US Navy Destroyer Collision Again!!!

[Suijin]

Originally Posted by SecondBase

Pelagic,

I suspect the order "torpedoes, flank speed" has been issued several times in the history of naval warfare to increase security.

I believe the WWII era USS Indianapolis set the still-standing speed record of 29 knots between SF and Hawaii. One reason for her speed that she was traveling without escorts. Speed was thought to increase her security against enemy submarines.

A final example is segregation of convoys by speed -

World War 2: Convoy was the key to defeat of U-boats last time - Telegraph

Obviously those examples are a complete opposite mindset from Colregs and I'm in agreement with your ideas about safe seamanship. I'm not saying speed was a factor in this latest collision but was responding directly to Suijin's point.

Peace.

Back on the thread - if it was loss of steering we are about to go down the maintenance rabbit hole.

Of course thoughts and prayers go out for the missing and their families. Let's assume that sentiment is implied in some of the shorter posts. Part of true caring for those who serve is seeking a reduction in avoidable incidents. Too soon to say on this current serious incident. We'll see as additional information comes in.

Attachment 154492

And navy ships to haul a$$ in and out of ports, even when it's busy. I suspect that is because that is the point when they are most vulnerable; lots of small moving targets in close proximity.

I pass through the mouth of the Chesapeake fairly regularly, where you need to literally squeeze through the opening for the Chesapeake Bay Bridge and Tunnel west of Norfolk. That opening is the gateway for traffic headed to Norfolk, Washington, and Baltimore and the whole Bay. The Norfolk Navy yard as well as Hampton roads have ships coming and going every day as part of this traffic and they floor it right out of the harbor, broadcasting a warning on VHF for everyone to basically get out of the way and maintain a 500 yard distance or whatever it is. The subs go a bit slower but not much from what I can tell. I assume that that stretch between open water and the pier is strenuous and tense for the watch crew on any Navy ship.

[David M]

Originally Posted by a64pilot

I didn't know the John McCain was a destroyer, I have worked with it off the coast of Korea years ago.

John McCain the destroyer. Hmmm....I better not take that line of thought any further.

More thought and discussion of the collision has occurred in this forum than will come out of the investigation itself.

[Tx J]

Originally Posted by TwoBlocked

"Events such as collisions were rare, they did happen though."

I have to question that. Maybe so, maybe not. It would seem anecdotal. Can you mention a study that was done on this? Are collisions that less rare now? I am betting groundings are more rare now.

Just my impression from reading many ship and campaign histories, which tend to have an innate accuracy.
But I'll Bing around a little on the subject (incl. USNI), not sure that the Navy would have bothered to do such analysis and reports, but they did a pretty thorough documentation of lots of arcane stuff sometimes.
Logs, accounts of ops from places like PH, SF, Majuro, Espiritu Santo, et al., major repair bases, might have something. Sounds like a dissertation project for some history major, not me.

[zeehag]

this beam hit thing is getting too familiar..
perhaps the navy needs to reassess apparently innocent (predator)merchant ships or reassess their tactics.
perhaps both.
i would love to see the tracks of both in this instance also.
something needs to change

[SecondBase]

Definitely too familiar when we have a proposal to put dates on the thread titles to tell them apart.

New Rule: In the months just before you report in to take a ships helm watch you and 3 of your fellow officers will take a 40 foot keelboat from Key West FL to Bar Harbor via continuous operations. At least 500 miles must be inshore on the heavily traffic AICW.

You get no other guidance beyond the destination. You will have two observers onboard who will rate you. The target pass rate should be below 33% to weed out those lacking.

When (if) you arrive in Maine, with a passing grade and without incident, you will be issued your Ship Driver tab. With the Special Skill Identifier of Ship Driver you will allowed to take the helm and the responsibility on a warship.

This humble exercise (where you are in the slow, little plastic boat) will innoculate you of any AIS, CRM, crew rest, navics, radar, teammate, TSS, ear, nose, and eyeball inattention for life.

What this would do is formalize some of the learning path UNCIVILIZED laid out in the Fitz thread. I'm sure this concept could be improved but something intensive in this area MUST be done.

[TwoBlocked]

Originally Posted by SecondBase

Definitely too familiar when we have a proposal to put dates on the thread titles to tell them apart.

New Rule: In the months just before you report in to take a ships helm watch you and 3 of your fellow officers will take a 40 foot keelboat from Key West FL to Bar Harbor via continuous operations. You get no other guidance beyond the destination. You will have two observers onboard who will rate you.

The target pass rate should be below 33% to weed out those lacking. When (if) you arrive in Maine, with a passing grade and without incident, you will be issued your Ship Driver tab. With the Special Skill Identifier of Ship Driver you will allowed to take the helm and the responsibility on a warship.

This humble exercise (where you are in the slow, little plastic boat) will innoculate you of any AIS, CRM, crew rest, navics, radar, teammate, TSS, ear, nose, and eyeball inattention for life.

What this would do is formalize some of the learning path UNCIVILIZED laid out in the Fitz thread. I'm sure this concept could be improved but something intensive in this area MUST be done.

