Posted on 04/19/2019 4:35:12 AM PDT by daniel1212
Also, The Navy’s Disaster in the Pacific . Death and Neglect in the 7th Fleet
What a crock! Bitching about 100 hour work weeks underway? Obviously never been on submarines. You do that inport and underway.
The crew botched the sail and the investigators botched the investigation. The PC Navy is pretty much firing on all PC cylinders.
Interesting. Remember this? “The Russians are screwing with the GPS system to send bogus navigation data to thousands of ships” https://www.businessinsider.com/gnss-hacking-spoofing-jamming-russians-screwing-with-gps-2019-4
It is a sad commentary on some of the condition of the military, all of whom are to be thanked for their willingness to potentially risk their life in defense of this country, but not for all manner of service (and to varying degrees I have failed).
But here we have not only tragic accidents but also a muffed prosecution, and one question is how much political correctness is behind the condition these accidents testify to. In particular,
One of the Fitzgerald officers also negotiated a plea agreement. Sarah Coppock, lieutenant junior grade, had been navigating the ship on the night of the collision. She panicked as the cargo vessel approached and ordered the Fitzgerald to turn directly into its path, according to a Navy report. She received a letter of reprimand and a forfeiture of pay for a single count of dereliction of duty that resulted in death.
It is not known if this affects military GPS, though I am sure the Russia and China, for just two, have been working very hard on that. But there are many Putin defenders here who see this anti-Christ oligarch as a hero.
Never did that many hours underway, more like 84 but only got 6 hours in my rack at a time, always half a sleep on watch and you always needed to find time to do PMS on your equipment. That was back in the 80's and 90's.
And if the navy was one tenth of what it used to be, she and the female in CIC would be in Portsmouth for 6 years or more.
I have conducted a number of investigations and the guilty always got hammered - which is what you expect in a serious war-fighting organization. Anything less costs battles and lives and ultimately, the survival of our country.
I read a very descriptive article about the McCain incident. Radars weren’t calibrated correctly, and sailors on the bridge failed to use Mark I eyeball.
Navy Signals for Help to Recruit Gay Sailors
Navy officer weds partner as gay ban ends - Free Republic [2005]Navy to name ship after 'gay' child molester - Free Republic
Chinese hackers 'steal missile plans' from US Navy contractors
Also, Worse than you thought: inside the secret Fitzgerald probe
Steering directly into the path once it was sighted did not help.
Bring charges or send all women ashore permanently.
I find that most amazing of all. Ships rely so much on gizmos that they are taken entirely for granted. When they fail, because they can and do, they have to fall back on the basic tools and methods of seamanship that conquered the seas. There is manpower aboard to do both. Ships can have crewmen stand watch on deck, scanning the horizons, while their gizmos do the same. They’re always going to need eyes on deck to catch anything the gizmos can’t.
Not just the Russians. In fact, Moscow takes a back seat to a couple others...
BKFL
Maybe if they had fewer lawyers and more deck officers in the navy they, the deck officers, wouldn’t have to work such long hours.
“I find that most amazing of all. Ships rely so much on gizmos that they are taken entirely for granted. When they fail, because they can and do, they have to fall back on the basic tools and methods of seamanship that conquered the seas. There is manpower aboard to do both. Ships can have crewmen stand watch on deck, scanning the horizons, while their gizmos do the same. They’re always going to need eyes on deck to catch anything the gizmos can’t.”
I taught a Junior Navigation course for United States Power Squadrons a couple of years ago and had a graphic demonstration of this. Each student was supposed to find his position by using a sextant, clock, Nautical Almanac, calculator and chart. In each case the student made his observations from a known position that wad clearly marked on the chart, meaning it was the accurate position and anything else, like a GPS position, would be inaccurate. Nevertheless, one or two students used GPS positions as the real location, instead of the charted one, and, for that reason, got their final positions wrong.
When was the last USNavy investigation that wasn’t botched? The Iowa explosion investigation was a cluster-**** in the early 90s.
Pretty simple math...168 hours in a week. If you are not port and starboard (which I often was) and 4 hours after watch for quals, training, maintenance. Throwbin a couple of drill sets and blamo. Easily 100 hour weeks. On a normal patrol we drilled morning shift every weekday. If we were doing workup, we did noon too. As a Nuc, we never rested. Rode a boat into the shipyard in 86. Left Canaveral on Nov 29, stopped in San Diego 14 days later. I slept 9 times, the longest was 5 hrs. I fell asleep standing up in Control as fire team 2 tracking party leader. I had been awake for almost 80hrs straight.
Please note this was the 7th year of Obama's PURGE of conservative military leadership.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.