Community Chat

[Kachina624]

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@Plaid Pants2 wrote:

A ship is captained or piloted, NOT driven.

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@Plaid Pants2  I thought they were sailed or navigated.  A ship that is captained simply has an officer in charge.  A pilot is a specialist who has detailed knowledge of a specific navigable waterway. 

[pitdakota]

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@Sooner wrote:

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@Kachina624 wrote:

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@Sooner wrote:

Are we assuming it is the US ship's fault or has that been verified?

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@Sooner  It's too soon to assign responsibility but it really doesn't matter.  If a collision is eminent, even if caused by another ship, evasive action should be taken to avoid it.   They have a ton of observers and electronic instrumentation to avoid such calamities but crew has to be awake and attentive to them.  The captain is ultimately responsible. 

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Well,  I'm certainly not jumping to conclusions about things like this.  Sometimes situations aren't as simply as that.  Ships navigate a lot of what other ships are expected to do.  It's isn't like these things stop on a dime.

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@Sooner, which is why US warships are equipped with high tech state of the art navigational systems using satellite, GPS, sonar, and other technology systems that cost tens of millions of dollars for the system itself.

A US warship must always be aware of any ships or submarines in the area and navigate in accordance to their presence.  At the very least it should identify a ship in plenty of time to take evasive action.  If it didn't then why even have them?  Heck, enemy countries wouldn't even need a navy to do us harm.  They could just use cargo ships to ram the US vessel.

Something is really wrong that we have had so many accidents this year.   Hope they figure it out soon.

[hckynut]

Have the same thing to say as my 1st post after the Fitzgerald (?) had a similar incident. In 2 months 2 warships carrying advanced weaponry collide with, I assume, private sector ships? Seems like I heard this is the 6th similar incidence in 2017.

Hopefully they get to the source of these collisions, and very soon.

hckynut(john)

[SANNA]

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@Kachina624 wrote:

I think the Navy is neglecting to teach its captains how to drive those ships.  With all the radar and electronic gadgets they have, it's hard to understand how this could happen.  Once a captain's ship collides with something, his career is pretty much finished. 

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I bet you they were texting or facebooking on the job.  Everywhere today  you look you see irresponsible, incompetent generation that makes me very afraid for the future of our nation.  And when it comes to army or navy it is plain scary!!!

[tansy]

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@SANNA wrote:

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@Kachina624 wrote:

I think the Navy is neglecting to teach its captains how to drive those ships.  With all the radar and electronic gadgets they have, it's hard to understand how this could happen.  Once a captain's ship collides with something, his career is pretty much finished. 

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I bet you they were texting or facebooking on the job.  Everywhere today  you look you see irresponsible, incompetent generation that makes me very afraid for the future of our nation.  And when it comes to army or navy it is plain scary!!!

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Do you think a 30 yo millennial was in charge of the navy's ship?  Ai-yi-yi😏

[gardenman]

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@pitdakota wrote:

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@Sooner wrote:

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@Kachina624 wrote:

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@Sooner wrote:

Are we assuming it is the US ship's fault or has that been verified?

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@Sooner  It's too soon to assign responsibility but it really doesn't matter.  If a collision is eminent, even if caused by another ship, evasive action should be taken to avoid it.   They have a ton of observers and electronic instrumentation to avoid such calamities but crew has to be awake and attentive to them.  The captain is ultimately responsible. 

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Well,  I'm certainly not jumping to conclusions about things like this.  Sometimes situations aren't as simply as that.  Ships navigate a lot of what other ships are expected to do.  It's isn't like these things stop on a dime.

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@Sooner, which is why US warships are equipped with high tech state of the art navigational systems using satellite, GPS, sonar, and other technology systems that cost tens of millions of dollars for the system itself.

A US warship must always be aware of any ships or submarines in the area and navigate in accordance to their presence.  At the very least it should identify a ship in plenty of time to take evasive action.  If it didn't then why even have them?  Heck, enemy countries wouldn't even need a navy to do us harm.  They could just use cargo ships to ram the US vessel.

Something is really wrong that we have had so many accidents this year.   Hope they figure it out soon.

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One of the quirks of warships is that despite having millions in radar/sonar equipment, they often rely on passive means (sailors on watch and passive listening) instead of the electronic tools.

Why? Things like radar and active sonar (the pinging) let an enemy learn where the ship is before the radar/sonar tells the ship where the enemy is. An enemy can detect a very weak signal from radar/sonar that's too weak to detect the enemy letting the enemy track the warship without being detected.

Commercial vessels do rely on radar/sonar, but our modern warships are designed to be less visible on radar. Many commercial vessels also have huge blindspots. Some of the shipping container ships are blind to anything up to a half mile or more in front of them due to the containers stacked in front of the bridge.

