You might think- "Why would someone who served on the boat want to read about it?" I served in the USN at an odd time in history: The USSR had collapsed but the US continues to build and deploy missile-boats. The military was being down sized and long time service members were being moved to retirement. When we went on patrol #1 in 1994 there was little if any contact with foreign navies and none with any hostel ones. I was interested in what life on these seemingly obsolete yet devastatingly powerful boats was like in the late '90s. Mr. Waller did a superb job in conveying life on an SSBN. Though I suspect the Navy arranged more perks than is normal (mid-shipmen runs and steel beaches are considered easy duty and were rare events). But despite that I found the book excellent. Other books about submarines like Rising Tide and Blind Man's Bluff offer more "excitement" in terms of daring missions and Cold War drama and while not to lessen those books, Big Red is real life on a submarine and written by a man who met active duty submariners and lived there life with them. The other books seem to be written by wannabes who though fascinated by submarines never bother to convey the human element of the routine and isolation nor understand why the stories they are reciting are inaccurate because they have never served on a submarine. e.g. Rising Tide has an story of Soviet submariners dying for failure to decompress. Submarines are obviously air tight and since they are sealed at sea level the pressure inside is always close (in does change a bit) to sea level so there is never any need to decompress. If the sailors in the story actually had to pressurize to the stated depth- 5000 ft- in order to escape their downed boat they would likely have died anyway as at that pressure the human body would be badly damages- sorry all you Abyss fans.
One criticism however, submarines are referred to as "boats" not "subs". The author constantly uses the later and it drove me nuts. Other books do the same.
I would also recommend Dark Waters about the NR-1. Offers both the exploits of an incredible boat but also is written by a member of her original crew thereby combining both elements.
The professionalism of this group of people is one of the great untold (or nearly so) stories of the cold war and modern times. I was impressed with the incredible amount of training and simulations while on a typical cruise. As an airline (and former Air Force) pilot, I am more than aquatinted with training and simulation, but these men really take the concept to a whole new plane (no pun intended).
If you have any interest in submarines, and more specifically, life aboard a modern nuclear missile sub like the 'Nebraska,' you will love this book.
What I did not like is the amount of time the author devoted to the background of the crew. I may be a bit hard, but who cares about the personal life of every other sailor. I wanted to know how the boat operated what they did and maybe some good old sea stories. The book delivered on two of the three. I think the author could have made the book far more exciting if he would have forgotten the home life of the sailors and gave the reader some interesting stories from when the cool war was hot for these subs, surly there was one or two stories that could be told. Overall the book was average, if you are interested in how these massive subs work then you will find it interesting if not a bit slow. If you are looking for a true life Hunt for Red October then keep looking.
The Trident nuclear submarine is the most complex war machine the United States Navy has ever produced, a $1.8 billion marvel crammed with more modern military technology than any other vessel in the world. It is an 18,750-ton steel monster, taller in length than the Washington Monument and wider than a three-lane highway at its center. Deep beneath the ocean, it can sail silently for months, prectically impossible to detect by the enemy. And the twenty-four ballistic missiles on board just one of these subs have enough strategic nuclear warheads to unleash twice the explosive energy detonated by all the conventional weapons in World War II.
Now, for the first time, veteran Time magazine correspondent Douglas C. Waller takes you on a tension-packed, three-month patrol deep in the Atlantic Ocean and inside one of these Tridents, the U.S.S. Nebraska. Granted more access to these awesome submarines than any journalist before, Waller penetrates one of the most secretive worlds in the U.S. Military.
The Cold War may be over, but the U.S. Navy still has Tridents lurking the oceans, always ready at a moment's notice to unleash a nuclear holocaust. In chilling detail, Big Red reveals the top-secret procedures for starting World War II -- the secret codes, the elaborate fail-safe mechanisms, the highly classified battle tactics for nuclear combat.
This book takes you into this closed society as a witness to secret rituals and life experience where submarines, underwater for months, hope never to unleash the destructive power they command.