ot: so how do a merchant ship and destroyer have a collision?

[weisan]

Its "secret" mission was to fend off any ballistic attacks from North Korea...in the midst of malfunctions...wow.

[oldpotatoe]

Originally Posted by weisan

Its "secret" mission was to fend off any ballistic attacks from North Korea...in the midst of malfunctions...wow.

Wasn't secret at all and the latest Aegis radar and missile systems are VERY effective at intercepting these types of weapons shortly after launch. Shooting an arrow with an arrow but very effective. wow...

[bigbill]

Originally Posted by oldpotatoe

Wasn't secret at all and the latest Aegis radar and missile systems are VERY effective at intercepting these types of weapons shortly after launch. Shooting an arrow with an arrow but very effective. wow...

And that's the reason we keep Aegis ships at sea so much in that part of the world. Not having enough ships to keep the OPTEMPO reasonable was a failure on the part of the Navy and Congress. The government shutdowns have hurt the maintainers and their budgets. Additionally the focus on building Littoral Combat Ships that lack the capability of our DDG and CG's have hurt readiness, but really boosted the careers of lawmakers whose district has the shipyards. Now we're left with a few ships, some of which are dinosaurs, to accomplish this mission. I was a Surface Warfare Officer and Aegis is an incredible system that we also share with our allies, but to be effective the ships have to be at sea.

[oldpotatoe]

Originally Posted by bigbill

And that's the reason we keep Aegis ships at sea so much in that part of the world. Not having enough ships to keep the OPTEMPO reasonable was a failure on the part of the Navy and Congress. The government shutdowns have hurt the maintainers and their budgets. Additionally the focus on building Littoral Combat Ships that lack the capability of our DDG and CG's have hurt readiness, but really boosted the careers of lawmakers whose district has the shipyards. Now we're left with a few ships, some of which are dinosaurs, to accomplish this mission. I was a Surface Warfare Officer and Aegis is an incredible system that we also share with our allies, but to be effective the ships have to be at sea.

Agree 100%..it would be nice to tell the knuckleheads in congress what is REALLY needed for the military, by the Admirals and Generals, and tell them to just nod their collective heads.

AND just cancel the USAF..give the ground Nuke forces to the Army, and the USN can keep the ones at sea..12,000 foot runways are so 20th century vs USSR...And add 3-4 nuke CVs..

[bigbill]

Originally Posted by oldpotatoe

Agree 100%..it would be nice to tell the knuckleheads in congress what is REALLY needed for the military, by the Admirals and Generals, and tell them to just nod their collective heads.

AND just cancel the USAF..give the ground Nuke forces to the Army, and the USN can keep the ones at sea..12,000 foot runways are so 20th century vs USSR...And add 3-4 nuke CVs..

During Gulf War 2, I'd drive the carrier to the east end of the box in anticipation of west winds to launch airstrikes. If I timed it right, we'd be about ten miles from the pop box where DDG's, CG's, and the occasional submarine would launch Tomahawks. Pretty impressive in late evening.

[Ozz]

Originally Posted by oldpotatoe

...AND just cancel the USAF..give the ground Nuke forces to the Army, and the USN can keep the ones at sea..12,000 foot runways are so 20th century vs USSR...And add 3-4 nuke CVs..

But what do we do with the "Space Force"?

[CaptStash]

Originally Posted by Spaghetti Legs

Thanks for posting. Will get time to read all the way through later.

One thing jumped out in the first part. "Ships Navigator had to use hand held GPS and paper charts to navigate back to port". Do they not use sextants and regular charts anymore? I was a ship's nav and the younger quartermasters would sometimes grouse about it, but that's why I insisted on traditional AM and PM fixes in good weather. GPS wasn't as reliable either when I did that.

Paper charts are going the way of the buggy whip, replaced by ENC's (Electronic Navigation charts). An ENC is used with an ECDIS which is a complicated name for an electronic chart display. On commercial vessels, the ECDIS is integrated with most of the other navigation systems on board, allowing for one stop shopping for the mate on watch. They are good but could be better. Right now, they tend to have way too many alarms.

The NAVY dropped celestial navigation a couple of decades ago, but part of the fallout from the McCain and Fitzgerald incidents was reintroduction of celestial navigation. In the Fitzgerald's case, they were too close to land at the time of the collision for celestial to be of use anyway.

What totally blew my mind, was that the destroyer's bridge lacked the basic surface search radar and ARPA capability (Automatic Radar Plotting Aid) that would have allowed it to track and plot targets. Modern ship's radars are easily integrated with AIS as well, so even though the Fitzgerald wasn't broadcasting on AIS, they could have used it to "see" the merchant ship.

On top of all that, the officer of the watch had less watch-keeping experience than a newly minted Third Mate, meaning she had no business conning a ship through such a busy seaway.

In this incident, the Captain was guilty of the exact same crime that Capt. Hazelwood committed (imho) when the Exxon Valdez went up on Bligh Reef: He wasn't on the bridge when he should have been, and left the bridge under the charge of an officer who didn't have the experience necessary for the task at hand.

