Military Divers

[Scubakevdm]

Yes as a SEAL I did use SCUBA, but very rarely. However, your point about neutral bouyancy is way off the mark. Our bouyancy skills had to be perfect. Because we are diving a closed circuit rebreather at 100% O2, we are forced to dive at shallow depths. Generally, we would dive at 13-15 feet, and have to maintain that depth for several hours, while we were transiting to and from our target. In addition, when you dive a Draeger LarV, you don't use a BC. You use a secumar, which has two small air bottles attached to it, one on each side. Nobody, used this for bouyancy control, it was only used in the event of an emergency, so in other words the amount of weight you carried had to be the exact amount needed for neutral bouyancy.

Certainly I don't mean to imply that military divers are unskilled. What I mean to say is that it has been my experience that military divers that don't do alot of rec diving don't dive have very good rec skills. As you point out, they don't scuba much, and the equipment is different.
It's interesting that you would run 100% O2 in the scenario you posted about. Why so high?

 

[rmediver2002]

YMCA offers a direct cross over to open water.

My experience, having never used SCUBA before the military and then learning to dive with a horse collar BC (the military did not begin to use BC's until very recently 2001 for the Army) my buoyancy skills were lacking, we controlled our depth on long swimms or surveys with speed. Swimming rapidly in the water you can control your depth easily, just like all the old movies with no flotation at all. When you stop you sink basically.

The biggest difference I have seen is that military divers are trained to dive alone (what most people here would refer to as solo diving), be self sufficient for the most part.

Other than the physics and medicine, instructing civilian diving is far different than teaching military diving....

 

[^*^BATMAN^*^]

in the CDN military, clearance diving is commecial diving, combat diving, is diving in 0 vis 30 ft(approx) with weapons,
and ships divers are just thatgeneral divers for the ship they are on , port clearance divers, do just that, clear ports for ships to dock... and engineer divers, do alot of structual and explosive work...so i would say that CDN military divers do alot of not rec diving, and they all just got brand new re-breathers, so they do alot of differnet diving.... i am a little drunjk, so excuse any incomprehensible parts of this post................

 

[rmediver2002]

Many of the early re-breathers ran 100% O2, the reason it is still used for the LAR-V (Draeger) it is the simplest system, no sensors, no dillutant, no mixing of gas required.

At transit depth (around 15 FSW) the O2% is not high, the unit can be used for short excursions to deeper depths as well but then high ppO2 becomes an issue.

 

[caveseeker7]

Add to that no nitrogen in the supply gas, meaning all the gas in the small tank is precious oxygen.
And even at extended dive times there is no nitrogen saturation, provided the loop has been properly purged, although O2 saturation has it's own risks.

You actually leave the water with less N2 in your system than you would have laying on the beach ... Cozumel, Belize, the shallows before the reef ....

 

[durian]

Those of you who were trained in the military and then underwent civilian cert training, can you tell me what you think is missing or not stressed enough in civilian training?

Perhaps a part of your military training would be quite useful in civilian training, but you do not think it is in civilian training, or is not stressed enough.


Thank you

 

[ScubaMan62]

Fitness standards in the military are much higher than in rec. diving...I saw very few if any "fatty's" diving in the military versus my recreational diving...and my military diving much like my military parachuting was very unlike my civilian pursuits of the same activity. In sport parachuting much like sport scuba...you try and get the most enjoyment out of the activity....take your time...enjoy the ride...
in the military...it was try and survive the experience and focus on the task....
the degree and depth of the training in the military was greater than in the civilian equivalent for the beginner.....
in the military I was being paid to learn and expected to master skills very quickly to a very high degree of proficiency...
in the world I now inhabit...work is still dangerous...my liesure activities I try and make fun and not dangerous....
I wouldn't take the same chances sport diving as I would have before.....my training now doesn't prepare me to either....therein lies the major difference....
ex or current military personnel who can seperate the motivation and the methods of what they do/did for work and what they want to do for play can and will make excellent students...they will challenge you...but you must earn their respect...it's the way of the military world...or at least it used to be...and I'm pretty sure it still is..

 

[jsbromley]

It's interesting that you would run 100% O2 in the scenario you posted about. Why so high?

For the exact reasons that rmediver2002 and caveseeker7 pointed out.
Plus it allowed for a much longer dive time.

 

[Capt Jim Wyatt]

How well do military trained divers do in recreational diving?

I was trained as a Diving/Salvage officer by the US Navy in 1983. The SCUBA phase of the training did not meet PADI minimum standards.

The surface supplied training was rigorous. SEveral of us were also trained to be recompression chamber supervisors/operators.

 

[durian]

I have read a lot of feedback from those trained in the military, but very little feedback from Instructor's experiences in training military divers in recreational diving?