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I did an overnight "cruise" on an Australian submarine in the 70's (As an Army observer - read freeloader).

Yes, they are cramped but the crews get used to it very quickly and a sensible, automatic routine allows everyone to live sort of normally. The thing they all like is the less formal atmosphere when compared to life on a surface ship. The bigger the ship the more structured the life. The submariners are a kind of family or small local football team.

Submariners are volunteers in almost every navy and can ask to go to other postings if they choose. They seldom do and once a submariner, always a submariner.

It certainly was and is a high risk operation but the crews feel they are in an elite organisation and smile at people who feel sorry for them. They point out there are dozens of very high risk jobs in all three services, a lot of them not as comfortable as an undersea life eg. several sailors mentioned their horror of crewing a steel coffin tank.

If you take away the cramped (but not impossible) conditions and claustrophobia, which comprise 90% of the comments of "not me" people but do not even enter the crews' heads, they don't have a bad life.