USS Barb SSN 596
Welcome aboard USS Barb
She was a good boat. You had to be tough to serve on her, but no matter where she took us, she always brought us safely back home.
Displacement:4,400 long tons (4,471 t)
Length: 278 ft (85 m)
Beam: 31 ft 8 in (9.65 m)
Draft:26 ft (7.9 m)
Propulsion: S5W PWR
Speed: 20 knots (37 km/h; 23 mph)
Complement: 130 officers and men
Armament: 4 × 21 in (533 mm) torpedo tubes
Depth: I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you... (Google it - I'm not telling)
Keel Laid: 9 November 1959
Launched: 12 February 1962
Commissioned: 24 August 1963
Deactivated: 10 March 1989
Decommissioned and stricken: 20 December 1989
Ex-Barb entered the ship and submarine recycling program, and on 14 March 1996, ceased to exist.
A few words about Permit Class submarines:
The Permit Class was originally called the "Thresher Class", named after the lead ship of this design, USS Thresher (SSN 593). Thresher was lost with all hands in a flooding accident on 9 April 1963, after just two years of service. Her loss was primarily attributed to poor quality control in her interior seawater pipe fittings, and compounded by other design flaws and operating procedures (See video links for further details).
After Thresher's loss, this class of submarine was renamed the "Permit Class" (also known as the "594 Class"), after the second ship in the series, USS Permit (SSN 594).
Another thing that changed after the loss of Thresher was creation of a major quality control program called SUBSAFE. This program required re-engineering many of the systems on these small ships, which took up a quite a bit of the limited space a submarine has.
Earlier classes of submarines did not dive as deep, and did not need SUBSAFE systems, so they were roomier. Later classes of submarines were enlarged to accomodate SUBSAFE systems, so they too, were roomier. On Permit Class boats, SUBSAFE systems were retrofits.
The men who served on these deep-diving, and yet very cramped Permit Class boats were called "594 Tough".
