THE LAST SHIP Season 2 - discussion, spoilers and general mayhem

[Juju Zombie]

And if this wasn't Star Trek at sea, you'd be fair in your criticisms.

 

[The Wormhole]

Compared to reality it's still against every military protocol to have the ranking officer of an area lead the boarding team (for obvious reasons.. there is no script writer to provide plot armor in reality).

Although, the show has done a couple of meta references about this. Like when the Russian Admiral deduced that there must have been something important on the fishing boat because Chandler himself led the boarding team, even though to us this means nothing because Chandler leads all the missions. Likewise, after Chandler was captured by the Russians the Admiral tried to taunt Slattery saying "I understand, you must not be used to being left in command." Which, again we know he's left in command nearly every week.

So, I'd say even in the context of the show's universe Chandler leading the missions himself is considered unconventional. Back in the season 1 discussion thread we were speculating that Chandler's background could have been with the tactical teams, or at the very least he has more experience in ground assault than Slattery and thus why he doesn't lead the teams. Or maybe Chandler does what he can give Slattery as much command experience as possible. Before the plague that could have been because Slattery might have been in line for a command of his own, now it's insurance should anything happen to Chandler.

 

[sojourner]

"I'll put myself in harm's way to give you more command experience should something happen to me when I put myself in harm's way"

 

[The Wormhole]

As it turns out, this issue was brought up at Comic-Con, though Eric Dane just responded with a joke of "if it were up to me, I'd be sitting on the bridge sipping coffee watching everyone else work."

 

[Admiral2]

OFFICIALLY my favorite episode yet! A+++

They launched a salvo of missiles! Mostly too late, true, but they did. Her missile virginity is officially took!

Also, nice cat and mouse with the Astute (okay, the sub's an Astute class). I haven't seen Enemy Below in a while... or Balance of Terror for a trek reference...

Nice job, people!

Given that we're looking at a Hollywood production, I'd say that only a character outright stating that the ship deployed significantly undermanned would be solid in-universe evidence of such a story element.

And here you go. Mama Granderson and Chandler on the roof, premiere second hour:

MG (to her man): Shoot him!

CAPT: There's 200 more right behind me!

I'm assuming he's referencing his crew complement and would mention if there were more...

 

[The Wormhole]

Meh, not a bad episode, but I've seen better. The main problem is that this episode establishes a bunch of stuff that was already revealed to us in the trailers and promotional material for the season. So while it might have been interesting and engaging under other circumstances, as it is it's just "yeah I know this, let's see what's next."

I did like that they're fleshing the out the pre-plague world a little by telling us that Admiral Ruskov really was a heavy hitter. Granted, this was already known in season 1 where Chandler held him in high esteem and even read the Russian edition of his book, but I liked the nod that the Royal Navy also feared and revered him as well.

Although the sub commander's brother questioning and arguing everything is already getting annoying. And how the hell does Sorensen still have that damn toothpick?

This week the dog makes his first appearance for the season, which actually kind of surprised me that he's still on board the Nathan James. I would have thought that given his spotty attendance record, they would have just decided to stop featuring him altogether and leave us to assume he was left behind in Norfolk. Actually, why didn't they leave him behind? I'm pretty sure an attack dog would be more useful on Norfolk than on a ship at sea.

So, as is typical in combat involving a submarine, we get the whole "can't make a noise" thing, to the extent that everyone has to remove their shoes and not talk. But, during this, Slattery, Burke and the prisoner are up on deck chatting and wearing shoes. Slattery explains they can talk because the sound will disperse in the air. But won't booted feet still reverberate through the ship anyway? For that matter, when they have to operate on the prisoner in the helicopter bay, we see a mixture of people there with and without shoes on. Even if we dismiss the shoeless as not having enough time to get their shoes on in an emergency, why are there people still wearing their shoes.

 

[FPAlpha]

Well.. that was military porn at its finest

Nice cat and mouse and the good guys lost this round, don't see that happening often.

