Posted by Don Murphy on September 18, 2014, 13:35:33
USS San Juan is the second ship to be named for the Puerto Rican city. Unlike the anti-aircraft cruiser of world war two, the modern USS San Juan's role is sea control. USS San Juan was one of the first of the Flight III Los Angeles Class attack submarines. Abandoning the American-centric design of fairwater (sail) planes, the newest version of the LA Class boats utilized the bow-plane design in use by other nation's submarines. The class went through two previous design changes and many lessons were learned.
The sail was strengthened to withstand under ice operations and improved scopes, SONAR sensors and weapons systems were added. The emphasis was on the new versions of Tomahawk that were hitting the fleet and changes to the proven BSY-2 system were made to enable the newest Los Angeles Class boats to have flawless weapon delivery capability. The newest batches retained the class's current speed and diving depth. New hull coatings gave the boats a stealth-like capabilty.
Funny enough, had I not been medically retired from the Navy, my orders were to the USS San Juan based out of sunny San Diego, California. I didn't put in for them, but as I didn't get the shore duty orders I wanted, I requested a "new construction" boat which is basically you sit in the dock all year (or however long it takes) and then ride the boat once it's built. By that time, three years or so have passed and it's time to start putting in for new orders and this time you can still get shore duty as "NEWCON" counts as "sea duty."
Our kit is the ARII Los Angeles Class sub kit but I used the parts to make her a Flight III boat. Your basic run down is: Flight 1 - basic. Flight 2 - basic but with vertical launch tubes. Flight 3 - vertical launch tubes and no sail planes. The kit builds pretty darn quickly as you can imagine.
Interesting (and courageous) revelation about gaming the assignments-system to avoid going to sea, in the Navy! But seriously, that does sound interesting: the satisfaction of working on getting a new boat started off right - capped with a Joy Ride or two, on your new creation. (Just so long as nobody f-ed up, like on Thresher, I suppose.)
You found a way to make a post of a waterlined ARII 700-scale 688 boat - without even sail planes - interesting, buddy! (Of course, I do as always still prefer to see those USN/Cold War sail planes...)
Was this build a commission for one of your prior colleagues, Don?
Cheers,
- Matty
Obviously having an English wife, I wanted orders to Navy London...
But you had to know somebody who knew somebody and I knew the YN there and I knew he was retiring so I put my orders in for that in four years. Because YN's didn't get SRB (selective reenlistment bonus) millions of them got out. So knowing I was probably next, they offered me San Juan.
As she was the first Flight 3 boat, we would have had to go back to sub school for a year to familiarize ourselves with bow-plane operation, different weapons systems, etc. Then, the crew would go to the ship yard to watch her built, ride the simulators and then basically just be available for all the PR stuff like breaking the bottle of champaign on the nose, commissioning ceremony, etc. The boat would then head San Diego for fleet acceptance trials as SD was the base with the most Flight II boats.
After making sure the gear worked, the boat would have been permanently based in SD. I'd have about a year left and most of that would be two month trial patrols here and there. Once the boat was fully integrated (fourth year end) I'd be transferring off and then the boat would slip into it's normal WESTPAC pattern (five to seven month patrols).
No, she wasn't a commission build. Just a normal member of my fleet.