Visit our Popular Forums

SailOar · 09-05-2018, 17:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by boatman61

I seriously doubt the USN suffers cutbacks.. Obamacare, Veteran Aid etc maybe.. but the active military is a sacred cow from what I can make out.

Budget of the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Marine Corps from fiscal year 2000 to 2017 (in billion U.S. dollars)

**boatman61** · 09-05-2018, 17:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by SailOar

Budget of the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Marine Corps from fiscal year 2000 to 2017 (in billion U.S. dollars)

Likely funding the 2nd Atlantic Fleet being set up to counter the Putin Threat..

**Lepke** · 09-05-2018, 18:02

On destroyers in my day (1967 to 1973), the OD usually was a LTjg and the JOD an ensign. Rarely was the normal steaming OD a full Lt. At GQ, docking or refueling the OD was a Lt or Lcdr. They learn by doing. While there is usually training before ship assignments, it's not usually in the ship type they eventually are assigned and classroom only goes so far. After that it's the captains responsibility to ensure training.
Most captains try to have officers trade off on the various ship handling functions. Critical operations like refueling at sea or docking is under the captains watchful eye. An OD usually has spent a year or more as a JOD. Typical new captains get about 4 hours sleep a night, so they can't be everywhere. Standing orders and especially night orders require the captain to be called in circumstances like approaching ships, major weather or tide changes and so on.
I was on a destroyer in 1969 involved in a collision. And like this one, the OD failed to follow the night orders. But also like in this one, the captain lost his job.

**Pete7** · 10-05-2018, 04:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pelagic

Pete, for clarity's sake, a watchkeeping officer is NOT in command of a ship, the captain is.

True, but he was in his cabin wasn't he? so who was in charge?

Pete

**Adelie** · 10-05-2018, 05:11

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pelagic

Pete, for clarity's sake, a watchkeeping officer is NOT in command of a ship, the captain is.
.....:

Officer of the Deck is in command of the operation of the vessel as the captain’s direct representative when the captain is not present on the bridge or another qualified officer hasn’t formally relieved him/her.

There will be standing orders the OOD is expected to follow but they will have a certain amount of discretion and latitude in carrying out that command.

**Pete7** · 10-05-2018, 05:26

So a junior officer, who possibly went through a training system like the one described below:

Navy Collisions Are Its Own Fault

But is it the sailors’ fault? Perhaps, but certainly not exclusively. The Navy’s inquiry is focused on the training of Surface Warfare Officers—SWOs—who actually drive the ships. “Current and former senior surface warfare officers are speaking out, saying today’s Navy suffers from a disturbing problem: The SWO community is just not very good at driving ships,” the independent Navy Times recently reported. The problem—like so many other things—is trying to do more with less: the constant pressure of wartime missions even as training and the fleet’s size have shrunk.

The key training change happened in 2003, when the Navy swapped its formal six-month SWO training program in Newport, R.I., for what was basically on-the-job training on the high seas. Fourteen years ago, each rookie ship driver began getting a set of 21 CD-ROMs—derisively nicknamed “SWOs in a Box”—to learn the basics of seamanship while in their first deployment afloat. Eliminating the schooling saved an estimated $15 million annually. “The changes in the early 2000’s appear to have been driven by a desire to reduce expenditures on travel and assignment to Newport,” Steve Wills, a retired SWO, wrote for the nonprofit Center for International Maritime Security last year. “There was hope that professionalism could be maintained, but how this was to be achieved in a demanding operational climate aboard ship was not given adequate attention.”

Pelagic · 10-05-2018, 11:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pete7

True, but he was in his cabin wasn't he? so who was in charge?

Pete

I think that is the key point..... The Captain was asleep in his cabin and the watch keeper and his team were mentally asleep on the bridge.....

My point being that a collision like this, in such favourable weather conditions, doesn't happen, unless there is a systematic problem of bad habits on the bridge, that is not being fixed by the captain.

From years in command I have experienced both good watch keepers and bad watch keepers..

There are "tells" you see on the bridge when you make surprise inspections in the middle of the night and discover sloppy bridge management and very low energy levels by those on watch.

As a captain in command, you need to both recognize and fix that right away.

From your last post it seems that after 2003, young officers were not getting proper watchkeeping discipline drilled into them by a crusty old instructor.
Perhaps that sloppiness has now carried itself into all command levels.

**boatman61** · 10-05-2018, 12:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pelagic

I think that is the key point..... The Captain was asleep in his cabin and the watch keeper and his team were mentally asleep on the bridge.....

My point being that a collision like this, in such favourable weather conditions, doesn't happen, unless there is a systematic problem of bad habits on the bridge, that is not being fixed by the captain.

From years in command I have experienced both good watch keepers and bad watch keepers..

There are "tells" you see on the bridge when you make surprise inspections in the middle of the night and discover sloppy bridge management and very low energy levels by those on watch.

As a captain in command, you need to both recognize and fix that right away.

