SUBMARINES, SUBMARINE, SSBN, BOOMER, INTERSTATE ELECTRONICS CORP, IEC, MISSILES, TRIDENT, POLARIS, POSEIDON, Frank Odell, Frank C Odell

A Frank Odell Web Page


DEDICATED TO ALL THOSE WHO MADE IT WORK AND WORK IT DID!
*FBM* Fleet Ballistic Missile Program		We sleep soundly in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm.
Page Content This page introduces viewers to the Fleet Ballistic Missile Program. A thumbnail of my background is presented to show level of knowledge. A very short history of the program and some pictures, not readily available, are included. Links to other pages on this site expand knowledge of the program. Some off site links are also included. Unofficial Web Page		Display issue This page was created using Microsoft Front Page. Some Front Page features, i.e. titles, are not compatible with some web browsers. Firefox is one example of lack of compatibility. This page is not affiliated with the US Navy

Before you attempt to play the clips below you should use this control to stop the background music. SAILING THE BLUE WATERS OF THE WORLD Big Black Submarine 2007 (Tommy Cox) Master Chief Tommy Cox's music is available from the Submarine Store.
Circa: 1963 Builder's Sea Trial, NNS&DDCo, Newport News, Virginia (This old picture is my first hand scanned picture from many years ago)
SSBN 622 UNDERWAY OFF NORFOLK, VA, USA
MY INVOLVEMENT WITH FBM
The FBM fleet has been the pivotal point of the Odell family for 34 years. I was not in the Navy, but worked as a civilian contractor concerned with the Instrumentation and Telemetry systems installed aboard the submarines. This employment began in 1962 and continued through 1996. Think SITP/SOTP, DASO, OT/FOT, CET/FCET, Sea Trials and shipyard availability's. Five years teaching in the Naval Ordnance Test Unit's Advanced Electronics School. The school is located on Cape Canaveral Air Station, Florida. My last five years on the program were on USNS RANGE SENTINEL, a surface ship sailing out of Port Canaveral, Florida, in support of submarine operations. Primary interest while aboard RANGE SENTINEL was using Sonar techniques for underwater navigation and submarine tracking. I am proud to have been in the Sonar Tribe. Interstate Electronics, Corp. (IEC) was my employer for over 34 years and I filled many different positions during that time. Technical Instructor, Technical Writer, Liaison Engineer and Field Service Engineer describes some of the positions I have filled. My career assignments with IEC were a wonderful spread of work positions and locations. My family has traveled over most of the United States America as a direct result of my employment. IEC was sold to L3 during the month of May 1999. Don Switzler, retired IEC, maintains a data base of retired IEC and others of the FBM project family. His knowledge extends from The Program to persons working on other projects the company was involved with. If you wish to locate a past friend or associate you can reach Don at the address below. You may want to join the data base. to Don Switzler And here are Don's rules: I only give out addresses to those who join the E-mail "family". On the other hand, if someone is trying to get in touch with any member on our list, I would be happy to relay that request to the member, then let them contact the person looking for them if they wish to do so.

