Here, here. We used to dread “weekly running” as it was known - out on Monday morning, all week in the JB exercise area, and back on Friday. With the occasional weekend at anchor in JB before a minefield transit thrown in. We knew it was leading to a deployment up top, or to Pearl, or even around the SW Pacific, so while we hated it, we knew there was a worthwhile outcome at the end. But to do it endlessly, with nothing else on the horizon? What a horrible thought! And it would certainly have led to people pulling the pin.
Of course, the other thing is we didn’t steam around in Defence Watches all the time; on passage we were in cruising watches (stand fast submarines). We only went to Defence Watches when we had to; major exercises, workups, that sort of thing. Again, I would have hated to spend my life in two watches; people become tired, and not enough work gets done to maintain the ship, particularly in the ship husbandry sense, in what is, after all, peace (although we were in the midst of the a Cold War). And to say we were any less ready is nonsense - we got two fully worked up combat and NBC ready ships to the Gulf from a standing start in 1990 in three weeks, including passage time.
