Sfuwo
SF can infiltrate an area by land, sea or air. Each way has many variations and techniques but they all get the team on the ground in the right place and ready to do the job.
In 1975 the Special Forces Under Water Operations (SFUWO) course was run down on Fleming Key at Key West, Florida. The site was just a couple of one story block buildings for the students, a couple more for the instructors, a boat house and a small dirt and wood pier for loading students into the boats. The military still owned a bunch of property and the Navy was running the O.T. school on the other side of Key West but most of the buildings and facilities were vacant and run down. The 50' tower and mess hall were over by the O.T. school. The Navy still ran an airfield at the next key over and that's where our C-130s would fly in and out of. At the time the Army was still using the Emerson rig as it's closed circuit, C/C, underwater rebreathing rig. These things appeared to have been the original ones made and to us they seemed to be on their last leg. Nobdy was making repair parts anymore and it was all the instuctors could do to keep enough rigs up and running for the class. The canvas bags could blow out or one of the many O rings fail at any time. That made for real interesting swims. The workings of the machine were fairly simple. The back pack was a small black rectangle about the size of a small suitcase made from plastic and it held the barrel lyme container that scubbed the air, the O2 bottle and various hoses and pipes. The front was a canvas yoke that went around your neck and down each side of your chest. You breathed through a double rubber hose assembly that had a mouthpiece with a "DIVE"/"SURFACE" position lever. When you put it all on it kind of looked like a modern B/C & Tank set up. It was a pure O2 system that worked fairly well if everything was new but the ones we had were old. If you had any underwater emergency with the system you immediately put the mouthpiece on surface otherwise you'd get a mouthfull of lyme water and that stuff burned. An emergency would be caused by generally one of three things. The first was a blown bag, you knew right off when that happened, a loud BOOOSH, lots of bubbles and no air. The second was a blown O ring on the barrel lyme container. That was a loud gurgle followed by the sound of water in the hoses. Better get that mouth piece on the surface position PDQ. The last was a slow leak somewhere that started to flood the system. While you were swimming you were trying to calculate which would come first, the rig flooding out or your swim team hitting the beach. I never saw an Emerson rig after graduation from the SFUWO course and within 3 years the Army was in transition to the CCR 1000 or as the Army liked to call it the Mk 15. The new system used Soda Sorb (sp?) and that did away with the lyme problem. Pete |
I never could see a practical use for closed circuit rigs. Your depth is restricted as well as physical activity. It was possible to out swim the unit resulting in anoxia. Can't work hard, can't swim long or fast and can't dive deep. -- Not to mention malfunctions! I am sure today's equipment is better but I still wonder if it is really practical.
On another tack, I recall night swims at the Nike site. If the instructors were sufficiently impish they could time the swims just right with the tide. On dark nights all one could see was the compass on the tack board -- much like instrument flying in aviation. If a swim team didn't pay attention to what they were doing they would be swept right around the island and continue on a course away from the island, much to the glee of the instructors who let them go untill they used up all of their air supply. The only way to sucessfully complete the swim was to take advantage of all of your allowed porpoises and crab accordingly ( as instructed. ahem!!) :D As an instructor I used to love it when we saw one float/light going off in a different direction than the rest of the class. :D :D FWI: All UDT missions in WWII wer conducted by surface swimmers. |
Night Swims & Such
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There was a lot of stuff that lived in the bay and it was still there after dark. If you had the board you were skimming just over the top of the sea grass. Every now and then you'd go over something that would fly out of it's hole stiring up the water and phosphorescence. That would cause you to draw up and suck about 100psi real quick. Of course if you were the buddy pulling the bouy line when the compass man jerked up he'd bang into you. One night me and my buddy glidded up onto the beach and pulled our masks off. We're looking around with the water level view and going "Man, I've never seen this part of the beach before." and "Wonder where we are?" Then one of the instuctors started yelling at us. When we jumped up we saw that we were right in front of the target. Hey, we were generally the 20-25 meter left or right crew. Pete |
Closed Curcuit (Cont.)
