US Navy Destroyer Severely Damaged in Collision

[Chance]

There are seven sailors unaccounted for. From NBC News (http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/u-s-naval-vessel-collides-merchant-ship-southwest-japan-n773521):


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Seven U.S. sailors are unaccounted for after a Navy destroyer collided with a merchant ship southwest of Yokosuka, Japan, early Saturday local time, the Navy said.

The USS Fitzgerald, a 505-foot destroyer, collided with a Philippine container vessel at approximately 2:30 a.m. Saturday local time (1:30 p.m. ET Friday), about 56 nautical miles off Yokosuka, the U.S. 7th Fleet said.

The ship, which had experienced some flooding after the collision, was tugged back to Yokosuka Naval Base, south of Tokyo, early Saturday.

Meanwhile search and rescue efforts by U.S. and Japanese aircraft and boats were underway in the area where the vessels collided.

The U.S. Navy said damaged areas of the ship will also be searched for the seven unaccounted-for sailors after the ship is safely docked.

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It's hard to appreciate how huge those things are until you see them in person. Any sailors around to give some insight into what happened?

[Chance]

FYI: This is what the Fitzgerald looked like before.

17412

[blues]

Somebody's got some 'splainin' to do...

I'm not optimistic about recovering the sailors but will hope for the best if and while hope remains.

[JohnO]

From the damage evident on the two vessels it appears the container ship broadsided the Destroyer. I'm no sailor but aren't there right-of-way rules on the seas and assuming both ships were underway the Destroyer would be at fault? I know I have no knowledge of how it happened but does my suspicion hold water?

[Chance]

The container ship was sailing really erratically.

17413

Did a u-turn, then corrected course. Apparently, it suffered so little damage it went on to its original destination.

[TGS]

Can any sailors/former sailors on this board describe how an incident like this could happen?

I imagine there would be redundancy built in, that even if the watch officer were asleep there would be other people there to wake him up....that even if a gizmo (radar?) went down, other systems would still provide warning, etc.

I'm not really asking for speculation on how this particular incident happened, just wondering what the contributing factors would be for a modern USN surface warship to suffer a collision...

[TAZ]

Wow form that track, it looks like a Bernie supporter was at the wheel of the container ship. Prayers for the missing sailors. I'd really like to hear what happened. You dont really hear of this kind of thing happening often on the shipping lanes. Drunk weekend warriors on a lake or near shore, sure, but not out on the shipping routes.

[Chance]

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That's, what... 17 million pounds colliding with 58 million pounds?

Wow.

From CNN (http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/16/politics/us-navy-destroyer-collides-with-merchant-ship-japan/index.html):


The area where the wreck happened is known for heavy maritime traffic, the Japanese coast guard said. About 400 to 500 ships pass through the zone each day, the service said.

The last known fatal incident there was in September 2015, when a South Korean vessel and a Japanese container ship collided, Japan's coast guard reported. Six Japanese crew were declared dead.

In such a busy shipping lane, the ships may have been in a "restricted navigation" situation, meaning they would have had o observe strict rules for movement and positioning in relation to other vessels in their vicinity, said Carl Schuster, former director of operations at the US Pacific Command's Joint Intelligence Center and a Hawaii Pacific University professor.

Those rules leave vessels little room to maneuver, as turning away from one ship could place a vessel at risk of an even more serious incident with another, Schuster said.
The area has seen two other major collisions in the past five years.

I'm sure we'll have knowledgeable folks wander in before too long, but I'm guessing the container ship's erratic path resulted in the destroyer trying to get out of the way.

The bulbous protrusion at the bow of the container ship, which evidently makes it more hydrodynamic, is leading people to speculate that the damage to the Fitzgerald may be worse under the water line.

[Trooper224]

Been there, done that during my Navy days. It happens more often than you think. You'd wonder how two ships can collide in the big open ocean, but it happens. This was at 2:00am, so it wasn't in broad daylight. The Destroyer was probably running without navigation lights, which is SOP. Navigation radar should have made the presence of both vessels obvious to each other. In the end, it will probably come down to human error, most likely on the part of both vessels.

[Drang]

Read somewhere that the skipper was among the injured, and not just his career.

[Chance]

The Destroyer was probably running without navigation lights, which is SOP.

They're still going to observe those SOPs in a busy shipping channel? How many people would have been on watch (if that's what you call it) at 1:00am? Within what radius can ships of this size change course? Who would have been calling the shots at that hour of the morning? I've been on warship tours before: does the captain (who was an O-5 in this case...?) sleep immediately off the bridge?

[Trooper224]

They're still going to observe those SOPs in a busy shipping channel? How many people would have been on watch (if that's what you call it) at 1:00am? Within what radius can ships of this size change course? Who would have been calling the shots at that hour of the morning? I've been on warship tours before: does the captain (who was an O-5 in this case...?) sleep immediately off the bridge?

An Arliegh Burke class can turn with a pretty sharp radius, relatively speaking. A freighter? Starts on Monday finishes on Thursday. Standard deck watch consists of four crewmen. At that time of morning a junior officer was probably the OOD on the bridge. Yes, that COs cabin is typically near the bridge.

[SeriousStudent]

My thoughts are with the seven missing sailors, I hope they are found quickly and alive.

[Chance]

Standard deck watch consists of four crewmen. At that time of morning a junior officer was probably the OOD on the bridge.

Holy balls. On the entire ship, there are four people making sure the boat goes in the right direction?

[JohnO]

Holy balls. On the entire ship, there are four people making sure the boat goes in the right direction?

In this day & age one would think computers and Sat Nav would be handling all functions with Human backup. Collision avoidance Radar too. So where was that?

[HCountyGuy]

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Hope the seven missing sailors are found safely.

[Trooper224]

There are four crewmen on physical deck watch except in foul weather. THIS INCLUDES THE BRIDGE WATCH which is fully manned at all times. There should have been surface radar activated that would have warned off both ships, regardless of visibility. This is obviously a human failrue. Something wasn't turned on that should have been, someone wasn't alert like they should have been. There's no grand conspiracy or incompetence going on here.

I suspect, given the overall quality of freighter crews, that the destroyer had right of way and no one was on watch on the freighters bridge. I wouldn't be AR all surprised to hear they were relying on auto nav and something went wrong. This would explain the ships erratic course.

The bridge crew on the destroyer probably didn't realize their right of way wasn't being recognized until it was too late.

[Peally]

Damn shame, that's a costly collision in multiple ways.

[StraitR]

There are four crewmen on physical deck watch except in foul weather. THIS INCLUDES THE BRIDGE WATCH which is fully manned at all times. There should have been surface radar activated that would have warned off both ships, regardless of visibility. This is obviously a human failrue. Something wasn't turned on that should have been, someone wasn't alert like they should have been. There's no grand conspiracy or incompetence going on here.

I suspect, given the overall quality of freighter crews, that the destroyer had right of way and no one was on watch on the freighters bridge. I wouldn't be AR all surprised to hear they were relying on auto nav and something went wrong. This would explain the ships erratic course.

The bridge crew on the destroyer probably didn't realize their right of way wasn't being recognized until it was too late.

Keep in mind, the USS Fitzgerald is an Arleigh Burke Class Destroyer, which were designed from the ground up with minimal right angles on the exterior surfaces just to reduce radar signature. I'm not up to speed on all this stuff anymore, but the freighter may or may not have even picked up the Fitzgerald. Also, the Fitzgerald has Aegis and SPY-1D radar systems, so I'm not sure how or why they weren't alerted to the presence of the freighter.

Even if that stuff was turned off, and they were running dark, the deck watches, whose job it is to physically scan the horizon, should have seen something. I'm interested to see how this shakes out, if we ever hear another word about it.

Thoughts and prayers for the missing and injured sailors.

[Odin Bravo One]

There are very strict rules about running without your electronic signature. As in, it's virtually unheard of to do at peace time in high traffic areas. The Fitzgerald will come up as a US Navy warship to every commercial vessel in existence. Everyone for miles knew it was there.

When you examine the erratic course and turns made by the merchant vessel, intentional cannot be ruled out.

[txdpd]

Ships the size of those two vessels don't start, stop or steer on a dime. In tight shipping lanes, it doesn't take much to turn a few thousand yards of clearance into a imminent collision. If the freighter veered off course, there may not have been anything the crew of the destroyer could have done to avoid a collision. The crew of the destroyer could have screwed up royally too. Without knowing what happened, operating off of the assumption that the two vessels were traveling in straight lines and crossed paths, leaves a lot possibilities off the table.

[Odin Bravo One]

They didn't veer off course. The executed a 180 degree turn and several other erratic navigational What the fucks just prior to impacting the Navy vessel.

[RJ]

Seven crew found in the berthing spaces perished.

May they Rest In Peace.

https://www.navytimes.com/articles/seven-missing-fitzgerald-sailors-discovered-dead

"A number of Sailors that were missing from the collision between USS Fitzgerald (DDG 62) and a merchant ship have been found,” the release said. “As search and rescue crews gained access to the spaces that were damaged during the collision this morning, the missing Sailors were located in the flooded berthing compartments."

[StraitR]

RIP sailors.

USS Fitzgerald: Bodies of 7 missing sailors found, US Navy says

The bodies of sailors who went missing in the collision between the USS Fitzgerald and a container ship have been found aboard the stricken destroyer, Fox News confirmed Saturday night. (http://www.foxnews.com/world/2017/06/17/uss-fitzgerald-massive-search-underway-for-7-missing-sailors-after-collision.html)

[TAZ]

Damn! RIP to the sailors who perished.

Hope we learn something that help prevent another incident.

[hufnagel]

The container ship was sailing really erratically.

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Did a u-turn, then corrected course. Apparently, it suffered so little damage it went on to its original destination.

do we have an idea where the Fitzgerald was on this map? at the time of the collision?

[SamAdams]

Back in the day - a long time ago - I stood some of those late night/early morning watches. In respect of the crew, I'll defer from speculating what happened. Of course, the Navy will conduct a detailed investigation. A public news story doesn't provide nearly sufficient details.

Prayers for our sailors on board, for those who lost their lives, and their families.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

[SeriousStudent]

Fair winds and following seas for the sailors that lost their lives. May their families and shipmates receive comfort and strength.

[hufnagel]

thought the name sounded familiar...
different ship though... SS Edmund Fitzgerald (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Edmund_Fitzgerald)

[Chance]

From CNN (http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/17/us/missing-sailors-found/index.html):


The water flow into compartments that were berthing areas for 116 of the ship's crew was "tremendous", he said, adding that "there wasn't a lot of time in those spaces that were open to the sea."

Aucoin said the cabin of the Fitzgerald's captain, Cmdr. Bryce Benson, was completely destroyed. "He's lucky to be alive," he added.

Benson was flown off the crippled ship by helicopter after the accident and was being treated at the naval hospital at Yokosuka, according to Aucoin, as were two other sailors who were medevaced.

Berthing area being where sailors sleep, right? They're saying most of the damage is below the water line.


do we have an idea where the Fitzgerald was on this map? at the time of the collision?

No. The website MarineTraffic.com doesn't track military vessels.

[DocGKR]

Good thread here: http://www.lightfighter.net/topic/collision-56-miles-from-yokouska?page=1 with commentary from several SWO's.

[Chance]

Good thread here: http://www.lightfighter.net/topic/collision-56-miles-from-yokouska?page=1 with commentary from several SWO's.

That discussion about how night watch shifts are scheduled, and when/not to wake up the CO, make a ton of a sense. I get why the crew might have been reluctant to get the CO until it was too late to avoid the collision.

[Stephanie B]

Back in the day - a long time ago - I stood some of those late night/early morning watches.

As did I. If I were doing either of the two investigations, I'd look hard at the issue of how much sleep the watchstanders had before they assumed their watches.

[Corey]

I have some past experience on large containerized cargo ships and oil tankers and the rules are that the bigger/least maneuverable vessel has right of way. I don't know if it makes a difference if one of the ships is a navy vessel. However, even if the ACX Crystal had the right of way, the way they were maneuvering was a big part of the problem. That navigation track is a major WTF.

As for probable damage,

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The bulbous protrusion at the bow of the container ship, which evidently makes it more hydrodynamic, is leading people to speculate that the damage to the Fitzgerald may be worse under the water line.
I have been on board large vessels after a collision, and when a ship with a bulbous bow (that is what the design is actually called) hits the other bow first there is always extensive damage below the waterline. Regardless of what the investigation finds, there are 7 sailors who won't be coming home. That is a terrible tragedy.

[Chance]

17448

[Stephanie B]

I have some past experience on large containerized cargo ships and oil tankers and the rules are that the bigger/least maneuverable vessel has right of way. I don't know if it makes a difference if one of the ships is a navy vessel. However, even if the ACX Crystal had the right of way, the way they were maneuvering was a big part of the problem. That navigation track is a major WTF.

It's been a very long time since I mucked around with such matters, but my recollection is that it was considered to be a Very Bad Thing for the privileged vessel to maneuver in a crossing situation. They're supposed to maintain course and speed so that the burdened vessel can adjust her course and speed to avoid a collision.

[Lester Polfus]

This is terrible.

I think it's really early to be even attempting to figure out what happened here, despite the fact that the track of that container vessel looks damn odd. One thing to consider is that there may have been another, or even several other vessels involved in how this developed. That particular patch of ocean is hugely busy, and often full of very large vessels that have limited ability to maneuver.

I transited that area in a 378' Coast Guard cutter in the 90's, and it was the single busiest approachs to a port I'd ever experienced. It was like LA rush hour only with 800' long container ships that took miles to maneuver. We cruised around in circles in the middle of the night so our approach would be in daylight, as no one on board had ever transited the area before.

Regarding Nav Rules, it's true that one vessel is the "Stand On Vessel" and the other is the "Give Way Vessel" but it's impossible to know how the rules applied in this situation, and it may be further complicated by more than two vessels trying to occupy the same stretch of ocean. The bottom line is that all vessels have a duty to avoid collision, and there should have been some bridge to bridge communications over the radio. I've been witness to several conversations with commercial mariners who left their clues back in port though and we wound up maneuvering even though we were the stand on vessel to keep from eating another vessel.

It's amazing the Fitzgerald didn't sink. The physics of his are much akin to a Geo Metro being t-boned by a semi. The Navy builds them tough, and as we've seen with the Stark, the Samuel B Roberts and the Cole, a good crew can save a ship that would sink otherwise.

This could have been much worse.

[Lester Polfus]

As did I. If I were doing either of the two investigations, I'd look hard at the issue of how much sleep the watchstanders had before they assumed their watches.

Having been so sleep deprived that I once hallucinated at the helm during a deployment to Central America, I'm guessing that will be on the list.

[Drang]

Has the crew of the container vessel been detained invited to stick around for questioning?

[Lester Polfus]

Has the crew of the container vessel been detained invited to stick around for questioning?

That's an interesting question. I'm not a maritime lawyer, but I think the investigating authority on this will be the Japanese, probably their Coast Guard.

I know in US waters, these sort of incidents become very complicated, as they involve the law, politics, and large amounts of money. It's not uncommon for these shipping companies to want to keep their folks on ice for a while before giving any statements, and once they do, they are all remarkably similar.

