The Black Seahawk's Roost

Recently, my ship has moored in the Russian port of Vladivostok.  Unlike the other port visits we have made, this is not for supplies or for liberty, but for political reasons.  You see, May 6th is Russia's WWII Victory Day, and it is a very solemn occasion for them.  Millions of people, both military and civilian, had died during Germany's siege on Russia.

On this port visit we are paying our respects to those fallen soldiers and civilians, as well as putting on events to draw closer ties to the Russian government and people.  I'm involved with the political events because I'm a food service attendant and a lot of thise events involve meals with our officers.  Just the other night we had consulate generals from the US, Russia, Japan, Korea, and India, along with a bunch of Russian sailors, over for an evening of wine, roasted pig (No kidding!  We had four whole rosted pigs and they all got decimated!), and conversation.

While I was performing my duties in clearing the leftout plates, cups, and bottles from the tables, a US Navy captain's wife was quite taken by my polite demeanor.  So much so that she called me over while speaking with our CO to tell him how pleased she was.  ^_^;;

I'm still tired from that night.  :-P  I may not be able to go out on liberty while we're here due to my responsibilities, but if I do I will be sure to pick up souvenirs and gifts.  Vladivostok seems to be a rather nice, if heavily industrialized, city.  The smog here rivals Los Angeles, but that might have something to do with the coal burning power plant off in the distance.  But don't get me started on how nasty the water is here.  And you would hardly believe the days here!  The sun comes up around 7 AM and set at around 9:30 PM!  Of course, summer's just around the corner here, and given how far north we are, it comes as no real surprise...  But it's something else to see it in action.

The other neat thing is being moored right next to Russian destroyers.  Right now, they don't seem to be in the best of repairs, but the one next to us has had some extensive paint work done to it.  If that is any indication then these ships, in their prime, must look absolutely magnificent.  My favorite design characteristic, though, is how the bow is raked so steeply forward, giving the ship an almost aerodynamic look.  I'll see if I can't snap some pictures for later.

Meanwhile, I need to take care of some other things.  I'm just glad that I got the time to make this post.

Being an FSA is tough work.  You hardly ever have time for yourself.  In fact, this is the first time I've been able to post on LJ since I started.  One week down, eleven to go.  :p  The next few weeks are gonna be extra tough.  Soon, we're gonna start field daying the holy hell out of all the gallies and messing areas of the ship.  It's for an inspection we'll be having a few days after we pull back into Yokosuka.  So, during that time don't even expect me to post here on LJ or even send email.  :p

As for right now, we’re anchored in Hong Kong, and boy, is it crowded in this harbor!  This place is as busy as they get, and to make the scenery even more interesting, there’s a suspension bridge they’re building nearby that is about halfway completed.  It’s really neat to see something like that with the two ends of the bridge reaching out to each other like that.  I’ll see if I can’t send pictures. 

On of the interesting things about Hong Kong is that they not only build upwards like they do in Japan, but they also sprawl!  And to make matters even more confusing, they tend to make their skyscrapers in a cookie-cutout fashion.  Entire avenues seem to have skyscrapers of identical design!  Makes it easy to get lost here. 

Right now, since I’m on my Food Service Attendant Duty, I gotta spend half my time working here on the ship.  But later on, the rest of the time we’re in Hong Kong I’ll be free to go with a liberty buddy.  So, once I get out there I'll be stocking up on souveneres and gifts.  ^_^

Catch you guys later.

Well, for the next three months I won't have anything of interest to post because today I started my FSA duty.  Every time you come to a new ship, you spend three months as a Food Service Attendant in one of the ship's messes.  In this case, they've decided that they want my charming persona in the Officer's Wardroom.

Yeek.

Heh, well not really yeek.  I just have to mind my P's and Q's, something I'm pretty good at anyways.  The thing that makes this suck is that this is all I am going to be doing - morning, noon, night, weekend, weekday.  You don't really get days off.

However, once you've put in your three months of FSA duty, then that's it.  You don't have to deal with it anymore until you go to a new ship.  :-p

At last!

My first time being in the gunmount when it was fired!  It wasn't easy or timely, though.  Thing about the gun is that when the breach is open for the breif moment when it is reloading, toxic fumes from the spent powder-charge can get back inside the gun mount.  So, we have a high-pressure air jet that shoves the gasses in the barrel out when the breach block opens.

Thing is, last night when we were loading our torpedoes (since we had performed airslugs before pulling into Sasebo, we had to keep the tubes empty until we pulled out again) we lost not one, but -both- high-pressure air compressors (HPAC's)!

Well, the following morning, whatever issue they had been having was fixed, but we weren't getting any HP Air at the gunmount.  Engineering department said it was our problem.  We said it was Engineering's problem.  Turned out the issue was in our department (Combat Systems) afterall, but in a different division.  The HP line that feeds our gunmount also feeds the forward Vertical Launch System.  Apparently there was a severe leak in the line just before the regulator that ruduces HP air to low-pressure air that the VLS's automatic sprinklers use.  Once that was isolated, we had air and we could go ahead with our shoot.  :D

We loaded five rounds of training ammunition we call Blind Loaded and Plugged, BL&P for short.  Don't ask me exactly what it means, but I'm pretty sure it's writen somewhere.  Essentially, it's a sand or cement filled round with a dummy fuse and it is painted blue.  Blue is pretty much the universal color-code of training munitions - if you ever happen to come accross some then you can assume that it is reasonably safe to handle as long as it isn't obviously damaged or worn.  With that in mind, be careful all the same.  While there may not be an explosives charge, what you're handling may still have a propelling charge (most notably missiles, torpedoes, and small arm munitions), and that will definitely have enough kick to do some serious damage.  Five inch training rounds for the Mk 45 Gun System are a notable exception because the propelling charges are a completely seperate component.  You could drop a BL&P round from the tallest building in the world and the only damage would be from the sheer kinetic force transfered at impact.

