D. Clayton Meadows' Of Ice and Steel.Com

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"OF ICE AND STEEL poses a thought-provoking cataclysmic undersea contest across a vivid fabric of space and time!"
--Joe Buff, author of SEAS OF CRISIS and STRAITS OF POWER

OF ICE AND STEEL

In the waste of the Arctic ice, a deadly relic lies, frozen and forgotten. When a new Russian revolution brings man kind to the very brink of oblivion, the sleeping relic is loosed on an already frightened world. Ships begin to disappear. The super powers accuse one another, as all nations, draw their battle lines. A nuclear devise is stolen, to be delivered to the most wanted and murderous terrorist in history. It is a time when only a spark is required to ignite a nuclear exchange. One man has the answer. Three men and three submarines must overcome mistrust, and their own demons to explain the unexplainable and deliver the world from a global holocaust.

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This is the second boat I was stationed on. USS DALLAS SSN 700. What a fine ship! I deployed three time on DALLAS. Our first meeting was in Agusta Bay Italy. I had been flown over to meet her. It was a very inspiring moment when I saw her surface no more than a half mile out.

BIG D was my "War Boat." This is the boat on which I participated in Desert Shield and later Desert Storm. We had completed our Mediterranean deployment and were on the way home. Then Desert Storm began. So we turned her around and headed back. The strange atmoshpere came over the boat as we headed back in. Everything we had trained for in the past was now for real. The days of drilling and endless watches all came together. We were ready for any tasking. Some of the crew who up until that time had never stepped foot in the torpedo room, now came down and silently looked at the torpedoes and missiles. I'll never forget one 'Nuke' who had always said the only purpose of a nuclear submarine was for him to make power. That attitude changed real fast, and he came to understand that his power plant was only there to get me within range

After we returned home from the war, we deployed North. Unfortunately I still am unable to comment on anything that occurred on that mission. But if I could ...! Being on DALLAS was unique just for her name. In our Wardroom we proudly displayed a football signed by all the Dallas Cowboy players. When Dallas played Buffalo in the Super Bowl we had ABC Sports down to shoot a commercial. They had us shoot one of the torpedo tubes, they then cut away to show a football flying through the air, then some Sailor on the USS BUFFALO would catch it. I never did see if they ran the thing or not.

DALLAS made famous by Mr. Clancy's book and movie seemed to draw well known folks. While I was on board we gave tours to the rock group STYX, Bob Uker, Stephen Spileberg, and a young boy named Kyle. I'll tell you more about Kyle in the up coming news letter.

In this picture you can see the DALLAS with a DSRV mounted over the after escape hatch. On the sail you can see the two BRA-34 Antennas and Number 2 periscope are raised. Dallas has two periscopes. Number One scope is an attack scope. They best way to describe that scope is it was the "John Wayne." Not a lot of bells and whistles on that scope, but it sure looked cool!

The most commonly used scope was NUMBER 2. This bad boy could do everything but make ice cream! Video, still 35mm, and of course digital pictures. Now I've heard tell that if you are in port next to a cruise ship, a periscope is a great source of entertainment if the people on the cruise ship leave their curtains open. Now that is just something I've heard mind you.

USS DALLAS SSN 700 is 360 feet long and displaces 6900 tons submerged. She has four 21 inch torpedo tubes that are angled off from the center line. She is capable of launching MK-48, and ADCAP torpedoes, Mines, UGM-84 HARPOON Missiles, as well as UGM-109 Tomahawk Cruise Missiles. Recently DALLAS has been used as a delivery vessel for special forces.

USS RAY SSN 653 at the North Pole. Look at the picture, came pretty close huh? The ice that day was pretty thin, about two feet thick. As you can see the fair water planes are in the "under ice" position. We were the first to surface that day. We were waiting on the USS ARCHERFISH, and USS HAWKBILL to come up near us. Actually this was the fourth time we had surfaced through the ice. Each time was an adventure on its own!

The first thing you do is find a nice thin place in the ice, (at least you hope its thin). Next you balance the boat so she remains level with no propulsion. Sounds easy? Try to balance a pencil on your finger while blindfolded and standing in front of a fan. When the boat is level, you slowly pump out water from the depth control tanks. Now if you go to fast, you will slam the ice and break something, or worse case the boat could roll under the ice, the reactor would scram, and you'd be in a very bad position. If you go too slow the boat will not enough force to punch through, which means you go back down and try again. Now if you have done it all right so far you have to make sure your sail hits the ice first. The bow or sonar dome is nothing more than fiberglass. Remember what ice did to the Titanic? She was made of steel. So you can imagine what the ice would do to fiberglass! Now if you are really having a bad day, your stern would rise. Very bad since the rudder, stern planes and screw are back there. You damage any one of those items and you cut your chances of ever seeing daylight way down.

