OT: USS Pampanito

[kaze]

This is pretty cool, virtual tour of a WWII submarine, can't imagine what it must have been like back in the day. Wait for each picture to load, then use your mouse for a 360 degree view of each compartment, click/drag right, left, up, down, zoom in/out...

http://www.nonplused.org/panos/uss_pampanito/html/01.html

Check out the other virtual tours also...

http://www.nonplused.org/panos/index.html

:cool:

[Ozz]

If you ever get to Portland, head over to OMSI and take a tour of the USS Blueback. I just did that a couple months ago. The guys who give the tour are all old Navy submariners....funny guys....get them talking and they get nice and "salty". :p

USS Blueback (http://www.omsi.edu/bluebackhistory)

[rePhil]

A friend and co worker based in San Diego arranged a real cool tour of the USS Plunger on a Halloween night in San Diego. We stumbled onto the fact it was in port by accident. He had served on the ship, and he got teary eyed when he saw his old bunk.
If was a different time security wise and we were shown everything but the reactor and armaments. Major cool factor.

[Steve in SLO]

Amazing feats of engineering for the time were those old diesel boats. I was able to visit the USS Bowfin in Honolulu several times while stationed there...the steel, braided wire insulation, linoleum and bakelite really harkens back to a more straightforward time.

[PaulE]

If you get to Mobile, AL, you can tour the USS Alabama and a WWII diesel-electric submarine. The contrast in size and space is amazing. If you are in New Jersey, you can tour the USS Ling, another WWII era diesel-electric submarine in Hackensack.

[palincss]

And the USS Torsk is in Baltimore MD, in the inner harbor.

For a great sense of life aboard a WWII submarine, there's always Das Boot .

[93legendti]

We toured one in Israel. Very cool-the kids didn't want to leave.

[kedbro]

Woah, crazy! I did a tour of the Pampanito (we may have slept over on it, I can't quite recall) as a little cub scout some 13 or 14 years ago.

[PaulE]

For a great sense of life aboard a WWII submarine, there's always Das Boot .

Popped rivets are flying around like bullets. Time to get out the hammers and cedar shake shingles!

[Peter P.]

After 8th grade, during the summer of '74, I spent a week at the Groton CT sub base as part of a local program. We were given a tour of their "sub simulator" and we, as young boys, were handed the controls and shown how to make the sub dive and surface, as the simulator we were on actually tilted in response-cool.

My current job takes me to Electric Boat occasionally, where the nuke subs are built. I had to work on the radios in the cranes that lift heavy parts in the construction of the subs, about 90ft. above the ground. There was a sub under construction at the time and I got to see the reactor, which wasn't installed yet, and the missile launch tubes, which were all open. The propellor, which I'm told is such a secret design, was covered.

[gemship]

We toured one in Israel. Very cool-the kids didn't want to leave.


I'm the opposite, too claustrophobic for me.

[93legendti]

I'm the opposite, too claustrophobic for me.
I agree-not to mention the heat and the strong smell of grease/diesel.

OTOH, we went with our babysitter's uncle, who was a naval commando and shared a bunch of neat stories.

This exhibit had a bunch of interesting commando tools thru the ages, including a "pig" - a torpedo guided by a commando who jumps out at a safe distance before impact.

[dumbod]

See the movie Das Boot to get a good view of the experience. It's one of the best movies ever made about WWII. It's so compelling that halfway through the movie you forget that there are subtitles.

[Seramount]

very cool site.

finding it is pretty timely, as I was invited yesterday to dive on the SS-121 (aka S-16). this 231'-long sub was commissioned in 1920. the Navy sank it during gunnery practice in 1945 and it now lies in 250' of water off Key West.

based on the Pampanito's larger dimensions (311' LOA), the S-16's interior spaces should be really tight.