Posted on 11/03/2017 10:23:13 AM PDT by Retain Mike
The fatal collisions of the two guided-missile destroyers USS John S. McCain and USS Fitzgerald between merchant ships that killed 17 sailors were rooted in fundamental failures in the crew’s ability to operate their ships effectively, according to a summary of two investigations the Navy released to the public on Wednesday.
“Both of these accidents were preventable and the respective investigations found multiple failures by watchstanders that contributed to the incidents, said Chief of Naval Operations Adm. John Richardson in a statement. “We must do better.”
(Excerpt) Read more at news.usni.org ...
But the little snowflake ship drivers are experts in diversity and transgender ROEs.
JoMa
Yeah, this is what affirmative action, diversity and all that other PC sh!t gets you. Remedial action might include a flogging through the fleet for those responsible.
Like you I am very skeptical. I would like to place these people in a position where they had to explain what they were doing all these years instead of teaching and learning basic seamanship? Oh, that’s right. They were learning basic “personship” according to DOD social engineering guidelines.
The detail of the two investigations at the link is really enlightening as to what happened.
Pox on both ships’ officers as well as crew on-duty.
The Naval Institute should be the best source for this subject. I saved everything in a file, and haven’t had a chance to look at it yet. I’ll spend a good deal of time on it though. During the Vietnam era I stood a lot of bridge watches in Tokyo Wan, and at least two around Singapore.
And people wonder why sailors drink...
We went into Hong Kong twice for liberty and once for two weeks as admin ship. I stood watches going in and out of there at least six times. It must have been scary enough that I have blocked out those times completely. The fishing craft always bothered me because I could see the single mast head light, but they seldom painted on the radar.
As I said in another post, I have a clear memory of being completely exhausted coming off those watches.
I was not in the Navy or on merchant ships but I am a procedural guy and like the checklist manifesto sort of thinking so have read up on all this when the first one happened. Even paid some attention to people around Bath where the ships were built when I was up there this summer.
That this could happen twice in one year is beyond stupid for the Pacific Fleet.
I was thinking back to my 19 months in the western Pacific from May 1970 through December 1971 when we had a whole lot more ships and I can’t remember a single collision. The operating tempo in Vietnam meant that anything that could was underway.
I remember now showing up on radar was not a problem for a couple boats off the Vietnam coast at night. However, when we ran into the entire ChiCom or Taiwanese fishing fleet at night in the Straits of Taiwan there were dozens of lights at a time appearing as if they were white dots in a two dimensional picture.
I never sailed of the Straits of Taiwan. We preferred to stay on the friendly side (that is, the east coast of Taiwan) even if we were making passage from Kaosiung to Taipei. Our company deemed sailing the Straits an unnecessary risk. Someone must have hated the Chicoms.
I remember that after they closed down the destroyer squadron Seventh Fleet had in Taipan they often routed ships through the straits on their way to and from Vietnam. Remembering the Pueblo, our CO said he was going to fight the ship if confronted. I realize now that was not going to be a pleasant experience , because the heaviest armament on our LST was three dual 3”50cal anti-aircraft mounts.
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