FBM PROGRAM HISTORY
The Trident II program was born of the Trident I program. Both owe their existence to the Poseidon program and so it goes. As is often said, "in the beginning" there was Polaris A-1. Polaris A-1 worked, but it had a short range, so the submarine had to approach the shore of any potential target country. This placed the submarine and its crew in-harms-way to an extent that was not acceptable. The ability of the ship to remain undetected by the enemy is paramount in this situation. The answer was longer-range missiles so the ship could remain in the broad ocean area while being close enough to its intended targets to ensure correct damage if it launched its missiles. The Polaris A-1 was replaced with the Polaris A-2. This was a big improvement in range and accuracy. The A-2 was the standard missile for both the US and the UK navies for many years. The A-2 gave way to the Polaris A-3, a move towards multiple warheads. A great improvement came with the Poseidon C-3 missile. With Poseidon came serious multiple war head capability and other improvements such as important missile guidance improvements. Several of the A-3 ships were converted to Poseidon launchers. After the Poseidon came the Trident I C-4. Trident I made hiding the submarine a much easier task, because of great range and accuracy increases. When the range of a missile is increased it is necessary to increase the accuracy of the guidance system or the increased range is wasted because the missile will not hit its target. An example of this was the Scud missiles in the last war. The missiles had increased range, but no increased accuracy, so they could not hit a target smaller than a very large city. Several of the Poseidon submarines were converted to Trident I. After Trident I came today's Trident II D-5. Trident II improves the same perimeters again. With Trident II the water covered part of the world became an acceptable launch location. With each improved missile came an increase in throw weight (payload) of the missile. I worked on all "41 For Freedom" submarines and found that each had a different personality. Some standout in my mind more than the others because of some activity or event. One such is the George Fish, AKA, SSBN 598 USS GEORGE WASHINGTON. During an overhaul period in the Charleston Naval Shipyard the Fish became the object of a much extended overhaul. We were finally ready to go to sea at 02-dark-30 hours one morning when a Depth Control Tank (DCT) noisily changed shape while it was the subject of a last minute, pre-sea run, pressure test (or perhaps a bubble burst). Two shipyard engineers came aboard and inspected the tank and pronounced it safe to go to sea. After listening to the two engineers the Commanding Officer (CO) told the two engineers that they could not return to shore and would ride the ship with us. Also, they were told that they would be setting beside the DCT when we used it to hover. The two engineers had a long detailed re-discussion about the problem before agreeing to go with us. Happily they were correct in their estimation that the tank was really safe to use. A Trident airframe departing for a trip downrange. This is a test firing from a submerged submarine off the coast of Florida. The Test Instrumentation (TI) mast can be seen to the right of the departing missile. The TI mast allows radio and telemetry communications with the submarine while it is submerged. The submarine runs just below the surface of the ocean, so the top of the mast is above the surface of the water. Radio waves do not travel well below the surface of the ocean, so the mast is necessary. Telemetry signals from the missile, while it is still in the missile tube on the submarine, are transmitted through the mast to the Launch Area Support Ship (LASS). LASS equipment records the signals and retransmits them via satellite to the USAF Range Operation Control Center (ROCC) located on Cape Canaveral Air Station (CCAS), Cape Canaveral, Florida. This provides calibration signals to the ROCC equipment before the missile is launched. It also provides data to the ROCC to validate range safety capability prior to the launch. Because of the curve of the earth signals from a just launched missile can not be transmitted directly the ROCC. During this short time period, immediately after the missile is launched, the LASS receives the in-flight signals from the missile records them and sends them, via satellite, to the ROCC to provide for continued Range Safety considerations. When the missile launching operations are completed the TI mast is removed from the submarine. It would not do to have a TI mast mounted on the submarine when it departs Kingsbay, Georgia for patrol duty. What looks like smoke is a combination of fire, smoke and steam. The acceleration of the airframe is shocking to a first time viewer. While I have seen many launches the immediate acceleration of the missile, as it leaves the water, still surprises me. After completing most of the trip down range aboard the Poseidon missile body, the Re-Entry Bodies (REB) are released and are sent on their way. REB is an outdated term, but it shall be used here anyway. This picture is of a normal test shot so the REBs are just simulated bombs. The REBs are traveling very fast as they reenter the earth's atmosphere. The very high reentry speed causes the REBs to become heated as they race to their targets. The air that the REBs pass through also becomes heated and both the REBs and the heated air are visible to the Inferred (IR) film used to capture this image. The white streaks on the IR photograph is caused by the heated air and the heated REBs are visible at the lower end of the lines. The REBs will contact the surface of the ocean well off the coast of West Central Africa, thereby ending the test firing. The bubbles on the left of the picture are celestial bodies that have nothing to do with the test; they are just there. Few people have been close enough to the impact site to see this view.