So if you have done everything right, you strike the ice with the top of the sail. The impact causes cracks in the ice and the rest of the hull pushes through. But we're not done yet! Now your submarine is slightly unstable as it's ballast tanks are half full and half empty. you need to get the water out. On a 637 class like USS RAY there are three ways to do this. 1. Normal blow, 2. Emergency Blow, and 3. Low Pressure Blow. More about that later.

See Virginia I told you so! Yep, the big man himself met us up at the pole! I don't think we made much of an impression though. Our freezer and cold storage had gone out a week before. We were living off canned food, and those Reindeer looked mighty tasty!

A strange thing happened a month after this picture was taken. We found a very drunk Sailor that looked a lot like this Santa wandering a Scottish back road. Strange!

Here you see the USS ARCHERFISH in the fore ground, (Behind Santa), then USS RAY. Furthest from the camera is USS HAWKBILL. If you think Sailor superstitions went out with sails and cannons you are so wrong. USS HAWKBILL carried the hull number 666. That really interested us. We asked her crew if had affected the boat in anyway. One of her Torpedoman started to tell us a story about something that happened off Bermuda but was stopped by his Chief. I'll tell you some more salty sea stories in the up coming news letter.

About an hour after this picture was taken CBS news in a hired plane flew over to get some shots of this historic event. I wonder to this day how they edited out most of the crews names written in yellow snow.

A nice picture of USS ARCHERFISH after she had surfaced near us. In the foreground you get an idea of the thickness of the ice. Five days before ARCHERFISH had a bad experience. She had surfaced near one of the scientific ice camps run by some university. A snowmobile carrying two members of the ice camp were riding to meet the boat, when the ice shifted, and suddenly opened just as the snowmobile passed over. All they heard was a splash and a scream, and the ice closed back over them. There are a million ways to die in the ice.

As the Sturgeon Class submarines were phased out, the United States Navy had to find a new submarine able to surface through the ice. First generation 688 class boats did not have fair water planes that could rotate to the under ice position, nor did they have a reinforced sail top. After the Russian TYPHOON became operational it was necessary to have a boat that would have the speed of the 688, while at the same time be able to operate like the fading fleet of 637s. The answer was the Flight 3 version of the 688, or what is called the 688I. Now you had all the best in one boat. 12 Vertical Launch Missile tubes, 4 forward firing torpedo tubes, and reinforced sail, and the ability to lower the masts below the sail top. The fair water planes were moved to the bow, and a few other classified systems were added. So even as USS RAY, USS HAWKBILL, and USS ARCHERFISH are only memories, their legacy and mission carry on.

Here is an example of the improved 688 class. My last boat USS SPRINGFIELD SSN 761. She was a temperamental, high maintenance, complex boat and God I loved her! This was the boat that I came aboard as a new Chief Petty Officer. I had to now at least act grown up. In 1997 when I reported aboard this ship was state of the art. We did every mission you can think a submarine could do, and a few you would not even believe, but once again I can't discuss any details. But I will tell you that this wonderful ship is out there running silent, deep, and deadly.

It was also on this boat that I wrote the novel you have read or are hopefully about to read. It would be interesting to know if anyone has written their novel underwater?

She was tough to handle at periscope depth, due to the long after deck. If you are interested in 688I diving officer horror stories drop me and E-mail and I'll tell you all about it! I conducted two operations in Northern waters on this boat, and guess what? Can't tell you about them either. I will tell you that I visited. Germany, Norway, Spain, Italy Scotland, England, and most ports of call in the Caribbean while serving on this fantastic ship.

This crew and Commanding officers really made this a home away from home. We were and still are family. Only a submariner can understand that.

I think this picture was taken when we were conducting an Emergency Blow off of Puerto Rico. This is not how we usually surfaced the boat. The normal way to surface this class was to come to periscope depth, raise the snorkel mast, and use the low pressure blower to suck outside air and place it in the ballast tanks.

Here you go all you submarine trivia buffs. How much air keeps a 688I on the surface? Answer is 12 psi! That's all just 12 pounds of air holds the boat on the surface.

D. Clayton Meadows

Of Ice and Steel.Com

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