Nick - when I got to the last of your post about the Cuban Missle Crisis - it definitely brought back some memories:
I was in Coos Head at the time (October of 62), got called into the Old Man's office, where he informed me that all active duty personnel were extended (indefinitely) and I had 6 days to be in Adak. Adak was not due to come on line for about another 4-6 mos.
When I got to Adak, there was one PO2 by the name of Cuzzort, who I served with at Pac Beach and SNI. There were 3 other PO3's. We had two arrays up and running in less than a week (after fixing some real bearing resolution problems). We had to go 24/7 with the 5 of us !!
Since I was senior PO, I set up 4 watch sections (on my favorite 2-2-2-80) among the 4 others. As for myself, I was there all day, every day and every night for nearly 30 days. I had all my meals brought in, and bunked in the T-bldg. Never left the bldg - except for an occasional "smoke break" outside the generator room. I was on call 24/7 with the guy on the 80 also on call in case things got "hot"!!
After that I got my orders to Treasure Island for separation after my first 4-year hitch. Later,I reinlisted and after another nineteen active duty, I got my "final orders" - happily retired for 30 years this month !! (But ---Still miss the Navy, all our shipmates and friends). I loved the 2-2-2-80 !!!

The best and worst rotation I stood was at COSL in the early to mid 70's. We stood 4 12 hour mids then had a 96, followed by 4 12 hour days and a 120. Back then the first day of leave didn't count so you could take 3 days leave and have 13 days in a row off! The down side was that you didn't have a life during a watch string....0600-1800 or 1800-0600 then you slept. My wife hated it. I'm like George, I doubt I could last one 12 hour mid now, let alone 4 of them :)

I seem to recall at one of my duty station (perhaps CVB or SNI) we did a 12 hour shifts of 3/72 and 3/96 rotation. Wasn't bad but if you forgot to get enough sleep prior to the first 12 hour mid, it could be a realllll llllooonnnggg midwatch. Many a touch and go off the Reader podiums were heard followed by a loud expletive.

When I reported to Hatteras in '74 I went on the watch bill with 12 hr shifts. Seems that a 24 was in there some where. Does a 3/24/3/48/3/96. When I took over as Ops Chief I changed back to 8 hr watchs. The 2-2-2-80 may have been the choice. Hatteras was always in the hole and befor the end of a 12 hr shift I noticed a big drop in energy. Shorter hours per watch cleared a lot of that up.
Marshall

Yeh - I saw a work study once that went something like this:
Shift hours 1-5 - best productivity although not
linear
Shift hour 6 - battle to stay focused
Shift hour 7 - thinking more about quitting time than
anything else
Shift hour 8 - Only the most obvious of required
activities will receive any meaningful
attention, and nothing will receive a
class "A" effort.
Shift hours 9 & beyond - refer to Shift hour 8

When you think about the attention to detail that was always required of OTs, eye integration, comparitive analysis on sometimes really crappy signatures, vectoring on-station patrol aircraft, etc., etc. - **** we were good regardless of the watch schedule, because none of them were easy.

When I has Section LPO in Arg in the mid sixties, I was blessed with a number of John's runners in Section 1 - (you all know who you are). Add Johns running to the 2-2-2-80, throw in a bit of Northeast Arms all-nighters, and you have to wonder how we nailed that many bad guys.

Regardless of the watch rotation, I seemed always to be in Section 2. Must have been some kind of cosmic reason behind that. :)

In Lewes '75-'77, we had a 4-96, 4-120. 12-hour workdays.

During the early 60's we were told that 96s were illegal to be granted at the command level and could only be granted by higher echelon. Sure was nice when a a real sailor came out with Z-57

Ah...the famous Z grams!!! I loved that guy! He came out with one that said you could grow your hair longer. THe CO on the Ship called all hands not on watch to the messdecks. He came in, read the message word for word then said " What this means is that the CNO says you can grow your hair longer...I say you can't"!.

And that's why Zimwault had such a hard timwe getting anything changed...Glad he kept on trying though!

We had a teletype machine in the display room at COSL and whenever a Z-Gram started coming across the wire, everyone would rush over to the machine to read it. It was always great news for sailors! We had a lot of respect for Admiral Zumwalt.

The 2-2-2-80 provided the rewarding opportunity to EVERY watch section to do field day EVERY week!

Bill Turner
Former OT2
USN 68-72 KEF and COSL

Nick,
Your input sounds the most like an answer to the original question.
I would have thought, with former OPSOs and OPS LCPOs weighing in on the subject, that we would finally have the mystery solved for us. But, I guess like many other SOSUS oddities, it must have boiled down to the usual: that's how the Commodore likes it!

Tried to get that at Brawdy my second tour but the OPS boss said we would have to be retrained after 120 off

Getting called back in on a Mid-Eve swingback for a missed contact or misannotation generally helped to hone those analytical skills. Not saying that I was ever called back in by the direction of George.

John

Even better, getting called in on a swingback because your number came up on the Golden shower lottery!

2-24-2-96

The best!