It's good that they adressed the immunity issue.. it was a little bit unbelievable that they found so many immune people to crew a sub but then again the doc just made a mistake.

Good and tense episode and i'm glad i'm not watching any previews or spoilers for this show.

 

[Admiral2]

Meh, not a bad episode, but I've seen better. The main problem is that this episode establishes a bunch of stuff that was already revealed to us in the trailers and promotional material for the season. So while it might have been interesting and engaging under other circumstances, as it is it's just "yeah I know this, let's see what's next."

That's where we're different. For me, what I knew was coming was exactly what I wanted to see.

I did like that they're fleshing the out the pre-plague world a little by telling us that Admiral Ruskov really was a heavy hitter. Granted, this was already known in season 1 where Chandler held him in high esteem and even read the Russian edition of his book, but I liked the nod that the Royal Navy also feared and revered him as well.

Although the sub commander's brother questioning and arguing everything is already getting annoying.

Yeah, that's Hollywood. The sensible Bad Guy has to have an A-hole Bad Guy to calm down every five minutes. Supposedly it raises tension.

And how the hell does Sorensen still have that damn toothpick?

He could have a supply. It doesn't have to be the exact same toothpick...

This week the dog makes his first appearance for the season, which actually kind of surprised me that he's still on board the Nathan James. I would have thought that given his spotty attendance record, they would have just decided to stop featuring him altogether and leave us to assume he was left behind in Norfolk. Actually, why didn't they leave him behind? I'm pretty sure an attack dog would be more useful on Norfolk than on a ship at sea.

So he's an animal mascot. He doesn't have to be an attack dog 24-7.

So, as is typical in combat involving a submarine, we get the whole "can't make a noise" thing, to the extent that everyone has to remove their shoes and not talk. But, during this, Slattery, Burke and the prisoner are up on deck chatting and wearing shoes. Slattery explains they can talk because the sound will disperse in the air.

That's pure Hollywood, done solely to allow for dialogue at a time in real life there wouldn't be any. If sonarmen in submerged submarines can hear helicopters and aircraft flying overhead, then the air ain't "dispersing" jack.

But, you can't have a long stretch of total silence in a "talkie."

But won't booted feet still reverberate through the ship anyway?

Yep, especially if the rest of the ship is silent.

For that matter, when they have to operate on the prisoner in the helicopter bay, we see a mixture of people there with and without shoes on. Even if we dismiss the shoeless as not having enough time to get their shoes on in an emergency, why are there people still wearing their shoes.

Gross negligence on the part of the director. That's how I'm calling it.

 

[paudemge]

Does the Nathan James not carry ASW helicopters?

 

[Admiral2]

Does the Nathan James not carry ASW helicopters?

Yeah. She launched it last night. It was on screen for fifteen whole seconds.

 

[Scout101]

Just to beat the dead horse a little more: if the argument was that it would be way too hard for trained Navy folks to operate a Coast Guard Cutter, how'd the bad guys find enough trained submariners to operate (pretty effectively) an operational submarine? I'd imagine far harder to train for, way more specific knowledge, etc.

Not trying to start the argument back up again, just saying there's no way the bad guys could pull this off and have a combat-effective submarine. Light years harder than taking a Destroyer crew and trying to operate a Cutter.

Even more basic, but I'm not familiar enough with the button-pushing aspect of this: if only 2 crew were left on the British sub, could they even bring it to the surface and navigate to a port? I know how many crew are normally there, but don't know the bare minimum to get it moving. I'd imagine more than 2, unless all you are trying to do is blow the tanks and get to the surface for a final time before abandoning. Not like a Starship where you just slave everything to the helm and fly around, bit more complicated. Not sure what the ratings for the two guys left even were, but at a minimum neither was operating the conn that shift, as that guy was dead...

