I think the poor watchstanding procedures are a recurring theme, sadly.
Same with the USS Fitzgerald and USS McCain...virtually verbatim.
Sigh. It bothers me to beat up on the Navy, but...it has to be done. If we don’t fix these problems in peace (just cruising from point-to-point) how can we expect to engage in warfighting if we can’t even navigate?
This is a failure at all levels. We have to get this fixed or we are screwed in a war, our people will die and ships will be lost.
We have to fix this stuff.
Bring back the Surface Warfare Officers School, instead of handing fresh Ensigns a box of Cd’s.
From the report...
“Watch team members were not familiar with basic radar fundamentals, impeding effective use. LAKE CHAMPAIGN did not hold radar track on NAM YANG 502 for sixteen minutes leading up to the collision, and it is possible that proper radar tuning would have prevented this problem.
Unbelievable. I wonder if crew training time was used in some B.S. classroom activities like transgender studies instead of fundamentals like basic radar.
In the modern Navy, a Millennial probably has his face in his iPhone and smoking dope while on watch.
In the summer of 1970, we were cruising slowly from north to south along the shoreline off the III Corps in a Gearing class tin can when we collided with a stationery wooden fishing boat, the “Sally B”. She was of Australian registry and full of Vietnamese fishermen sound asleep at 0200 +/-. The seas were flat. The sky was clear with no moon. We had the fishing boat on surface radar at least 15 miles before the collision and visual on its running light at 10 miles. The collision splintered a few boards on the transom and scared the feces out of the Vietnamese. It tore a large gash in our bow just above the waterline. We had to steam very slowly to Vung Tau for emergency tender repairs. Needless to say, there was a change of command ceremony in Subic two weeks later.
60' length x 15' beam x 4' (estimated) draft gives a displacement 'box' of 3,600 ft3, or about 100 m3. 100 m3 is 100 metric tons.
Even knocking off the tapered bow and rounded chines, the displacement still is WAY more than 10 tons.
Do neither reporters nor editors know how to think any more?