Another US Navy ship collision

I'd say complacency or lack of vigilance but incompetence could also be involved.
 
My guess is there are more operations now in the South China Sea due to Chinese claims of sovereignty and military buildups on some of the islands there. It is a very congested are for shipping, so no big surprise there are collisions. They're just going to have to keep a more watchful eye if they're going to operate there.
 
A friend in the Navy talked about when his sub got hit. I don't think it's entirely uncommon, we probably just hear about it more now.
 
Rather difficult to blame this accident on an oil tanker.
 
Ted DuPuis said:
A friend in the Navy talked about when his sub got hit. I don't think it's entirely uncommon, we probably just hear about it more now.
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I too know someone who was on board a sub involved in a collision. I agree with you we probably just hear about them more now. Also maybe increase in commercial shipping. The seas are getting more crowded.
 
I realize the commercial shipping lanes are extremely busy in that part of the world. With communication,navigation and radar equipment today so advanced it's hard to believe such an accident could occur. The human factor is still there but that's why procedures are set up to keep the ship and sailors out of danger. I suspect the mind set of the bridge crew is a big factor in such accidents.

My prayers go out to the sailors their family and friends.
 
At this rate, we'll be out of ships faster than in a shooting war.

Cheers
 
Blows my mind. When I was on Coast Guard cutters patrolling both oceans we did not have the armament of destroyers but we did have surface search radar, a combat information center, and competent lookouts. Every radar target was reported to the bridge and its course and speed calculated; in addition, a closest-point-of-approach was calculated periodically in case the target changed course. The lookouts knew where to look, and if the closest point was within a mile or two the Captain was on the bridge. Sheesh!!!

Bob
 
I know the secure a lot of the radar when coming into port, but I can't imagine every single system was inactivated at that point. I seriously wonder what the hell was going on where you can't recognize an impending collision with a huge tanker, it should have been clearly evident that the courses were intersecting from several miles out, and a course/speed adjustment made ensure they were well clear (by a mile) of any potential conflict.
 
Don't sailors spend their days drinking rum and singing songs?

The navy is just one big party right?

Sailing under the influence?

;)
 
And all ships are on the same level, not like airplanes that can be at different altitudes. But then again, cars run into each other quite frequently.
 
X3 Skier said:
At this rate, we'll be out of ships faster than in a shooting war.

Cheers
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Not sure that 'Cheers' is the right sentiment in the face of ten sailors lost.

Between the Fitzgerald and the McCain, it looks like the Navy has lost the same number of sailors as in the Cole bombing.
 
Norman said:
It can all be blamed on Dubya. Obama said that.
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The lunatic right is already blaming it on Obama claiming that the naval academy has replaced 'ship driving school' with 'cultural awareness training'.

I don't expect that there is any political angle to this. Just inexperienced command staff put into an unusual environment.
 
This radar thing seems pretty unreliable. I'm going to design a new radio based system for both detection and ranging that can tell these guys where other boats are.
 
weilke said:
The lunatic right is already blaming it on Obama claiming that the naval academy has replaced 'ship driving school' with 'cultural awareness training'.

I don't expect that there is any political angle to this. Just inexperienced command staff put into an unusual environment.
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Hang in there lunatic leftie.
 
weilke said:
The lunatic right is already blaming it on Obama claiming that the naval academy has replaced 'ship driving school' with 'cultural awareness training'.

I don't expect that there is any political angle to this. Just inexperienced command staff put into an unusual environment.
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Their are definitely politics involved.....but they are not limited to one specific party.

The down-sizing of the military (which included training) during the Clinton administration didn't help. Then the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld train drove up the cost of war and optempo up to where we started to slash training and maintenance budgets while maximizing optempto. Then Obama inherited that mess and rather than fix it, we continued the high optempo while adding in 'culture' training in any whitespace that was left.