Okay, enough with the lessons on Stuff That Goes Boom.  If you want more, you're gonna have to ask.  ;-)  I'll tell you about anything that isn't classified.

Once we loaded the five rounds, we turned control over to the Fire Control technicians.  We may maintain the Gunmount, and we can certainly fire from the loader-room in the gunmount, but only the FC's can provide the computer-calculated radar-fixes that can give the Mk 45 Gun System the deadly accuracy it is capable of.  Thus, once it's loaded the show belongs to them...  So to speak.  :-)

Because once that gun fires, all other attention is on the canon out there on the forecastle (remember, in the Navy it's pronounced fou-k'-sul - blame the Britsh).

What really surprised me about the whole thing was that the thunderous sound that is normally associated with a big gun firing was not heard down in the gunmount.  You might think that it would actually be extremely loud sitting directly underneath it, but that's not the case.  Not only is the deck of the forecastle extremely well insulated, but the majority of the noise the gun makes is from the explosion of the powder charge as it leaves the barrel!

So, the sound of the gun's fire was reduced to a dull, if a bit loud, thud.  A bit anti-climactic for me, really.  Others had told me that I would be wearing double hearing protection with specially designed ear muffs.  But it would seem that is the case with older ships.  DDG's don't have that problem.

After we shot of the gun was postfire procedures - simple checks and maintenance to ensure the gun is clean and working properly.  We also had flaked out some line we keep in the magazine to protect the weatherdeck from the empty powder cans that got ejected, so we had to put that away as well.

Then, afterwards we reloaded the loader drum with our usual loadout of explosive goodies.  Between the torpedoes, missiles, and the guns somebody has to be out of their mind to try and take us on.  We'll see them coming far in advance and we'll have the right tools to put them down.

Well, it's late and I got laundry to do.  Laters!

Yeah, we're kinda puttering along here.  While the weather isn't exactly nasty, it ain't exactly pleasant either.  Sometime last night we cruised right into some heavy fog and for part of the day the ship was sounding its whistle every minute to make sure that there would be no colisions, depsite the fact that we were only puttering along at less than five knots.  One might think this'll delay our arrival in Hong Kong (not that I know when we'll be getting there).  It might.  Another thing to consider is that Arliegh Burke class DDG's are quick and, under the right helmsman's hands, nimble for their tonnage.  I kid you not about the speed.  I take one look at the wake at amidships and all I can think is, "Surf's up, shipmates!  Whooo!"

I wonder if waterskiing is safe to do with a ship like this?  ^_^;;

Anyhow, the next month is going to be interesting in the ancient chinese sense.  I just got my small pox vacination and I'm now bracing myself for the suffering to come.  For one thing, you gotta be real careful with the vacination site - it's like having a localized small-pox infection, and as such it can be spread.  That said, there'll ber other side effects.  Mild headache, fever, and all that nice jazz.  In some cases it can be severe.  I'm just hoping that I'm not going to be like that.

We also had a not-so-nice little briefing today about the recent acts of violence that shailors have been perpatrating on the locals.  Don't worry, it's nothing at all like we got our buts chewed for it.  Hell, none of them were even from our ship.  It was more about how the Japanese veiw people like us US Service Men.  Thing is, while we are Gaijin (outsiders, foreigners), we're also government officials in their eyes.  And in most of Asia (specifically anywhere China has had any sort of inlfuence) government officials of any kind are regarded with great respect.  Of course, this means that they are also held to high standards.  This is because of how government officials were selected back in the good old days of the Chinese Empire.  They were selected, from the rish and the poor, through a battery of grueling examinations.  Money and status mattered not here, only that you were well educated enough to pass the examinations.  And thus they had the people's respect and the high standards to live up to.

So, now in modern-day Japan, where the Samurai is but a ghost but his spirit remains strong, this respect for government officials remains as well.  It's easy to see why the Japanese people are so outraged.  To them, it is unthinkable that a trained and educated government official would do such terrible and thoughtless things.  The press coverage doesn't help much, either.  Really you can't blame the press too much, except when they put too much bias out.  Thing is, Japanese love to hear the news.  For every one person in the country, 1.8 newspapers are sold each day!  And that's to say nothing of the TV news coverage.  You think it's bad in America with the Paparzzi to deal with?  Hah!  You can't scratch your ass in Japan without taking the chance that someone might photograph the act.

Now, combine that interesting tidbit with this one: Japan has a surprisingly low level of crime, especially for its population density.  Part of it is their culture.  Another part is in how they deal with criminals here.  Hard labor is a given in prison life, and then there is the Gomen Proceedings in which reparitions are negotiated.  And that's ontop of the fines!

So, you got a lot of news coverage without a whole lot of news to report.  That is a recipe for rampant sensationalism.  When it was discovered that the serviceman that stabbed the cab driver turned himself in, there were reporters all over the gates here at Yokosuka, waiting for something, -anything- to happen.  Kinda scary for any random sailor who's just trying to take care of whatever business they have off-base.

As for the serviceman...  It's an interesting story.  All I feel comfortable in saying here is that he was a deserter before the crime was comitted, and this has led to the Japanese Government taking a more laid-back view on the situation.  Not that they're going to go easy on this guy - he was turned over to the Japanese authorities for trial and sentencing.

Anywho, that's all I have for now.  I'll catch you guys later.