I'd suggest a more basic, fundamental criteria. An aptitude test for those destined to be ship's officers. Things like spatial awareness (spaces, not places.) Coordinating multiple, over-lapping tasks done by others. Determining what is important from what is merely obvious. Being able to doubt yourself and still commit to a decision. Things like that. THEN train them in shiphandling or, navigation, or engineering, or communications, or weaponry, or what have you, according to their aptitude for the positions, rather than how they are testing in specific subjects.

A particular Merchant Marine Academy taught celestial navigation by rote, without ever explaining what the ecliptic is.

[SecondBase]

Originally Posted by TwoBlocked

I'd suggest a more basic, fundamental criteria. An aptitude test for those destined to be ship's officers. Things like spatial awareness (spaces, not places.) Coordinating multiple, over-lapping tasks done by others. Determining what is important from what is merely obvious. Being able to doubt yourself and still commit to a decision. Things like that. THEN train them in shiphandling or, navigation, or engineering, or communications, or weaponry, or what have you, according to their aptitude for the positions, rather than how they are testing in specific subjects.

Makes sense to me. Sounds sort of like how pilots are selected...

If pilot selection and training is more rigorous and takes more months than Ship Driver training then the opportunity to improve is rather evident.

There may be gaps in the quality of Ship Driver simulators for USN as well.

[UAEguy]

I sailed across this exact section of the Singapore Strait and it was the closest thing to playing "Frogger" with my boat I ever experienced anywhere. Generally traffic stacks up with a large ship every mile in both directions doing 10+ knots. And just to make things more interesting, small fishing vessels pull directly in front of you in an effort to stop you for trade in the middle of shipping traffic.

A couple pictures of the Singapore Strait for those who haven't seen it...truly surreal.

[Lakepapa]

Astonishing! Two of the 7th Fleet’s 12 destroyers have been taken out of service because of collisions since June! Say goodbye Admiral.

[SecondBase]

Originally Posted by Lakepapa

Astonishing! Two of the 7th Fleet’s 12 destroyers have been taken out of service because of collisions since June! Say goodbye Admiral.

Might well could be goodbye.

On the other hand acknowledging & actually fixing this systemically is a tremendous career opportunity.

[TwoBlocked]

Originally Posted by SecondBase

Makes sense to me. Sounds sort of like how pilots are selected...

If pilot selection and training is more rigorous and takes more months than Ship Driver training then the opportunity to improve is rather evident.

There may be gaps in the quality of Ship Driver simulators for USN as well.

Had a course with a ship simulator once. They tried to put us in situations where you had to have everyone doing their own thing and then try to put the pieces together. If one person dropped their piece - catastrophe. You would think this would teach everyone not to be in situations where ONE person could not understand the basic situation, but then they wouldn't be able to use their fancy toy to - supposedly - show this "synergy" that can serendipidily happen by everyone doing their own part, holding hands, singing Kum-ba-yah, and making the world a better place.

Simulators can be great tools, but can also breed false confidence.

[Free2GoodHome]

As a note AIS is always used, even if it is only in a "receive" mode -- meaning it's not telling you where it is, but it can see where you are. I have no idea whether or not they had theirs in xmt or not, but this is standard. There are multiple radars onboard the ship which are tactically turned on or off depending on the situation. I can't account for what happened on their ship, I wasn't there. But yes, typically DDGs run "dark."

[estarzinger]

Originally Posted by Lakepapa

Astonishing! Two of the 7th Fleet’s 12 destroyers have been taken out of service because of collisions since June! Say goodbye Admiral.

And the Fat Leonard bribery case.

And two further vessels (beyond the big DDG hits) in grounding and smaller collision. Without seemingly taking any of the 4 incidents truly seriously (yet).

And the bungling of the Fitz investigation PR and 'partnership' with the JCG.

7th fleet has had a very bad year. The leadership should probably be changed to improve it's command culture. That will of course not solve the fundamental DDG 'problem' (which entails poor process flow, s**t hardware layout, and bridge/CiC crew shortcomings), but might help enable a more honest and deep look at the situation.

[David M]

Originally Posted by TwoBlocked

I'd suggest a more basic, fundamental criteria. An aptitude test for those destined to be ship's officers. Things like spatial awareness (spaces, not places.) Coordinating multiple, over-lapping tasks done by others. Determining what is important from what is merely obvious. Being able to doubt yourself and still commit to a decision. Things like that. THEN train them in shiphandling or, navigation, or engineering, or communications, or weaponry, or what have you, according to their aptitude for the positions, rather than how they are testing in specific subjects.

A particular Merchant Marine Academy taught celestial navigation by rote, without ever explaining what the ecliptic is.

Which maritime academy was that? Celestial navigation has nothing to do with the discussion. Celestial nav is at best a 2-3 mile DR estimate of your position from 15 minutes ago. What's the relationship?

Awareness of such things is one of the reasons why many maritime academies have bridge simulators. If you have ever been in one and I have, it is very similar to the real thing. I would say it is on the same level of realism as a cockpit simulator for commercial airline pilots.

https://www.csum.edu/web/industry/bridge-simulation

[estarzinger]

seems like McCain was cutting right across a very busy TSS (AiS track shows the Alnic MC in the TSS at the collision). OFC we dont know if that was their course/track, or a last minute maneuver.

Fleet wide investigation has been ordered. About time. I just hope they have some skilled people on the team, and it is not primarily a political exercise.