[Lester Polfus]

If this articl (https://www.navytimes.com/articles/fitzgerald-crew-saved-navy-ship-from-sinking-after-collision)e is accurate, it sounds like two of the compartments that were open to the sea were berthing areas. This could of been so much worse. Waking up at 0230 with sea water pouring into your berthing area and having to deass in a hurry is the stuff of nightmares. Every one of us had to be able to get out of berthing to weather deck while blind folded, and I'd imagine the Navy does the same thing.

Also, there's a picture of the damage in the article I linked to above. While I've not been on an Arleigh Burke class destroyer, on most warships, the Captain and XO's cabins are right about where the upper extent of the damage is.

[Lester Polfus]

Has the crew of the container vessel been detained invited to stick around for questioning?

According to this article (https://www.navytimes.com/articles/japan-investigates-delay-in-reporting-us-navy-ship-collision), they've already been interviewed, and there is already a bad smell.

[Stephanie B]

Also, there's a picture of the damage in the article I linked to above. While I've not been on an Arleigh Burke class destroyer, on most warships, the Captain and XO's cabins are right about where the upper extent of the damage is.

I'd be surprised if they were. On the few ships I've been on, the Captain's cabin is directly under the Bridge. The XO's stateroom is about midships. The idea was that a middle-of-the night surprise wouldn't take out both of them.

RMOAS: I got to consult on the first draft of the design of a new warship (which was never built). I pointed out the necessity for emergency exits from berthing compartments and that the CO and XO's rooms had to be separated.

The Navy prided itself on damage control. I've known captains who would get downright shirty in SWO orals if the candidate did not name damage control as the last line of defense from cruise missile attack. (And I've seen a few NATO ships that could have used some USN influence in that regard.)

But I digress.

[Lester Polfus]

I'd be surprised if they were. On the few ships I've been on, the Captain's cabin is directly under the Bridge. The XO's stateroom is about midships. The idea was that a middle-of-the night surprise wouldn't take out both of them.

RMOAS: I got to consult on the first draft of the design of a new warship (which was never built). I pointed out the necessity for emergency exits from berthing compartments and that the CO and XO's rooms had to be separated.

The Navy prided itself on damage control. I've known captains who would get downright shirty in SWO orals if the candidate did not name damage control as the last line of defense from cruise missile attack. (And I've seen a few NATO ships that could have used some USN influence in that regard.)

But I digress.

Interesting. Instead of "warships" I probably shoulda said "Coast Guard Cutters." On every one of ours I can think of, the Co's and Xo's cabins were both under the bridge, right next to each other. I did float around on some Navy ships in parts south, but never made it up to O country.

Thanks for that.

[Chance]

Can the active/retired Navy folks talk a little about training for damage control? I've read about the extraordinarily elaborate simulators Navy uses to train people for such circumstances (most recently in Mary Roach's Grunt (https://www.amazon.com/Grunt-Curious-Science-Humans-War-ebook/dp/B016APOD1K/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1497914133&sr=8-2&keywords=Grunt), which was excellent by the way), and it made my palms sweat just hearing the description.

[TGS]

Can the active/retired Navy folks talk a little about training for damage control? I've read about the extraordinarily elaborate simulators Navy uses to train people for such circumstances (most recently in Mary Roach's Grunt (https://www.amazon.com/Grunt-Curious-Science-Humans-War-ebook/dp/B016APOD1K/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1497914133&sr=8-2&keywords=Grunt), which was excellent by the way), and it made my palms sweat just hearing the description.

I was Marines, not Navy, but got to do a few runs through the USS Buttercup, one of those fake ships that sinks in a gigantic pool. It was a ton of fun but we died each run.

I can't imagine how hectic and terrifying it must've been for those guys. Just speculating that they likely sealed the hatches on their shipmates in order to save the ship. Heart wrenching.

[peterb]

I was Marines, not Navy, but got to do a few runs through the USS Buttercup, one of those fake ships that sinks in a gigantic pool. It was a ton of fun but we died each run.

I can't imagine how hectic and terrifying it must've been for those guys. Just speculating that they likely sealed the hatches on their shipmates in order to save the ship. Heart wrenching.

Thanks for the reference!
http://www.ocs.navy.mil/wet_trainer.html

[Lester Polfus]

Can the active/retired Navy folks talk a little about training for damage control? I've read about the extraordinarily elaborate simulators Navy uses to train people for such circumstances (most recently in Mary Roach's Grunt (https://www.amazon.com/Grunt-Curious-Science-Humans-War-ebook/dp/B016APOD1K/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1497914133&sr=8-2&keywords=Grunt), which was excellent by the way), and it made my palms sweat just hearing the description.

Well...I was Coast Guard and not Navy, but I attended Navy damage control school on Treasure Island and Refresher Training in San Diego. The school on TI was cool. They had fake compartments that could flood and set on fire.

On my ship you weren't anybody until you were DCPQS qualified, which meant you had demonstrated profienciency with a wide variety of skills that would make you able to contribute meaningfully if the ship flooded or caught on fire.

If you wanted to move into off base housing or take leave, the answer was going to be no until you were qualified.

We drilled incessantly. As in dozens of reps as we worked up to getting underway.

All that paid off one night when we had an oil line in the engine room spray oil all over hot machinery. I literally became fully awake at 0100 with my fire fighting ensemble halfway on. We didn't catch fire that night but we were ready if we did.

Paid off even more when I went from smoking and joking on the fantail to five minutes later being #1 nozzleman on a real fire in a storeroom that gutted the compartment and came close to getting our reefer hot enough to turn the refrigerant into phosgene.

I could probably still light off a P250 pump while half awake. A few years back I whipped up some direct compression shoring when a tree took out my neighbors porch post.

That's the kind of stuff those guys were doing that night. A lot of them probably left the berthing area in their socks and underwear and went to work anyway. The people who really saved that ship were a bunch of 19 and 20 year olds working together.

[Odin Bravo One]

I was Navy for 18 years but know fuck all about damage control. Everything I know about the Navy I learned as a Marine.

[Lester Polfus]

http://www.militarytimes.com/story/military/2015/05/22/samuel-b-roberts-frigate-legacy-1988-mine-report/27593135/

Here is a story about the Sammy B that gives an idea.

[Drang]

Can the active/retired Navy folks talk a little about training for damage control?

I was Army, not Navy, but I learned all I needed to know about damage control when I learned that the Navy can award the Congressional Medal of Honor in peacetime for lifesaving actions in damage control situations.
(Probably not phrased accurately, cut a Doggy a break.)

[Odin Bravo One]

I got nothing.

[bigslim]

I was in an Engineman for 8.5 years and was stationed aboard both a destroyer and a frigate. I was a member of both the damage control training team and the engineering training team. Training for General Quarters and Damage Control was a seemingly non stop evolution. Every day security and damage control drills were run by the duty section and once under way our typical schedule was drill from 06-2200.

Our max time for manned and ready from the time the GQ alarm was sounded was 4 minuets for a pass and of course we worked our asses off to get below that.

I can only imagine that GQ was called prior to the collision which may account for so few sailors being in the berthing at that time. Another possibility is that the ship may have been at Restricted Maneuvering because she was in a busy shipping channel. RM is a condition of readiness to insure maximum reliability of both the crew and machinery. Basically it assholes and elbows with most if not all spaces manned and all equipment is running with redundant backups online.

Fair winds and following seas Brothers

Mike


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[walker2713]

Great thread! Constantly amazed at the breadth and depth of knowledge and experience this forum's members have to offer.

Thanks for posting.....

George

[Stephanie B]

Had an incident when we went to GQ for a lube oil fire in Aux 1. The forward Repair Locker (Repair 2) did not report manned and ready because one guy tripped in running to his battle station and broke something. (The fire turned out to be a non-event.)

The Chief Engineer went ballistic over that. The bosses (CO, XO, department heads and command master chief) began handing out cards to selected sailors that read "GQ drill for (date), you are (dead/injured)". If you were in charge of a space or a team, you had to figure out how to do things short-handed.

About the sixth time that happened, the CMC gave his "you're dead card" to the CO. The CO came to the Bridge, showed the XO his card, sat in his chair and the XO ran the drill. Everyone got with the program after that,

[farscott]

This report, if true, explains a bit more about why the course of the container ship was so erratic. http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2017/06/something_is_fishy_about_uss_fitzgerald_story_we_a re_getting_from_the_media.html A snippet is below.


Meguro said the ship was "operating as usual" until the collision at 1:30 a.m., as shown on a ship tracking service that the company uses. She said the ship reported to the coast guard at 2:25 a.m., but she could not provide details about what the ship was doing for nearly an hour.

"Because it was in an emergency, the crewmembers may not have been able to place a call," she said.


My son is assigned to the USS Fitzgerald. I am unable to share his rate with you.

The information is short and not so sweet. The implications are disturbing.

The ship is registered in the Philippines. We do not know who the owner is. The container ship neither had its running lights or transponder on. That is an action taken willfully. Furthermore, for the container ship to strike with such accuracy is troublesome. Given what some have done with cars in Europe, what a feather in the cap it would be to sink a U.S. Navy warship. Think on that.

My son missed being washed out to sea by the blink of an eye. He was on his way to one of the berthing areas that was rammed.

Yes, language is important. "Rammed" is the perfect word.

Loving and Concerned Navy Mother

And a response with all of the grammar and spelling errors remaining:


Lights off and transponder not on? That is blatantly false. We have teh AIS track. Where do you suppose that came from? An AIS is what you are calling a transponder! IF the container ship was trying to ram them, the damage would have been far worse. We're talking at least 35,000 tons at full speed ss tons")(displacement - not "gross tons") - and the damge to the Crystal was on the port boaw, she was turning awy to avoid the collision. Not everything is a conspiracy!

[Chance]

I'm not buying the conspiracy stuff. If the transponder was off, then we wouldn't have the freighter's track from MarineTraffic.com, or any of the other services that track maritime traffic.

[RJ]

I'm not buying the conspiracy stuff. If the transponder was off, then we wouldn't have the freighter's track from MarineTraffic.com, or any of the other services that track maritime traffic.

Ditto.

My heart goes out to the families of the sailors. I cant imagine what they are going through.

As to the comment, I'm not at all familiar with large ships, but if you could tell that a container ship was running 'without lights', seems to me that you would kind of be able to detect the ship itself?

As to the collision, I've heard this as being described as a BMW M3 (Fitzgerald) being run into by a Dump truck (Container vessel). Can those knowledgeable here comment whether this is an accurate comparison of the relative agility of these vessels? I understand the Arleigh Burke class use variable pitch props, with gas turbine engines, capable of stopping the ship in a couple lengths. Is this true?

[Chance]

As to the comment, I'm not at all familiar with large ships, but if you could tell that a container ship was running 'without lights', seems to me that you would kind of be able to detect the ship itself?

There was some really good info in the thread DocGKR linked to about how detecting the ship is only part of the problem.

[walker2713]

I've been following this story, and will say that I have had on my mind a terroristic attack as ONE of the numerous explanations possible for the collision.

Until we have a lot more information, we'll have to wait and see....but I'm not dismissing out of hand that this COULD have been a serious attempt to sink the Fitzgerald. Remember the Cole!!

George

[Lester Polfus]

Ditto.

My heart goes out to the families of the sailors. I cant imagine what they are going through.

As to the comment, I'm not at all familiar with large ships, but if you could tell that a container ship was running 'without lights', seems to me that you would kind of be able to detect the ship itself?

As to the collision, I've heard this as being described as a BMW M3 (Fitzgerald) being run into by a Dump truck (Container vessel). Can those knowledgeable here comment whether this is an accurate comparison of the relative agility of these vessels? I understand the Arleigh Burke class use variable pitch props, with gas turbine engines, capable of stopping the ship in a couple lengths. Is this true?


That's a fairly apt comparison. I'm not sure that the Arleigh Burke could come to a complete stop in a couple of lengths, but I wouldn't be able to say it can't either. I've been on a smaller vessel that could go from a full bell to a complete stop in pretty short order due to variable pitch props.

The big container ships literally take miles to maneuver and stop. Agility isn't something that earns money for them, so it's not part of the design.

I'll have to try to join lightfighter again. I tried last night but my computer wouldn't play well with captcha for some reason.

[Stephanie B]

I'm not buying the conspiracy stuff. If the transponder was off, then we wouldn't have the freighter's track from MarineTraffic.com, or any of the other services that track maritime traffic.

I'm not buying it, either. A containership is a honking big radar target.

[Lester Polfus]

I'm not buying it, either. A containership is a honking big radar target.

Zactly. If you wanted to do something nefarious to a US Navy destroy, this way is about on the bottom of the list.

[hufnagel]

maybe that's why it would/did work? no one would think anyone would bother trying it this way?
I'm not saying it WAS deliberate, but...

[farscott]

I am keeping an open mind as well, but I do remember that not many people considered using a passenger jet as a guided missile on 10-SEP-2001.

[GardoneVT]

I am keeping an open mind as well, but I do remember that not many people considered using a passenger jet as a guided missile on 10-SEP-2001.

Oh how quickly we forget our history!

Please see the USS Cole for an example of terrorism by boat.

[Shellback]

https://s.yimg.com/ny/api/res/1.2/AIc5g3peqgo4iu7_HGZ5_Q--/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjtzbT0xO3c9NjUwO2g9NDg4/http://globalfinance.zenfs.com/en_us/Finance/US_AFTP_SILICONALLEY_H_LIVE/Navy_sailor_sacrificed_himself_to-06fd8ef21bc3ea4a8a807dc37a960a80

Heroism. (https://finance.yahoo.com/news/navy-sailor-sacrificed-himself-save-200434952.html)


One of the 7 sailors who died aboard the USS Fitzgerald saved more than a dozen of his fellow shipmates before he ultimately lost his own life, The Daily Beast reported.

The USS Fitzgerald collided with a Philippine-flagged merchant vessel about 56 miles off the coast of Japan on Saturday.

Seven sailors were later found dead in flooded compartments on the ship.

When the Fitzgerald collided with the merchant ship, 37-year-old Fire Controlman 1st Class Gary Leo Rehm Jr., "leapt into action," according to The Daily Beast.

The Fitzgerald was struck below the waterline, and Rehm Jr.'s family was told by the Navy that he went under and saved at least 20 sailors, according to WBNS-10TV in Columbus, Ohio.

But when he went back down to get the other six sailors, the ship began to take on too much water, and the hatch was closed, WBNS-10TV said...

[Peally]

This has been a fucking disaster. There's a freighter crew out there somewhere that's overdue for being dragged into a room for questioning.

[SeriousStudent]

https://s.yimg.com/ny/api/res/1.2/AIc5g3peqgo4iu7_HGZ5_Q--/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjtzbT0xO3c9NjUwO2g9NDg4/http://globalfinance.zenfs.com/en_us/Finance/US_AFTP_SILICONALLEY_H_LIVE/Navy_sailor_sacrificed_himself_to-06fd8ef21bc3ea4a8a807dc37a960a80

Heroism. (https://finance.yahoo.com/news/navy-sailor-sacrificed-himself-save-200434952.html)

What an outstanding young Petty Officer. I do hope his command is writing him up for a Navy and Marine Corps Medal, at the least.

I have read all the available books and reports on the damage control actions taken by the crews of the Stark, Samuel Roberts, and Cole. I get a serious lump in my throat, thinking of the selfless heroism shown by so many of these young Sailors. Too many of them knowingly gave their lives to save their ship, and their shipmates.

We truly have the finest navy in the world. And it's because of the Sailors that man our ships.

