This comes to us from the submarine service. Angles and dangles is a procedure of placing the boat in strange positions to make sure everything is secured for sea. If anything breaks loose and makes a loud noise steps are taken to make sure it does not happen again.

On a surface ship we did not have this advantage. We had to make sure everything was either placed in a locked cabinet or secured in another way before we went out to sea. Submarines do the same thing before they leave port. A senior enlisted person checks out the spaces to make sure everything is squared away and in it s place. However that does not always catch everything.

When the sub fist leaves port they will maneuver the boat into strange positions by diving control to make sure everything is secured for sea. Sometimes the pots and pans in the galley will slip and come crashing out of their storage spaces. Other times a tool box in the engine room might break loose and cause a loud crash. Preventing loud noises is one reason for this, the other is preventing injury and damage to equipment.

The sub will appear to hang in the water with its nose down or its tail down. It will lie on its side and hold that position for a short time and see what breaks loose. For us surface guys we would run the ship at high speed and then do some high speed full rudder turns and see if anything came loose. Normally all that happened to us is it stirred up all the trash in the bottom of the lube oil tanks, which then caused the strainers to get dirty, and then fireman Bob got to get dirty.