US Destroyer T-boned - Again

[ssu]

Two same class destroyers having crashes is something that easily can happen statistically. Third crash would have low probability.

Usually the US Navy is good in handling ships. Or at least thorough.

One Finnish commodore I know told that he once was on the bridge of a Oliver Hazard Perry -class frigate when it came to the port of Helsinki. Now what made it remarkable that on the deck all of the US officers and crewman on the bridge were all middle aged women. He was the only man there and naturally just an observer, a guest. The Navy women made it to be an epic challenge getting the ship through the somewhat narrow pass called Kustaanmiekka and made such a huge fuss about it that the commodore had difficulties to keep a straight face. The frigate made it safely through and didn't run aground. I wonder what kind of headlines that would have made if it had, especially if the composition of the crew on the bridge would have come out...

The narrow pass to Helsinki. Yep, It's somewhat narrow.

[jseymour]

Most of us ex-squids are having a hard time understanding what's happening. Most agree that they are relying way to much on technology. To relieve an overburdened crew use technology we're a look out normally would be, or the standards have become so lax that people are sleeping, or looking at their phones, joking, etc. instead of looking out for other ships. The big merchant ships run on autopilot a lot and may or may not even have a person on the bridge at night. So if the big freighter is on autopilot, your ship doesn't register, your relying on them being professional while you post a selfie, bad things are going to happen.

The tin foil side is someone hacked the system of one or both ships and just took out another ship as now 1/3 of the missle defense in Japan, South Korea, Taiwan is now out of the picture.

The admiral of the seventh fleet is being sacked but was about to retire in 2 weeks so that's a wash. Several people need to be hung by their balls, keel hauled, and made to dig the graves of the men they killed, then shot in the head.

[Smitty-48]

Thing about AIS, is that works too well, it was intended to assist watchstanders, but now it's being used as a watchstander, they just look at the AIS screen, without double and triple checking, and with warships not being bound to employ AIS, and sometimes not wanting to give away their position and so not using it, watchkeeping on the warship becomes paramount, because they become invisible to the other ships which have come to over rely on AIS, and if the crew on the warship doesn't have their shit together at all times, then you've got a witches brew going.

[Smitty-48]

By the way, a Russian warship collided with a freighter off of Turkey and sank just the other day, and it was a Russian navy spy ship; so there again, a warship which is not going to be using AIS, colliding with a merchant who was relying on AIS.

[ssu]

Thing about AIS, is that works too well, it was intended to assist watchstanders, but now it's being used as a watchstander, they just look at the AIS screen, without double and triple checking, and with warships not being bound to employ AIS, and sometimes not wanting to give away their position and so not using it, watchkeeping on the warship becomes paramount, because they become invisible to the other ships which have come to over rely on AIS, and if the crew on the warship doesn't have their shit together at all times, then you've got a witches brew going.

Yeah, well, talk about how much damage the now ever present GPS navigation has done to simple orientation and navigation skills. I bet the ability for people to use the compass or read a map has significantly decreased.

[Smitty-48]

Thing about AIS, is that works too well, it was intended to assist watchstanders, but now it's being used as a watchstander, they just look at the AIS screen, without double and triple checking, and with warships not being bound to employ AIS, and sometimes not wanting to give away their position and so not using it, watchkeeping on the warship becomes paramount, because they become invisible to the other ships which have come to over rely on AIS, and if the crew on the warship doesn't have their shit together at all times, then you've got a witches brew going.

Yeah, well, talk about how much damage the now ever present GPS navigation has done to simple orientation and navigation skills. I bet the ability for people to use the compass or read a map has significantly decreased.

Only a few of us were ever very good at map and compass anyways, most people sucked at it. For our recce course selection we had to navigate from point to point finding these little metal tags with numbers on them, smaller than a stick of gum, they would be put on trees or rocks, tiny little things, had to get right up close to see them, and it was rough terrain, at night. That got rid of 80% of the applicants right there.

The numbers on the tags, was the bearing and distance to the next tag, so if you couldn't find the tag, you were fucked. Oh, and the DS were out hunting us, but not to bump us, they were watching wth NVG and listening, to see if anyone was cheating, helping each other out to find the tags, and those who were caught cheating, they were gone too.

[ssu]

Simple but important things, which seldom people now.

I remember one time when in Reserve Officer School we were on a two week live-fire-excersize. One morning an Air Force Learjet was making target runs over us. One reserve officer candidate was acting as the fire control officer (don't know the specific term in English) observing data given from the radar and gave us command to point our ZU-23s directly to the east and started giving distance and speed data of the target. All the guns of the battery were facing east with all gun crews frantically searching the eastern horizon for jet. People started to get nervous as we ought to have seen the jet and soon we started to even hear the jet engine and still no sign of the jet. Took just one of us to use his head a look the other way and yep, there was the Learjet, now nearly on top of us, flying from the west. The officer candidate responsible for giving the firing commands got a little bit of ridicule after that.

But knowing east from west can be a difficult thing.

[C-Mag]

Investigation found that ships had not completed their training and weren’t certified by the U.S. Navy to conduct “mobility seamanship,” or basic steering of the ship, according to U.S. Navy records provided to two House Armed Services subcommittees.

However, all crews were found to be 100 % on all Transgender, SHARPS and EEO Training. Families will be able to lay their Sailors to rest easily knowing they had taken all transgender and sexuality training to the best of their ability.

Scathing Article on the readiness of the US Navy
http://usdefensewatch.com/2017/09/the-n ... l-cluster/

[Viktorthepirate]

Investigation found that ships had not completed their training and weren’t certified by the U.S. Navy to conduct “mobility seamanship,” or basic steering of the ship, according to U.S. Navy records provided to two House Armed Services subcommittees.

However, all crews were found to be 100 % on all Transgender, SHARPS and EEO Training. Families will be able to lay their Sailors to rest easily knowing they had taken all transgender and sexuality training to the best of their ability.

Scathing Article on the readiness of the US Navy
http://usdefensewatch.com/2017/09/the-n ... l-cluster/

Interesting article.

I do wonder how much of those certs are bullshit or really required.

I wasn't "qualified" for air assault but I air assaulted for several missions nonetheless.

Not trying to cover for them, just saying sometimes those "certifications" are just some official training for a job you do every day anyways.

Rest of the article was interesting. I don't know tailhook well but from what I read it was bullshit.

[Okeefenokee]

Investigation found that ships had not completed their training and weren’t certified by the U.S. Navy to conduct “mobility seamanship,” or basic steering of the ship, according to U.S. Navy records provided to two House Armed Services subcommittees.

However, all crews were found to be 100 % on all Transgender, SHARPS and EEO Training. Families will be able to lay their Sailors to rest easily knowing they had taken all transgender and sexuality training to the best of their ability.

Scathing Article on the readiness of the US Navy
http://usdefensewatch.com/2017/09/the-n ... l-cluster/

Interesting article.

I do wonder how much of those certs are bullshit or really required.

I wasn't "qualified" for air assault but I air assaulted for several missions nonetheless.

Not trying to cover for them, just saying sometimes those "certifications" are just some official training for a job you do every day anyways.

Rest of the article was interesting. I don't know tailhook well but from what I read it was bullshit.

Your average service member has equal opportunity, sexual harassment, or suicide prevention training at least once a week. Job training is about once a year, and basic rifle marksmanship is once every two years.

My wife's keeping a tally on the hours spent talking about her feelings versus hours spent training to be a soldier since arriving at Fort Hood. Not a single hour recorded on soldier training since getting here two months ago. Dozens of hours spent sitting in a circle talking about feelings.