FBM PROGRAM HISTORY

The Trident II program was born of the Trident I program. Both owe their existence to the Poseidon program and so it goes. As is often said, "in the beginning" there was Polaris A-1. Polaris A-1 worked, but it had a short range, so the submarine had to approach the shore of any potential target country. This placed the submarine and its crew [Trident II Patch] in-harms-way to an extent that was not acceptable. The ability of the ship to remain undetected by the enemy is paramount in this situation. The answer was longer-range missiles so the ship could remain in the broad ocean area while being close enough to its intended targets to ensure correct damage if it launched its missiles. The Polaris A-1 was replaced with the Polaris A-2. This was a big improvement in range and accuracy. The A-2 was the standard missile for both the US and the UK navies for many years. The A-2 gave way to the Polaris A-3, a move towards multiple warheads. A great improvement came with the Poseidon C-3 missile. With Poseidon came serious multiple war head capability and other improvements such as important missile guidance improvements. Several of the A-3 ships were converted to Poseidon launchers. After the Poseidon came the Trident I C-4. Trident I made hiding the submarine a much easier task, because of great range and accuracy increases. When the range of a missile is increased it is necessary to increase the accuracy of the guidance system or the increased range is wasted because the missile will not hit its target. An example of this was the Scud missiles in the last war. The missiles had increased range, but no increased accuracy, so they could not hit a target smaller than a very large city. Several of the Poseidon submarines were converted to Trident I. After Trident I came today's Trident II D-5. Trident II improves the same perimeters again. With Trident II the water covered part of the world became an acceptable launch location. With each improved missile came an increase in throw weight (payload) of the missile.

[657 Patch] I worked on all "41 For Freedom" submarines and found that each had a different personality. Some standout in my mind more than the others because of some activity or event. One such is the George Fish, AKA, SSBN 598 USS GEORGE WASHINGTON. During an overhaul period in the Charleston Naval Shipyard the Fish became the object of a much extended overhaul. We were finally ready to go to sea at 02-dark-30 hours one morning when a Depth Control Tank (DCT) noisily changed shape while it was the subject of a last minute, pre-sea run, pressure test (or perhaps a bubble burst). Two shipyard engineers came aboard and inspected the tank and pronounced it safe to go to sea. After listening to the two engineers the Commanding Officer (CO) told the two engineers that they could not return to shore and would ride the ship with us. Also, they were told that they would be setting beside the DCT when we used it to hover. The two engineers had a long detailed re-discussion about the problem before agreeing to go with us. Happily they were correct in their estimation that the tank was really safe to use.

[Missile] A Trident airframe departing for a trip downrange. This is a test firing from a submerged submarine off the coast of Florida. The Test Instrumentation (TI) mast can be seen to the right of the departing missile. The TI mast allows radio and telemetry communications with the submarine while it is submerged. The submarine runs just below the surface of the ocean, so the top of the mast is above the surface of the water. Radio waves do not travel well below the surface of the ocean, so the mast is necessary. Telemetry signals from the missile, while it is still in the missile tube on the submarine, are transmitted through the mast to the Launch Area Support Ship (LASS). LASS equipment records the signals and retransmits them via satellite to the USAF Range Operation Control Center (ROCC) located on Cape Canaveral Air Station (CCAS), Cape Canaveral, Florida. This provides calibration signals to the ROCC equipment before the missile is launched. It also provides data to the ROCC to validate range safety capability prior to the launch. Because of the curve of the earth signals from a just launched missile can not be transmitted directly the ROCC. During this short time period, immediately after the missile is launched, the LASS receives the in-flight signals from the missile records them and sends them, via satellite, to the ROCC to provide for continued Range Safety considerations. When the missile launching operations are completed the TI mast is removed from the submarine. It would not do to have a TI mast mounted on the submarine when it departs Kingsbay, Georgia for patrol duty. What looks like smoke is a combination of fire, smoke and steam. The acceleration of the airframe is shocking to a first time viewer. While I have seen many launches the immediate acceleration of the missile, as it leaves the water, still surprises me.