CaptStash....

[Jaybee]

Sounds like an Onion headline, but it's not:

Navy Admiral on ship collisions: Those were tragedies, but what about the other 280 ships that didn't collide?



I would like to take this opportunity to ask my wife to ignore the new bike in the garage and instead think of the 50-some bikes I left at the store.

[oldpotatoe]

Originally Posted by Ozz

But what do we do with the "Space Force"?

Let DJT make ‘em out of legos...

[Bud_E]

Originally Posted by 54ny77

that looked to be a really fascinating read. wish it was regular black text on white background, my eyes can't take that kind of page layout. i only made it through bits at beginning and jumped several pages to catch what happened later on. what a story though!

I don't know about other browsers but on FIrefox there is a button on the right side of the address bar called "reader view". It does what you want.

[54ny77]

Thus far in 2019, that is the most important thing I learned on the internet, about the internet. THANK YOU!!!!!

(I am a Firefox user.)

Originally Posted by Bud_E

I don't know about other browsers but on FIrefox there is a button on the right side of the address bar called "reader view". It does what you want.

[bigbill]

Originally Posted by CaptStash

Paper charts are going the way of the buggy whip, replaced by ENC's (Electronic Navigation charts). An ENC is used with an ECDIS which is a complicated name for an electronic chart display. On commercial vessels, the ECDIS is integrated with most of the other navigation systems on board, allowing for one stop shopping for the mate on watch. They are good but could be better. Right now, they tend to have way too many alarms.

The NAVY dropped celestial navigation a couple of decades ago, but part of the fallout from the McCain and Fitzgerald incidents was reintroduction of celestial navigation. In the Fitzgerald's case, they were too close to land at the time of the collision for celestial to be of use anyway.

What totally blew my mind, was that the destroyer's bridge lacked the basic surface search radar and ARPA capability (Automatic Radar Plotting Aid) that would have allowed it to track and plot targets. Modern ship's radars are easily integrated with AIS as well, so even though the Fitzgerald wasn't broadcasting on AIS, they could have used it to "see" the merchant ship.

On top of all that, the officer of the watch had less watch-keeping experience than a newly minted Third Mate, meaning she had no business conning a ship through such a busy seaway.

In this incident, the Captain was guilty of the exact same crime that Capt. Hazelwood committed (imho) when the Exxon Valdez went up on Bligh Reef: He wasn't on the bridge when he should have been, and left the bridge under the charge of an officer who didn't have the experience necessary for the task at hand.

CaptStash....

My son is a midshipman at the Naval Academy, they have to learn navigation via dead reckoning, be able to read a chart, and will get celestial before graduation. When I was an Officer of the Deck on a carrier, I'd put a piece of tape over the GPS Lat/Long and make the Quartermasters navigate. Every two hours I'd peel the tape back so they'd see how well they had done.

[Ronsonic]

Originally Posted by bigbill

And that's the reason we keep Aegis ships at sea so much in that part of the world. Not having enough ships to keep the OPTEMPO reasonable was a failure on the part of the Navy and Congress.

If you recall, naval funding was a part of the Presidential debates in 2012. Unfortunately, the candidate who very smarmily dismissed the need for a larger navy because we now have ships that go under water and can launch airplanes and missiles won. The problem being we've never invented a ship that could be in two places at once.

[Louis]

Originally Posted by Ronsonic

If you recall, naval funding was a part of the Presidential debates in 2012. Unfortunately, the candidate who very smarmily dismissed the need for a larger navy because we now have ships that go under water and can launch airplanes and missiles won. The problem being we've never invented a ship that could be in two places at once.

Yeah, I knew that in the end it had to be Obama's fault, after all, everything else that's bad is his fault. (And don't forget Hillary's e-mail server, Benghazi, and while we're at it, might as well toss Comet Ping Pong Pizza into the mix too.)

[bigbill]

Originally Posted by Ronsonic

If you recall, naval funding was a part of the Presidential debates in 2012. Unfortunately, the candidate who very smarmily dismissed the need for a larger navy because we now have ships that go under water and can launch airplanes and missiles won. The problem being we've never invented a ship that could be in two places at once.

Trump ran on a 350 ship Navy but it's not achievable at this point. The mission hasn't changed and it has actually increased in the western Pacific. China is playing us in the South China Sea by claiming territory and interrupting freedom of navigation, the primary purpose of a peacetime navy. Our mission was North Korea and what we had there was sufficient, but along came China. China's navy is inferior to the US as far as technology, but they have more ships in the area and the logistical support of operating near their shores.

Like I stated previously, we're continuing to build ships that don't support any mission we're currently doing. Littoral Combat Ships are an answer to a question not asked, and the Zumwalt Destroyers don't have a mission, but they look cool. The best solution is to buy frigates from the Netherlands or Italy but that would never fly politically.