US navy plans to ban smoking in submarines: report

AFP - The top US naval officer has vowed to stop people lighting up in submarines, where the confined atmosphere has serious passive smoking implications, a report said Monday.

"We are going to stop smoking on submarines," Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Gary Roughead told a recent meeting of senior submariners, according to the Navy Times magazine.

Navy spokesman Lieutenant Commander Mark Jones confirmed a ban could be in the pipeline, telling AFP: "We are currently looking at changing the policy, but we have not changed the policy."

At present, smoking on US submarines is up to the commanding officer's discretion and there are designated areas on many vessels where the crew are allowed to smoke.

<SNIP>http://www.france24.com/en/20100405-us-navy-plans-ban-smoking-submarines-report

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WTF!

hahahaha

Seems like a bad move with a limited air supply.

Fresh air is drawn in through a snorkel except for momentary lapses when waves automatically occlude air and change pressure in the submarine.

Who knew!

http://www.gettyimages.com/detail/3326583/Hulton-Archive

I certainly didn't. Thanks for the info :toast:

They run deep and quiet. Subs near snorkel depth are easy target for anti-submarine operations.

Diesel electric subs needs to snorkel every few days but nuclear power allows US subs to stay deep (very deep) for extended period of time. Sometimes as long as 90 days.

That and I imagine they have CO2 scrubbers onboard. A little bit of engineering, and a nuclear sub can stay at depth for months.

You can survive pretty much anywhere (even 5000ft below the surface) if you have large source of reliable power and water.

Really the limit of nuclear sub endurance is simply consumables (food, supplies) and crew mental health. The larger size of boomers (nuclear missile subs) means they is more room for crew and more room to store provisions. Boomers run 100 days submerged however in war time if necessary they could easily double that.

We needed to smoke cigarettes on the WWII era diesel boats to kill the smell of diesel exhaust inside the boat and the oily film that got on the potatoes in the roach bin.

Without cigs you can get cranky on subs and maybe surface where you're not supposed to.

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These Nazi delusions, I mean...

Here come the anti-smoking PEOPLE 5.....4......3......2.....1.....

........

:thumbsup:

Not compared to when I was in there. They've made it so...military.

Tobacco or Di.. ;)

I would have thought this practice would have been put in place long, long ago. Guess not. :shrug:

I would have thought in the Clinton years they would have banned smoking especially in subs. But then I didn't know they can filter in clean air either. I'm a smoker, but I would totally understand if I couldn't smoke on a sub. Smoking is not good for the electrical equipment either. But then again I have no idea what they deal with on a sub. I could see on deck, but not while underwater.

If you want to smoke, go outside.