doesn't matter what country the disabled submarine belongs to." "Submersible lifeboats are designed to dock with any of them." "The URF can rescue 35 men at a time." "The air inside is pressurized because the atmosphere in a sunken submarine will have been squeezed by the force of water rushing in and the crew will have been breathing that compressed air." "The compression will have to be relieved slowly to prevent the bends a painful, possibly lethal, formation of bubbles of nitrogen in their bodies." "So when the submersible returns to the mother ship it docks with a special chamber." "Here the rescued men will be gradually depressurized." "Sometimes a crew cannot wait for rescue." "They must get out by themselves." "This is where they learn how." "Good morning gentlemen, welcome back to day two of your escape training." "Today you're gonna look at the tower escape and the use of the submarine escape suit." "If toxic gases start to fill the wreck or the survivors cannot stop water leaks they will need to escape fast." "They must learn not to do what comes naturally." "The first challenge is to deal with your own natural reactions." "It just is not natural to take a good deep breath put your head underwater and then blow all that air out." "It's far more likely, especially in the stressful event of escaping from the submarine for real that you will subconsciously want to hold your breath." "All of you should know now the consequences of such an action would be very dangerous." "Imagine this inflated plastic bag is a pair of lungs." "If a trainee holds his breath his lungs will burst because the air inside expands rapidly as the water pressure decreases during his ascent." "An experienced escape trainer knows he will never run out of breath because the air in his lungs expands rapidly as he heads up." "But an inexperienced submariner might panic, hold his breath and kill himself so an escape suit has been devised that locks him within his own personal air bubble." "But suits can tear and if that happens he must know what to do." "Okay, what I'm going to do is go through the five main points with you again." "When I do this, what does that mean?" "Pressure's about to begin." "What are you gonna do?" "I'm gonna blow in my ears." "The most important thing you're gonna do all the way through the run to the surface is what?" "Breathe normally." "If for some strange event this up with water what are you going to do?" "Blow out." "Same blow rhythm that you've been taught yesterday." "Any problems with your ears?" "No problems." "You okay?" "Okay." "Happy?" "Happy." "Okay." "Carry on." "Help you." "Have a good run." "As the trainee climbs into the airlock at the bottom of the hundred-foot tank he can reflect on the fact that nothing about this exercise is simulated." "Men have died doing it." "There is a hatch between the airlock and the bottom of the tank but that can't be opened until the pressure on both sides of it are the same." "To raise the pressure in the airlock water is pumped in." "Once the pressure is equalized the hatch is opened." "The trainee zooms to the surface like a cork." "The air in his suit inflating fast as he heads up." "Turn to your left." "Are you okay?" "Yes, yes." "Good." "Nice and steady there up the ladder." "All the way up, all the way down." "Nice and easy." "That's it." "Turn and face me." "That's it." "Head forward, head back." "Take your nose clip off." "Put your arms across your chest squeeze your..." "Even in such a suit, the submariner can only escape from a maximum depth of 600 feet." "That's a lot deeper than anyone can dive." "And up until the 1930's depths beyond the reach of diving helmets were part of the unknown." "Americans William BeBe and Otis Barton built an immensely strong diving bell to go exploring." "Before they first dived in it though they sent it down empty and some water leaked in through a porthole." "That small leak had pushed the bell's air into a tiny pocket." "When it returned to the surface the air expanded." "Undeterred, BeBe and Barton went ahead." "The bell had no external air supply." "They would depend on oxygen tanks and chemicals to absorb carbon dioxide." "They had replaced the glass in the tiny window with fused corks hoping that would solve the leakage problem." "They were sealed in." "The bell was suspended above the abyss by a single steel cable." "And when everything was ready they were winched down." "Their lives depended on the cable and an old crane engine." "And they made it with a record dive of 2200 feet." "They had seen creatures that had never been seen before and traveled to a world no humans had visited before." "Others would follow." "Auguste Pickard started as a balloonist." "He later adapted balloon principles when designing a submersible." "In the thin air of the stratosphere the problem was keeping air pressure in." "In the depths of the ocean it would be keeping water pressure out." "That meant building a bell for the crew strong enough to withstand seven tons per square inch." "Balloons use lighter than air gas to float." "Pickard's Triest was filled with a lighter than water liquid, gasoline." "It made the Triest float." "What would make it sink were metal weights." "They could be dumped just like balloon ballast and the craft could slowly