What are the effects of prolonged sea duty? Is there any breaking point where personnel must be relived? The Marines operated on a metric that no matter what they always fed everybody. Even in a trench on the Cambodian border they'd chopper in Thanksgiving. But sleep, you might be deprived of for years!

@@charlesburke2379 Terminal exhaustion to where you're too tired to sleep. That generates mistakes; as has been seen in various USN ship collisions. After about four days it doesn't matter. You're well beyond exhaustion and stay that way. I think the longest we were at sea was two months, but could have been longer. I found I was more alert if I stayed awake when having the dog watch (midnight to 4 am) than trying to sleep for a couple hours. That's not to say I wasn't well beyond the exhaustion point. It screws with your sense of time. A calendar wise sense of time's longer than it feels. An Army officer stated that the physical and mental capabilities of a person who's been up over 24 hours is that of a person that's drunk. I worked through chow many a time. The cooks set aside a plate for me to eat later. Is there a breaking point that someone must be relieved at? For a scheduled watch, yes, for instance if an Officer finds out you've been awake for mega-hours. Note: The Officers are just as exhausted. From the ship? Yes. Sleep-walking or a suicide attempt. Or if you flat go nuts. The sleep-walking thing happened to a guy I worked with on my second ship. It happened years later on another ship. He told me that until the ship got back to Port he'd be tied in his rack at night (I'm sure he stood his watches but was retied afterwards). He was shipped of to Great Lakes where some time later he was retired. Back to the second ship again. The suicide attempt guy [not engineering] was removed from the ship. There was another guy [not engineering] who was losing it. I was told that, eventually, he was removed from the ship. Recently, was told another guy [engineering] was losing/lost it was removed from the ship after I left.

For sure. They never do that though, cause all they'd get would be bad mouthing of the Navy. I know, I was in the Army. Same same.

@@RivetGardener lol truth. There's an episode of this american life where they spent time on board an American aircraft carrier. One guy gave the most hilarious interview ever badmouthing the navy

​@@kaze987I'm hearing the same thing it's not the Navy I remember. I was on an old ship we kept it in good condition and the food was very good.

Hard to do that when the whole video is just stock footage....

2 WestPacs and an overhaul with same ship

Exactly. Finally, circa 1990, Congress momentarily got it's head out of the 'up and locked' position and got rid of the no females on warships order. Around 1980 the USN had to sideline two ships because they didn't have the men to man them. They had the personnel, but they were women.

@@GeorgeLittle-uu4jq stupid to put women in combat jobs......DETORIATES the overall unit effectiveness and causes the associated interpersonal difficulties not to mention the additional costs involved in pandering to female needs when they are present

Sleep. Hmmm. I had heard of it at the time. Pure myth, at sea. When we got surf and turf we knew we were screwed. In a documentary an Army Officer indicated that if you were up for over 24 your physical and mental capabilities were that of a drunk.

On ship milk, eggs, and produce last, maybe, ten days. After that it was powdered eggs [gag]. I've no idea how many months we'd been on a cruise but when we got liberty in a port a shop keeper told us he had fresh strawberries and cream. Boy did our ears perk up!

No the Navy experimented withal back in the 60 s into the 70 s very few their was the Uss Long Beach , Bainbridge, Truxton ,etc.

nope....they were IIRC 3 nuclear-powered cruisers in the 60s to see if they could make an entire nuclear battle group but they were not happy overall with the results

@@michaelkendall662 Once, in the 70's, we were in the same port as a nuke cruiser.

we have two currently commissioned...the USNS Comfort and Mercy

One was dispatched to New Orleans after Katrina. Another was dispatched a couple of years, or so, ago; but I don't recall where.

carriers do not put in for port of calls as often but when they do they have priority for hotel services

@@michaelkendall662 I understand that only 'x' amount of sailors can leave the ship. 'X' depends on the size of the port. So, its a rush to get off the ship.

