Question about military trained divers

[Gary D.]

A buddy of mine, who just retired from the Navy a little over a year ago, spent several of his last years as a SEAL instructor.

I brought up some of the topics discussed on this thread and it didn’t set well with him. His first response was on the order of; did they forget who wrote the book?

I mentioned the thinking that SCUBA training in the military was not up to civilian standards. He responded with, I hope it never drops to that level.

On the topic of mission specific training. I have given this a lot of thought and still can’t really figure that statement out totally. I was trained to dive. After the basics, which took a couple of long weeks just for SCUBA, and while improving on those skills I learned how to use a wide range of tools from hand to power. Cutting and welding was strictly hard hat but everything else was fairly flexible as to the gear used.

I was trained to recover the Gemini and Apollo Capsules as well as rescue downed pilots, search for lost items, do inspections of not only ship hulls but docks, piers, pipelines and anything that needed an inspection. The list goes on to cover about every specialty offered by PADI and the others, so what Specific Mission area did I get trained for?

By buddy responded to the Mission Specific topic like this. Both the military and civilian classes alike teach you how to dive. The military goes a lot further as they teach you how to survive in the water from the very start and don’t make survival a gradual process you have the option of learning or not. He agreed that the military training IS Mission Specific in the survival aspect. But other than that he disagrees.

He hit on a good point. As a civilian diver you are basically trained to go site seeing. Isn’t that Mission Specific?

Then the buddy system came up. You have never seen a buddy system that is better or stricter than the military, period.

Just thought I’d pass that on.

Gary D.

 

[BlueDolphin]

Hear Ye..... Hear Ye....

"Did they forget who wrote the book", sorta sums it up.

All of MY dive tables in PADI were watered down NAVY numbers. Nuff said.

 

[MikeFerrara]

With all due respect, aside from an interesting history lesson, it doesn't matter who wrote the book. A recreational agency instructor has writen standards that he's obligated to work within.

Tables...

While most recreational divers used the Navy tables at one time...and some still do, the current PADI RDP is not just watered down Navy tables. I won't go any further into that since the development of the DSAT RDP is pretty well documented elsewhere.

In addition, much of the decompression theory being used to plan recreational dives today doesn't much resemble either the RDP or the Navy tables. This may be beyond the scope of the thread but a military diver who hasn't been active in civilian technical diving might be very confused if he were to sit in on a dive in Cannonball with us when it comes to gas choices, decompression stratagies and even equipment. I could be wrong but my guess is that if the discussion moved beyond basic recreational diving the compatability of methods would become more of an issue. And before any one beats me up, I admit I'm just guessing, because I have absolutely no idea how the military conducts 300 ft dives on wrecks or in caves.

So my next question would be that if there is a convergance of skill sets at some point, do they diverge at some other point and if so where?

 

[rmediver2002]

Good points Mike, I have to say I have had quite a learning curve seeing the recreational / scientific side of diving closer over the last few years.

Military dives to 300 FSW for a working dive would require surface supplied at a minimum. The dives could be conducted as either mixed gas (helium and oxygen) or as a saturation project. In both cases a large surface vessel would be required able to support the gas banks and recompressions chamber (the diver would be doing most of the decompression in side the chamber for the mixed gas dives) for saturation diving a saturation system would be needed (this would be the living space for the saturation divers until completion of the project)

On one point you have brought up, currently the Navy is exploring the use (last issue of Fathom) of "recreational diving" current decompression theory proven in the recreational and scientific community, this of course would allow more bottom time for a diver in almost all cases than the Navy tables do.

Maybe one of the other guys could comment on operations with the MK-16 or similar as I believe the system is rated to 385'...

 

[sweatfrog]

I mentioned the thinking that SCUBA training in the military was not up to civilian standards. He responded with, I hope it never drops to that level.

After posting the amount of dives done for just one military school, I don't think anyone that has read this thread thinks military divers aren't well trained.

Back in the 70's commercial divers were using and getting bent on exotic tables. There was no doppler system to check bubbles, so divers started refusing to use anything but NAVY tables.

With the scientific breakthroughs of the past few years, tables are seeing huge changes. Decompression has a long way to go before it is fully understood.

The support required for a military, commercial or even a Corp of Engineers operation is a lot more exten$ive than what is happening in, or that the tec community can afford. It really doesn't matter who wrote the book (diving started a century before the USN started diving), these small operations are on the cutting edge of todays technology.