rise." "The two crewmen, Pickard's son Jacques and the U.S. Navy's Don Walsh climbed into their tiny bell." "The Triest set off for the deepest part of the ocean seven miles down in the Pacific." "Plant Everest on that spot and there would still be a mile of water above the peak." "Pickard and Walsh made the journey in 1960 and nobody has been back." "By comparison, 12 men have walked safely on the moon." "Since then submersibles have been discovering things once thought impossible like life flourishing far from the sun's energy." "Instead, volcanoes provide heat and minerals that support whole ecosystems." "Deep in the darkness, miles from the surface of the sea marine life prospers." "Submarine designers have long copied the streamlined forms of sea creatures but until now the secrets behind their speed and maneuverability have remained out of reach." "The answer might lie in the movement of their tails." "The action of swishing back and forth somehow generating high power." "So scientists have built a submarine with a wiggly tail." "Our understanding of aero and hydro dynamics for decades has been focused on the steady problem you know, sort of like an airplane has steady wings and now we're interested in the unsteady movement." "The, the movement of a fish tail or the flapping of a bird's wings." "In, in the unsteady world you're able to do some things that before were not thought of as possible in terms of generating very high effiiciency and the ability to generate high propulsive forces." "To exploit these powerful forces the scientists have copied a yellow fin tuna." "The forward part of the body houses the computer that tells the robot fish where to go ballast for stability batteries to power it and a motor to drive the tail." "The tail is covered with a synthetic skin and plastic scales." "Underneath is the spine that wiggles it." "The result is a machine propelled by unsteady movement." "A robot that swims like a fish." "It combines the fast forward speed of a traditional submarine with very high maneuverability and can go places a traditional submarine cannot thanks to the tuna's wiggly tail." "Because of it, the robot can turn on a dime." "But traditional submarines will be with us for a long time yet." "They represent a huge dollar investment and not just in the submarines alone in their trained crews as well." "In fact, to maximize their operational time each individual ship has two complete crews." "Each boomer's three-month cruise is followed by a 35-day maintenance schedule." "They are well worth taking care of." "They cost one and a half billion dollars each." "Two billion dollars with missiles included so they're designed to last for 40 years." "The maintenance infrastructure is as grand as the ships." "Filled with sophisticated systems and technologies boomers are the size of a World War Two battleship." "But most of their bulk usually lies concealed like an iceberg beneath the water." "If one was ever placed on dry land it would dwarf a jumbo jet." "The Cold War effort to keep up with the immense cost of such weapons bankrupted the Soviet Union." "In 1990 there were over 400 submarines in the Soviet navy." "Today there are less than 80." "Abandoned submarine lie rotting in Russia's ports." "But Russia is the exception." "Submarine builders have a bright future." "45 countries operate them and over 400 are in service." "Over half of them are still powered by conventional engines." "They are much cheaper to build and run than a nuclear boat and they are still improving." "This Swedish submarine takes its engines air supply down with it as liquid oxygen, so it can run on diesel fuel while submerged." "It lacks the huge endurance of nuclear boats but it's still very effective around coastlines." "The shallow waters around coasts are where the small fast-attack submarines will increasingly find themselves as hot wars flare into life." "The deep-water duels of the Cold War are over." "Instead, fast-attack boats will have an increasing impact on land battles by allowing special forces to emerge from airlocks and make their way to shore." "And while remaining hidden under the sea the fast-attack submarines can also launch cruise missiles." "A Tomahawk can destroy land targets with deadly accuracy a thousand miles away." "Right 15 runners steady course." "One two zero." "But whatever the long term future for submarines in general the immediate future for this boomer's crew is land and home." "They've been out of touch for three months." "It's almost as if they've been through a time machine." "When we come back there's new movies and new TV shows and new songs on the radio." "It takes a bit of getting used to." "Not only that, when you come back for the last eight weeks you've been in a, in a 18 hour day so to speak, where, like six hours on watch 12 hours off." "And when you come back you have to transition back to a normal 24-hour day where you're sleeping at night and you're up during the day where there is no day or night underwater." "It's, it's always, people are always up and about and the lights are always on." "In just a hundred years submarines have taken on the roles of battleship landing craft, missile silo and even strategic bomber." "They have become the key to both preventing wars and to winning them."