“Troubleshoot’n Twidgets”

In this ol’ boy’s Navy life I’d learned that a Crackerjack’s work is never done. The ol' Canoe Club has been as much a working force as a playground for a bunch of ol’ swaggering, rum swilling swabbies. Ships need a lot of upkeep from the stress of the open seas and all that rustification the salt air gives to all that iron and steel! Each sailor has a job to do and equipment of their own to maintain.

In my years my specialization has been in the repair, operation and maintenance of weapon systems onboard Big Hulky Grey Ships! Yep, I’ve been a Firecontrolman all me bloom’n life! me mudder was a mermaid & me fadder King Neptune himself... wait a minute, that's another story... so I digress!! Soooo as I was saying... I’ve seen weapons go through a variety of phases from the ol’ salty mechanical whizbangs to the analog synchro & servo umpty squats to the digital binary two step!

My experience right out of FC ‘A’ school took me straight to the fleet work’n with systems right out of the WW II and Korean War eras, complete with vacuum tubes and limited logistics or maintenance support.

The MK 68 was my first system of choice, and it wasn’t my choice I might ad, that’s just the hand I was dealt back in those days. The Mk 68 provided surface combatants with a weapon system effective against air & surface targets including targets ashore. The Mk 68 came fitted with luxury items such as a manned topside director with tracking radar and analog computer that solved all sorts of target acquisition & ballistics equations! It came with its own gyration unit too…we called the stable mable.

Yes, it took me a long time before I figured out how to troubleshoot this machine on my own. There was the time in gun plot I was given the duty to maintain the ‘stable mable.’ There was a maintenance check where the gyro was secured and the gimbals zeroed out while we stuck plastic wedges between the gimbals to hold’m in place! Well, throughout the life of this ol’ crusty ship those plastic wedges found their way to the plastic wedgy heaven & disappeared somewhere off the face of this gaudamn planet… maybe they were used in some Lunar Space exploration… who the hell knows? So in our infinite wisdom we devised a plan to use sections of newspaper in place of them plastic doo hickeys! To my dismay one of them pieces fell down into the gyro & I decided to reach down & ... ZZWAAAAPP!!!

I got knocked across gun plot on my ass all the way from center line to the starboard bulkhead... Thanks to the metal TV cabinet bracing my fall. I came outta that situation with a sore ass and some hurt pride. But hey, I lived to tell the tale as several of the guys got a real kick out of it.

Then came the time I was doing preventive maintenance on some ol’ vacuum tubes when I came to the realization one of them ol’ tubes was gutted out like a deer during hunt’n season! I showed Chief this discrepancy and we ordered a hole new tube to fix the problem. To our dismay the whole gaudamn system went haywire when we put the tube into place… so much for that… system worked fine with the gutted tube and so we left it in place for a fine tuned weapon system with gutted out parts… who knew we could knock out a target drone from 4000 yds away before CIWS got a chance to shoot the ol’ bird down!!

So then I moved up into the digital age and went to school to learn how to operate and maintain the MK 15 Phalanx Close-In Weapons System (CIWS - pronounced "sea-whiz"). That’s the R2D2 look’n whizbang with the 20MM hard-on that makes that ‘Bbbbrrrrrrpp’ sound when it shoots. Love those things…just don’t stand too close when it’s firing off rounds!!

Now some people will tell ya CIWS stands for ‘Captain it won’t shoot!’ But that’s pussification for all them fellers out there who don’t have a lick of sense and forgot the meaning of ‘Attention to Detail!! CIWS is supposed to be the last-ditch effort to save our asses in an all out assault from enemy fire! It was funny how we’d cannibalize one mount to make sure the one closest to the bridge always fired like a purrr’n kitten! Ya gotta keep the Skipper happy when exercising Pacfires!!

So there were a few things I learned along the way as a CIWS techy!!

Always approach CIWS in a confident manner and show it who’s boss!! CIWS Mounts are like dogs… they can always smell fear!!

Always act like you know what the hell your doing! Never let CIWS know you’re baffled or it’ll get the best of ya!

Wave the troubleshoot’n manual at the CIWS anytime it’s acting up!! Actually any gaudamn technical manual will do as it has the effect of invoking friendly spirits to ward off evil and convince the gaudamn machine to do your bidding for you!!

In the twidget world we have this thing called PFM!! If your not a twidget… ‘Pure Fucking Magic’ is the word of the day!! Just recite Ohm’s Law to the CIWS Mount like the lords prayer and if it doesn’t work try reciting backwords…it sure the hell won’t hurt!!!

If all else fails… try kick’n the son-of-a-bitch a few times, or pull the unit out causing the problem and drop it on the deck from a few feet in the air. This often completely fixes the fault. They say,

“Scientists are divided over whether the shock knocks something back into place or just frightens the whizbang unit.”

If that don’t work then your gonna have to make pals with the ‘Supply Department’ as you’ll probably be replacing said unit and/or parts!!!

Nowadays troubleshoot’n is all done on some gaudamn super secret internet thingy mcjobber called the sailor to engineer crappitty poop snark someth’n er rather!! That’s provided the sons-a-bitches are even awake at 0100 hours in the morning eastern time when your calling from somewhere in the Indian Ocean! How the hell can ya ever learn how to troubleshoot like that? Back in my day it was ‘trial by fire,’ 440VAC shock absorbtion to wake your ass up with a lil’ bit of Easter Egg hunt’n!! I think that’s what we use to call it…but I guess you can’t really hunt down a bunch of 1s’ & 0s’….1000101!!!! (everyone’s favorite binary code)!!! Everything that use to be done electromechanically is managed inside a little carbon based silicone unit the size of your gaudamn fingernail!!

I guess ‘Big Navy’ assumed them Shore Duty fellas just weren’t all that bright. A couple of retired bastards figured out the system and got all the tech rep’ positions to take over for the Intermediate Shore Facilities (IMA) and get paid a little extra to do the job for ‘em! I guess when I retire I could get paid handsomely to troubleshoot technicalities to bite size bits for the novice! Ah hell, that’d mean I’d have to retire next to some gaudamn Navy base…..not sure I really wanna do that!!

I guess they don’t make too many Dick Tracy types in the Navy these days when it comes to troubleshoot’n… then again most of young’ns now would look up at ya and ask…

“Dick Who???”