It is a fallacy to say that Obama cut operational training in order to conduct cultural training. The operational training was already slashed by Cheney and Rumsfeld. In other words, Obama certainly didn't help, but the real damage was already done.
 
Clip4 said:
Rather difficult to blame this accident on an oil tanker.
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When two vessels under power collide there is almost always blame put on both sides. assigning 100% blame to one ship is almost unheard of in admiralty law.

I happen to know that in the FITZGERALD collision, the merchant bears some responsibility. How much will be up to the court to decide. Also, in this collision, the location of the damage to JSM and the Liberian ship doesn't look good for the merchant.
 
deonb said:
ADSB!

<duck>
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Not that absurd. Not ADSB specifically, but there certainly exist technology that could prevent this. Subs on the other hand prefer that no one know where they are so they are a different problem.
 
deonb said:
ADSB!

<duck>
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That, in my opinion, actually has a lot to do with the problem.

The maritime world has an ADSB like system (called AIS). The maritime community is where the airlines were back when 'Children of the Magenta' was made. They are so dependent on current technology that the forget how to function when it isn't fully working.

One of the issues we have here is that Navy warships do not typically transmit their AIS position. Kind of like flying around with your xpdr turned off. So....merchants who have gotten lazy and dependent on the AIS system to alert them to traffic, aren't seeing the Navy ships unless they take the time to look out the windows.
 
Fearless Tower said:
the location of the damage to JSM and the Liberian ship doesn't look good for the merchant.
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True but how long does it take for the watch standers to relay information on the bridge and how long does it take to avoid such a collision. Folks on both sides were not taking their job seriously...:(
 
AKBill said:
True but how long does it take for the watch standers to relay information on the bridge and how long does it take to avoid such a collision. Folks on both sides were not taking their job seriously...:(
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Doesn't take long at all. And I fully agree. Both sides failed here.
 
Fearless Tower said:
One of the issues we have here is that Navy warships do not typically transmit their AIS position
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I could see that on the open seas but in a congested ship lane coming into port that's crazy not to let folks know were you are
 
AKBill said:
I could see that on the open seas but in a congested ship lane coming into port that's crazy not to let folks know were you are
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Yes and no. From an Operational Security standpoint, the congested areas like the SoM are precisely where you don't want to advertise your position to every freaking jihadist with an internet connection.

The thing is, you are still just as visible on radar as you were before AIS. It just requires the guy on the other ship to actually look at the scope and tag the contact in order to track it. Some of those merchants have gotten flippin' lazy with AIS and are relying on that to tell them if there are any contacts around them.

It would be like equipping your airplane with ADS-B and then flying into a traffic pattern wile looking at ForeFlight the whole time and never looking out the cockpit windows to see if there was any traffic in the pattern.
 
Fearless Tower said:
One of the issues we have here is that Navy warships do not typically transmit their AIS position. Kind of like flying around with your xpdr turned off. So....merchants who have gotten lazy and dependent on the AIS system to alert them to traffic, aren't seeing the Navy ships unless they take the time to look out the windows.
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I wonder whether the rules governing AIS would allow a military ship to spoof a non-military code. 'MC Sum Ting Wong' wouldn't catch any jihadi attention in the straits of Singapore.
 
Fearless Tower said:
It would be like equipping your airplane with ADS-B and then flying into a traffic pattern wile looking at ForeFlight the whole time and never looking out the cockpit windows to see if there was any traffic in the pattern.
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Point taken. The "freaking jihadist" are going to tax our country of money and resources for a long time.
 
weilke said:
I wonder whether the rules governing AIS would allow a military ship to spoof a non-military code. 'MC Sum Ting Wong' wouldn't catch any jihadi attention in the straits of Singapore.
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That'd probably be a question for the lawyers.

As the system is currently fielded, we had the ability to turn the transmit on (and on my last ship, it was my CO's practice to transmit during periods of restricted visibility), but there was no way to change the code associated with the unit.
 
Fearless Tower said:
That'd probably be a question for the lawyers.