Collisions shouldn't happen if everyone is doing their job, but these collisions have occurred in congested areas and there are often a lot of ships in a small area traveling at different speeds and on different paths. A single breakdown in communication can put a ship and her crew at risk.

I'm a little concerned about how lightly armored our warships appear to be these days. I think our old battleships often had very thick armor while these newer destroyers seem to be made of much less protective armor. You're not hearing of the other ships in these collisions being severely damaged, but our ships are getting peeled open. We might want to rethink the design of our destroyers.

[Snoopp]

Budget cuts over the years reduced the training given.  I saw a report that they used to get 16 weeks training, now they get handed a cd.  The number of lookouts was reported to be down from 3 to 1.  Sounds like a recipe for disaster if correct.  We need to fund our navy sufficiently.

[ROMARY]

Sanna:  That was my exact same thought when I first read this thread yesterday.   Everyone (well, almost) around here looking down, even when driving.  There should be a law re: both hands on steering wheel at all times. 

[Kachina624]

The admiral in charge of the navy's Seventh Fleet has been removed from his position due to lack of confidence in his abilities.  Not a big deal because he was due to retire September first. 

This collision was so similar to the last one, it's spooky.  The casualties again were sailors who were sleeping in their bunks in compartments that were flooded.  

I agree with @gardenman that the armament on that ship looks flimsy, peeled back like the top of a sardine can.   It appears that they're not making ships like they used to. 

[pitdakota]

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@gardenman wrote:

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@pitdakota wrote:

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@Sooner wrote:

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@Kachina624 wrote:

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@Sooner wrote:

Are we assuming it is the US ship's fault or has that been verified?

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@Sooner  It's too soon to assign responsibility but it really doesn't matter.  If a collision is eminent, even if caused by another ship, evasive action should be taken to avoid it.   They have a ton of observers and electronic instrumentation to avoid such calamities but crew has to be awake and attentive to them.  The captain is ultimately responsible. 

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Well,  I'm certainly not jumping to conclusions about things like this.  Sometimes situations aren't as simply as that.  Ships navigate a lot of what other ships are expected to do.  It's isn't like these things stop on a dime.

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@Sooner, which is why US warships are equipped with high tech state of the art navigational systems using satellite, GPS, sonar, and other technology systems that cost tens of millions of dollars for the system itself.

A US warship must always be aware of any ships or submarines in the area and navigate in accordance to their presence.  At the very least it should identify a ship in plenty of time to take evasive action.  If it didn't then why even have them?  Heck, enemy countries wouldn't even need a navy to do us harm.  They could just use cargo ships to ram the US vessel.

Something is really wrong that we have had so many accidents this year.   Hope they figure it out soon.

---

One of the quirks of warships is that despite having millions in radar/sonar equipment, they often rely on passive means (sailors on watch and passive listening) instead of the electronic tools.

Why? Things like radar and active sonar (the pinging) let an enemy learn where the ship is before the radar/sonar tells the ship where the enemy is. An enemy can detect a very weak signal from radar/sonar that's too weak to detect the enemy letting the enemy track the warship without being detected.

Commercial vessels do rely on radar/sonar, but our modern warships are designed to be less visible on radar. Many commercial vessels also have huge blindspots. Some of the shipping container ships are blind to anything up to a half mile or more in front of them due to the containers stacked in front of the bridge.

Collisions shouldn't happen if everyone is doing their job, but these collisions have occurred in congested areas and there are often a lot of ships in a small area traveling at different speeds and on different paths. A single breakdown in communication can put a ship and her crew at risk.

I'm a little concerned about how lightly armored our warships appear to be these days. I think our old battleships often had very thick armor while these newer destroyers seem to be made of much less protective armor. You're not hearing of the other ships in these collisions being severely damaged, but our ships are getting peeled open. We might want to rethink the design of our destroyers.

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@gardenman, the USS John McCain was in one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world and it should have been using all of its electronic equipment to evaluate the presence of other ships & certainly would have information about other ships in the lane & their course.  At least according to many of the retired navy people we know that have talked about this incident. 

Newer US ships are outfitted with radar equipment that allows the ship to use radar without the level of detection from other ships in the past.  Merchant ships do have radar equipment, albeit it is much less sophisticated than US military ships.  We have a family member that works for a software company that uses data (radar & GPS) sent by merchant ships to plot courses in busy shipping lanes.  So merchant vessels do have radar and can use it to plot courses based on other ships in the lane.  I can't speak to this specific oil tanker though.  There is still quite a bit that needs to be determined from their investigation.

Some of the navy guys we know say there is a type of ship that will be a stealth ship (can't remember the name, weird one that starts with a Z) and so difficult to spot that they have had to work on reflective material to place on the ship so that when it needs to be seen it can be more readily detected by other ships in the area.  Boy, do these past incidents place more emphasis on that strategy.

There is some discussion that something may have occurred with the steering mechanism of the McCain.  At any rate, these incidents are certainly are worrisome.