@@GeorgeLittle-uu4jq I was a hole snipe on a steam-powered ship.....first on--last off....depending on port we might have to auxiliary steam for hotel services meaning at least 2 sections got no liberty

Not at all. Count on 12 hour workdays, or worse, 8 hours on, 8 off. Doing very little?!? Those decks don't sweep and mop themselves! And training as a firefighter, emergency plumber, the list goes on. No days off at sea. Ever. At best, sleep time. With only the illusion of privacy. 3 tiered bunk beds, with nothing but a cloth curtain between you, and anyone who feels like violating your personal space. In the Army, I had my own room, with a lock on the door. In the Navy, only the Captain has his own room, with NO lock on the door. If he doesn't want to be bothered, he'll post a guard. But no lock. This?!? Forget it! It's like being in a floating prison, you sure ain't going downtown, at the end of your shift! Which I could. No thank you kindly.

Spoken like someone who knows very little to nothing about the US military.

@@garymathena2125 sorry but what I know about the military is classified.

LOL....must be deck crew or a twidget.....definitely not a hole snipe

@@davemeeks8109 yeah yeah sure sure....so secret even YOU do not know what you are talking about

depends on the number of sections.....that was 2 section watch and it worked out as 6 on 6 off.....3 section watch the 4-8 watch was the worst because they still wanted a workday out of you...meant 16 hour days with short breaks for chow

The fast attack sub Tullibee snapped a shaft, dropped a prop and flooded an engine room. This 'target' (DDG) went 'deep sea fishing' and caught a 'bubble boat'. This was Spring of '78 at the tail end of an 8 month Med Cruise. Rough seas. We towed it at 5 knots for three days toward the dry docks in Rota until an ARS/ASR caught up to us from Naples and picked up the tow. This had never been done before. Later, the Navy asked for photographs taken by the crew so they could make a tech publication of some sort. Main thing was no one of the sub was injured.

I was on a tin can....we figured subs were already sunk just needed to help them with a hole to complete the job

@@GeorgeLittle-uu4jq we tried to rescue an ocean-going tug with a barge on the line that had snagged about 100 miles N of Taipei....snapped a 4" hawser trying to break it free from the ocean floor.....babysat overnight until another tug arrived....used the broken hawser in HK as payment for them to paint from waterline to tip of antenna while we were ashore

@@michaelkendall662 LOL. Tin cans are always ready to lend a helping hand.

@@michaelkendall662 Cumshaw and improvise. The ship had just come out of the yards after a refit. Joined the ship when I came back from Gitmo. We went to sea on a test run, probably for a week, or so. Once in Norfolk, a Destroyer Tender came up from Florida to work on us and another ship. The yards really messed things up. A main ventilation fan, Stbd side just forward of the athwartship passageway was shot. So, we got it re-wound for the price of a 20 LB. can of Navy coffee.

You won't live there so go see your Uncle Jack. Help your Uncle Jack offf the tree his stuck on.

@@lioncoeur8049 You’re a fool.

@@lioncoeur8049Your brain is simple.

The aircraft carriers have 6000 people including airwing.

Never ending rave and free flow buffet plus unlimited alcohol.

almost 5 years on an Adams class DDG out of SD

Well, you *are* never further away than 10 miles from land (I didn't say it was dry). The Marianas Trench is almost 7 miles deep. You might look up 'Sinkx ddg 14. (sink exercise). The ship's being used for target practice. Just think of the shock wave travelling through the ship. Here there's no fires or secondary explosions. (Not grumping). It's a multi-national and vessel, including subs and aircraft from a carrier exercise. Some years ago I was talking with a WWII Army Infantry Vet. He had been captured and was in a POW camp. He had open sores from malnutrition and, somehow, managed with talk around, to alert his wife. She sent vitamins in Red Cross packages which saved his life. Years later he was in Berlin with his wife and bought a postcard which showed a POW laying in the mud between the barracks'. It was a friend of his. I had pointed out to him that he could have been hurled in the air from a nearby shell burst and he pointed out that at least he'd land on the ground again! We had a good chuckle about it. He said that at the end of the war the bread was mostly sawdust and one loaf fed either 20 or 40 men. No idea if that was once a day or three times a day. If he specified, I don't reca

Yep. Explosions, shock waves going through the ship, fires, flooding. So sexy. On the 'bright side' no matter where you are on the seas you're never more than ten miles from land.