Navy officer to step down after summer of deadly ship crashes

NY Post ^ | 16 January 2018 | Max Jaeger

[oh8eleven]

The officer in charge of the Navy’s Pacific fleet is expected to step down this week following several high-profile incidents under his watch, including the separate crashes of two US destroyers that ultimately left 17 sailors dead, according to a report.

Vice Adm. Thomas Rowden, who heads Naval Surface Force Pacific, will submit his resignation ahead of a formal recommendation that he be relieved of command, according to DefenseNews.com.

[rlmorel]

If this guy was on record as having submitted requests for men and material, and on record of having warned his superiors that there were serious problems with the condition and training of the fleet and its sailors under his command, asking for a court martial would be an option.

That he didn’t indicates either he let all those things stop at his desk and never informed his superiors, or...he is falling on his sword for the good of the Naval Service...which is not unheard of.

[rlmorel]

I had heard they have online courses they have to complete, and...that's it. I heard the SWO school had been shut down, so I assume that website just shows the website administration offices or something stupid like that.

From the website: "...All Staff and Students reporting to SWOS are REQUIRED to complete the current Cyber Awareness Challenge PRIOR to report aboard..."

Did I read this correctly in your opinion?

[rlmorel]

Thanks for the ping, mad_as_he$$.

I don’t revel in this, but I appreciate knowing how it is going.

[M Kehoe]

Bttt.

5.56mm

[oh8eleven]

You mean he hasn’t already resigned?
Probably took time to figure out his retirement options.

[Night Hides Not]

That Cyber Awareness Challenge is an annual requirement for all DoD personnel. I took it last year, it’s not a bad course.

[CedarDave]

The surface fleet is the only part of the Navy where new ensigns are sent to ships to get trained on the job. Both submariners and aviators are trained before reporting for duty.

True. During Vietnam I was a newbie ensign just out of OCS. I had the deck watch on the way to Mare Island for munition loading. After we left Alameda with the captain on the bridge, he went below with instructions to call him when we neared our location or if there were any problems anticipated. It was heady responsibility to conn the ship up San Francisco Bay keeping visual track of buoys and any other vessels that may impede our progress. As we got closer to our destination, he again came to the bridge as he had requested. I felt relieved but proud when I relinquished the ship to the operations officer.

[oh8eleven]

I noticed they changed the headline from -
   "Navy officer to step down after summer of deadly ship crashes." to ...
   "Summer of deadly ship crashes destroys a Navy officer’s career."
Gheeze, talk about insensitive. I'll bet the seven dead sailors would take his early retirement.

[Avalon Memories]

Absolute perfection is hard to achieve in any human endeavor, but 4 ship crashes in a period of a few months, two with multiple fatalies, is way beyond mere mistakes. Something was seriously, deadly wrong with that command from top to bottom. The captain is responsible for his ship, but the chain of command is responsible for the captain.

[whistleduck]

I bet the answer is yes, but we will certainly never know.

[jimfree]

No. That is just a prerequisite to reporting for SWOS.

http://www.netc.navy.mil/centers/swos/CourseInfo.htm

[mad_as_he$$]

I share your attitude sad but it is a very important story.

[New Jersey Realist]

Why stop at the Force commander, go to the top. Fire the CNO! Hell, fire Trump, he’s the CinC. I’m being sarcastic here because this whole thing is a farce. The 3-star never even met the captains of the ships and didn’t assign them. The leadership of the ships involved were derelict of course, but going above the Squadron level is sheer bullshit as far as I am concerned.

[rlmorel]

So they do still have a formal SWO school? (I hate online courses)

[jimfree]

So they do still have a formal SWO school? (I hate online courses)

Sure looks like it. Originally, the school was for advanced training of prospective department heads and such. The basic course was added, in believe, in the 1970s.

[Yosemitest]

It's probably NOT THE NAVY'S FAULT.

Read this:

A new ‘GPS spoofing’ technology could be used to control military ships and drones
By Brandon Morse, Aug 23, 2017

New cyberwarfare technology may be emerging that allows a malicious operator to “spoof” a GPS system, sending the craft relying on off course without the crew’s knowledge. Experts wonder if it was used in the South China Sea with the recent collision of the USS John S McCain and an oil tanker.

According to New Scientist, on July 22, the U.S. Maritime Administration filed what seemed like an innocuous report from a ship’s captain off the Russian port of Novorossiysk in Russia’s Black Sea. According to the captain, his GPS had placed his ship at the Gelendzhik Airport 32 kilometers inland.

The captain checked his GPS for errors, then contacted other captains to see if they had the same problems. The captain discovered that 20 vessels had been affected the same way. All GPS systems show them sitting at the same airport.

The Maritime Administration issued warnings of the GPS interference despite not being able to confirm the story.

