Posted on 08/22/2017 11:38:08 PM PDT by drop 50 and fire for effect
Even with foggy nights I would hope they have thermal vision to assist visual lookouts.
[Is ‘lookout’ the correct term BTW?]
I think more need to go, CNO needs gone
’ ... who is sinking Destroyers? And why is everyone covering it up? ... ‘
I’m willing to consider that.
But we need to consider what evidence there is from the merchant crews’ viewpoint. If a merchant ship collides, either the crew or their loved ones would have something to say about it.
Did you check up on that?
I believe this is the root cause
I personally know a sailors parent from the Fitzgerald.. Two destroyers do not have accidents. Have you checked the mathematical probability?
I did read several articles queztioning the track of the merchant ship.. hard to tell what is fake news and conspiracy. Howe er strictly speaking.. I have a,mathematical doubt.
There are a lot of unknowns right now and they are things non Navy experienced don't realize. Our military is undermanned and over extended. Was the ship fully manned as it was designed to be? Operating under a manpower shortage can wear a crew down even in port. Been there done that in 1980 in overhaul. A carrier in homeport the usual duty section was six sections we had three.
Our military has been on a deliberate decline going back to the GHWB administration under SECDEF Cheney. During that he had made closure and decommission recommendations to congress we actually under that timeframe lost more ships and crew than six years of Clinton where the next chunk with the help of a GOP two house majority decreased our military readiness even more.We lost an aircraft carrier thanks to policies in the GHW Bush term. By the time it was over the ship was unfit for sea duty. It was only at it's halfway point in it's designed service life.
Then later came the Smirking Chimp who said lets bring Daddy's friends back in. No help ever came Nadda none Zilch!!! Not even after the 9/11 attacks did he go to congress and say increase End Troop Strengths which is who sets how many active and reservists there are in the military. All of this while since 1990 our nation has basically been fighting one and two venue combat operations on a peacetime stand down manpower level. A 20 year Lifer today never knew the Reagan military. A 30 year time in service served a year under it.
Manpower cuts, maintenance and upgrades underfunded, and yes social engineering, have all contributed. We didn't get into this mess solely under Obama even though he was the main one who ordered the final stab in the back with transgender troops.
I served 76-80. People died on my ship. Several pilots died due to crashes, an aircraft re-spot had a man ran over by a F-14, two suicides, many more injured and permanently disabled.
It is going to take time to get things turned around and it's likely going to take asking some retired but still physically able senior NCO and Officers to volunteer to come back in active and restore morale and discipline. Discipline isn't just in a punishment rather in a this is how it is done and tell them why making that procedure the rule not to be short cutted.
Some of us had been for years {back since Poppy Bush} been bookmarking readiness threads that went down the worm hole. There has been almost three decades of warnings no one has acted on.
When I enlisted Admiral Holloway was SECNAV. Morale was the pits as was discipline. In the middle of my enlistment ADM Thomas B. Hayward took over and things changed rather fast. Traditions were restored in a matter of months. One last point. I know FR had a lot of posters who thought Rumsfeld was great. No Rumsfeld helpede to create the Hollow Carter Military and tried to implement some of the same policies again under GW Bush. Rummy was SEC of Defense when I enlisted in 1976.
All that sounds good and may be true but...... there is no excuse for not manning the bridge with adequate personnel. Other posts could be shorted but not command and control of the vessel in the most crowded water way.
Command error if there were not adequate capable persons on the bridge
What if no one hacked anything? What if they didn’t have to because the obama regime made it so easy to get what they needed hacking was not necessary?Just wondering,if they can give a pallot of gold, silver and cash to the Iranians plus a 150 billion dollar terrorist fund what else did they give them?
That would go back to what I said. How manned is the ship? They don't just have to be there but PQS qualified to stand watch. You can't just grab the Cook and say here stand watch on the Bridge. He'd be useless. Obtaining full PQS for watch takes time to do it right and should be done before allowing the person to stand a critical watch without a trainer present. Navigation including Helmsman doing actual navigation duties on the Bridge fall under Quartermaster {navigation and charting} and Bosun mates which are your Helmsman and watches. Then there is the OOD who discerns their input.
If steering is lost the Bridge over sound powered phones can tell the Machinist Mate on watch in the steering gear room the rudder position and he can manually steer the ship. Also nighttime ops underway are a lot different as you have no real sense of distances and have to count more on radar. Do you see a tanker 1000 yrds out or a small craft 500 Yards out? If both ships are in a turn it compounds more the ability to get an accurate sense of their headings.
Night time ops in a crowded sea lane where even though you may see miles of sea to your port and starboard only a quarter mile wide of it in certain places may be navigable meaning deep enough for transit and charted as being such. For example in the Med Sea the Straits of Gibraltar and Straits of Messina look real wide. The actual useable portion can be far less. If you really want to see a pucker factor go through the Straits of Tiran which was Moses likely actual crossing place in the Red Sea.
From day one of officer school: “The Commander is responsible for all his unit does, or fails to do...” Maybe someone will take this sacking as a wake-up call.
The redundancy built in with the latest electronic gadgets makes this type of accident, twice, unimaginable.
Unless the same gadgets are authorized and able to take aversive action, the decision to do so and carry out the task falls on human hands.
That is the weakest link, in these two cases, and likely for most sea collisions involving super duper USN ships bouncing off Shiite.
The mfwic as otherwise occupied.
Thanks fr your post.. I understand, other prob not so much...
Popeye...
(Thinking of changing my screen name..LOL)
Yeah I am having a blast.
It is not everyday you can have this much fun with a taxi driver
Mistakes were made. It certainly wasn’t due to any emp attack.
Navy spokesman was saying that the McCain suffered a steering casualty.
I was in 78 - 84. A 20% pay-raise turns around morale fairly quick unless you are in a toxic work environment. People in technical billets have the smarts to go doing something else when their obligations to serve are up. There was a purge of military officers during the Obama years. Some of it was for conduct unbecoming, but I suspect much of it was to purge officers who were resistant to wide scale social changes being implemented. Having served in the military, I know there is a trickle down effect. It probably isn't much different than working for a corporation that hires a new CEO and brings in a bunch of new yes people.
Not true. MANY people wore not doing their job.
‘I did read several articles queztioning the track of the merchant ship.. hard to tell what is fake news and conspiracy.’
I imagine people aboard the merchant vessels would put something out there. If not, that’s suspicious.
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