Sailors and submariners often do maintenance on the vessels they serve, but when it comes to advanced capabilities such as antisubmarine and anti-surface warfare weapons, those sophisticated systems require a higher level of repair.
That's where the Undersea and Combat Systems Depot Division, one of the Navy's certified organic facilities for depot-level torpedo repair, comes into play.
The depot at Naval Undersea Warfare Center Division, Keyport, in Keyport, Washington, services lightweight and heavyweight torpedoes for all U.S. intermediate maintenance activities across the Navy. The shop also partners with other U.S. military branches and the Australian navy.
The depot division's engineers, technicians and mechanics are certified to repair a diverse inventory of items for the fleet's submarines and surface ships, as well as various other undersea platforms and weapons systems, such as unmanned underwater vehicles, emergency beacons and sonar communications. They also work on the F/A-18 Super Hornet platform for Naval Air Systems Command, as well as Air Force KC-135 Stratotankers, B-1 Lancers, B-52 Stratofortresses and T-38 Talons.
However, the majority of the depot division's focus is on torpedoes.
Torpedo 101
Touring the depot division is like getting a crash course in all things torpedo. Throughout the facility, rows of green and orange fuel tanks sit; the colors signify their various intended uses.
"We don't just make a torpedo, put it in inventory, and then there it sits until we need to fire it one day," said Jay Scott, the depot division's manager. "Most of our torpedo components will go through at least one exercise run before they're certified warshot."
The depot division services two types of torpedoes: the Mark 48 heavyweight torpedo, which is launched from a submarine, and the Mark 54 lightweight torpedo, which is launched either from a surface ship, a helicopter or a fixed-wing aircraft, such as a P-8A Poseidon. Each torpedo is made of four parts: guidance navigation control, the warhead, a fuel tank and the afterbody, which houses its propulsion system. Altogether, a Mark 48 heavyweight torpedo is about 21 feet long, 21 inches in diameter and weighs about 3,700 pounds. Lightweight torpedoes are about half that size and about a sixth of the weight.
Ships and submarines take care of their own inspections and cleanings, while IMA facilities are responsible for routine torpedo maintenance. It's when a torpedo fails that depot-level maintenance is required.
"We get into a lot of complex repairs [and] manual troubleshooting, and [our technicians] put those components back together and send them back to the IMAs," Scott said.
When the depot division receives torpedo fuel tanks that have already been torn apart, it's actually getting several components that personnel have to rebuild.
"A lot of people think [of a] fuel tank and [think it's] just empty, void space. But it's a box of parts. … There's bulkheads, communication tubes, the parts that talk to [the guidance navigation control] through the afterbody," Scott said. "All of that is internal to the fuel tank."
Few technicians at the depot division are qualified to work on those parts. "These technicians will have touched every single torpedo fuel tank in the fleet at some point … during its life cycle," Scott said.
Attention to Detail Required
Many of the depot division's technicians are prior service members with mechanical backgrounds in weapons systems, but they still have to undergo a qualification process.
"We rely on them to be the skilled artisan. This isn't just someone who blindly follows a procedure. A lot of them have some pretty in-depth knowledge," Scott said.
The work can be extremely tedious for even the most experienced technicians, so having a passion for the details is important. Take, for example, an alternator or regulator that's broken or failed a test. "It's up to our technicians to … pull that thing apart," Scott said.
From there, the technicians have a massive, encyclopedia-sized troubleshooting manual to work through. "They're doing signal traces. They're doing test component troubleshooting and placement," Scott explained. "We always say it's anything short of a small miracle when we turn those back to the fleet with the amount of work that goes into it."
One of the ordnance technicians who enjoys the tedious work is Eric Goltowski, who's worked at the depot division for more than a decade building and overhauling torpedo fuel tanks and some of their components.
"When we do hydrostatic tests across the way here, if we're not doing our job properly, they'll fail there. So, we've got to be very tedious with the O-rings and surfaces that we inspect," Goltowski said. "Otherwise, it's going to come back to us, and we'll have to do a lot of rework and troubleshooting."
Having served as a torpedoman and an instructor during his 20 years in the Navy, Goltowski knows the systems and is often called on to train new technicians.
Putting Systems Through the Squeeze
As Goltowski mentioned, every empty fuel tank the depot division services goes through a series of hydrostatic assessments that test their integrity by putting them into a pressurization chamber and exposing them to simulated sea pressure they would endure during a real launch. The depot also hydrotests various fuel tank components, as well as unmanned underwater vehicle systems, the AN/BST-1A emergency beacon for Trident submarines, and Mark 30 training targets programmed to act, sound and maneuver like an enemy combatant ship.
"We do have failures," Scott said, referring to anything from leaks to implosions. "It's not often that it happens, but … I will take that failing in one of these tanks [rather] than onboard a submarine."
"You'll hear it if it implodes," said Mike Reuter, the depot's division deputy manager. One employee compared a small component's implosion to a nearby shotgun blast.
If something does implode, the team is required to decertify the hydro chambers and have everything checked for damage before they can use them again — a process that can take weeks.
Scott said it usually takes several months to complete repairs, rebuild and test the fuel tanks before they're ready to go back to an IMA to be mated with the rest of the torpedo.
New Technology
The depot division is using new technology to help with the repair process. One tool uses reflective light to analyze defect depths on older exterior surfaces, many of which have corroded due to seawater.
"It gives us some quantitative data we can use to make our determinations on whether we can repair or whether or not we have to scrap material," said engineer Ray Brendalen.
Reuter said the technology allows them to see defects better than a commonly used depth micrometer.
"This is allowing an engineering group to go to the spec, get an absolute on it, and we're able to … accept hardware that we normally would reject in the past," Reuter said.
The tool also creates a historical model for use when and if they come across the same component in the future.
"It gives us that objective quality evidence that will say, 'Hey, we looked at this two years ago. Did it increase in size? Is there more corrosion?' or 'This is an acceptable repair,'" Scott said. "It really just takes the guesswork out of it."
Scott said many of the systems the depot division works to repair are well beyond their expected life cycles, and the manufacturers either no longer make those parts or they're no longer in business.
"It really does become the depot-of-last-resort in so many of those different areas," Scott said. "If you have a platform that needs this motor — this component — before it gets underway, and the alternative is go buy a $25 million system, then this makes sense."