NavList:

It’s sickening even to think about it, but if one’s going to consider using celestial in a post nuclear World such as described in Nevil Shute Norway's novel 'On the Beach', or even in a pretty smoky conventional situation such as oil wells ablaze, one ought to consider what might be up there before assuming celestial will be possible from the surface.  There’s going to be an awful lot of soot and pyrocumulus cloud up there, even before a nuclear winter does or doesn't set in.  The stars might not be visible and the Sun might be dificult to define accurately. DaveP

From: Lu Abel
Date: 2015 Oct 22, 16:39 +0000ond

Since the fact that nuclear explosions release a massive electromagnetic pulse (EMP for short) that can wipe out electronics has been well known since the 1940s, I suspect that electronic equipment aboard US Navy vessels is well protected against EMP.   And that backup equipment, sealed in EMP-proof storage, is at hand.

For that reason I believe there is no reasonable scenario where all electronics (including hand-held devices, ranging from GPSs to tablets to laptops) are suddenly inoperative but the ship is otherwise functional.  

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From: Bob Goethe <NoReply_Goethe@fer3.com>
To: luabel{at}ymail.com
Sent: Wednesday, October 21, 2015 1:07 PM
Subject: [NavList] Re: Quartz article: reinstating celestial...

If the Navy is well-and-truly concerned about cyber warfare taking out their computing capabilities, then they would want to ensure that the computers they have STELLA on are "air gapped" from the rest of the ship's network.  But unless the STELLA computer lacks USB ports, you can't depend on that workstation being totally isolated, air gaps or no.  If their STELLA computers are NOT air gapped, then they would want to be teaching people to use Pub. 249 or their hand-held calculators.

Taking it a step further, if they are concerned about EMP from a nearby nuclear blast frying the chips on computers and calculators alike, then they would want to be teaching people to use Pub. 249. 

Being children of the 21st century, they may well be using electronics in one way or another to do 100% of their sight reduction.  If so, it would seem to be slightly counter productive to teach an "emergency navigation method" that you may be unable to use in an actual emergency.

Bob