"Say how thou hast disposed...all the rest o' the fleet."

A mini-roundup of submarine news:

Both Bubblehead and the Sub Report have covered the launching of the PCU Texas, so allow me simply to note that my former boat, the USS Albany fits into the "trivia" behind how boats are launched since, as this story notes:

Launches and christenings have been combined celebrations at times in the past. Launches often involved setting off charges that sent a submarine down a set of skids into the water. But with new construction methods, sliding is no longer used. The last time Newport News slid a sub into the water was in 1987 for the USS Albany, a Los Angeles-class boat.

Speaking of Bubblehead, his blog features this fun and interesting observation from our good friend Lubber's Line about submariners and cats. I think his theory about shared characteristics is right on the money...except of course that my cat has a bit of trouble with "Acts on his master’s commands." LOL.

Since one of my best friends will soon be XO of the USS Kentucky, this story about the new honor being bestowed on SSBN 737 sailors by their namesake state caught my eye. Here's an excerpt:

A little conversation can take people a long way. A dad's casual bragging about his son service on the USS Kentucky, a nuclear ballistic missile submarine based in Bangor, Wash., led to a trip across the country for that son and three other people to the sub's namesake for a week's worth of activi-ties that began Saturday in Elizabethtown.

It also led to the whole crew's being named honorary Kentucky Colonels and the exchange of two flags.

This story about the smaller yet sleeker and more modern Chinese military follows on my post from the other day and has this to say about their sub force:

The Type 094 nuclear missile submarine, launched last July to replace a trouble-prone Xia-class vessel, can carry 16 intercontinental ballistic missiles. Married with the newly developed Julang-2 missile, which has a range of more than 5,000 miles and the ability to carry independently targeted warheads, the 094 will give China a survivable nuclear deterrent against the continental United States, according to "Modernizing China's Military," a study by David Shambaugh of George Washington University.