Attack of the Seawolf

The switch Murphy had operated had done an emergency shutdown of the nuclear reactor, which until that moment had provided steam for the four huge turbines that powered the ship’s screw and electrical grid. The turbines aft of maneuvering, so loud before, like jet engines screaming mere feet away, spun down, their steam gone. As they came to a stop they howled mournfully, their cry deeper in pitch as the rotors slowed, until the room grew eerily quiet.

The lights overhead flickered as the battery picked up the ship’s loads. The fans wound down to a stop, the air-conditioning shut down, and the compartment’s temperature almost instantly climbed twenty degrees at a hundred percent humidity. Murphy broke into a sweat, his face and hands and body soaked — the room had become a sauna.

The Circuit One PA. system crackled through the unnaturally quiet space.

“REACTOR SCRAM. RIG SHIP FOR REDUCED ELECTRICAL.”

The deck tilted up, barely perceptible at first, then becoming as steep as a stairway. Like a scuba diver whose air is suddenly cut off, the ship was no longer able to survive deep and had to fight to get to the surface.

Murphy walked aft to look into the maneuvering room to see how the Engineering Officer of the Watch was handling the frantic actions required during a reactor scram. As Murphy leaned over the chain at the door of the cubicle the reply of the control room came over the overhead speaker above the EOOW’s head.

“REACTOR SCRAM, MANEUVERING, CONN AYE.”

The Circuit One speakers again boomed through the space, this time the voice of the Officer of the Deck up forward.

“PREPARE TO SNORKEL.”

Murphy waved at Vaughn, who was now in maneuvering watching Lieutenant Roger Sutherland, the EOOW, trying to control the reactor and steam plants as the men tried to troubleshoot the drill’s simulated problem. As the deck became steeper. Murphy pointed forward, and Vaughn nodded, returning his attention to the reactor-control panel. The panel blinked with alarm lights, showing the failing health of the suddenly paralyzed reactor core.

Murphy walked forward through the reactor compartment shielded tunnel and through the massive watertight hatch to the forward compartment. As he made his way down the narrow passageway the angle came off the deck, the ship leveling out. In the control room the Officer of the Deck was on a phone waiting impatiently. A speaker over the periscope stand crackled as maneuvering reported, “PROPULSION SHIFTED TO EMERGENCY PROPULSION MOTOR.”

The control room was the nerve center of the ship, controlling its speed and depth, the deployment of its weapons and sensors. A visitor to the room would find it ugly, cramped, but to Murphy it was more comfortable than his den at home. It gave Murphy the same familiar feeling that a pilot has for his cockpit, a driver for his steering wheel, a preacher for his pulpit. It was where the captain of a submarine belonged.

For just a moment Murphy let his eyes take in the room. It was about twenty-five feet long by thirty feet wide, its center dominated by the periscope stand, the conn, an oval-shaped elevated platform, the long axis of the oval going from port to starboard. The platform surrounded the twin periscope wells and gave the conning officer a view of the entire room. The hightech type-20 periscope was on the port side, the World War II-era backup scope was on the starboard side. The conn platform was surrounded by brushed stainless steel handrails on the forward end, allowing the conning officer to hold on and look majestically down on the deck of the control room below. Nestled into the crowded overhead above the periscope stand were the UWT underwater telephone console and the NESTOR UHF secure voice radio panel. The room was arched overhead since it was on the uppermost deck beneath the sail, the curve of the cylindrical hull’s steel hoop frames forming an arch ten feet tall at the centerline. But the room still seemed cramped from all the pipes, valves, cables and equipment cabinets set below the frames. A tall man would have to duck to avoid cracking his skull on a protruding valve or pipe.

On the forward port side of the room was the ship control console, a station that looked like the cockpit of a large aircraft, complete with two pilots’ seats on either side of a central console, each panel with a control yoke, and a supervisor’s seat behind the console.

The men controlling the yokes were the helmsman/bowplanesman, who controlled the ship’s course and depth, and the stemplanesman, who controlled the ship’s angle. The aft seat was for the Diving Officer, a chief petty officer who was responsible for ship’s depth. To port of the ship control station was the wraparound ballast control panel, a complex console of lights and switches and television screens.

On the starboard side of the control room, starting at the forward starboard bulkhead and wrapping around aft, was the attack center, a group of firecontrol consoles and seats for the officers manning them.