I was in Weapons Repair QA on the Frank Cable (AS-40) in 1981. The Weapons Repair Weight Test Shop was supposed to test the torpedo loading skid for a 637 class boat on Monday so they could load SUBROC on Tuesday.Personally, the most inventive thing I've seen TDU weights used for was as part of a prank where you put one under someone's mattress every couple of days, that it keeps getting harder and harder for them to lift up their rack to get at their bedpan; the payoff comes when you hear them complaining that they need more exercise because they seem to be getting weaker.
Interesting thing was that the approved method of testing the skid was to have a 21 inch diameter hollow gondola shaped like a torpedo and fill it with lead ingots until the proper weight was aboard the gondola. The pallets of lead ingots were out in the open in the parking lot at the end of the pier at Naval Station Charleston and wouldn’t you know it, someone lifted them over the weekend.
None of the officers knew what to do. The commitment to load on Tuesday was firm and fitreps were at stake. There was talk about shipping in another skid from a Norfolk sub that had already been tested.
Now I only had three years in subs and that on boomers, but I knew what TDU weights were, so I suggested that they may be a good substitute. Talk about a scramble and a high priority supply chit been walked through to get the weights. Well it worked, but the chop made us give them back afterwards.
What's the most imaginative use to which you've seen TDU weights get put?