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The CCR 1000/Mk 15 was to fix all that. I'm no commercial diver, only got in the water when I had to and was never one of the guys that worked in the SCUBA lockers but I'll throw out the low level view of the new rig. As I understand it's background, it was developed as a commercial diving rig and then picked up by the Navy for use in their underwater minnie subs. With the Emerson rig going tits-up the Army started looking into the rig and picked up a number of them and gave them to the ACE Board. The ACE board took a Flight Doc, some of their people and about 15 of us divers from 3/5th. We all when down to Key West for 2 1/2 months. The big shots were getting $20 per day and us divers were getting $2.50 a day. The joke was that we were getting $17.50 worth of sunshine. The big thing about the Mk 15 was that it was heavy on the electronics and was a mixed gas rig. It worked off the partial pressure of O2. It had two gas bottles, one held the O2 and the other held regular air if you were only diving to 130' or so. If you used an inert gas instead of air you could go as deep as you wanted. The sensor system maintained the right partial pressure. Combine that with the closed curcuit set up and it was a fairly good rig. The only problem was cost. The sucker was far to expensive to maintain in the groups. The groups did get a few and it was the C/C rig I was tested on in the CDS school in 1982 but they were all quickly replaced by the Draeger Lar-5 (sp?) system. When we were testing it in Key West we were spending up to 6 hours under water at a time with it. The book said it could last 6 hours and the ACE board wanted to see if it would. We killed tons of time underwater all around Key West. We even had our own Mike Boat to haul us around. We'd go out to Sand Key early in the morning and just go under. The civilian dive boat would come out and get ready to put their divers and swimmers in the water. The Mk 15 was a rebreather, no bubbles, and had a T-valve hook up for two breathing hoses. For grins a bunch of the guys from the Mike Boat would be swimming near the civilians before they got in the water. They'd all take a breath and go under, never coming up. It would drive the civilians crazy. Where did they go? They just free dived down to us and would grab the second mouthpiece. You'd get a low alarm light for a minute or two before the rig caught up again. It could handle two people, no problem. We had a big chalk board on the boat and the guys would write "Sloppy Joe's 8:00PM" and wave it at the girls. Danged if it didn't work. Pete |
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Believe me, towing infiltration gear while breathing 100% oxygen can quickly lead to hypoxia. I can see closed circuit as a breathing source in mini subs as Pete said. The new mixed-gas rigs are meant for deep diving and work. Admittedly all I swam were the Emerson and LARU -- talk about FOGdom. We didn't swim the LARU, it was a rescue breather meant for ascents from sidabled subs. We "got" to try it at the Navy tower -- just for "fun". To me closed circuit is good for macho war stories in the bar!! Admittedly my opinion. It was really a confidence builder or destroyer rather than a practical means of infil. I used to teach para-SCUBA in Panama. It was fun but no body has yet given me a practical use for para-SCUBA other than to say you did it. My Tm. Sgt made a HALO Scuba jump and swears that was a first and last. :D Personally, I think a good means of beach infiltratio9n would be a high opening, way off shore on a black night and black canopies and a strong onshore wind. :cool: |
I'm by NO means a UWO guy, Terry, but the closed circuit rigs probably make sense for the SEALs, who might have to do boat/ship interdiction missions in and around a well-guarded harbor. As for SF, where its probably more a means of infil/exfil, your remarks about picking a secluded area to operate negates the need for a c/c rig, like you pointed out. Different missions, different needs, but one purchasing officer who likes simplicity when ordering. :)
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Don't get me wrong folks. I served on UWO teams in the 10th, 7th, 8th and 46th company. I served as an instructor in the 8th and 46th. I loved it and it has it's uses but I fail to see a practicality to closed circuit. Let the SEALS play with the underwater interdictions.
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Confidence is right!
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All that other stuff just leads to the confidence of stepping of that ramp knowing you and the rest of the lads will 1) get out of the harness 2) get to/find that damn boat that's no higher than a wave 3) make sure you have everybody 4) get it de-rigged, fired up and headed in the right direction covering all that empty ocean 5) get through the surf and to the beach and last but not the least 6) drag all that heavy crap over the beach and out of site. Then and only then can you get on with the job you're trained to do. Pete |
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This is a fascinating thread. Thanks for sharing gentlemen. |
So, anybody want to see what SFUWO looks like now?
TR |
I'm skeered to say yes but what the hey! Go for it. :eek:
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Pics from a recent trip.
TR |
Thanks for the pics Top. It looks like we took over the Navy facility. :lifter
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