An entire sub crew being safe is one thing, trying to scrape together a crew from folks you find seems impossible. Especially if you're shrinking the pool further by saying they have to be immune.

 

[The Wormhole]

So he's an animal mascot. He doesn't have to be an attack dog 24-7.

My point is, there doesn't seem to be any kind of real consistency to the dog. In season 1 he pretty much disappeared after Guantanamo only to briefly return in the finale. Then this year, he was no where in the premiere when the state troopers were in control of the ship and rounded the crew together. Okay, maybe they just locked him in a crew cabin or something. But still, at this point it seems to production staff has neither the time nor patience to keep a dog on the show on a regular basis (Porthos had more appearances on Enterprise than this dog does), and now there actually is a logical reason to explain his removal from the ship. So why keep him?

 

[Admiral2]

Just to beat the dead horse a little more: if the argument was that it would be way too hard for trained Navy folks to operate a Coast Guard Cutter,

Dude, seriously...

The argument is not that it would be "too hard" for the Navy personnel to learn how to operate the cutter. The argument is that learning how to operate any military platform in a way that's effective takes time, especially if there's no training personnel to talk you through it, and a Coast Guard Cutter, however less complex, is still unfamiliar territory to people who have never served aboard one. Controls would be different, layout would be different, offensive and defensive capabilities are sure as hell different, and just plucking twenty people off Nathan James and expecting them to just board the thing and sail it into battle is retarded. Yes, they would eventually figure out how to work the thing, but you can't guarantee they have "eventually" before the nuclear attack submarine attacks.

Which brings me to argument two, which is that even if you pulled off this miracle even the most advanced Cutter in the Coast Guard is not an anti-submarine platform. It's a gun frigate with a rescue chopper, period, so all you've done is drain time and resources from an actual anti-sub platform into a ship that will be little more than target practice for the Astute! Congratulations!

And what I really don't get is why you think this needs to be done in the first place. You have a ship that works and a crew that's been through the fire together. Why must you split them up just so you can up your fleet count quickly?

how'd the bad guys find enough trained submariners to operate (pretty effectively) an operational submarine? I'd imagine far harder to train for, way more specific knowledge, etc.

Not trying to start the argument back up again, just saying there's no way the bad guys could pull this off and have a combat-effective submarine. Light years harder than taking a Destroyer crew and trying to operate a Cutter.

Not the same situation. From what we've been shown it looks like the guy commanding the sub was already a ranking officer aboard, which means he had the expertise to show any newbies enough to do their jobs without stepping on their schweens. We have no indication that whole crew just plopped aboard from somewhere else and started working controls until they were experts...which is what you're proposing will happen if Chandler just tells a bunch of guys "go over there and make that ship work."

Even more basic, but I'm not familiar enough with the button-pushing aspect of this: if only 2 crew were left on the British sub, could they even bring it to the surface and navigate to a port? I know how many crew are normally there, but don't know the bare minimum to get it moving. I'd imagine more than 2, unless all you are trying to do is blow the tanks and get to the surface for a final time before abandoning. Not like a Starship where you just slave everything to the helm and fly around, bit more complicated. Not sure what the ratings for the two guys left even were, but at a minimum neither was operating the conn that shift, as that guy was dead...

In American subs you need four: two planesmen, a chief to give the planesmen dive orders and someone operating the vents, but that's normal operation. In an emergency surface situation I suppose one planesman can pull both planes back while the other opens all the vents himself. Getting to port is another matter entirely.

An entire sub crew being safe is one thing, trying to scrape together a crew from folks you find seems impossible. Especially if you're shrinking the pool further by saying they have to be immune.

Yes, but if the guy doing the scraping is experienced enough to compensate with bare-bones training, you got a shot.

So, show me the cutter's CO waiting for transfers and we can talk.

 

[J.T.B.]

Not the same situation. From what we've been shown it looks like the guy commanding the sub was already a ranking officer aboard, which means he had the expertise to show any newbies enough to do their jobs without stepping on their schweens.

