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What are the odds of 2 US Navy ships of the same type, class, and homeport being hit in the same part of the ship in the same area of the world in the early morning hours?
Fitzgerald was hit on the starboard bow, this hit was abaft the superstructure on the port side. Incidentally making the merchant ship the responsible part, fat lot of good that does.
The idea that this is some clever scheme is, to put it nicely, far-fetched. Using freighters to hit destroyers is like using 18-wheelers to ram Ferraris in an open field - unless the Ferrari driver is willing to not use his maneuverability and speed, it can not work.
Reading up a bit on the way that the US Navy trains actual seamanship was a bit of an eye-opener, though.
Essentially, young officers arrive for their first posting at sea with very limited actual seamanship knowledge and are expected to do computer-assisted training - on top of all their other shipboard responsibilities. And that shoves the job of driving the ship up to the XO & CO, whose job would otherwise be that of the all-seeing, calm, detached overseer. Bit of a problem.
Because both of these collisions could have been avoided with 19th-century seamanship. As in, alert lookouts, plots on paper charts, bearing compasses and situational awareness.
Last edited by Dane_in_LA; 08-20-2017 at 09:33 PM..
Could this be some new Russian or Chinese weapon screwing up either the navigation equipment -- computer hacking -- or screwing up the sailors' heads like the weird deafness happening to so many US diplomats in Cuba?
This idea of hacking is not far-fetched at all.
Stuxnet was used to sabotage an Iranian nuclear facility. The
virus was able to do the damage in the background and not display anything that could be detected by the
technicians who were watching their monitors. Current hacking capabilities are even more sophisticated now.
In 1952 the DOD tested a technology that could saturate any radar screen with fake blips to make the enemy think they are being attacked.
If they could do all this back then, it's very possible that they now have technologies that can mess with the ship's navigation system to fool the radar operators into thinking they are going in a direction they are not.
Fitzgerald was hit on the starboard bow, this hit was abaft the superstructure on the port side. Incidentally making the merchant ship the responsible part, fat lot of good that does.
The idea that this is some clever scheme is, to put it nicely, far-fetched. Using freighters to hit destroyers is like using 18-wheelers to ram Ferraris in an open field - unless the Ferrari driver is willing to not use his maneuverability and speed, it can not work.
Reading up a bit on the way that the US Navy trains actual seamanship was a bit of an eye-opener, though.
Essentially, young officers arrive for their first posting at sea with very limited actual seamanship knowledge and are expected to do computer-assisted training - on top of all their other shipboard responsibilities. And that shoves the job of driving the ship up to the XO & CO, whose job would otherwise be that of the all-seeing, calm, detached overseer. Bit of a problem.
Because both of these collisions could have been avoided with 19th-century seamanship. As in, alert lookouts, plots on paper charts, bearing compasses and situational awareness.
The smaller ship is always at fault - the McCain was very nimble in the water - not so much the 600 ft, 30,000 ton Tanker.
That's a common misconception, but it's not the case. The COLREGS don't care about tonnage. Not that one should try to claim privilege with a 15-foot skiff vs a container ship, but on the open sea the rules are applicable no matter what, as long as both vessels can maneuver and aren't restricted by draft. This looks like (I did say looks like) a Rule 15 situation:
Quote:
RULE 15
Crossing Situation
When two power-driven vessels are crossing so as to involve risk of
collision, the vessel which has the other on her own starboard side shall
keep out of the way and shall, if the circumstances of the case admit, avoid
crossing ahead of the other vessel.
If you hit the other guy on his port side, you have some explaining to do. That being said, the destroyer should have been easily able to get out of the way of a merchant ship. It's not as if the stand-on vessel is obliged to be rammed, and the regs take that into account, too.
China is unhappy with this US navy ship operating in area. My take is: they sabotaged the US ship. It's a
common cold war tactic to ram the enemy's ship. Maybe the Chinese control the people who operate the
other ship.
Do you realize just how slow and cumbersome a cargo ship like this is? The damn thing could not ram anything even if it tried, unless the ship it was trying to ram was parked and not moving.
Could this be some new Russian or Chinese weapon screwing up either the navigation equipment -- computer hacking -- or screwing up the sailors' heads like the weird deafness happening to so many US diplomats in Cuba?
They can navigate the ship with zero tech, and all are trained to do so.
I serious doubt it is any far fetched thing like this, collisions and near collisions happen, they are not uncommon. It is a busy area.
They can navigate the ship with zero tech, and all are trained to do so.
I serious doubt it is any far fetched thing like this, collisions and near collisions happen, they are not uncommon. It is a busy area.
Yep, there were numerous "friendly" collisions in tight quarters during WW2.
Sad that some people have to attribute either politics to it or nefarious foreign actions....in order to bring politics into it.
Come on people. Accidents happen until we get some real proof and until then you're a bunch of political ghouls trying to blame Trump\Obama or whomever.
There was one early report that mentioned a steering failure. Not seen anything else.
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