Jim Perks – Eyes only exercise on inshore weekend

You put an all-round look in, so you’ve got the mast down for most of the time and you’re at Periscope depth, so you’re in a dangerous position in terms of water column because you’re not at a depth that a Warship can pass over the top of you safely, you’re at Periscope depth.

At Periscope depth you should have a Periscope up, but eyes only teaches you that actually you can keep the Periscope down because you know how much time you’ve got before you need to look at whatever you need to look at to make sure it’s still safe, ‘cos that’s more covert.

That’s what eyes only is about. Keep the Periscope down for as long as you can and then you can kind of bend if you understand the rules absolutely, you can then play tunes on it.

So actually, he’s not at maximum speed, so we do all the Maths on maximum speed, you use true range rates so you know what speed that’s doing, you’ve got more time to leave the Periscope down. So, there’s that and then you know you can put the mast up for an all-round look and the Duty AC, the Attack Co-ordinator, who is working for the Duty Captain, Teacher’s just popped a flare up, we’re on fire back there, everyone knows where we are so you know when you’re going to get attacked. When the mast goes up and you have a look, you can see the bloody flare.

Here we go, and then all the helicopters and ships come in and charge you. That was … so Teacher’s planned this and he know what the ships are going to do and I realised as Teacher, sometimes you don’t, they’ll just come and attack, so you’re really got to be on your game then because you might be going deep for real because the ships …

Simon: For self-preservation.

Yeah, you don’t want to get dangerous, so there’s all that and then Teacher will say, “Right, you’ve got to put a mast up to communicate” or “You’ve got Special Forces” or “You need to have a look at a specific time for activity on the shore” or this, that and the other.

And again, I realise now that was to make sure that you were in the right place at the right time so if you could be attacked and he had all the assets around you ready to .. if he wanted to attack.

So, that’s that, that is intense.