He said he was the coxswain, IOW the chief of the boat, the Royal Navy version of Master Chief Jeter. Who would be a very experienced petty officer, but probably not a technical expert outside his own rating. If he came from "warfare branch," almost certainly out of his depth in nuc engineering, and vice versa.

In American subs you need four: two planesmen, a chief to give the planesmen dive orders and someone operating the vents, but that's normal operation. In an emergency surface situation I suppose one planesman can pull both planes back while the other opens all the vents himself. Getting to port is another matter entirely.

But of course you need the reactor and engine room running. Because of the technology itself and the almost fanatical level of safety measures the US and British build into their nuclear propulsion systems, it would be extremely unlikely that less than a fully-trained trained minimum complement watch could operate the submarine as shown. And when I say unlikely, I mean impossible.

 

[Admiral2]

Not the same situation. From what we've been shown it looks like the guy commanding the sub was already a ranking officer aboard, which means he had the expertise to show any newbies enough to do their jobs without stepping on their schweens.

He said he was the coxswain, IOW the chief of the boat, the Royal Navy version of Master Chief Jeter. Who would be a very experienced petty officer, but probably not a technical expert outside his own rating. If he came from "warfare branch," almost certainly out of his depth in nuc engineering, and vice versa.

Which would still make him an experienced crew member left on the boat to provide technical assistance to any nuggets he brought aboard, which is still not the same thing as a bunch of total strangers who'd never seen the inside of a sub in their lives climbing aboard and turning knobs, which is the equivalent of what Scout101 keeps advocating.

In American subs you need four: two planesmen, a chief to give the planesmen dive orders and someone operating the vents, but that's normal operation. In an emergency surface situation I suppose one planesman can pull both planes back while the other opens all the vents himself. Getting to port is another matter entirely.

But of course you need the reactor and engine room running. Because of the technology itself and the almost fanatical level of safety measures the US and British build into their nuclear propulsion systems, it would be extremely unlikely that less than a fully-trained trained minimum complement watch could operate the submarine as shown. And when I say unlikely, I mean impossible.

Yes, but the plague only kills people, not machinery, so if the reactor and machinery had been well-tended up to the moment the last engineer died off, then the relatively simple exercise of emergency blow can be done with a handful of people and be the sub's last maneuver.

 

[J.T.B.]

Which would still make him an experienced crew member left on the boat to provide technical assistance to any nuggets he brought aboard, which is still not the same thing as a bunch of total strangers who'd never seen the inside of a sub in their lives climbing aboard and turning knobs, which is the equivalent of what Scout101 keeps advocating.

Yes, but experienced enough to to train newbies in nuclear marine propulsion, auxiliary and power systems (the sub has to have life support, too), weapons, sensors etc. to the level they can go into combat against a warship with a professional naval crew? It makes one wonder why navies spend all that money and time on classrooms, instructors, simulators and so on.

Yes, but the plague only kills people, not machinery, so if the reactor and machinery had been well-tended up to the moment the last engineer died off, then the relatively simple exercise of emergency blow can be done with a handful of people and be the sub's last maneuver.

Just an emergency surface, sure, but I was also thinking of Scout101 referring to having a "combat effective" submarine.

 

[FPAlpha]

Something else i am wondering about.

The sub shot nearly 30 missiles on top of two torpedoes.. how much armament is left if we assume it was fully equipped?

Wikipedia says it has 38 torpedoes on board (including the Spearfish torpedoes we saw) and carries Tomahawk cruise missiles (which we have also seen launched).

So what's left? Given the final line "We take America" (cue dramatic music) how are they going to do it?

By force of weapons.. unlikely. It's not a ballistic missile sub with nuclear strike capability (at least i think so.. the Brits might have stored some nuclear warheads for the cruise missiles) so that's out of the question.

They are allied with the militia wackos but are they enough manpower wise to take and hold anything?

