Download - Royal Australian Navy

52 NAVY ENGINEERING BULLETIN SEPTEMBER 2003
and the Electrical Civy Instructor
along with the Instructor
Commander.
Unfortunately for us, the civy
engineering instructor, Reg, who
shared our building, noticed us
rolling around laughing at the
back of the rapidly expanding
group (before the brass began to
arrive), slapping each other on
the back and holding our sides to
keep in the peals of laughter.
Putting two and two together and
getting four (and we numbered
four), and knowing us OA's from
previous little efforts, Reg
casually asked if anyone had
thought of turning off the
machine? To those that 'knew' us,
the penny began to drop - and
we stopped laughing and began
to plan an escape route.
The machine wound down, was
inspected and many pairs of
glaring eyes swung around to find
us 'innocents' quietly engrossed
in the breech mechanism and
recoils systems of the 4 inch
guns. Accusation time has arrived
and before a hastily convened
inquisition of baleful stares and
accusing twisted half grins of our
immediate superiors (and anyone
else who had a score to settle),
we were given the third, fourth,
fifth and sixth degrees, but
thankfully, they couldn't prove we
had 'set them up'. However, we
received an extra work load 'just
in case', which we thought was
most unfair, but decided, under
the circumstances, not to push
our luck too far.
The irony of all this was, soon
after we were informed that we
were to be fully crossed trained in
high power electrics to become
Systems Artificer Power - SAP's -
'Quite appropriate', said Reg and
agreed upon by all our
instructors.
But then, if we couldn't take a
joke, we shouldn't have joined.
But it wasn't all fun and games.
Studies were demanding and
pass marks inordinately high. Our
final Ordnance examinations were
as follows: a paper on Bofors
(single, twin and associated
directing gear); a paper on
Gunnery Theory (including
mechanical fire control
mechanisms) and three papers
on the 4.5 inch turret - one each
on the electrical, mechanical and
hydraulic aspects of the turret.
The problem was, there was no
time limit and our final exams
lasted on an average, four hours
per paper – some longer, blowing
out to five hours (forget about a
meal break too).
This was followed by an oral
exam if it was considered
necessary (if the instructors
thought you covered up-a
question with a profusion of
words but didn't actually say
anything). We were marked on
what we put down in an answer
and had marks taken off for
anything we didn't put down in
our answer. We hated the multiple
choice answers as all choices of
answer were very similar and you
had a mark deducted for every
wrong answer. The rule was - if
you don't know - don't guess. It
was quite possible to emerge
from a multiple choice
questionnaire with a minus score
that had to be made up in other
more conventional questions.
When one left ‘NIRIMBA', one was
confident that he knew what he
was talking about theory wise
and could, if need be, prove his
point.