[DocGKR]

How about posthumous promotion to Chief/E7 and a Navy Cross or even MOH...

[SeriousStudent]

How about posthumous promotion to Chief/E7 and a Navy Cross or even MOH...

It would not be undeserved. There were several Navy divers who were recognized in a similar fashion, in the recovery efforts after the December 1941 attack at Pearl Harbor.

They performed incredibly risky acts, to free crewman trapped in capsized vessels.

As a former naval officer, I am sure you are familiar with those men. For me, it was very, very humbling, to visit Pearl Harbor and listen to the descriptions of their actions.

Bravery takes many forms, and shows many faces.

[1slow]

I am keeping an open mind as well, but I do remember that not many people considered using a passenger jet as a guided missile on 10-SEP-2001.

Using a plane as a guided missle was written up in 1980s and earlier Science Fiction.

[farscott]

Using a plane as a guided missle was written up in 1980s and earlier Science Fiction.

Yes, most notably by Tom Clancy with the attack on the Capitol during a joint session of Congress. But most of those stories dealt with a pilot committing suicide for a cause, not hijackers taking control of a passenger aircraft carrying passengers. A small difference, but one that addresses how and why the 9/11 plot succeeded. Until 9/11, we negotiated with hijackers and did not resist. That playbook became obsolete on 11-SEP-2001, and the new course of actively resisting started on that day with Flight 93.

[Stephanie B]

Using a plane as a guided missle was written up in 1980s and earlier Science Fiction.

The Running Man by Stephen King ended that way. It was published in the early `80s.

[Chance]

Good article from Foxtrot Alpha (http://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/why-the-destroyer-crash-that-killed-seven-u-s-sailors-1796462864), where the author summarized a great report based off open source intelligent. A few highlights:


In a report from Reuters yesterday, Capt. Ronald Advincula, who was in command of the ACX Crystal container ship and its 20 crewmembers, said that the destroyer failed to take evasive action or respond to warning signals, and that his ship tried for 10 minutes to avoid the oncoming destroyer.

....

Steffan Watkins is an information technology security consultant and master of open source intelligence (OSINT) gathering. His website Vessel of Interest has provided the best analysis of the collision available, and speaking to Foxtrot Alpha, he couldn’t disagree more with the initial statements of the ACX Crystal’s captain.

“If it wasn’t such a terrible situation his comments would be comical,” Watkins said. “The evidence provided by AIS clearly shows a different story. The merchant was on autopilot and very likely no one was on the bridge of the ACX Crystal at the time of the collision.”

....

Yet, the data compiled from AIS on the Crystal implies a situation where it is apparent that the ship was on auto-pilot with no one on the bridge to oversee the ship’s movement.

Fifteen minutes before the collision the ACX Crystal was headed almost due east but within minutes a course change occurred, turning the merchant ship to port (that’s the left for you land-dwellers) and on a path that would result in colliding with the Fitzgerald.

For nine minutes, the Crystal closed on the destroyer while its auto-pilot followed the programmed course change. In those nine minutes, using the speed AIS has provided, the Crystal covered just over three nautical miles.

At 1:30 a.m. the impact occurred with the Crystal slamming into the superstructure of the Fitzgerald, and the freighter’s bulbous bow spearing the destroyer beneath the waterline, creating a massive hole in the ship.

Three minutes later, the Crystal swung to starboard (right) 65 degrees and slowed considerably—but didn’t stop. Within six minutes of the collision, the Crystal untangled itself from the destroyer, and – as if nothing happened – the Crystal begins to pick up speed and returns to its original course.

Thirty minutes after the incident, the Crystal finally slowed down, and its course reversed.

This video created by Watkins shows the apparent path of the ACX Crystal. At around 17 seconds into the video the collision occurs.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJPt3pZ9zlU

That seems pretty definitive that no one was in control of the Crystal. Now, we need to know why the Fitzgerald didn't get out of the way.

[TiroFijo]

WHY a very fast ship with a very capable crew and the latest tech to monitor everything around it didn't get out of the way of a slow moving giant coming in a straight line?

[RJ]

Not good:

http://maritime-executive.com/article/report-uss-fitzgerald-was-at-fault-in-collision

"American defense officials said Friday that initial findings indicate that the destroyer USS Fitzgerald was likely at fault in her collision with the container ship ACX Crystal on June 17.

Seven died and three were injured in the accident, and the Crystal’s bulbous bow tore a hole measuring 12 by 17 feet in Fitzgerald’s hull. Seventh Fleet Commander Vice Adm. Joseph Aucoin said that only the skillful damage control efforts of the Fitzgerald’s crew saved the ship from sinking."

"Two defense officials speaking with CNN confirmed this account. "They did nothing until the last second," one official said. "A slew of things went wrong." Another Navy official said the crash "will wind up being our fault."

[RJ]

CO, XO, and CMC to be relieved:

"Admiral William Moran said the Navy will remove the commanding officer, executive officer and the command master chief from duty aboard the Fitzgerald, according to the Associated Press. Other sailors will also face punishment, said Moran. "

http://www.10news.com/news/military/senior-officer-on-damaged-ship-to-be-relieved-of-command

[Chance]

The Navy has released its report of the incident (https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3934451/Navy-Report-on-USS-Fitzgerald.pdf). It's a 41 page PDF.

Excepts:


The impact of CRYSTAL’s bulbous bow below the waterline punctured the side of FITZGERALD, creating a hole measuring approximately 13ft by 17ft, spanning the second and third decks below the main deck. The hole allowed water to flow directly into Auxiliary Machinery Room 1 (AUX 1) and the Berthing 2 starboard access trunk. The force of impact from CRYSTAL’s bulbous bow and resulting flood of water pushed the non-water tight door between the starboard access trunk and Berthing 2 inward. The wall supporting this door pulled away from the ceiling and bent to a near-90 degree angle. As a result, nothing separated Berthing 2 from the onrushing sea, allowing a great volume of water to enter Berthing 2 very quickly.


The impact at the moment of collision caused FITZGERALD to list (tilt) a reported 14 degrees to port. FITZGERALD then settled into a 7 degree starboard list as the sea flooded into Berthing 2 through the starboard access trunk and weighted the ship deeper into the water on the starboard side.


Following the collision, FITZGERALD changed her lighting configuration at the mast to one red light over another red light, known as “red over red,” the international lighting scheme that indicates a ship that is “not under command.” Under international navigation rules of the road, this signifies that, due to an exceptional circumstance such as loss of propulsion or steering, a vessel is unable to maneuver as required.


Some of the Sailors who survived the flooding in Berthing 2 described a loud noise at the time of impact. Other Berthing 2 Sailors felt an unusual movement of the ship or were thrown from their racks. Still other Berthing 2 Sailors did not realize what had happened and remained in their racks. Some of them remained asleep. Some Sailors reported hearing alarms after the collision, while others remember hearing nothing at all.


The CO was in his cabin at the time of the collision. The CRYSTAL’s bow directly struck
his cabin, located above the waterline. The impact severely damaged his cabin, trapping him inside. The CO called the bridge requesting assistance.

Five Sailors used a sledgehammer, kettlebell, and their bodies to break through the door into the CO’s cabin, remove the hinges, and then pry the door open enough to squeeze through. Even after the door was open, there was a large amount of debris and furniture against the door, preventing anyone from entering or exiting easily.

A junior officer and two chief petty officers removed debris from in front of the door and crawled into the cabin. The skin of the ship and outer bulkhead were gone and the night sky could be seen through the hanging wires and ripped steel. The rescue team tied themselves together with a belt in order to create a makeshift harness as they retrieved the CO, who was hanging from the side of the ship.

[TiroFijo]

Terrible incident, and very corageous crew.

Still nothing on WHY a very fast ship with a very capable crew and the latest tech to monitor everything around it didn't get out of the way of a slow moving giant coming in a straight line?

[Chance]

No. This just covers the damage control efforts.

[Peally]

It wasn't moving in a straight line, per the video the retards crewing the container ship had no clue where they were actually going.

[peterb]

It wasn't moving in a straight line, per the video the retards crewing the container ship had no clue where they were actually going.

As with so many encounters with things acting strangely.... sometimes the best thing to do is point your stern at it and push up the throttles until you're well clear, and then figure out what's going on.

It'll be interesting to learn what the bridge crew on the destroyer was thinking.

[TiroFijo]

It wasn't moving in a straight line, per the video the retards crewing the container ship had no clue where they were actually going.

Well, a military ship moving without lights at night, in a crowded sea, should at least be aware of what is moving around... they had the resources to monitor it all.

It looks like the container ship tried some jackass evasive action at the last moment, while the other crew was sleeping.

[Peally]

Well, a military ship moving without lights at night, in a crowded sea, should at least be aware of what is moving around... they had the resources to monitor it all.

It looks like the container ship tried some jackass evasive action at the last moment, while the other crew was sleeping.

True, I'm just biased as I value the US sailors far more than some foreign cargo ship. That's my way of saying I'd have preferred they sank the stupid ass thing if it saved the service members ;)

[Chance]

There has been a second collision between a guided-missile destroyer and a civilian vessel. From BBC News (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/world-asia-40995829):



A US guided-missile destroyer has collided with an oil tanker off the coast of Singapore, the US Navy says.

Ten sailors are missing, media reports say. A search and rescue operation is under way.

The USS John McCain was sailing through the Strait of Malacca and preparing to stop in Singapore when the incident occurred, the US Navy said .

It is the second serious collision involving a US Navy ship within two months.

The latest collision, which was reported at 06:24 local time on Monday (21:24 GMT on Sunday), happened as the USS John McCain prepared to perform a routine port stop.

Initial reports said that the ship had "sustained damage" to its port side when it struck the Liberian-flagged vessel.

[El Cid]

There has been a second collision between a guided-missile destroyer and a civilian vessel. From BBC News (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/world-asia-40995829):

I'm not a big believer in coincidences...

[Chance]

It sounds like they've got some serious holes in their TTPs. I'm not hopeful for those missing. From CNN (http://www.cnn.com/2017/08/20/asia/us-navy-destroyer-collision-singapore/index.html):


The McCain collision marks the fourth incident involving a US Navy warship based at Yokosuka this year.

On June 17, the guided-missile destroyer USS Fitzgerald collided with a container ship off the coast of Japan. That collision resulted in the deaths of seven US sailors.

On May 9, the guided-missile cruiser USS Lake Champlain was struck by a small fishing boat off the Korean Peninsula.

And in late January, the guided-missile cruiser USS Antietam ran aground while trying to anchor in Tokyo Bay.

All four of the US warships are equipped with the Aegis missile defense system, which has been touted as a possible defense against any North Korean missile launch that might endanger US forces and US allies in Asia.

[Lester Polfus]

The 7th fleet has had alot of issues lately. It may time for a comprehensive review of command climates and such.

My heart goes out to the folks involved in this latest incident.

[Trooper224]

With our national focus on land wars for the last fifteen plus years, the Navy's largely been ignored. I'm not surprised and assume these incidents will stem from a failure of command, from the top down. I've seen first hand what a difference a squared away CO makes, as well as the effect a shit one has on the entire command. Shades of the USS Stark.

[Lester Polfus]

With our national focus on land wars for the last fifteen plus years, the Navy's largely been ignored. I'm not surprised and assume these incidents will stem from a failure of command, from the top down. I've seen first hand what a difference a squared away CO makes, as well as the effect a shit one has on the entire command. Shades of the USS Stark.

Unfortunately the 7th fleet issues seem to be larger than individual CO's. Dunno if you are familiar with the "Fat Leonard" scandal, but here's a link (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fat_Leonard_scandal).

[RJ]

Unfortunately the 7th fleet issues seem to be larger than individual CO's. Dunno if you are familiar with the "Fat Leonard" scandal, but here's a link (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fat_Leonard_scandal).

Holy shit.

That's outrageous.

[GardoneVT]

Damn. A sitting Naval Admiral with a Bronze Heart & Purple Star doing time for corruption. With clowns like that passing classified information to defense contractors for money left and right, no wonder Hillary Clinton wasn't prosecuted.

[HeadHunter]

Unfortunately the 7th fleet issues seem to be larger than individual CO's. Dunno if you are familiar with the "Fat Leonard" scandal, but here's a link (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fat_Leonard_scandal).

That's stunning.

[peterb]

http://www.navy.mil/submit/display.asp?story_id=102034

USS John McCain damaged in collision, sailors missing.

[Chance]

Some early photos of the McCain.

19247

19248

[VT1032]

Does anyone else think these could be intentional rammings? These were both ships with significant anti ballistic missile capability. Seems to me, a certain belligerent power in the region that happens to be fascinated with missiles could stand to benefit by innocuously getting these ships out of the area?

[Wondering Beard]

Hanlon's razor:"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity".

We'll see.

[Duelist]

Does anyone else think these could be intentional rammings? These were both ships with significant anti ballistic missile capability. Seems to me, a certain belligerent power in the region that happens to be fascinated with missiles could stand to benefit by innocuously getting these ships out of the area?

i do not think you are crazy for positing this.

[GardoneVT]

Does anyone else think these could be intentional rammings? These were both ships with significant anti ballistic missile capability. Seems to me, a certain belligerent power in the region that happens to be fascinated with missiles could stand to benefit by innocuously getting these ships out of the area?

Why would they resort to overt terrorism when a Navy contracting front company and a few million in bribes can do the same thing?

In any event if it were terrorism, the Navy wouldn't have relieved the Fitzgerald command staff. It would also be public knowledge the incident was malicious,followed by a Devrgu visit to those responsible.

[VT1032]

Why would they resort to overt terrorism when a Navy contracting front company and a few million in bribes can do the same thing?

In any event if it were terrorism, the Navy wouldn't have relieved the Fitzgerald command staff. It would also be public knowledge the incident was malicious,followed by a Devrgu visit to those responsible.

Assuming they got caught. I'm thinking if it was intentional, it was made to look like an accident, not an overt attack. I can also see them relieving the command staff simply on principle for allowing the collision to occur if there wasn't conclusive proof of intent. I don't see how bribery would remove these ships from action. Do you mean that the contracting company would tamper with the weapons systems?

Of course all of this is pure speculation without a shred of evidence. I'm a ground pounder who knows nothing about ships, but who stands to benefit if these weren't accidents? It seems awful coincidental that two of these ships that have multiple fail safes to prevent collisions have somehow gotten rammed in the same strategic area of said missile-obsessed shitbox.

[Lester Polfus]

Does anyone else think these could be intentional rammings? These were both ships with significant anti ballistic missile capability. Seems to me, a certain belligerent power in the region that happens to be fascinated with missiles could stand to benefit by innocuously getting these ships out of the area?

I get why you are saying that, but I really don't think that's the case. That would be like ramming a Ferrari with a shopping cart. If somebody did try to ram a Arleigh Burke class destroyer with a container ship or similar vessel, as long as the crew was awake and aware, they would easily be able to maneuver out of the way and flip them the bird while doing it.

Over the last few years, me and some friends have periodically discussed what looks like a slow decline in the 7th Fleet. Off the top of my head, it's been evidenced by the total loss of the USS Guardian, the grounding of the USS Antietam, the USS Fitzgerald collision, and now the USS McCain collision. I don't recall of the USS Port Royal was a 7th fleet asset, but she had a grounding as well. Shit happens, and the Navy spends many, many hours underway with no problems, but the 800 pound elephant in the room for quite a while has been that shit seems to be happening more frequently in the 7th fleet.

