Bainbridge (DLGN 25) - Naval Cruise Book

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On the Bridge One of the most action-packed places on any ship at sea is the bridge of a destroyer. Here, half a dozen operations may be going on at once, all of which are vital parts of a tighdy co- ordinated program. Signalman, navigator, quartermaster, messenger, talker, skipper — all destroyermen who must work as a team to meet the high performance standards set by the destroyer force as a whole. The Bainhridge has demonstrated her abilitv as one of the best.

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ANTI-SUBMARINE WARFARE The largest hostile threat facing the U. S. Navy today is the Soviet submarine force. And to cope with that threat, the Navy is spending great amounts of time and money for its anti-submarine warfare. Basic ASW strategy is to destroy enemy submarines before they get to sea, en- route to their target, and in their target area. It is an expensive and demanding operation. The free world depends on the sea lanes for survival and the sea lanes are always fat targets for submarines. Today, more than 2,500 mer- chant ships are moving along the life lines on the Atlantic on any given day or night. The free world alliance can be broken if denied the use of the world ' s oceans and the Russians now have the largest undersea armada the world has ever known. Thus, the ship of tomorrow, Bainhridgc, has been equipped with all the latest submarine detecting devices and ASW weapons. These advantages compiled with the mobility, versatility, and endurance of nuclear power makes Bainbridge the ship of the future for ASW. To be fully effective in its ASW mission, modern sonar must include capabilities to detect, search, and attack. For attack, the sonar must feed accurate target range and bearing data to high speed computers of the ASW weapons system. This is done by the sophisticated sonar equip- ment SQS-33 and is directly integrated with the ASROC anti-submarine missile system. ASROC offers a combination of missile, torpedo, depth charge, sonar, and fire control computer, designed for the purpose of locating, tracking, and destroying submarines at long range. It features a fifteen-foot mis- sile weighing about 1,500 pounds. Bainbridge also carries two triple-barrelled ASW torpedo tubes. It was the extremely rough crossing that so strikingly illustrated one of the foremost advantages of Bainbridge ' s nuclear fuel reserve and ability in ASW. The formation was sometimes required to slow or even reverse course to seek out a safe route for refueling the conventionally powered ships. Bainbridge was always available to serve as an anti-submarine patrol ship during these replenishments.