Would love to see Chandler send some Seal teams against them

 

[EmoBorg]

Another thing that i noticed is that the British Astute-class submarine is an attack submarine which carries torpedos and cruise missiles.

The Tomahawk missile which the Astute class submarines carries has the following range

Block II TLAM-A – 1,350 nmi (1,550 mi; 2,500 km)


Block III TLAM-C, Block IV TLAM-E – 900 nmi (1,000 mi; 1,700 km)


Block III TLAM-D – 700 nmi (810 mi; 1,300 km)



I don't think the missiles had the range to hit targets in Salt Lake and Phoenix from the east coast. In this episode, it was mentioned that there were still active labs in those places.

 

[Scout101]

Yeah, that didn't really work for me either. They can get some of the East Coast stuff, but don't have the range for the rest. Nice to see the ships firing some missiles for a change, though!

Still don't get the manning/training argument. or specifically, why it's impossible for the Navy guys to get a couple guys to figure out another surface ship, but NOT impossible for two Brits to grab random people and have a combat-effective submarine. Seems like either both work, or neither. And if I had to guess which one would be easier to get going, it wouldn't be the sub. Even if the two surviving crewmen were the rockstars of the fleet previously. Same training argument you're making, they just aren't cross-trained at that level. They were the two that were just totally familiar (enough to train others) with the weapons AND engines AND reactor AND could pilot it? Really? And operating a sub isn't intuitive, dunno if randoms are picking it up any time soon, even with super-sailor standing over them training them. Seems they could make the emergency blow, but it would be more in the vein of abandoning ship and swimming ashore, not navigating safely to port. Not sure that's achievable even with the two aforementioned rockstars. But could be wrong. Reactor, control, helm, may even be nice if someone was operating a console so you knew where you were going...

And as to the WHY question you asked? Remember that time they had engine trouble and all almost died? There you go. Not so much an issue when you have a support ship. Doesn't have to be a armored combat anti-sub ship at all, but simply a gunship with tenders and air support is certainly helpful. Don't have all your eggs in one basket, can go for supplies while the main ship keeps on mission, all that good stuff. Seems like plenty of applications, but whatever.

I don't get the logic that randoms can operate a submarine extremely effectively, but a trained Destroyer helmsman couldn't figure out how to drive a cutter. I get that they aren't the same, but have to have more in common than a submarine would. Was all just a passing thought anyway, since they showed other ships in Norfolk, and then later in that episode talked about adding a second ship to the 'fleet', so I just decided to explore the thought a little and see what might make sense...

 

[FPAlpha]

It doesn't make sense for the sub to have a crew of fully immune and capable people, another notch for TV needs over reality.

As to the manning issue.. i have seen several documentaries about navy's and some of them talked about supply ships (usually when the show was about something huge like a US carrier) and the crew makes it absolutely clear that supplying a ship while on sea is one of the most dangerous tasks they can do because they have to keep moving and match speeds exactly so they don't damage each other.

Do this with half experienced crews and you are inviting desaster.

So for me it still makes sense to have a single ship with a well experienced crew at this point instead of spreading out the experience and then getting caught pants down in a crisis situation.

Imagine the same situation as the show had.. a fully equipped sub vs. the Nathan James and some cutter style ship, both a little undermanned with few experienced people in key positions.

Sooner or later someone on one of the ships would have made a mistake due to inexperience and gave a away their position or made a mistake in a crucial moment and the sub could have sunk them both.

As it is the Nathan James made it out because the crew was at the top of the game and they barely did it.

So all in good time.. make sure the cure gets spread around the world including the knowledge how to produce it. Once you reach critical mass so to speak, i.e. there are enough labs around the world producing it there is not much anybody could do to monopolize the cure.

Only then would it be time to focus on internal matters and start the academy program to teach and recruit sailors so they can slowly build up the Navy again. Ships they have enough it seems, it's just the matter to have a capable crew to use them.