It's not a stretch to think that when the senior leadership is mostly concerned with getting their share of the bakeesh, and seeing how many times they can go around the world with a pair of 16 year old Vietnamese girls, it sets a command climate where good order and discipline and technical proficiency might break down.

[GardoneVT]

Assuming they got caught. I'm thinking if it was intentional, it was made to look like an accident, not an overt attack. I can also see them relieving the command staff simply on principle for allowing the collision to occur if there wasn't conclusive proof of intent. I don't see how bribery would remove these ships from action. Do you mean that the contracting company would tamper with the weapons systems?

Of course all of this is pure speculation without a shred of evidence. I'm a ground pounder who knows nothing about ships, but who stands to benefit if these weren't accidents? It seems awful coincidental that two of these ships that have multiple fail safes to prevent collisions have somehow gotten rammed in the same strategic area of said missile-obsessed shitbox.

The details of the "Fat Leonard" prosecutions reveal that the contractor chief bribed access to classified deployment schedules and ship duty logs,and influenced port schedules of fleet ships. While the purpose of the information compromises was purely for maximizing contractor profit, it's not difficult to see how a foreign government could do the same thing for their own benefit.

[RoyGBiv]

Does anyone else think these could be intentional rammings? These were both ships with significant anti ballistic missile capability. Seems to me, a certain belligerent power in the region that happens to be fascinated with missiles could stand to benefit by innocuously getting these ships out of the area?

I think it was retribution for current Senator McCains vote on healthcare.. /JK

[Chance]

Does anyone else think these could be intentional rammings?

Unfortunately, that's actually the more generous of the available conclusions. The truth is usually the banal reality that systemic failures in leadership led to lack of morale which led to systemic failures in personnel.

It's tragic that the very best of training and self-sacrifice any sailor can ever exhibit (https://pistol-forum.com/showthread.php?26472-US-Navy-Destroyer-Severely-Damaged-in-Collision&p=617623&viewfull=1#post617623) are brought about by leadership that stopped giving a fuck.

[Drang]

I'm curious about the OpTempo the 7th has been maintaining.

Things have been heating up in the last year or so, especially in the 7th Fleet's AO, and after 8 years of neglect (not to say contempt) by the previous misadminstration, preceded by 8 years of balls-to-the-wall ops by the one before that, it's not surprising that things have gotten sloppy.

Tragic, but not surprising.

Unfortunately, these trends no more turn on a dime than does an aircraft carrier.

[Jeep]

I defer to you Navy guys, but two collisions in a few months in which sailor die seems to me as an indictment of more than just the leadership of those ships. Back early in the Obama administration SecDef Gates thought the USAF's nuke program had severe issues (apparently it did) and he came down very hard not on the field grades--that was someone else's job--but on the general officers.

It strikes me that there is something very wrong with the surface fleet right now--at least in the Pacific. I was a ground pounder, not a Navy guy, but it strikes me that something is very rotten in the state of the 7th Fleet.

[GardoneVT]

I defer to you Navy guys, but two collisions in a few months in which sailor die seems to me as an indictment of more than just the leadership of those ships. Back early in the Obama administration SecDef Gates thought the USAF's nuke program had severe issues (apparently it did) and he came down very hard not on the field grades--that was someone else's job--but on the general officers.

It strikes me that there is something very wrong with the surface fleet right now--at least in the Pacific. I was a ground pounder, not a Navy guy, but it strikes me that something is very rotten in the state of the 7th Fleet.

The docket for the "Fat Leonard" case reads like an org chart for the US Navy's Pacific command structure. I'm not trying to slam the Navy,but that level of institutional corruption doesn't do good things for your unit readiness.

If the Top Brass are taking bribes and prostitutes from somedood in exchange for disclosure of classified info like fleet movement info, god knows what other shenanigans happened that DIDNT get busted. People in charge who are regularly violating US security clearances aren't gonna think twice about falsifying other stuff,like unit readiness reports and whatnot. Fuck actually doing the work,just lie on an official document and mark it done when it wasn't.

Multiply that times the number of incompetent jackasses who are were they are due to political ability or participation in the scheme versus actual competiency,and you have an institutional bomb crater . The Navy has some hard choices to make in the coming months; they can't just fire everyone either,seeing as how that would leave a nonfunctional fleet.

[Lester Polfus]

The docket for the "Fat Leonard" case reads like an org chart for the US Navy's Pacific command structure. I'm not trying to slam the Navy,but that level of institutional corruption doesn't do good things for your unit readiness.

If the Top Brass are taking bribes and prostitutes from somedood in exchange for disclosure of classified info like fleet movement info, god knows what other shenanigans happened that DIDNT get busted. People in charge who are regularly violating US security clearances aren't gonna think twice about falsifying other stuff,like unit readiness reports and whatnot. Fuck actually doing the work,just lie on an official document and mark it done when it wasn't.

Multiply that times the number of incompetent jackasses who are were they are due to political ability or participation in the scheme versus actual competiency,and you have an institutional bomb crater . The Navy has some hard choices to make in the coming months; they can't just fire everyone either,seeing as how that would leave a nonfunctional fleet.

That sums the situation up beautifully. It's going to take the Navy a while to rebuild from the toxic effects of this. Hopefully we don't wind up in a shooting war with Korea in the interim.

I haven't delved too deeply into this, but none of the media I've seen so far seems to be making a connection between Fat Leonard and the 7th fleet's other difficulties.

[Sensei]

So, Adm. Richardson has called for a global "operational pause" to insure that our fleet is capable of safe operations. Folks, that is simply stunning as it calls into question our ability to conduct the most rudimentary of tasks...at a time of peace. The mere fact that the pause was publicly announced is a disgrace and a giant moral boost to that fat sack of shit in North Korea.

This should be a wake up call to all those who think that our military technology will dominate the battle space when we finally face a competent enemy. Despite all that technology we can't avoid a 20,000 TEU ship traveling 20 knots. Why should we think that we will fair better against a 650 lb torpedo traveling 60 knots? Or an ASBM traveling Mach 10?

[Trooper224]

It strikes me that there is something very wrong with the surface fleet right now--at least in the Pacific. I was a ground pounder, not a Navy guy, but it strikes me that something is very rotten in the state of the 7th Fleet.

There's been something wrong with the surface fleet since Clinton took office. I remember the day the Cold War ended, when the message came over the radio that the Soviet Union was no more. We were out somewhere on the ass end of nowhere, doing frigate ops like frigates always did, playing cat and mouse with Soviet subs. You could almost feel a change in the air. Almost over night, we went from having our shit wired pretty tight to not giving the aforementioned shit about anything. At the time, my sonar gang was the hottest in the Pacific fleet, with more real world contact time than any ship in the Pacific. Six months later, maybe half the gang knew their jobs at a basic level of proficiency. Our job went from being one of the Navies top two priorities, to something no one cared about. After all, I guess no one else in the world has any submarines we might have to contend with.

At that moment I really think the Navy as a whole lost it's focus and a pattern of decay began that continues to this day. We all had a, "now what?" moment. We'd spent half a century training to fight a gut busting, slam bang Navy war that got called due to good intentions. With our preoccupation over misbegotten land wars in the middle east, the Navy has lost its focus and is literally half the size it was twenty five years ago. Cut backs that started in the Clinton era have continued to the present time. It's a cold hard fact that he who controls the sea lanes controls the world. Right now, our ability to do that at a sustained level is questionable at best.

[ranger]

The metric that the military used to be judged with was "what does this have to do with killing" - everything was measured in MILITARY readiness. You are right - that all started downhill with the end of the Cold War.

[Jeep]

It's a cold hard fact that he who controls the sea lanes controls the world. Right now, our ability to do that at a sustained level is questionable at best.

Again, I'm a former Army guy who understands very little about the water (other than that trying to "swim" a M113 in it can be a very bad idea). But I agree with this. It is the Navy (and the Air Force) that keeps the bad guys far away from America, and a Navy that can't do the simplest stuff is scary.

Back in Jimmy Carter's Army we lost the ability to do a lot of the simplest stuff, because of budget cuts, combined with an insistence coming from the White House that we file readiness reports that had little basis in fact, an inability to recruit competent people, and a refusal to believe or accept that the constant social experimentation had or could have anything but a positive effect on readiness and quality. Huge reductions in maintenance budgets were accompanied by flat statements that good leadership would make up the difference. Unfortunately all the motivational speeches in the world won't turn worn out weapons and equipment into functioning stuff, and our leadership took the understandable view that we needed to quit shooting our weapons except for the bare minimums required so they too wouldn't break.

I don't know if any of this is affecting the Navy right now, but I've been there when things fall apart (and the Amy at the start of the Carter administration had only begun recovering from Vietnam. It was at a low point--and Carter drove it further down). It isn't pretty and it is hard to retain good people.

I hope the Navy isn't facing that.

[TAZ]

Clinton = 8 years of military hatred.

W = 8 years of war

Obama= 8 years of war and hatred of the military.

Hmmmmmm. I'm surprised stuff has taken this long to catch up to us.

Prayers for the lost and injured. Prayers that we can punt the idiots fast enough so that more lives aren't lost/ruined.

[Chance]

Navy is reporting that "some remains" have been recovered by divers aboard the McCain. The Malaysian navy may have recovered remains as well.


The metric that the military used to be judged with was "what does this have to do with killing" - everything was measured in MILITARY readiness. You are right - that all started downhill with the end of the Cold War.

My father was an Army civilian for 30+ years. When the bureaucracy would wander off, the saying to keep everyone on track was, "How does this help me kill more people faster, and for less money?" I can definitely see why the GWOT has resulted in Navy feeling left out of that conversation.

[peterb]

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/08/23/545423389/commander-of-navys-7th-fleet-to-be-removed-after-collisions-reports-say

7th fleet commander fired.

[Mjolnir]

I wonder what REALLY is happening.


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[TiroFijo]

Not only sly cargo, tankers and fishing ships from South Korea and Japan are ambushing the 7th fleet, even the Yokosuna harbour is taking its toll too...

http://edition.cnn.com/2017/02/01/politics/uss-antietam-damaged-japan/index.html

[Stephanie B]

Well, a military ship moving without lights at night,.....

Without navigation lights? I didn't see that. And even if a press report said that, the reporter might not know that "darken ship" does not mean shutting off the navigation lights.

[TiroFijo]

Without navigation lights? I didn't see that. And even if a press report said that, the reporter might not know that "darken ship" does not mean shutting off the navigation lights.

...you are probably right!

[Jeep]

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/08/23/545423389/commander-of-navys-7th-fleet-to-be-removed-after-collisions-reports-say

7th fleet commander fired.

I'm not sure that relieving a fleet commander a few weeks before he was going to retire anyway sends a very strong message. Mattis is no stranger to relieving officers--he relieved a very well respected regiment commander during the drive to Baghdad, but perhaps now is the time to find out the facts and then fire the right people--not just those who are available.

[Aray]

Reports are that the McCain suffered a loss of steerage casualty. Rumors are flying that there is potential of the ship's steering having been hacked.

My specific knowledge of the design of Cruisers and Destroyers is limited to ships that were built 25 years before this generation of Tin Can. I can't speak to the hacking being possible or not, but the ramifications if it is possible makes me shudder.

I left the Navy in 1995 as a Nuke MM2 off of the decommissioned USS Truxtun (CGN-35).

[SamAdams]

Reports are that the McCain suffered a loss of steerage casualty. Rumors are flying that there is potential of the ship's steering having been hacked.

My specific knowledge of the design of Cruisers and Destroyers is limited to ships that were built 25 years before this generation of Tin Can. I can't speak to the hacking being possible or not, but the ramifications if it is possible makes me shudder.

I have no idea what's happening with the US Navy. Its been many years since I stood late night watches on Navy warships. And, its highly unlikely that the Pentagon would report such electronics warfare acts to the public if it did happen.

Here's a quote from a man who formerly was in British Naval Intelligence:

"Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time it's enemy action." - Ian Fleming

Who knows?

[TAZ]

I'm not sure that relieving a fleet commander a few weeks before he was going to retire anyway sends a very strong message. Mattis is no stranger to relieving officers--he relieved a very well respected regiment commander during the drive to Baghdad, but perhaps now is the time to find out the facts and then fire the right people--not just those who are available.

Depends on what happens to him and his pension as a result of this action.

If his actions were negligent and resulted in the deaths of men and damage to ships he should be court marshaled and face the consequences if his actions. The number of seconds before he retires is irrelevant.

If you're willing to go after a high ranking guy so close to retirement it sends a message to those with time left.

[Jeep]

Depends on what happens to him and his pension as a result of this action.

If his actions were negligent and resulted in the deaths of men and damage to ships he should be court marshaled and face the consequences if his actions. The number of seconds before he retires is irrelevant.

If you're willing to go after a high ranking guy so close to retirement it sends a message to those with time left.

It sounds like they are just relieving him--not actually investigating. If it turns out that the McCain was at fault here, it wouldn't surprise me if Washington relieves the reliever and fires the commander of the Pacific Fleet. That would take political pressure off, but when things like that happen I always wonder if it simply isn't making a scapegoat to hide deeper underlying issues.

[Chance]

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/08/23/545423389/commander-of-navys-7th-fleet-to-be-removed-after-collisions-reports-say

7th fleet commander fired.

I'm amazed this wasn't done earlier. Lives have been lost, millions upon millions of dollars have been flushed, and the entire institution has been embarrassed.


Here's a quote from a man who formerly was in British Naval Intelligence:

"Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time it's enemy action." - Ian Fleming

Who knows?

Well, this is the fourth time this year a ship has hit something. Did Fleming have a saying for that?

[SamAdams]

I'm amazed this wasn't done earlier. Lives have been lost, millions upon millions of dollars have been flushed, and the entire institution has been embarrassed.



Well, this is the fourth time this year a ship has hit something. Did Fleming have a saying for that?

I don't know if he did.

Maybe something like, "Bloody Hell !" ?

[Stephanie B]

Well, this is the fourth time this year a ship has hit something. Did Fleming have a saying for that?

No, but Earnest K Gann did: "Rule books are made of paper. They will not cushion a sudden meeting of stone and metal."

[TAZ]

It sounds like they are just relieving him--not actually investigating. If it turns out that the McCain was at fault here, it wouldn't surprise me if Washington relieves the reliever and fires the commander of the Pacific Fleet. That would take political pressure off, but when things like that happen I always wonder if it simply isn't making a scapegoat to hide deeper underlying issues.

Hopefully they are investigating the incidents and are relieving the guy for something factual. If all they are doing is making a scapegoat to hide the weenie, they aren't doing much to help the situation. Not going to look too cool when CVN meets a tanker, or something, sinks and or kills a pile of folks.

The problem needs to be solved not swept under the rug. If the issue is some guy with a gazillion stars on his shoulder screwing off, then chop him and his pension off at the knees and or dump him in prison. If it's incompetent sailors screwing off do the same. I know.... I need to go outside and check to see what color the sky is in my world.

[GardoneVT]

It sounds like they are just relieving him--not actually investigating. If it turns out that the McCain was at fault here, it wouldn't surprise me if Washington relieves the reliever and fires the commander of the Pacific Fleet. That would take political pressure off, but when things like that happen I always wonder if it simply isn't making a scapegoat to hide deeper underlying issues.