As the system is currently fielded, we had the ability to turn the transmit on (and on my last ship, it was my CO's practice to transmit during periods of restricted visibility), but there was no way to change the code associated with the unit.
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To bad they can't just transmit 1200.....:) Maybe 1100 for VSR (visual ship rules)
 
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AKBill said:
To bad they can't just transmit 1200.....:) Maybe 1100 for VSR (visual ship rules)
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True. That would be a nice feature. But, even with ADS-B, you aren't unidentifiable. Once an airplane completes the ADS-B process, it can be tracked on FlightAware even when you are VFR not talking to ATC.
 
For the second time in a few months a BILLION DOLLAR navy ship has run into a commercial vessel that probably has a top speed of 25 knots. Apparently neither the technology, nor the command structure, can be relied upon to avoid collisions with massive commercial vessels.

Not only does it boggle the mind, but it truly raises the concern over the competence and capability of the US Navy in general.

It seems to me it would be very dangerous to antagonize North Korea by moving ahead with the Ulchi-Freedom Guardian exercises when our Navy will be the primary leader in any defensive/offensive conflict.

If the saying that all plans go out the window once the first shot is fired is true - how the hell can we trust our Navy to fight effectively if they can't even avoid running into another ship the size of a football field - repeatedly???

These last two accidents indicate an incompetence level up and down the chain of command. Once could be a freak occurrence. Twice in a few months is indicative of a systemic failure in over-all competence.

Kim Jong-un will probably never have a better chance of uniting the Korea's than right now. I just hope he doesn't realize it.

I hope South Korea is not relying on the US navy to protect them. If so, they could be in for a regime change. I would hate to see it. I visited South Korea two years ago and fell in love with the country and the people.
 
Fearless Tower said:
When two vessels under power collide there is almost always blame put on both sides. assigning 100% blame to one ship is almost unheard of in admiralty law.

I happen to know that in the FITZGERALD collision, the merchant bears some responsibility. How much will be up to the court to decide. Also, in this collision, the location of the damage to JSM and the Liberian ship doesn't look good for the merchant.
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Well, don't maritime rules somewhat mimic our own right-of-way rules for aviation? I'd think the tanker who takes miles to turn around and is much less maneuverable is more akin to a blimp, where the destroyer being much more maneuverable, comparatively, would have to give-way. I'm sure "fault" being assigned to both sides is standard because they "both should have known better", but I feel like the Destroyer is going to be more at-fault.
 
SoonerAviator said:
Well, don't maritime rules somewhat mimic our own right-of-way rules for aviation? I'd think the tanker who takes miles to turn around and is much less maneuverable is more akin to a blimp, where the destroyer being much more maneuverable, comparatively, would have to give-way.
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There are such rules for large vessels in narrow channels, but a Traffic Separation Scheme is not a narrow channel.
 
Lndwarrior said:
Twice in a few months is indicative of a systemic failure in over-all competence.
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It's actually more than twice.

There have been 4 major accidents in 7th Fleet this year:

-Leyte Gulf had a collision with a fishing vessel

-Antietam ran aground

-Fitzgerald

-John S McCain
 
SoonerAviator said:
I know the secure a lot of the radar when coming into port, but I can't imagine every single system was inactivated at that point. I seriously wonder what the hell was going on where you can't recognize an impending collision with a huge tanker, it should have been clearly evident that the courses were intersecting from several miles out, and a course/speed adjustment made ensure they were well clear (by a mile) of any potential conflict.
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Where did this insane idea originate? We never shut down the surface search radar until there were lines on the dock. In my enlisted days as an electronics technician we worked on operating radars while in port.

Bob
 
bobmrg said:
Where did this insane idea originate? We never shut down the surface search radar until there were lines on the dock. In my enlisted days as an electronics technician we worked on operating radars while in port.

Bob
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It's people confusing different radars. Air search radars are secured when entering port. Surface search radars are not secured until pier-side.
 
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