Memo Formally Starts Navy Investigation Into U.S. Pacific Fleet Incidents

U.S. Naval Institute Proceesings ^ | August 24, 2017 | Sam LaGrone

[Retain Mike]

Following the collisions of guided-missile destroyers USS John S. McCain (DDG-56) and USS Fitzgerald (DDG-62) with merchant ships, the grounding of guided-missile cruiser USS Antietam (CG-54) and collision between USS Lake Champlain (CG-57) and South Korean fishing vessel, the Navy has begun a 60-day review, according to a Thursday memo outlining the scope of the review.

[Gen.Blather]

Thank you. Are we to understand that the McCain had only one man on watch?

[JohnnyP]

Apparently, bridge lookouts have been reduced from three to one.

[Covenantor]

Understood....my last question about a single watch stander needed a return reference to the “new single watch” mentioned by Lippold. Clumsy of me.

[Covenantor]

Thanks for the clarification....so it’s an inside job.

[GreyFriar]

Yes. According to the former captain of the USS Cole said, currently deployed destroyers are so short-handed for personnel that they have done away with the two look-outs on the bridge and use only a look-out on the stern. Thus only the OOD and radars looking forward to the port and starboard.

[punchamullah]

It would require conditions of extreme atmospheric clarity and some very high wattage navlights to be visible at 20NM, and your height of eye would need to be substantial (I’m too tired to look in the tables). COLREGS require that masthead lights be visible at 6NM and sidelights at 3NM in clear conditions.

[AndyJackson]

How high do you think the masthead of a merchant is? Minimum requirement and actual visibility are two very different things.

[B-Cause]

Simple solution: require every U.S. Naval officer to simply take and pass the U.S. Coast Guard’s 3rd mates exam!

Plain and simple seamanship.

[AndyJackson]

radars looking forward to the port and starboard

Radar is 360. In the case of McCain none of this matters because the two ships were on nearly perpendicular courses approaching from long distances and so Alnic would have been visible at P45 degrees for many many miles.

[WhoisAlanGreenspan?]

From the root causes link above..there is an almost inexplicable overreliance on electronic aids, including automated radar systems and the automatic identification system (AIS) on the part of these new-school officers. Proven techniques, including the use of maneuvering boards, lookouts, adherence to the “Rules of the Road,” and, most important, watch-standers actually looking out the bridge window, are mysteriously archaic to officers who have become convinced that technology cannot fail them.

[AndyJackson]

If your bridge and his bridge heights is 40’ you can see it at 15 NM. Top of his deck house is a lot higher than that. Masts a lot higher than that.

[NonValueAdded]

I was going to complain that a review going back a decade was too broad, given the number of incidents this year. But then I realized that span reaches back to the end of the Bush administration and covers the entire Øbama administration. We'll need a freighter full of popcorn when the report comes out! Working title: What Øbama did to the Navy.

[shanover]

The days of Admiral “Bull” Halsey are long gone.

[editor-surveyor]

.
The GPS constellation is rock solid, with unimaginable levels of sedurity.

It is tested by established stations scattered around the world constantly.

The weak spot is the hardware that uses GPS on the surface for navigation, as they can be individually subject to spoofing, and even total unavailability of service through jamming.

I’m thinking that the Air Canada plane that tried to land on a taxiway at SFO might have been tampered with in this same manner as the destroyers apparently were.
.
.

[editor-surveyor]

.
You can drop anything you want sir; you’re expendable.

Conspiracies are the only way men know how to do business.

The only thing that differs is the grandeur of the schemes.
.

[AndyJackson]

..there is an almost inexplicable overreliance on electronic aids, including automated radar systems and the automatic identification system (AIS) on the part of these new-school officers. Proven techniques, including the use of maneuvering boards, lookouts, adherence to the “Rules of the Road,” and, most important, watch-standers actually looking out the bridge window, are mysteriously archaic to officers who have become convinced that technology cannot fail them.

Then every admiral from Richardson on down needs to be fired because they all learned basic seamanship without all this stuff and know that these may be great aids, but are not a substitute for seamanship. Adm Richardson qualified subs in about 1985 back when surface navigation on a sub was still very much Mk 1 eyeball, with some long range lookout done by an enlisted eyeball in the control room on an optical periscope - a great instrument to be sure, but you dodged surface traffic including small boats by seat of the pants driving.

[AndyJackson]

No one who actually knows anything about it, has actually been on the deck of a ship, says this is anything other than incompetent seamanship on part of the deck crew of the naval vessels implicated. These off the wall conspiracies are being generated by a lot of guys like you who don’t know what you are talking about.

[Hootowl]

I believe many of the electronic components such as circuit boards are manufactured in China these days. I suspect, though I don’t know how we could prove it definitively, that these boards include back doors which can be triggered by Chinese operatives, rendering them useless.

[Retain Mike]

Wow, 16 weeks of training as a division officer. When I picked up my ship in Da Nang I went to a one day rules of the road course in Yokosuka and then a couple weeks later we got underway for a 3 month deployment supporting Brown Water Navy boats. All my training was from the CO, XO, and qualified officers of the deck. Overall my ship was underway over 12 of the 19 months I was onboard.

From what he said more efficient (read reduced) manning means fewer watch standers. We were at wartime manning of 160 instead of peacetime manning of 120. As he says the problem could also be the training regime when there isn’t a war on to keep pushing you.

Thanks for the link.

[WhoisAlanGreenspan?]

It’s hard to imagine. Not only was sailing that blind normal in crowded sea lanes, but after issues involving loss of life that possibly could be safeguarded with extra eyes on deck they probably didn’t do that.