US Navy suffers third ship collision this year The accident-prone US Navy has suspended all of its warship operations around the world following its third collision at sea this year. The latest incident took place between general-purpose destroyer USS John S McCain and a Liberian-flagged oil tanker, the Alnic MC, off the coast of Singapore, where the American warship was …
A long time ago I was working on a dive boat in the Coral Sea. It was a 60ft. Japanese built boat with a Japanese name and that strange curved prow that they favour. Anyhoo, the skipper was knackered and gave me the wheel, at this time I knew nothing about navigation. Before retiring he pointed out a couple of trawlers on the radar and gave me a course to steer. After a while I was seeing a radar target coming towards us. Using the binoculars all I could see was a tiny black dot. The only thing that I could think of was that it was a submarine. I woke up the skipper and told him of the situation.
Yup, it was the Australian navy, I said that on seeing us we would most likely be torpedoed, being a Jap boat etc. We passed a couple of cables apart, they were in the conning tower wearing duffel coats and drinking cocoa! (OK that bit is not true).
We waved at each other and steamed on.
On a serious note, the tanker that collided with the McCain was probably either "Constrained by draught" or had "Restricted ability to manoeuvre" or both. Just get out of their way!
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On a small sailboat in mid-ocean I took yet another bearing on the white mast light that was rising higher and higher, still on a constant bearing despite my earlier precautionary course change. I rushed below to try to start the engine as we were making less than 2 Kts in the light wind - but the engine refused to play ball. I knew that the rate at which the light was rising meant an exceptionally fast closing speed, the single mast light denoting a smaller vessel so maybe a non-displacement hull, and by the time the much lower red or green position light appeared it would probably be almost upon us.
I was beginning to panic and I was just about to set off a red flare when I realised that the thing I had been trying to avoid was ... Venus.
Bit of a tragedy for those lost and you get the impression they are so advanced in the us navy that they must run on autopilot most of the time with minimally trained crew.
They guys were probably all geek types in case of some sort of IT issue.
I dont like to think someone in charge of so much is just a bit of a bellend.
Don't bother with cruise missiles or torpedoes when you can simply ram them with any old container ship or oil tanker. Surely the Navy needs to get on top of this if for no other reason than terrorists could theoretically stow away on board such a ship, commandeer it, and use it to try to ram Navy ships, kill a few sailors, and put a multi-billion dollar piece of equipment out of commission for a year.
Talk about one hell of a dandy ISIS recruitment video...
As someone else mentioned earlier, this is getting beyond a coincidence. And why even stow away and commandeer it when you can just get a job on the ship? Surely this whole thing smacks of an orchestrated attempt to degrade the US Seventh Fleet's capability.
OK, scoff/downvote if you must, but a certain defence technology alert service has now posited the possibility that the navigational systems of the civilian craft involved had been hacked. And not pointing the finger at Russia specifically (because of course it's the Norks or China most likely behind it) but apparently the Russians have been trialling such a system in the Black Sea recently.
'posited the possibility that the navigational systems of the civilian craft involved had been hacked'
But then CNN have reported that there was a steering gear failure on the McCain, which sounds more likely. It does raise questions about the crew's preparedness for such an event and how recently they'd practised the drills for going to reversionary mode.
Even if someone hacked the steering of a civilian ship, there's no way an oil tanker should be able to ram a Navy ship that's faster and far more maneuverable. If they're that easy to ram, they aren't going be of much use in a real war if all you need to do is keep sending old rusty ships at them until they run out of torpedoes.
they aren't going be of much use in a real war
Exactly! The navy are like those knights in bright and shiny armour long after the musket was invented!
Good for brightening up tournaments and looking righteous against peasants, yet bound to be shot up for good in the first real fight against a proper opponent.
Since the majority are not actually doing anything of any consequence, standards are bound to drop and then accidents/scandals happen from simple boredom and futility, like with the nuclear missiles - https://www.stripes.com/news/us/9-nuclear-missile-wing-leaders-fired-commander-resigns-1.274969#.WaBrZ617E6g
It shouldn't be possible. My son was at the helm of a Iroquois-class destroyer in the Taiwan strait one time. Visibility was poor. They were at normal cruising speed. They suddenly detected a rogue fisherman with his nets spread in the middle of the channel. Most military would simply run over them, too bad, so sad. This was the first time my son was at the helm so the captain gave the order for hard to port.