The concern is deeper then that.

If there's a systemic failure of military standards and ethics in the 7th fleet,firing the CO alone won't solve it. The XO -promoted under that toxic culture- simply perpetuates the mistakes of his predecessor in the promoted position once the heat does down.

Actually fixing the problem means looking at the 7th fleet from the lowly recruit all the way up to the top Admiral billet,and making hard decisions on training and education. At some point the Navy's going to have to switch from "witch hunt" mode to "problem solve" mode.

[Bobcat]

I am compelled to draw a parallel with air crashes and NTSB investigations.
They don't usually fire the head CEO of an airline after a fatal crash, but if the pilot is found to be criminally negligent, he can be charged with manslaughter.
In the interest of safety, I would hope that a thorough investigation of each of these recent naval incidents happens, even if the results need to be kept classified.
If a Navy guy's only job is to look out for other ships, and he doesn't do his job and people die, sorry, but the weight of the law should hold him accountable.

[SamAdams]

https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2017-08/collisions-part-i—what-are-root-causes

[Lester Polfus]

https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2017-08/collisions-part-i—what-are-root-causes

Oh wow. If that guy knows what he's talking about, that is damning.

"Proven techniques, including the use of maneuvering boards, lookouts, adherence to the “Rules of the Road,” and, most important, watch-standers actually looking out the bridge window, are mysteriously archaic to officers who have become convinced that technology cannot fail them. "

"Collectively, they don’t understand concepts such as relative motion. "

Wow.

The best metaphor I can come up with is a police department deciding they don't need to teach anybody empty hand because they all have Tasers. Not that any one would ever do that. Oh, wait...

[SamAdams]

Oh wow. If that guy knows what he's talking about, that is damning...

The author . . ." Captain Eyer served in seven cruisers, commanding three Aegis cruisers: the USS Thomas S. Gates (CG-51), Shiloh (CG-67), and Chancellorsville (CG-62)."


It used to take a great deal of time and a lot of taxpayer expense to take a newly commissioned ensign and train him to be a qualified Surface Warfare Officer.

I guess nowadays . . . not so much ?

[Lester Polfus]

The author . . ." Captain Eyer served in seven cruisers, commanding three Aegis cruisers: the USS Thomas S. Gates (CG-51), Shiloh (CG-67), and Chancellorsville (CG-62)."


It used to take a great deal of time and a lot of taxpayer expense to take a newly commissioned ensign and train him to be a qualified Surface Warfare Officer.

I guess nowadays . . . not so much ?

I'm just really agog at CBT thing man. On midwatches when we did box op in the Eastern Pacific, the QMOW, BMOW and OOD would sit there and quiz each other on Rules of The road and such. As an E3, I was encouraged, but not required to learn how to use a mo-board once I was qualified on all the other bridge watch positions. It was just something to do to keep our minds sharp on those boring watches. Sometimes we'd go hours, and even days without a radar contact, and when we'd get one everybody on the bridge and CIC would race to do the TMA on it.

What the fuck do they do now? Watch movies on their phones?

[SamAdams]

Who knows whats going on ? Maybe it comes down to not having a real, challenging major naval rival after the fall of the USSR ? (And not fighting a major naval war for 70 years.) Perhaps over confidence & complacency has set in. Maybe the bean counters carry more weight than the ship drivers.
Like all big government bureaucracies, especially the military, the brass will likely try to go into CYA mode. Thankfully, knowledgeable men like this retired Navy Captain can speak out using publications such as Naval Institute Proceedings.


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[Trooper224]

[QUOTE=SamAdams;642041][url]https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2017

My God.

[Trooper224]

Who knows whats going on ? Maybe it comes down to not having a real, challenging major naval rival after the fall of the USSR ? (And not fighting a major naval war for 70 years.) Perhaps over confidence & complacency has set in. Maybe the bean counters carry more weight than the ship drivers.
Like all big government bureaucracies, especially the military, the brass will likely try to go into CYA mode. Thankfully, knowledgeable men like this retired Navy Captain can speak out using publications such as Naval Institute Proceedings.


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All of the above I suspect.

[Chance]

Reports are that the McCain suffered a loss of steerage casualty. Rumors are flying that there is potential of the ship's steering having been hacked.

My specific knowledge of the design of Cruisers and Destroyers is limited to ships that were built 25 years before this generation of Tin Can. I can't speak to the hacking being possible or not, but the ramifications if it is possible makes me shudder.

The article SamAdams linked to addresses this. According to that, it's possible to completely remove computers from the system and rely on hydraulics if necessary. Worst case scenario, they could have shut the engines down and advertised they were "not under command."

That article is damning. The Navy tried to cut out a year's worth of thorough, rigorous training, and replace it with computer-based training officers would work with on the job? No wonder no one knows what they're doing.

[Stephanie B]

Who knows whats going on ? Maybe it comes down to not having a real, challenging major naval rival after the fall of the USSR ? (And not fighting a major naval war for 70 years.) Perhaps over confidence & complacency has set in. Maybe the bean counters carry more weight than the ship drivers.

Mostly the bean counters. The Surface Warfare Officers School Division Officer Course, or "Baby SWOS" was a sixteen week school. Ensigns (and LTJGs who washed out of being brown shoes) received a good grounding in the stuff that they had to know to be division officers, including sessions of active firefighting and time in the "USS BUttercup". Most ensigns then went on to specialty training. CIC officers and gunnery officers went to Dam Neck, VA. ASW officers went to a twelve-week course. Engineers had their own courses that might include a weekl-long course in boiler/feedwater chemistry (basically a semester-long college class in ionic chemistry crammed into five days).

After that, the ships got ensigns who could at least do some things. They knew what the PMS system was, how the personnel system functioned. Between simulators and time on the YPs, they got some basic watchstanding skills. They could function, if at least minimally, as a CIC watch officer or Junior Officer of the Deck. Oh, they still needed lots of hands-on training, but they had done all of the book-learning component of qualifying as a Surface Warfare Officer.

The payoff to the Navy was that on a ship that wasn't in the yards, those ensigns could finish qualifying in a year if they were hard-chargers, 14 months or so if not. First sea tours were 24-30 months, so those now-qualified ensigns and LTJGs could get in lots of time as OODs underway and, more importantly, they could help train the new guys. The COs, XOs and Department Heads did a fair amount of the training (especially Sea Detail and underway replenishment), true, but they could oversee the training in normal operations at sea, which was being done by the senior peers of the new ensigns.

This all came about because about fifty years ago, the Navy was not happy with the readiness of junior officers to function when they got to their first ships. In a radical move, the CNO, in essence, asked those officers what they needed to be more ready to do their jobs from the start. Out of that came Baby SWOS.

In short, my suspicion is that the current mess came about because the "experts" at Ft. Fumble (the Pentagon) concluded that raining was expensive and hell, give the kids some CDs and let them train themselves in their copious spare time when they're not doing their main job, standing watch, taking care of a bunch of collateral duties and maybe triying to catch more than three hours of sleep underway each night.

This mess is fixable. But the first staffie in Ft. Fumble who proposes to bring in a team of "outside experts", ie, non-blue suiters, to advise on solutions should be given PCS orders to Adak, fired or shot. I don't care which.

[Jeep]

https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2017-08/collisions-part-i—what-are-root-causes

Well eliminating the training school for surface warfare officers, and then after that failed, reinstating a short, mini-version of it might explain a lot.

It doesn't surprise me, but the Navy is far too important for such penny-pinching foolishness. Unfortunately, if this is a cause--and it is hard to imagine that it's not--then you have an entire generation of undertrained officers that now would include CO's; and one can suspect that the petty officers are no better trained.

Well, at least they all had their mandatory transgender training, because that was important.

[SamAdams]

Some 'genius' in the Pentagon did think it was a good idea to get blue polka dot camo uniforms for the Navy though. To hide behind blue bushes ?

News Bulletin: Sailors are on big ass gray ships, any camo is pretty irrelevant.

I'm guessing 'but all the other services have cool lookin' camo !' had much to do with that move.

What does this have to do with anything ? Priorities. Surface appearances versus core competence.

Stephanie B - of course, the 'solution' from the brass is always that they need to spend Lots more on hardware. Something out of their direct control. Anything that reflects on their leadership (threatening careers & pensions) will get the round file.

Lord help us. . . and our sailors & officers out there.



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[GardoneVT]

Wow. That's like the Air Force shutting down UPT and making pilots download Ebooks on "F-35 tactical systems" to be read in between OTJ flights.

Given that I'm kind of amazed we haven't had more issues with the Navy,frankly. Had the Air Force pulled that same stunt we'd have crashed on a weekly basis.

[SamAdams]

GordoneVT - the focus has been on the flyboys, nuke subs, and spec-ops since the post USSR collapse.
(The USMC - under the Dept of the Navy - has always needed to scrape by as best they can with the resources given them; and they've done a good job of it.)

[Cheap Shot]

I am compelled to draw a parallel with air crashes and NTSB investigations.
They don't usually fire the head CEO of an airline after a fatal crash, but if the pilot is found to be criminally negligent, he can be charged with manslaughter.
In the interest of safety, I would hope that a thorough investigation of each of these recent naval incidents happens, even if the results need to be kept classified.
If a Navy guy's only job is to look out for other ships, and he doesn't do his job and people die, sorry, but the weight of the law should hold him accountable.

They don't but they should, including accountability under the law.

[Chance]

Some 'genius' in the Pentagon did think it was a good idea to get blue polka dot camo uniforms for the Navy though. To hide behind blue bushes ?

From US News (https://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2013/06/13/navy-secretary-criticizes-blueberry-camouflage-uniforms):


"The Navy 'blueberries' – I don't know what the name is, that's what sailors call them – the great camouflage it gives is if you fall overboard," said Navy Secretary Ray Mabus at a Thursday meeting with reporters. Mabus points to what has become a macabre joke among sailors, highlighting the dangers of a shipmate falling into the sea wearing a sea-colored uniform.

[Tabasco]

Maybe this has already been answered (didn't read the entire thread), but has the Navy abandoned radar and navigates with the "Force" these days?

I had to learn about the two main types of radar, air search and surface search, one morning in a hurry when I did computer support for a trading floor in San Francisco. There was a horrible noise coming out of the turret (a type of specialized phone used on a trading floor) speakers one morning, and I surmised the source was electromagnetic which was being picked up on the un-shielded speaker wire. The noise came at regular intervals, and as I tried to determine the possible source, I looked out the window and saw one of the old pre AEGIS destroyers tied to a pier along the San Francisco waterfront. Bingo. Talked to a support guy in Boston who was an aircraft tech on a carrier for years and he confirmed my suspicions. Long range air search radar was turned on for some reason (we were on the 24th floor), ended up looking up the hull number and calling San Diego Navy Base to see if they could contact the ship and get it stopped. It stopped after a few minutes and that was that. It pretty much shut down trading while it was on going and the traders were freaking.

I imagine the surface search radar wound be in operation while underway in crowded waters at night, no? No one was paying attention?

[RJ]

I'm somewhat familiar with CBT design. If the USN is relying heavily on CBT for an officer qualification like is described by y'all experts, someone did not do a very good Training Needs Analysis.

From past experience in dealing with the services, by far the most hide-bound and conservative was the Navy.

The Air Force and even the Army were easier to deal with and accepting to new ideas.

The USMC as well; the Senior NCOs who were my usual contacts at my level (Integration and Test) were pretty realistic and practical people. Very demanding, but I never had a problem with that.

[SamAdams]

Rich_Jenkins - I suspect that the reason for the differences you noticed, is that all those other services have recently been shot at in ongoing conflicts. Surface ship Navy has not.
That is definitely a good 'motivator' for making improvements.

I hope this article by the retired Captain gets lots of coverage everywhere & that more retired surfaced officers with his level of experience also step up.

[Stephanie B]

Some 'genius' in the Pentagon did think it was a good idea to get blue polka dot camo uniforms for the Navy though. To hide behind blue bushes ?

News Bulletin: Sailors are on big ass gray ships, any camo is pretty irrelevant.

I'm guessing 'but all the other services have cool lookin' camo !' had much to do with that move.

Aquaflage was one of the dumbest moves the Navy made since they temporarily abolished crackerjacks. Ships are industrial environments. The old uniforms (chambray shirts and dungarees for E1-6, wash khakis for E-7 and up) were not perfect, but they worked pretty well. The Navy got through several wars, both hot and cold, without having to put seagoing sailors in Wal-Mart/3rd World camo uniforms.

But the uniform makers got to sell oodles of new uniforms to all hands. You can draw your own conclusions about that.

[randy dragon]

Wow. That's like the Air Force shutting down UPT and making pilots download Ebooks on "F-35 tactical systems" to be read in between OTJ flights.

Given that I'm kind of amazed we haven't had more issues with the Navy,frankly. Had the Air Force pulled that same stunt we'd have crashed on a weekly basis.

Me too, in retrospect. I don't know anyone in the surface warfare community and was unaware of these training issues. The few submariners and (mostly Army) aviators I know are very serious people when it comes to proper training and standards. I guess it makes some sense, as less proficiency in operating a surface vessel or ground vehicle is not necessarily going to start getting people killed immediately as it would on a submarine or an aircraft.

[ragnar_d]

From past experience in dealing with the services, by far the most hide-bound and conservative was the Navy.
Kelly Johnson's 15th Rule existed for a reason . . .



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[RJ]

Kelly Johnson's 15th Rule existed for a reason . . .



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Considering who I worked for, you'd think I would have known that lol.

Mainly I was associated with, uh, undersea type contracts.

I knew some guys on the LAMPS programs, but they were all aviators...

[Stephanie B]

the LAMPS programs...

Light Aeronautical Mail and Passenger Service. OK, sometimes they'd get to chase a sub. :p

[Stephanie B]

Here's another longish article (http://cimsec.org/circles-surface-warfare-training/24050) about the SWO training cluster-errrr.

[SamAdams]

It took awhile for those taught using the older, more effective methods to leave the service or retire. Those old hands may have kept things going on an even keel for awhile.


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[Stephanie B]

It took awhile for those taught using the older, more effective methods to leave the service or retire. Those old hands may have kept things going on an even keel for awhile.

Probably true. But by now, the XOs who did not go to Baby SWOS are hitting the fleet. So the SWOs who were given very little training to start with are now the ones charged with running the admin side of the ships and overseeing the training of their juniors.

It took a long time to break things. It's going to take a long time to fix. The problem is apparently bad enough that firing ships' COs and admirals is more Stalinistic than anything else.

Things are worse in WESTPAC, too.

[SamAdams]

Part 2 - Naval Institute Proceedings article by retired US Navy Captain Kevin Eyer -

https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2017-08/collisions-part-ii—operational-pause


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[OlongJohnson]

Here's another longish article (http://cimsec.org/circles-surface-warfare-training/24050) about the SWO training cluster-errrr.

Part I of the Eyer pieces lifts several sentences from this article almost entirely intact.

[Stephanie B]

None of what is being talked about should have been any surprise to the hallowed corridors of OPNAV. Lousy traiing, minimal manning, deferred maintenance, it all was documented somewheres.

Ignoring the problems and hoping that those on the deckplates can keep the ships running is moronic. And it stops working as soon as metal begins being bent by the sea floor or other ships.

