During my tenure with my old agency I can remember seeing a declassified summarization of a Soviet Navy/GRU assessment of U.S. submarine commanders - they were termed "dangerous, cunning and unpredictable." If I were running a submarine force, that's precisely the qualities I'd want in a submarine commander. This in turn implies they will have to cut certain corners in order to achieve those goals. That usually means pushing the boat very close to its design limits, and sometimes beyond. It also implies the willingness to take calculated risks in certain situations. In order to be able to do that with any degree of certitude in war, one has to take them in peacetime drills as well - although not quite as far as in a combat situation. Maybe that's what this submarine commander was doing, we don't know. No one was hurt, which we can be thankful for. That cruiser is loaded with a LOT of sophisticated - and I mean sophisticated - sonar gear that should have detected the boat. U.S. attack subs are very quiet. Judging from the hull number of this boat it is a Los Angeles-class attack sub, not too shabby a platform. Wonder what was going on in the sonar shack on the CG? From what I recall, when subs are caught during an ASW exercise they surface or come to periscope depth and do something - like fire a flare - to show they are dead. Maybe that's what this guy was doing. After all, they can sink anything on the surface - or under it - without coming near periscope depth. Anyone here recall a story from a couple of years ago when a U.S. sub collided with something - whatever it was - and the story got out the boss believed in a relaxed working environment on the boat - so relaxed, in fact, there was a sound system installed in the control room dedicated solely to background music for the watch. Lots of variables here - ambient noise, temperature gradients in the water that can distort sound, differences in current, salinity levels, etc etc. You sure got that right about micromanagement, though.
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