The New Scientist reported that interference with satellite signals being jammed was always the largest problem for GPS. GPS signals can be muddled or masked by white noise. Signal interference is easily recognizable, and alarms are supposed to sound to alert the crew when this happens.

However, a spoofed GPS signal is much harder to detect. A false signal from a ground station can confuse the satellite receivers, giving the ship’s GPS the impression it’s somewhere it’s not.

“Jamming just causes the receiver to die, spoofing causes the receiver to lie,” David Last, former president of the UK’s Royal Institute of Navigation told New Scientist.


Ships fooled in GPS spoofing attack suggest Russian cyberweapon ( 0:53 )

Autonomy and robotics expert Todd Humphreys at the University of Texas in Austin had conducted attack experiments using the same technology in the past. Humphreys said the signs of an attack during the Black Sea incident were the same as the results he had gotten during his experiments.

“The receiver’s behavior in the Black Sea incident was much like during the controlled attacks my team conducted,” Humphreys said.

Humphreys suggested that this might represent Russia experimenting with a new type of cyberwarfare technology. The New Scientist reported that the technology had first been seen in Moscow, centered near the Kremlin.

According to Humphreys, the satellite receivers on people’s phones in Moscow would malfunction. Gamers playing the Pokemon GO game on their phones discovered the extent of the alleged GPS spoofing attacks emanating from the Kremlin.

Humphreys told the New Scientist that this technology isn’t very hard to build. In 2008, it required considerable technological expertise available only to governments. Humphreys said anyone with enough technical knowledge could now piece together a GPS spoofing device from commercial hardware and software downloaded from the internet.

Humphreys said this could help any tech-savvy person cause chaos with the GPS spoofing technology due to its easy construction.

“It affects safety-of-life operations over a large area,” he said. “In congested waters with poor weather, such as the English Channel, it would likely cause great confusion, and probably collisions.”

Could this technology have been used against U.S. warships ?

Both the U.S. Navy and intelligence experts began to consider the idea of a cyberattack as the potential cause of an oil tanker’s collision with the USS John S McCain in the South China Sea on Monday. In conjunction with the collision of the USS Fitzgerald and a crate ship that happened just two months prior in the sea of Japan, it seem like less of a coincidence.

There has been no confirmation that the John S McCain and Fitzgerald events were cyberattacks. However, experts have strongly begun to consider the idea that the technology seen in Russia is now being used in China.

Trade routes in the South China Sea are highly lucrative and highly contested. Beijing believes the trade routes — which see some $5 trillion a year through its waters — belong to China. However, Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan, and Vietnam disagree. While all the countries use these trade routes to ferry goods, they rely on the U.S. to keep the trade routes open.

The John S McCain was a warship used for the Freedom of Navigation Operations in the South China Sea. The purpose of the operations is to challenge China’s claim over the South China Sea trade routes. The warship was on its way back from navigating just 12 miles off China’s Spratly Islands in the most unambiguous challenge to China’s claim of ownership of the trade waters yet.

It’s curious to some that a crew with a heightened alert status, fresh off a mission that defied a major national power, would not notice, or easily avoid a 600-foot Liberian oil tanker.

[csvset]

It's probably NOT THE NAVY'S FAULT

Bull F’ing shit. Did you read the reports from the accidents? Stop posting bullshit. The sorry MF’ers on both ship head their collective heads up their asses. That is what killed their shipmates. Not some Chinese or Russian spoofing. Quit posting bullshit.

[rlmorel]

I sure hope so. I heard someone on one of these threads mention they got rid of the school and instead issued a set of CDs to study instead of sending you to a school.

That appalled me. So, I hope you are right!

[Yosemitest]

Hey dummy, ... IT'S REAL !
But you're too lazy to actually check the links I provided !

You should be ashamed of yourself !

Have you ever tried to recover control of a critical situation during a total power failure ?
As a USAF air traffic controller and Tower Watch Supervisor most of my life, I have.

Are you even aware of the weapons that our enemies currently have and the experimental weapons they are testing now ?
I seriously doubt it !

Are you aware of China's EMP technology that they can put both on ships and on drones ?
Are you aware of their current submarine silent operations and submarine underwater drone technology ?

You need to get up to date.

hina has developed a magnetic propulsion drive for use on nuclear submarines, making them almost silent

Yacht hijacking shows the potential power of GPS spoofing

Chinese Underwater Drones Eyed for Possible Sub-detection Role

China will be able to blast U.S. military satellites out of high orbit with ground lasers

China's new microwave weapon can disable missiles and paralyze tanks

China achieves breakthrough in pulse weapons technology

China’s Drone-Missile Hybrid: The Next Step in Naval Drone Warfare

PLA Senior Colonels On Strategy And Geopolitics: "Unrestricted Warfare": Part IV

Those articles should give you a better grasp about what kinds of weapon systems we're facing.

[csvset]

Oooh, lot’s of links! Have you ever stood a watch on a US Navy vessel? If not, f’off mate.