[Stephanie B]

Back in the day, Engineering was pretty much the read-headed stepchild of the Navy. It was the "bad news" department, for whenever the Chief Engineer needed to talk to the CO or XO, it was pretty much because of things breaking. When things went well, Engineering was invisible.

There was a series of training routines called "basic engineering casualty control exercises", or BECCES. Because BECCES usually involved switching electrical power, which had the potential to disrupt things, lots of ships did their BECCES at night. So on the midwatch, you had not only the on-watch engineers, but the BECCE training team working.

Then the brass came up with an idea of doing the operational power plant examinations on the trip home from deployment. It was the only major inspection done that way. Every other major inspection was done back in the home port.

So on a deployment, when the ship might be in a liberty port, the engineers were working hard to make sure that all of thir gear was in inspection-ready condition and the spaces shone as much as they could. The other departments in port often worked shorter hours so their people could spend time ashore.

Engineers got the message that the Navy valued them less than the twidgets.

[SamAdams]

The implications of this are astounding. Given the extent of the potential problem, you've gotta wonder if there is the knowledge and motivation required within the chain of command to fix it. That includes the top civilian side of that, and Congress. There's a lotta motivation for them to sweep it under the rug by blaming a few underlings in a way that doesn't get to the root core.

There seems to be money for 'sexy' expensive weapons systems - such as the new Zumwalt class destroyers. But, not so much for maintenance and the training of ship drivers ? Insanity !


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[GardoneVT]

There seems to be money for 'sexy' expensive weapons systems - such as the new Zumwalt class destroyers. But, not so much for maintenance and the training of ship drivers ? Insanity!

Actually it's very logical,from a certain viewpoint. People respond to incentives: so when the officer who proposes a Big Flashy Project is up for the same promotion board as an officer who spent his days being great at his job, guess who's getting the Pentagon office? It ain't gonna be Lieutenant Competent. No one gets advanced promotion because their ship was the most squared away in the fleet.

The Air Force has a similar problem: if an officer spends their days CONUS planning squadron lunches and collecting degrees, they'll beat the officer who spent his days flying CAS missions in Astan. The meat eater leaves -or gets forced out, and Colonel Catering one day sits on a promotion board . Guess who he's gonna pick when the same options land on his desk?

[SamAdams]

GardoneVT - - and what makes ass kissing 'Colonel Catering' even more dangerous, is that he doesn't have the foggiest notion what meat eater 'Lt Competent' knew was essential for doing the job. The colonel was nothing but a politician.


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[Stephanie B]

There seems to be money for 'sexy' expensive weapons systems - such as the new Zumwalt class destroyers. But, not so much for maintenance and the training of ship drivers ? Insanity !

It has been that way for a very long time. Maintenance and training budgets aren't things that a congressman can brag about. Except maybe those who have shipyards in their district.

[Jeep]

Actually it's very logical,from a certain viewpoint. People respond to incentives: so when the officer who proposes a Big Flashy Project is up for the same promotion board as an officer who spent his days being great at his job, guess who's getting the Pentagon office? It ain't gonna be Lieutenant Competent. No one gets advanced promotion because their ship was the most squared away in the fleet.

The Air Force has a similar problem: if an officer spends their days CONUS planning squadron lunches and collecting degrees, they'll beat the officer who spent his days flying CAS missions in Astan. The meat eater leaves -or gets forced out, and Colonel Catering one day sits on a promotion board . Guess who he's gonna pick when the same options land on his desk?

The Army has known that problem as well. My division was commanded by an outstanding MG who had a sterling combat record and was a wizard tactically. On field problems he ran the division with a jeep, a driver and a map (which he could read better than anyone in his G3 shop--it always took them awhile to figure out what terrain features he was using to get around the other guy's flanks). He also deeply cared about the welfare of his men. He was retired out of the Army and replaced by a MG who was a personnel whiz. Lots of officers owed him for juicy promotions, and besides judicially handing out goodies to help his own career prospects, he also was apparently quite good at personnel.

His last assignment in Vietnam as a Colonel resulted in the loss of the Central Highlands. And, naturally, he couldn't read a map (he tended to ignore those pesky contour lines). He was destined for even greater things, but while commanding the division on a Reforger exercise, he . . . . um . . . . allowed an opposing force armored brigade to almost overrun his TOC. The TOC had more M577's and tents hooked together than you can imagine, and the VIP dining area was tremendous. Even the many visiting European civilian officials were impressed by the standard of the food. And from Americans!)

Ah, but those pesky contour lines caught up with him, and that opfor armored brigade (sent by a brilliant commanding general who knew how to use armor and mech infantry) caused the exercise to be terminated early. An actual overrunning of the TOC during VIP dinner hour would not have been the thing.

So, while the dinner had been a success, Al Haig wasn't thoroughly pleased with his performance and he went off into retirement. So too did the brilliant opfor commanding general, who had pressed his advantages a bit too hard, and the word was my CG's many friends in the Army were outraged with him. Can't make the other CG look like an incompetent buffoon, you know.

Now you might be asking how did the personnel genius get the money for his brilliant VIP dinners? Easy. He simply cut the the field troops to two meals a day during the exercise! After all military service demands sacrifice, you know. And the Euro's really were impressed with his impeccable taste in food.

[SamAdams]

Unfortunately, with the end of the draft, nowadays most civilian citizens get their view of the military from t.v. 'news' and the movies. Past generations did their stint for a few years and experienced the SNAFU and often FUBAR nature of that huge government bureaucracy. Many from the older set knew what it was like to serve under good, smart dedicated officers - - and what it was like to serve under selfish careerists and fools. IMO this lack of experience among the citizenry has fostered an unhealthy, excessive worship of all things military today. No, everyone wearing a uniform is Not a 'hero'. That same ignorance extends to most members of Congress.

I bring this up because such a climate makes it easier for incompetence to be covered up. One of the driving motivations for 'checking under the hood' was that a lot of families had their own kids in the service & they had experienced some of the SNAFU/FUBAR for themselves. They could raise a little Hell with their own Congressmen about what their kids in the service were telling them.

I'm afraid the Navy brass will try to sweep this training issue under the rug . . . again.


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[ragnar_d]

Back in the day, Engineering was pretty much the read-headed stepchild of the Navy. It was the "bad news" department, for whenever the Chief Engineer needed to talk to the CO or XO, it was pretty much because of things breaking. When things went well, Engineering was invisible.

. . .

Engineers got the message that the Navy valued them less than the twidgets.
A situation not unique to the Navy. I once had a boss who's opinion was, "Engineers are only good for telling you what can't be done."

[Jeep]

Unfortunately, with the end of the draft, nowadays most civilian citizens get their view of the military from t.v. 'news' and the movies. Past generations did their stint for a few years and experienced the SNAFU and often FUBAR nature of that huge government bureaucracy. Many from the older set knew what it was like to serve under good, smart dedicated officers - - and what it was like to serve under selfish careerists and fools. IMO this lack of experience among the citizenry has fostered an unhealthy, excessive worship of all things military today. No, everyone wearing a uniform is Not a 'hero'. That same ignorance extends to most members of Congress.

I bring this up because such a climate makes it easier for incompetence to be covered up. One of the driving motivations for 'checking under the hood' was that a lot of families had their own kids in the service & they had experienced some of the SNAFU/FUBAR for themselves. They could raise a little Hell with their own Congressmen about what their kids in the service were telling them.

I'm afraid the Navy brass will try to sweep this training issue under the rug . . . again.


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Well said!

[SamAdams]

It looks like this story is getting broader coverage. A very good thing. However - 2 out of 3 Republican Congressmen havent served in the military. 7 out of 8 Democrat Congressmen havent served in the military. So, the number of them with the proper old school Navy Surface Warfare background is likely nil. Hopefully, any investigation of this will be proper & force real, positive changes. We don't need grandstanding photo ops or blind acceptance of everything said by the current Navy brass. Get some surface warfare retired officers and chiefs involved.

http://www.npr.org/2017/08/23/545297589/navy-navigation-bungles-may-have-killed-more-troops-than-afghanistan-so-far-in-2

[Stephanie B]

I disagree a bit. Insufficient funding for repair, maintenance, spare parts and training are recurrent issues. INSURV didn't come about because there wasn't a problem. Same for the Propulsion Examining Board.

[Wyoming Shooter]

The USN investigation reports are out. I haven't studied them thoroughly but, at first glance they seem objective and forthright. https://news.usni.org/2017/11/01/uss-fitzgerald-uss-john-s-mccain-collision-report. Now it remains to be seen whether the institutional causes of the collisions will be rectified. From the Big Empty, ELN.

[SamAdams]

Gym


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[JDD]

The USN investigation reports are out. I haven't studied them thoroughly but, at first glance they seem objective and forthright. https://news.usni.org/2017/11/01/uss-fitzgerald-uss-john-s-mccain-collision-report. Now it remains to be seen whether the institutional causes of the collisions will be rectified. From the Big Empty, ELN.

They are pretty un-blinkingly direct. I am always leery of folks who come in after a disaster and criticize, but the reports lay it all out. An interesting thing I noticed, was that the report highlighted multiple instances where the Fitzgerald's bridge crew did not comply with the captains standing orders regarding notifications (probably because in that lane he might as well have assumed the con given the frequency). It seems like one of those policies that you nod and then do what you need to do to accomplish the mission. But what the report did not cover, was if the orders the Captain was operating under were also the kind you need to ignore if you want to accomplish the mission. What was the op-tempo for the missions the ship itself was on, and can the crew reasonably have been expected to maintain it? The report for the McCain seems a bit more... damming for all involved.

[Trooper224]

Op tempo is one of the biggest problems currently facing the Navy. (like the other services) My daughter in law is currently serving on an Amphibious Assualt Ship. Due to their current op tempo she was recently on the job for fifty three hours straight, as a supervisor in engineering. Can anyone guess the kind of issues that creates?

[SamAdams]

Gym


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?

Sorry about that. Damn iPhone does strange things sometimes. I just noticed the inadvertent post today.


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[SamAdams]

I haven't had time to read the details & Naval Proceedings comments section. Did they point a finger at broader issues - particularly training of Surface Warfare personnel, or was all blame limited to those aboard the ships?


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[GardoneVT]

Op tempo is one of the biggest problems currently facing the Navy. (like the other services) My daughter in law is currently serving on an Amphibious Assualt Ship. Due to their current op tempo she was recently on the job for fifty three hours straight, as a supervisor in engineering. Can anyone guess the kind of issues that creates?

We see in other occupations what happens when sleep deprived people are placed in charge of heavy machinery.Yet many military units make it a standing rule to wear down their staff as much as possible,then place them in zero defect situations where a single oversight can have expensive consequences.

While there is a tactical need to train personnel in how to operate on low levels of sleep, that's what operational readiness drills are for. Working people for long hours routinely with little or no sleep is a leadership failure, and unfortunately it was way too common of a sight when I was in.

[Stephanie B]

Op tempo is one of the biggest problems currently facing the Navy. (like the other services) My daughter in law is currently serving on an Amphibious Assualt Ship. Due to their current op tempo she was recently on the job for fifty three hours straight, as a supervisor in engineering. Can anyone guess the kind of issues that creates?
Yep. BT,DT.

I read the report. What it doesn't really address are the issues of fatigue and training. It is inexcusable that a line officer can report to a ship without a thorough understanding of the COLREGS (nautical rules of the road).

[Chance]

Another incident, but thankfully, a minor one this time. From BBC News (http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-42041704):


A US warship has sustained minor damage after a collision with a Japanese tug off central Japan, the US Navy says.

The commercial tug lost propulsion and drifted into the guided-missile destroyer, the USS Benfold, during a towing exercise in Sagami Bay.

"No one was injured on either vessel," the US Navy says, adding that an investigation is under way.

This is the latest in a series of incidents involving US warships in recent months.

In a statement, the US Navy says the warship "sustained minimal damage, including scrapes on its side".

"Benfold remains at sea under her own power. The Japanese commercial tug is being towed by another vessel to a port in Yokosuka."

[peterb]

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/01/16/578478707/naval-commanders-in-2-deadly-ship-collisions-to-be-charged-with-negligent-homici

Both commanders to be charged with negligent homicide.

[ranger]

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/01/16/578478707/naval-commanders-in-2-deadly-ship-collisions-to-be-charged-with-negligent-homici

Both commanders to be charged with negligent homicide.

I hope the commanders get great lawyers and they drag the whole "military readiness", "optempo", "reduced military budget", etc. into the light and then subpoena senior Confessional and Senate leaders to testify about "sequestration" and the impact on the military - in this specific case, the Navy.

[Peally]

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/01/16/578478707/naval-commanders-in-2-deadly-ship-collisions-to-be-charged-with-negligent-homici

Both commanders to be charged with negligent homicide.

Oh yeah that'll solve the problem. Bravo Navy.

[Rex G]

Op tempo is one of the biggest problems currently facing the Navy. (like the other services) My daughter in law is currently serving on an Amphibious Assualt Ship. Due to their current op tempo she was recently on the job for fifty three hours straight, as a supervisor in engineering. Can anyone guess the kind of issues that creates?


We see in other occupations what happens when sleep deprived people are placed in charge of heavy machinery.Yet many military units make it a standing rule to wear down their staff as much as possible,then place them in zero defect situations where a single oversight can have expensive consequences.

While there is a tactical need to train personnel in how to operate on low levels of sleep, that's what operational readiness drills are for. Working people for long hours routinely with little or no sleep is a leadership failure, and unfortunately it was way too common of a sight when I was in.

This. I have never been in the military, but have had to be on-duty (police) for two memorable shifts, of twenty-five and twenty-six hours. Nothing bad happened, due to lack of sleep, but know that I am VERY concerned about operating a vehicle, and being surrounded by weapons, when sleep-deprived.

[Dog Guy]

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/01/16/578478707/naval-commanders-in-2-deadly-ship-collisions-to-be-charged-with-negligent-homici

Both commanders to be charged with negligent homicide.


On a related note: https://news.usni.org/2018/01/16/swo-boss-rowden-early-part-additional-disciplinary-actions-fatal-mccain-fitzgerald-collisions

An excerpt from the article: "To date, the Navy has removed commanders and executive officers of both McCain and Fitzgerald; Capt. Jeffery Bennett, commodore of the Japan-based Destroyer Squadron 15 to which both ships belonged; the Japan-based task force commander, Rear Adm. Charles Williams; and the commander of U.S. 7th Fleet, Vice Adm. Joseph Aucoin."

I'm all for accountability. Conversely, I'm also leery about guys at the sharp end getting jacked up when they're handed a bag of crap and some moldy bread and fail to come up with a steak sandwich. We see it happen to street cops all the time. I wonder how much of the Navy response is the same thing.

[Stephanie B]

On a related note: https://news.usni.org/2018/01/16/swo-boss-rowden-early-part-additional-disciplinary-actions-fatal-mccain-fitzgerald-collisions

An excerpt from the article: "To date, the Navy has removed commanders and executive officers of both McCain and Fitzgerald; Capt. Jeffery Bennett, commodore of the Japan-based Destroyer Squadron 15 to which both ships belonged; the Japan-based task force commander, Rear Adm. Charles Williams; and the commander of U.S. 7th Fleet, Vice Adm. Joseph Aucoin."

I'm all for accountability. Conversely, I'm also leery about guys at the sharp end getting jacked up when they're handed a bag of crap and some moldy bread and fail to come up with a steak sandwich. We see it happen to street cops all the time. I wonder how much of the Navy response is the same thing.

