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Subject: Views of Rickover
fangbopp    12/31/2005 6:14:30 PM
I was given the Norman Polmar book "Cold War Submarines" for Christmas. I have the same problems with Polmar that others have expressed -- he seems to have an axe to grind at times. But in the book he had one fantastic quote, allegedly from a Russian Admiral who had been heavily involved in Soviet submarine design. The Admiral asked Polmar, rhetorically, if he knew why Soviet nuclear plants had a higher power-to-weight ratio than American plants. Without waiting for a reply, he said that in Russia there was competition to design more innovative, more powerful plants (though arguably less safe.) In America, he went on, you had in Rickover -- Stalinism!

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ssnguy    RE:Views of Rickover   1/1/2006 11:51:34 AM
Sit amoungst a set of retired submarine captains and ask about Rickover and you'll get a widely varied set of responses. He was, indeed, a terror. Any production engineer at EB or Norfolk or Litton will tell you that. BUT - his lasting legacy to the United States Navy is umpteen hours of the safe operation of nuclear power plants. His tyrannical supervision of all things related to reactor plant operation and safety gave us that legacy. I assume that some of his practices have had influence on the operations of other nations' nuclear submarine power plants. Was Rickover at the helm of Naval Reactors too long? Perhaps. Talk to those still in the business after Rickover departed and you'll hear about submarine captains being a bit less nuclear-engineers and more tactical officers. I believe Polmar has a definate axe to grind against Rickover - but you can compare the Russian safety record to the American safety record and then ask "Suppose there had been a major loss of life because of a reactor plant accident - a release of fission products to the atmosphere in New London or San Diego or San Francisco Bay" and then ask what would have been the affect on the US Navy's future submarine operations. It wasn't like the Soviet Union where things could be effectively hushed up and hidden. The price could have been the entire submarine program. The real questions are going to be hidden a long time - but I hope while those who were involved are still alive - maybe the Navy will commission a classified oral history project to record what was happening at Naval Reactors, at KAPL and at Bettis (the two nuclear design groups, KAPL was responsible for the General Electric designed cores while Bettis the Westinghouse cores hence the S5W and S3G designations point to Bettis and Knolles Atomic Power Laboratories KAPL designs for instance). We built a lot of S5W reactor plants. But while they were being built they built S1C and S5G (NARWAL), modified S5Wa for LIPSCOMB (685) (the bain of S5W reactor plant manual librarians throughout the fleet - all those changes and ACNs...argh), and designed S6G as well was S8G which may be the most successful design of a submarine power plant in the history of the United States Navy. You never hear anything about S8G (always a good sign) but the Tridents have had a very very good run. I don't think Rickover got over the failure of SEAWOLFs initial liquid-metal reactor design. He hated failure. But not enough to continue to try for the gains of electric propulsion. He got the S5G natural circulation plants built for both prototype and for NARWHAL and that technology paid off big later. Did he have too big a hand in the design of the entire boat? I don't know, I'm totally ignorant of those design decisions. Did he damage the submarine force by turning away too many officers who didn't want to mess with his rather dreadful personality? I suspect he did. Could we have better submarines if Rickover had retired (or been retired) sooner? Would we have experimented more in design? Would we have produced a double-hull design such as the Soviets were pursuing? I think Soviet designs were made possible by their ability to have high power-density reactor plants which let them have a great frontal area and great drag coefficients and still get reasonable performance. The U.S. was working on cost issues - long core lifes to minimize refueling overhauls which are expensive in both cost and man-REM which Rickover rightly realized were very expensive to the force and the shipbuilders. He fought to control costs and made very real enemies while doing so in the shipyards. I believe Polmar isn't balanced. He's gotten a lot more Russians to talk to him that he will get Americans. And I think by his nature he wants to pick a fight because controversy is good. That much of the discussion is about technology that is still classified at least CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN prevents a detailed examination - probably in my lifetime. (An illustration of this involves the NAUTILUS whose engine room, I've been told, is set up to allow tours but the Powers That Be think there are still secrets worth stealing so they won't let the public in. I don't know who they think they are keeping 1950s technology FROM at this point since, in terms of silencing, NAUTILUS if 4 generations back and perhaps 6 orders of magnitude more noisy - seems like the kind of technology we'd want an enemy to steal! ) So, in summary, Rickover's legacy is in safety and long-lived reactor cores and propulsion plants that work. His legacy also includes lower-propulsion energy density, single-hull designs, and alienation of otherwise competent Naval officers who couldn't deal with his eccentric personality. The plusses outweigh the minuses in my opinion. By the way, I met Rickover on sea trials, or rather I cowered behind the switchboards in dread he'd do one of his crazy "kill off the ROs" and make the most junior qualified RO do the SCRAM" which he had been known to do. Instead he got involved in the electrical operators discussion of what unmarried enlisted men's sex lives and we almost strayed out of our op area before we did the crash-back. But that's another story....
 
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fangbopp    RE:Views of Rickover   1/1/2006 6:06:49 PM
What a great response -- thanks! I'm not sure there will ever be a definitive opinion or consensus about RIckover. My personal, outside opinion is that he stayed too long, couldn't let others try or develop new ideas (like the CONFORM design.) But he always knew that the first nuclear accident onboard a ship would be the last one, unlike the Soviets! Now, how 'bout that crash-back story? My friend Bruce was on the LaJolla when she went out of control on the crash-back, but I'll post that one another time.
 
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