Obviously watching RedTube instead of looking outa the window..

**Lepke** · 12-05-2018, 06:04

The captain is always in command and responsible for the actions of his watch officers. Asleep, the captain is still in command. It is the captains responsibility to ensure proper training and evaluation of his officers. If he picks the village idiot to be an OD, that's his responsibility, his choice. That's why captains are removed in circumstances like collisions, groundings, etc.

In the collision I was in both our captain and the captain of the other vessel were removed even though the collision was caused by our OD who also didn't follow the captains night orders.

SailOar · 12-05-2018, 06:22

Fitzgerald Collision Hearing Brings Ship's Radar Problems into Focus | Military.com

Quote:

...The ACX Crystal took the Combat Information Center by surprise. Until just moments before the collision, the accused officers in the center, which is several levels below deck, were unaware of the danger from nearby ships, and there was little communication between the center and the bridge. Data pulled from the Fitzgerald and the Crystal and presented at the hearing showed that the Crystal was tracking 25 to 30 ships in its orbit in the lead-up to the crash. The Fitzgerald was tracking four or five...

In an 11-hour hearing, prosecutors painted a picture of Lt. Irian Woodley, the ship's surface warfare coordinator, and Lt. Natalie Combs, the tactical action officer, as failing at their jobs, not using the tools at their disposal properly and not communicating adequately. They became complacent with faulty equipment and did not seek to get it fixed, and they failed to communicate with the bridge, the prosecution argued. Had they done those things, the government contended, they would have been able to avert the collision...

Defense attorneys countered, saying the officers were strong performers whose equipment didn't work properly. The radar and the Automatic Identification System they were working with were in a "degraded" state, so many of the ships around the Fitzgerald did not appear. The officers were unaware of the other ship's approach. The problems were systemic, the defense argued, with operational tasking so intense that the ship had no time to train or do repairs and with sailors who were exhausted from working 20-hour days.

"The Fitz was a wreck of a ship -- I do not state that lightly," said David Sheldon, Combs' civilian attorney. "And the U.S. Navy knew that.

"The blame here lies not just with the (Commanding Officer) or the (Executive Officer), it lies with the Navy. And the Navy is putting its head in the sand and not dealing with a ship that should never have gotten underway. Instead it wants to hold these officers responsible," he said...

Rear Adm. Brian Fort, who conducted a Navy investigation of the crash, testified for the prosecution that the SPS 67 radar in the CIC was set to the wrong pulse, which added what is known as clutter, or fuzziness, to the picture. He said that through his interviews with dozens of sailors on the Fitzgerald that night, the CIC had learned to live with it....

Defense witnesses testified that the pulse setting was controlled in a separate room by engineers, and that those in the CIC would not have known it was on the wrong setting. Clutter is also created by weather and atmospheric conditions...

**boatman61** · 12-05-2018, 06:45

The MK1 eyeball Rools..

SailOar · 16-05-2018, 04:19

USS Fitzgerald Officer Pleads Guilty In Deadly Collision | NewsOn6.com

Quote:

A U.S. Navy officer pleaded guilty to dereliction of duty Tuesday in the collision of a U.S. Navy destroyer that killed seven sailors last year. Lt. J.G. Sarah Coppock was sentenced to receive half-pay for three months and a letter of reprimand.

The plea was the result of an agreement between Coppock and military prosecutors before a special court-martial was supposed to begin at the Navy Yard in Washington.

Coppock is the first of four officers charged in the USS Fitzgerald's collision with a commercial ship off the coast of Japan in June. She was the officer of the deck at the time of the collision...

Almost sounds like the Navy doesn't want a public court martial.

SailOar · 16-05-2018, 04:23

Bryce Benson, Green Bay native, may reach plea agreement after deadly USS Fitzgerald crash | Post Crescent

Quote:

Cmdr. Bryce Benson, who commanded the USS Fitzgerald at the time of a deadly collision last year, fired back late Tuesday against a series of statements from the Navy that he called “prejudicial” about his pending court-martial....

"Cmdr. Benson's approach to accountability stands in stark contrast to the Navy's method of litigating this case through the media and other out-of-court opinions," his attorneys Lt. Cmdr. Justin Henderson and Cmdr. Ben Robertson said Tuesday in a joint statement. "Rather than achieving accountability, the Navy's strategy harms the very system of justice that is designed to protect sailors.”...

Subsequently, Benson on Monday waived his right to a preliminary hearing to determine whether he should face criminal charges in the incident, the attorneys said. The Article 32 hearing, which was slated to take place at the Navy Yard in Washington on May 21, was canceled. It’s now up to a panel of Navy officials, known as the Consolidated Disposition Authority, to decide whether there’s enough evidence to proceed with a court-martial. A decision could be handed down in the coming few months....

Navy investigations found both collisions were avoidable and caused by failures in planning, training, procedures and operations. Part of that, the Navy found, was caused by the intense operational pace the fleet has been maintaining in recent years.

Ditto. No embarrassing public trial.