CDR Salamander has a lot to say about that (https://blog.usni.org/posts/2018/01/16/an-obstinate-organization).

My suspicion is that the coal-mine canaries are dying and nobody's paying attention. This is going to get a lot worse.

[Bolt_Overide]

the problem is that politicians, asskissers, and asscoverers run the military. No way the average flag officer is going to pass up the opportunity to make sure that no stink gets on him if he can burn someone else down to do it.

[Chance]

CDR Salamander has a lot to say about that (https://blog.usni.org/posts/2018/01/16/an-obstinate-organization).

That wasn't pleasant to read, especially the whole, "You’ve got to be able to handle fatigue" spiel. Because obviously the Navy can re-wire people to get around that pesky "humans need sleep" thing.

[Wake27]

That wasn't pleasant to read, especially the whole, "You’ve got to be able to handle fatigue" spiel. Because obviously the Navy can re-wire people to get around that pesky "humans need sleep" thing.

He’s not wrong though, you do have to be able to handle fatigue. And leaders have to be able to try and manage it, but there is a fine line there and a lot of times, it’s damn near impossible. Sure, you can stop a training exercise due to the risk, but if you can’t do it in training, then you won’t do it in war. I think the military has struggled a lot over the Obama years and with the downsizing because the expectations never decreased. People were the first to go. Equipment was next, but we’re still trying to do that. The requirements expected of an organization however, those never shrank. So with less people, to work it, there was more work to be shared. He’s right about not having enough people on the ship, but VERY few leaders can do anything about that.


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[Stephanie B]

He’s not wrong though, you do have to be able to handle fatigue. And leaders have to be able to try and manage it, but there is a fine line there and a lot of times, it’s damn near impossible. Sure, you can stop a training exercise due to the risk, but if you can’t do it in training, then you won’t do it in war. I think the military has struggled a lot over the Obama years and with the downsizing because the expectations never decreased. People were the first to go. Equipment was next, but we’re still trying to do that. The requirements expected of an organization however, those never shrank. So with less people, to work it, there was more work to be shared. He’s right about not having enough people on the ship, but VERY few leaders can do anything about that.


"Optimal manning", which cut the size of crews and cut training, was ordered in 2001 and began around 2003. For example, sixty billets were cut from each Burke DDG. To compensate, shipboard maintenance (the 3M program) was scaled back, because less maintenance could be done by the reduced crews. The 16-week Division Officer Course was also cut and replaced with a package of self-study CDs. Shipyard maintenance funding was cut by about 40%. Ships began to fail their INSURV inspections. The reaction of the leadership was to classify INSURV reports. That was done around 2006. In 2001, the DDG-21 program was canceled and replaced by the LCS, which has turned out to be about as useful as a patrol gunboat.

Donald Rumsfeld was the most feckless Secretary of Defense since Robert McNamara. Maybe you can remind me who the President was during that time.

[LSP552]

He’s not wrong though, you do have to be able to handle fatigue. And leaders have to be able to try and manage it, but there is a fine line there and a lot of times, it’s damn near impossible. Sure, you can stop a training exercise due to the risk, but if you can’t do it in training, then you won’t do it in war. I think the military has struggled a lot over the Obama years and with the downsizing because the expectations never decreased. People were the first to go. Equipment was next, but we’re still trying to do that. The requirements expected of an organization however, those never shrank. So with less people, to work it, there was more work to be shared. He’s right about not having enough people on the ship, but VERY few leaders can do anything about that.


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At some point you can’t do more with less. You have to prioritize and accept doing less with less.

[willie]

I'm reminded of the Jimmy Carter years when budget cuts brought about equipment failure and greatly reduced training time.

[Chance]

He’s not wrong though, you do have to be able to handle fatigue. And leaders have to be able to try and manage it, but there is a fine line there and a lot of times, it’s damn near impossible. Sure, you can stop a training exercise due to the risk, but if you can’t do it in training, then you won’t do it in war.

I get that, but this isn't an exercise or war. It's day-to-day operations.

About 19 hours without sleep roughly equals a BAC of 0.05% (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1739867/pdf/v057p00649.pdf) in terms of impairment. We have people piloting 9,000 ton warships that are effectively drunk, and that's standard operating procedure.

[Aray]

I get that, but this isn't an exercise or war. It's day-to-day operations.

About 19 hours without sleep roughly equals a BAC of 0.05% (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1739867/pdf/v057p00649.pdf) in terms of impairment. We have people piloting 9,000 ton warships that are effectively drunk, and that's standard operating procedure.

For my years running the nuclear propulsion plant on a Cruiser, every third day was a scheduled 20 hour work day. I got out in 1995.

[Dog Guy]

Another interesting take on how this could play out: http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/the-law-of-unintended-consequences-on-the-sea-and-the-cno%E2%80%99s-office

[Stephanie B]

Another interesting take on how this could play out: http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/the-law-of-unintended-consequences-on-the-sea-and-the-cno%E2%80%99s-office

They court-martialed the Captain and the Officer of the Deck of the USS Belknap after the Belknap-JFK collision. The CO was acquitted. The OOD was found guilty of negligence and awarded no punishment. The OOD was praised by the his CO as being a fine young officer, the type of officer that the Navy needed. The OOD thanked him and said that he was going to get out of the Navy ASAP.

[Glenn E. Meyer]

Will someone get in trouble for getting frozen in place?

https://news.usni.org/2018/01/19/uss-little-rock-ice-montreal

It's not unknown for that area to get cold.

[Lester Polfus]

Will someone get in trouble for getting frozen in place?

https://news.usni.org/2018/01/19/uss-little-rock-ice-montreal

It's not unknown for that area to get cold.

Huh. If so, it probably shouldn't have be the skipper. She was delivered to the Navy in Wisconsin in September. It sounds like they decided to keep her inside the seaway in a December commissioning, next to the old Little Rock. Sounds like they were planning on the seaway staying open later than it did.

[GardoneVT]

Fitzgerald officer of the deck pleads guilty at court-martial

WASHINGTON — The junior lieutenant in charge of navigating the USS Fitzgerald when it collided with a commercial vessel pleaded guilty Tuesday to dereliction of duty and acknowledged her role in the deaths of seven sailors last year.

https://www.stripes.com/fitzgerald-officer-of-the-deck-pleads-guilty-at-court-martial-1.525888

The fact the defense attorney cited testing which showed the officers scored 59% on navigation knowledge,combined with one of the duty officers not even understanding what traffic separation meant leads me to two unhappy conclusions.

One- the Navy brass* is sacrificing three officers as a dodge against fixing institutional issues with training and ops tempo.
Two- the same group of Admirals (some of whom might be in court already due to Fat Leonard) are more concerned about department reputation then fixing the problems that have killed multiple sailors on multiple incidents. Which means this will probably happen again, and another group of sailers will pay for their bosses’ mistakes with their careers and maybe even their lives.


*disclaimer: I’m not trying to throw stones at the Navy. Goodness knows the Air Force has political BS in its own history ,as does the Army & USMC. That said I find it sad an ethical officer is being burned for a mistake she couldn’t realistically avoid. If a ships crew doesn’t know the rules of the job it doesn’t matter what the officer on duty does.

[Chance]

From Stars and Stripes (https://www.stripes.com/fitzgerald-officer-of-the-deck-pleads-guilty-at-court-martial-1.525888):


As officer of the deck on June 17, Coppock was responsible for the safe navigation of the ship after the commanding officer went to his quarters that evening. The ship had been conducting evolutions all day, and the crew was tired.

Coppock testified that she had been instructed by the commanding officer to maintain 20 knots, even as the ship traversed heavily trafficked waters and its main navigation radar stopped working fully about an hour before the collision.

This may just be how the article is worded, but this seems to indicate the commanding officer knew the navigation radar wasn't working, correct?

[EMC]

My Nephew is part of the Fitz crew (IT guy) and had to man a pump for about 24 hours to help save the ship. They are all chilling out in the states now waiting on ship rebuild. Very crazy event.

[Lester Polfus]

My Nephew is part of the Fitz crew (IT guy) and had to man a pump for about 24 hours to help save the ship. They are all chilling out in the states now waiting on ship rebuild. Very crazy event.

When I was a young E-3 onboard a Coast Guard cutter in the 90's, we used to dissect incidents like the missile strike on the USS Stark, and the mine strike on the USS Samuel B. Roberts in great detail. The inevitable conclusion was that enlisted guys having technical know how and courage is what saved the ship.

I thought about those guys on my way to fight a major shipboard fire.

Your nephew is now one of "those guys." My hope is that the US Navy gets its shit together and gives them the Navy they deserve.

[Dog Guy]

A couple related articles:

https://news.usni.org/2018/05/08/former-uss-fitzgerald-officer-pleads-guilty which has a particularly interesting diagram of the bridge manning at the time of the collision.

https://news.usni.org/2018/04/26/7th-fleet-overworked-suffered-manning-shortage-ahead-fatal-collisions-says-former-co-aucoin

https://news.usni.org/2018/05/10/uss-fitzgerald-combat-team-unaware-approaching-merchant-ship-seconds-fatal-collision

[Lester Polfus]

A couple related articles:

https://news.usni.org/2018/05/08/former-uss-fitzgerald-officer-pleads-guilty which has a particularly interesting diagram of the bridge manning at the time of the collision.

https://news.usni.org/2018/04/26/7th-fleet-overworked-suffered-manning-shortage-ahead-fatal-collisions-says-former-co-aucoin

https://news.usni.org/2018/05/10/uss-fitzgerald-combat-team-unaware-approaching-merchant-ship-seconds-fatal-collision

I found myself feeling viscerally angry reading those articles. The Lt(jg) bears some culpability for what happened, but for a junior officer to fuck up that bad, she had to be set up to fail by her command.

Other articles are reporting that supposedly qualified OOD's from Fitzgerald showed abysmally low scores on NavRules testing right after the accident. There is no excuse for that.

[Stephanie B]

Back in the day of the Surface Warfare Officer Basis Course in Newport, the passing grade for the rules of the road class was 90%. You didn’t get out of the school without passing it. Wise JOs bought the COLREGS book published by the Naval Institute.

The horrible training of young surface officers is a beancounter-driven clusterfuck.

[Chance]

The Norwegians have had an incident. From BBC News (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-46136564):


32151

Norway has evacuated the entire crew of one of its warships after it collided in a fjord with an oil tanker.

Seven people were lightly injured in the collision in the Hjeltefjord near Bergen in the early hours of Thursday, rescuers say. The frigate has been listing dangerously.

The KNM Helge Ingstad had been returning from Nato military exercises.

The tanker, the Sola TS, was only slightly damaged and it appears that it did not spill oil.

It was not immediately clear what had caused the collision, which reportedly occurred shortly after 04:00 (03:00 GMT), and led to 137 people being taken off the warship.

[Glenn E. Meyer]

Geez, that's one of their newer ships. It will be expensive.

[David C.]

It is pretty sad that this ship and the rest of the latest Norwegian frigates are named for famous Norwegian explorers and seafarers but were built in a Spanish shipyard instead of in Norway.

I suspect the sailors spent too much time in diversity training and too little time learning basic navigation and seamanship.

[Chance]

Evidently, the ship's captain intentionally ran the thing aground to keep it from sinking.


https://youtu.be/3lGvDku6D5o

[Chance]

The Norwegian ship sank.

32330

[peterb]

https://www.defensenews.com/naval/2018/11/11/warnings-and-confusion-preceded-norwegian-frigate-disaster-heres-what-we-know/

Appears that the tanker was communicating, frigate had AIS turned off.

Tanker 10x the size of the frigate.

[Boxy]

Somebody gots some "splaining" to do...

[peterb]

I know nothing is as simple as it looks, but doesn’t “If the relative bearing isn’t changing(or changing fast enough), and they’re getting bigger, eventually there’s going to be a problem” usually work pretty well?

The tanker track is here: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=izbXbQ1Shmk

[peterb]

Radar video near the bottom here:
https://www.google.com/amp/amp.timeinc.net/thedrive/the-war-zone/24887/stricken-norweigan-frigate-has-almost-completely-sunk-after-its-anchor-wires-snapped%3fsource=dam

Translated:
https://medium.com/@cargun/radar-images-audio-log-of-knm-helge-ingstad-frigate-sola-ts-oil-tanker-collision-a71e3f516b54

[Dog Guy]

More info regarding the USS Fitzgerald collision. Pretty depressing. There are several more articles shown at the bottom of the linked page.
https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-navy/2019/01/14/the-ghost-in-the-fitzs-machine-why-a-doomed-warships-crew-never-saw-the-vessel-that-hit-it/

[TAZ]

More info regarding the USS Fitzgerald collision. Pretty depressing. There are several more articles shown at the bottom of the linked page.
https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-navy/2019/01/14/the-ghost-in-the-fitzs-machine-why-a-doomed-warships-crew-never-saw-the-vessel-that-hit-it/

Sad. 17 years of freaking war, PowerPoint training... Perfect storm of bovine scatology it seems.

Sadly, I’m not going to hold my breath for actual solutions. Just a bunch if gum flapping and carpet sweeping.

[GardoneVT]

Between this and Fat Leonard, I’m concerned for the modern state of the USNs management.

[Glenn E. Meyer]

There are several crucial issues for the navy:

1. The number of ships and whether funding will exist to come up to needed levels. The analyses are very shaky on this. Subs and surface ships are lacking.
2. The building of useless ships sapping funds like the Zumwalts and LCS.
3. Catch up in frigate design as the LCS sucks. Might need a foreign hull
4. Really being behind the curve on surface warfare capabilities. Russia, China and India have a clear lead in missile ability. That was because we focused on chasing camels.
5. Vulnerability of the big carriers and shrunken range of current planes
6. Then there are the associated personnel issues with expansion, retention, etc.
7. The high level command structure are the ones who made such crappy plans (not to criticize all but some ...).

If you are interested in such the USNI had some really good reports on us and our potential adversaries.

[Trooper224]

Between this and Fat Leonard, I’m concerned for the modern state of the USNs management.

Decay of the surface fleet has been happening since the end of the Cold War. I saw it beginning before I got out in '92. Over the last quarter century plus, the surface Navy hasn't done much except launch aircraft and drop bombs in the desert. Every other capability has been allowed to lapse into near incompetence. One of those is my former field, anti-submarine warfare. Wait until the first time a Chinese or Russian submarine sticks a torpedo up a carriers ass, then watch the panic and finger pointing ensue. The current surface Navy can't seem to handle basic navigation of the sea lanes, let alone warfighting against a peer power. Some time within the next decade, a lot of sailors are going to die because of that neglect. Our next war is going to big a big scale navy war and we aren't close to being ready. My youngest son and his wife are both currently serving in the USN. He isn't going to stay in, but she's on the fence. I've strongly advised her to get out. I don't want any of my kids dying because of mass incompetence.

[Glenn E. Meyer]

There have been reports of diesel subs taking down carriers for years. The navy had a Swedish sub on the West Coast for training and it was very successful against the carriers. The Norwegians and Canadians with older subs have periscope pictures of the carriers. IIRC, such successes were not allowed in maneuvers after awhile.

A Chinese sub did it to the Reagan: https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/navy-ships/news/a18094/a-chinese-submarine-stalked-an-american-aircraft-carrier/

From memory, there was a war game with Iran vs. the US Navy in the Gulf and in the first run through, the US Admiral playing Iran won decisively. The exercise was 'run again' to correct errors.