[REBs] After completing most of the trip down range aboard the Poseidon missile body, the Re-Entry Bodies (REB) are released and are sent on their way. REB is an outdated term, but it shall be used here anyway. This picture is of a normal test shot so the REBs are just simulated bombs. The REBs are traveling very fast as they reenter the earth's atmosphere. The very high reentry speed causes the REBs to become heated as they race to their targets. The air that the REBs pass through also becomes heated and both the REBs and the heated air are visible to the Inferred (IR) film used to capture this image. The white streaks on the IR photograph is caused by the heated air and the heated REBs are visible at the lower end of the lines. The REBs will contact the surface of the ocean well off the coast of West Central Africa, thereby ending the test firing. The bubbles on the left of the picture are celestial bodies that have nothing to do with the test; they are just there. Few people have been close enough to the impact site to see this view.

SOME SUBMARINE MISSILE LAUNCHES FROM USS TENNESSEE

Trident II missile launch from USS TENNESSEE. First of two missiles to be launched in a rapid fire launch sequence called a ripple fire.	Second Trident missile in the ripple fire sequence. The missile is passing through the smoke and steam of the first missile.

Later in the day a second set of 2 missiles were launched in ripple.	Again, the second missile in the set is flying through or very near the smoke and steam plume of the first missile in the set.
Navy - Trident Missile Launch From a Submarine


A FEW TRIDENT II FACTS From the Today newspaper
Name: Wyoming	Diameter: 42 feet
Hull number: SSBN 742	Height: 75 feet
Cost: $ 2 Billion	Length: 560 feet
Launched: July 1995	Fuel: Nuclear
Commissioned: July 1996	Weight: 18,750 tons
Top speed: 23 knots or 25 mph	Weaponry: 24 nuclear missiles Mark 48 torpedoes

USS BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 640 Class
Hull number: SSBN 640	Height: 33 feet
Launched: December 5, 1964	Length: 425 feet
Commissioned: November 22, 1965	Fuel: Nuclear
Top speed: 16k surfaced 21k submerged	Weight: 7325 tons surfaced 8251 tons submerged
Test Dept: 1300 feet	Weaponry: 16 missile tubes 4 torpedo tubes forward
Crew: 2 crews of 14 officers 126 enlisted men

USS JAMES MADISON 627 Class
Hull number: SSBN 627	Height: 33 feet
Launched: March 15, 1963	Length: 425 feet
Commissioned: July 28, 1964	Fuel: Nuclear
Top speed: 16k surfaced 21k submerged	Weight: 7325 tons surfaced 8251 tons submerged
Test Dept: 1300 feet	Weaponry: 16 missile tubes 4 torpedo tubes forward
Crew: 2 crews of 14 officers 126 enlisted men

USS LAFAYETTE 616 Class
Hull number: SSBN 616	Height: 33 feet
Launched: May 8, 1962	Length: 425 feet
Commissioned: April 3, 1963	Fuel: Nuclear
Top speed: 16k surfaced 21k submerged	Weight: 7325 tons surfaced 8251 tons submerged
Test Dept: 1300 feet	Weaponry: 16 missile tubes 4 torpedo tubes forward
Crew: 2 crews of 14 officers 126 enlisted men

USS ETHAN ALLEN 608 Class
Hull number: SSBN 608	Height: 33 feet
Launched: November 22,1960	Length: 410.5 feet
Commissioned: August 8, 1961	Fuel: Nuclear
Top speed: 16k surfaced 21k submerged	Weight: 6946 tons surfaced 7884 tons submerged
Test Dept: 1300 feet	Weaponry: 16 missile tubes 4 torpedo tubes forward
Crew: 2 crews of 10 officers 100 enlisted men

USS GEORGE WASHINGTON 598 Class
Hull number: SSBN 598	Height: 33 feet
Launched: June 9, 1959	Length: 381.6 feet
Commissioned: December 30, 1959	Fuel: Nuclear
Top speed: 16k surfaced 22k submerged	Weight: 5959 surfaced 6709 submerged
Test Dept: 700 feet	Weaponry: 16 missile tubes 6 torpedo tubes forward
Crew: 2 crews of 12 officers 100 enlisted men

Ballistic Missile Submarine
COMMUNICATION PANEL
Submarine page 2 Page 2 contains many links (part of this web site) to other ships in the FBM program. Also information about newer systems. Contains links to other web sites that are of interest to submariners and other ocean going people.


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