They missed the idiot but most likely chopped up his nets. It also wasn't very funny for the crew as the ship heeled maybe 30 degrees. That dumped people from bunks as well as large pots of food in the galley. My son was ribbed a lot but it certainly wasn't his fault. He was following orders.
Of course all ships at sea should adhere to the law and the rules of navigation. But sometimes some of them don't.
On the other hand, I would assume that a warship - of whatever nation, but especially one that is on the far side of the world from its home port - should always be alert and on the lookout.
How the hell could you avoid being torpedoed by an enemy submarine, or even sunk by gunfire, when you don't notice that you are about to be rammed by a bloody great tanker?
'one that is on the far side of the world from its home port' It's home port is in Japan.
' I would assume that a warship should always be alert and on the lookout.' You'd be surprised, in a peacetime cruising watch you may have minimal sensors manned, otherwise it's just practice bleeding. Surprisingly few ships get attacked by enemy vessels outside a war zone, as oddly enough that would be a declaration of war, so the world's navies don't sail around trying to sink each other the whole time. That's no excuse for hitting a 30000 tonne tanker though.
Bridge Resource Management is significant as it means they are looking at a breakdown within the team on the bridge. If you read MAIB reports, you'll find this is a significant factor in many collisions. As a skipper, it only takes a couple of weak links in your bridge teams to increase everyone's workload to unsustainable levels.
The RN does not have a good reputation in this area either.... they have killed many UK civilians, mainly fishermen. The most recent MAIB report on a RN sub and fishing boat collision was scathing about the RN's operational management.
In the recent US Navy cases it's US personnel that have been killed, hence the headlines and involvement of the crusted monkeys.
If your ignorance and lack of situational awareness kills poor civilians... promotion awaits (slightly delayed for appearances), if you kill your own crew or expensively dent your own ship in full view of the world..... fire and brimstone will rain upon you.
Colregs also state that the stand on vessel shall make efforts to avoid collision if it deems that actions of the give way vessel are insufficient. In the case of a flighty destroyer and a bulk carrier.... the destroyer is almost certainly in the wrong whether it was stand on or give way.
...when training and exercise funds are cut, along with people being promoted ahead of others because they suck up to the same thinking.
Thank you Obama, your dereliction of duty as commander-in-chief has cost more lives.
It will take the DoD around 3-6 years to recover from 8 years of neglect.
What happens when one keeps on bloating the already most bloated military in the known universe - one first runs out of actual talent, then the organisation becomes average, and finally one starts scraping the barrel which means that the moron fraction now grows faster than the "processes and procedures"-department can write programming for them!
Tanker was 30,000 to 50,000 fully loaded. Destroyer 8,000 to 9000 tonnes. Destroyers are maneuverable, tankers are not. both should have done avoidance maneuvers, but the most effective and culpable should have been the destroyer. Not only that, the destroyer was bristling with radar/instrumentation, and should have had unimpeachable situational awareness.
Wife thinks with 2 accidents, it was some diddling with gps signals that gave bad info on purpose.
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Wife thinks with 2 accidents, it was some diddling with gps signals that gave bad info on purpose.
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Not very likely. The tanker would have been broadcasting it's position based upon the same GPS constellation the destroyer was receiving - so relative positions would have been accurate. But in any case, the bridge crew should have been visual the whole time, so even if the instruments were wrong, that's like blaming your gps when you T-bone a cyclist at a junction.
Here's the list of the dead and 'missing' from John S. .McCain. http://www.newser.com/story/247690/these-are-the-10-sailors-lost-in-navy-collision.html?utm_source=zergnet.com&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=zergnet_1992885
It seems that the tanker scored a direct hit on the IT department berthing area.
For a navy that claims to be able to fire an intelligent missile that can strike within 10m of its intended target not be able to navigate through commercial ship traffic is totally ridiculous!! Making America Great Again one ship collision at a time! Sure looks like American technology is working far below acceptable standards!?
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