[Trooper224]

There have been reports of diesel subs taking down carriers for years. The navy had a Swedish sub on the West Coast for training and it was very successful against the carriers. The Norwegians and Canadians with older subs have periscope pictures of the carriers. IIRC, such successes were not allowed in maneuvers after awhile.

A Chinese sub did it to the Reagan: https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/navy-ships/news/a18094/a-chinese-submarine-stalked-an-american-aircraft-carrier/

From memory, there was a war game with Iran vs. the US Navy in the Gulf and in the first run through, the US Admiral playing Iran won decisively. The exercise was 'run again' to correct errors.

All true. Again, I have more than a passing familiarity with such things.

When your people are well trained and the equipment is working properly the task at hand is difficult enough. When things have sunk to the apparent level of incompetency it may be insurmountable.

[Glenn E. Meyer]

Naval things are a hobby. I did take an elective in Military History from an interesting guy. He was a major general and PhD. Head of the Hungarian military academy and part of the 1956 rebellion. Ending up as a history prof at my university and his course was a bear to get into. I wrote a long term paper on the pre-WWII naval limitation treaties and their implications and analogy to nuclear disarmanent. He gave me an A and said it was an excellent essay.

We read lots of theory as well as just battles and equipment. Kind of like our mindset vs just 9 vs 45. I was really proud of the paper and since then kept an interest in reading about naval issues. They are a crucial part of being a truly educated adult in understanding today's geopolitical world.

My bookshelves are full of them - next to the gun books, cheese books and sushi/Japanese food books. Just bought one on the Latin American Dreadnaught arms race in the early 1900s. That's getting into the weeds.

[alohadoug]

This applies not just to Naval activities. All branches/disciplines of the Military have lost the edge or fallen behind near-peer opposition. China dominates on EW and is changing their TTP faster than we can adapt. The Russians (let's call them what they are "the Soviets") have changed their mindset and their TTP and, with significant advances in material sciences have surpassed up in critical areas of surface warfare.
Our focus on counter-insurgency has lead us to neglect areas such as combined arms warfare (Brigade and above), contested air-superiority, and reduced signal environments. The next war will be like WWII not like GWOT.

[Stephanie B]

From memory, there was a war game with Iran vs. the US Navy in the Gulf and in the first run through, the US Admiral playing Iran won decisively. The exercise was 'run again' to correct errors.
There was a war game (Red vs. Blue) back in the early ‘80s. The officers running Blue were a lot senior to the ones running Red. Out of the gate, Red sank four Blue carriers. No surprise, the rules were changed.

[rcbusmc24]

Read up on the 2002 millunium challenge war games......

[SeriousStudent]

Read up on the 2002 millunium challenge war games......

That was something! General Van Riper was a serious individual. I remember when he was a light bird, and the CO of 2/7 at Stumps. He came out and watched a CAX we did, and was sharp as a razor with his input. Great officer, I am surprised he did not make Commandant after General Gray.

[Drang]

From memory, there was a war game with Iran vs. the US Navy in the Gulf and in the first run through, the US Admiral playing Iran won decisively. The exercise was 'run again' to correct errors.
Because it obviously makes sense to just say "OK, fuck it, we're screwed" and go home...?

And IIRC, it wasn't an admiral, it was a USMC Colonel, and he "won" by having the Iranian "navy" swarm the US in a bazillion bass boats, or whatever the Persian Gulf equivalent is.

[willie]

The thread presents serious problems of a severe nature about our Navy's capability. If a panel of Admirals were to read and discuss the thread, would its members compare posters with the man in the street and label comments as simplistic? Or posing the question another way, does the Navy's leadership recognize issues stated here?

[scw2]

From memory, there was a war game with Iran vs. the US Navy in the Gulf and in the first run through, the US Admiral playing Iran won decisively. The exercise was 'run again' to correct errors.

I thought the solution they came up with to "correct the errors" was disallowing the red team from using that tactic. :mad::confused:

[TiroFijo]

It is no time for complacency when an idiotic chinese "Rear Admiral" (Lou Yuan) talks about sinking two USN super carriers, just to "see how frightened America is"....

Sure he is just a big mouth, but nevertheless I would not want to go unprepared into the South China Sea.

[rcbusmc24]

Because it obviously makes sense to just say "OK, fuck it, we're screwed" and go home...?

And IIRC, it wasn't an admiral, it was a USMC Colonel, and he "won" by having the Iranian "navy" swarm the US in a bazillion bass boats, or whatever the Persian Gulf equivalent is.

That was the MC 02 I talked about upthread... retired major general Paul Van Riper led the red cell during the exercise. There are several reasons given for the "reset " First it was that the operational forces involved had only a 36 hour window to conduct actual landings... the rest of the experiment was notional, and since red cell sank the invasion fleet prior it had to re gen IOT allow the exercise to continue. The other issue was that in order to " try out" developing tech red cell was then limited to the effects it could achieve so to allow the experimentation to continue. The issue with this was that at the time a lot of the tech was still theoretical and it was allowed to assume that it would work perfectly in real life...

The way that the initial red cell attack worked out was that general Ripper launched a premptive attack once the scenario indicated that there was no more averting the "war". MC 02 was not General Rippers first red cell war game. He was known for outside the box thinking. The previous years game he noted that the game was too "scripted " and protested when the post assessment report came out putting words in his mouth. MC 02 was truely notable because the results were leaked before the exercise was even over due to concerns that the DOD would report what it wanted to be true and not the actual results of the exercise. Even after hamstringing the red cell after the initial opening moves...

[Glenn E. Meyer]

Thanks for the all the info. Scary times. Just read that Congress is getting antsy about the slow progress of the new frigate project. Sounds kind of like chosing a new hand gun.

[alohadoug]

That was the MC 02 I talked about upthread... retired major general Paul Van Riper led the red cell during the exercise. There are several reasons given for the "reset " First it was that the operational forces involved had only a 36 hour window to conduct actual landings... the rest of the experiment was notional, and since red cell sank the invasion fleet prior it had to re gen IOT allow the exercise to continue. The other issue was that in order to " try out" developing tech red cell was then limited to the effects it could achieve so to allow the experimentation to continue. The issue with this was that at the time a lot of the tech was still theoretical and it was allowed to assume that it would work perfectly in real life...

The way that the initial red cell attack worked out was that general Ripper launched a premptive attack once the scenario indicated that there was no more averting the "war". MC 02 was not General Rippers first red cell war game. He was known for outside the box thinking. The previous years game he noted that the game was too "scripted " and protested when the post assessment report came out putting words in his mouth. MC 02 was truely notable because the results were leaked before the exercise was even over due to concerns that the DOD would report what it wanted to be true and not the actual results of the exercise. Even after hamstringing the red cell after the initial opening moves...

Similar situation when I was at III Corps at Fort Hood. During exercise focusing on a landmass in Asia, we had intel that a sapper was going to strike Corps HQ with backpack nuke (early 2000's). Corps CG didn't care b/c report was HUMINT not SIGINT or IMINT, his comment "I don't care about that 'he said/she said' bullshit." So when the nuke leveled Corps HQ, the CG backed the exercise up six hours and suddenly deployed an MP battalion (plus three separate Infantry Companies) along the ingress route... :rolleyes:

[Stephanie B]

More info regarding the USS Fitzgerald collision. Pretty depressing. There are several more articles shown at the bottom of the linked page.
https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-navy/2019/01/14/the-ghost-in-the-fitzs-machine-why-a-doomed-warships-crew-never-saw-the-vessel-that-hit-it/
Painful to read. Arguably, Fitzgerald should have been CASREP’t and welded to a pier.

I think the Navy is overextended. Some admiral needs to put his stars on the line and say “unable.”

[EMC]

Great story:

https://features.propublica.org/navy-accidents/uss-fitzgerald-destroyer-crash-crystal/

[KeithH]

Hard to believe this actually happened.

[Jaywalker]

Fitz can't have bene the only one with problems, and why aren't the admirals who allowed it to go on facing their own inquiries?

[Dog Guy]

https://news.usni.org/2019/04/10/navy-set-to-drop-all-criminal-charges-against-fitzgerald-co-junior-officer-secnav-will-issue-letters-of-censure
Further developments: criminal charges against the CO and TAO are being dropped. They're still having their careers ended though.

[farscott]

While the incident involving the USS Fitzgerald is disheartening at best, a look at US military history has shown that the country has never properly been prepared for the next big war, especially after a long time of "peace". During peace, the spending on serious fighting training and equipment gets spent on something else. Personnel levels are cut, equipment funding slowed, etc. Then we are attacked, a whole lot of money and manpower flows into the defense complex, and we use our initiative and abilities to find a way to win. Usually at great cost, especially in lives. But that is how the USA has always prepared -- or not prepared as is the case.

In the GWOT, surface ships have had minimal value, most in missile launches and air superiority over Iraq. China, especially, is trying to build up the ability to stop the USA from projecting naval power, especially carrier-based power. My fear is that history will rhyme and we will lose at least one carrier group in a conventional conflict. That will be the impetus for the war machine to get unlimbered.

[GardoneVT]

While the incident involving the USS Fitzgerald is disheartening at best, a look at US military history has shown that the country has never properly been prepared for the next big war, especially after a long time of "peace".

It is human nature. All militaries suffer the same weakness- effective management of an armed force during peacetime requires different skills from those during a shooting war. Unconventional and brash thinkers don’t do well in committee hearings, and bureaucratically talented managers make poor wartime generals. You need both types of leaders, but at different times.

[Jaywalker]

According to ProPublica, the cases against the officers of the Fitzgerald and McCain were dropped because of command interference - the judge ruled the Chief of Naval Operations' comments were not accidental, but purposeful. https://www.propublica.org/article/navy-commander-tainted-investigation

[TGS]

My youngest son and his wife are both currently serving in the USN. He isn't going to stay in, but she's on the fence. I've strongly advised her to get out. I don't want any of my kids dying because of mass incompetence.

Did she leave?

I was talking to a colleague of mine who is a SWO. After his comments about the tangible failures that lead to these events I can't blame you for feeling that way. It really put things in perspective for me...….like how an entire generation of SWOs were taught ship operations from a CD on self-study time instead of actually driving and operating ships.

[Trooper224]

Did she leave?

I was talking to a colleague of mine who is a SWO. After his comments about the tangible failures that lead to these events I can't blame you for feeling that way. It really put things in perspective for me...….like how an entire generation of SWOs were taught ship operations from a CD on self-study time instead of actually driving and operating ships.

She's signed up for one more enlistment and then she'll finish out in the reserves.

[Dog Guy]

NTSB has released their report on the McCain collision. I'm still reading through, but so far it's most interesting. Links to two articles, and the report itself:

https://news.usni.org/2019/08/06/ntsb-lack-of-navy-oversight-training-were-primary-causes-of-fatal-mccain-collision
https://news.usni.org/2019/08/06/ntsb-accident-report-on-fatal-2017-uss-john-mccain-collision-off-singapore
https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/6243999/MAR1901.pdf

[Drang]

There has been a second collision between a guided-missile destroyer and a civilian vessel. From BBC News (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/world-asia-40995829):

A US guided-missile destroyer has collided with an oil tanker off the coast of Singapore, the US Navy says.

Ten sailors are missing, media reports say. A search and rescue operation is under way.

The USS John McCain was sailing through the Strait of Malacca and preparing to stop in Singapore when the incident occurred, the US Navy said .

It is the second serious collision involving a US Navy ship within two months.

The latest collision, which was reported at 06:24 local time on Monday (21:24 GMT on Sunday), happened as the USS John McCain prepared to perform a routine port stop.

Initial reports said that the ship had "sustained damage" to its port side when it struck the Liberian-flagged vessel.
The US Navy will replace its touchscreen controls with mechanical ones on its destroyers - The Verge (https://www.theverge.com/2019/8/11/20800111/us-navy-uss-john-s-mccain-crash-ntsb-report-touchscreen-mechanical-controls)

On August 21st, 2017, the USS John S. McCain collided with the Alnic MC, a Liberian oil tanker, off the coast of Singapore. The report provides a detailed overview of the actions that led to the collision: when crew members tried to split throttle and steering control between consoles, they lost control of the ship, putting it into the path of the tanker. The crash killed 10 sailors and injured 48 aboard the McCain.

The report says that while fatigue and lack of training played a role in the accident, the design of the ship’s control console were also contributing factors. Located in the middle of the McCain’s bridge, the Ship’s Control Console (SCC) features a pair of touch-screens on both the Helm and Lee Helm stations, through which the crew could steer and propel the ship. Investigators found that the crew had placed it in “backup manual mode,” which removed computer-assisted help, because it allowed for “more direct form of communication between steering and the SSC.” That setting meant that any crew member at another station could take over steering operations, and when the crew tried to regain control of the ship from multiple stations, control “shifted from the lee helm, to aft steering, to the helm, and back to aft steering.”
I suppose digital, touchscreen controls seemed like a good idea at the time...

[Drang]

Three ship commanders fired in two days, raising questions about Navy's 'zero-error tolerance' culture (https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/defense-national-security/3-ship-commanders-fired-in-2-days-raising-questions-about-navys-zero-error-tolerance-culture)

[Dog Guy]

I know, this is true necroing of a necro thread. It's worth reading and not too long if you're looking for a smart guy's take on how well the Navy has done at solving the systemic problems that contributed to the collisions. There's a chart in the article that doesn't cut and paste to the excerpt.

https://cdrsalamander.substack.com/p/we-were-lied-to-no-were-lying-to

"Follow through. For some things, that is what matters … and the numbers tell the story.

So, here we are over six years, roughly one-and-a-half the time it took for the USA to fight WWII - after the drowning deaths of 17 Sailors in the collisions of the destroyers FITZGERALD and MCCAIN in WESTPAC that, we were told, was going to be a turning point for our Navy to really - and we meant it this time - refocus on the fundamentals that we failed to maintain which were - outside the ultimate responsibilities of command - the latent causes of the collisions; manning, maintenance, and training..."

"...Here we are, halfway through May of 2023, and we’re still talking about the events.

Thanks to navalist twitter datahound and reader of all congressional thingys Charlie B, … let’s cut to the chase.

From the recent INSURV report.

Compared to that horribilis annus of 2017, how have we done?

Besides Electrical, Medical, and Supply - we are worse.

As someone who spent WAY too much time in the readiness/material condition reporting world, there are one of two reasons for this.

1. In 2017 we just has systemic lying on readiness reports, but since then we’ve stopped that and with the billions of dollars and seabags full of Sailor sweat, we now have more accurate reporting, but it just appears lower compared to the Potemkin readiness reporting in 2017.

2. We really don’t care. After some nice reports and a few somber faces to the camera and the odd funeral or 17 … as an institution we regressed to the mean, only worse now.

#1 I can accept, but for me to accept this, I need a few things; confession, your math, repentance, accountability.
As we have not seen the first and second, only passive hints at the third, and sacrificial bits of the fourth, I’m afraid we have to assume #2 represents 50.1% of the reason.

Why? Why would this be?

Ask yourself; has leadership and Congress been focused on maintenance? Have you seen a surge of shore support? Have we systemically changed our mindset (outside a few specific areas)? What are our incentives and disincentives changing to bring about different results?..."