She looks competent, make her OOD.
Posted on 05/13/2018 2:59:41 PM PDT by Retain Mike
The sailors who were manning the combat nerve center of USS Fitzgerald (DDG-62) did not know they were on a collision course with a ship almost three times their size until about one minute before impact, according to new information revealed in the preliminary hearing for two junior officers accused of negligent homicide for their role in the collision that resulted in the death of seven sailors.
Lt. Natalie Combs, the tactical action officer, and Lt. Irian Woodley, the surface warfare coordinator, were both on duty in the windowless combat information in the belly of the guided-missile destroyer on early on the morning of June 17 as the ship moved southwest from the coast of Japan less than a day out of port.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.usni.org ...
That's the third question. Do warships no longer have human lookout watches, especially in high traffic areas? Either these two are being made scapegoats or more heads will role as these preliminary findings progress.
The 7th Fleet Admiral has already been fired for two such incidents due to poor training standards. How ships manage to pass sea trials anymore is beyond me. Definitely not my Navy anymore (75-86).
I have been informed by senior leaders and recently retired senior leaders that all of the services, especially in pre-commissioning programs and officer qualification courses have adopted standards that put an end to “washing out” in favor of mentoring, encouragement, or nudges toward resignation. Additional training is seldom the choice because of the additional expense.
The ugly reality is that substandard officers are overrepresented among minority and female officers even though that some minority and female officers are clearly outstanding and are performing at a very high level.
None of this story ads up.
That’s an interesting observation. You can ‘muscle’ your way through sleep deprivation in some situations, but not all.
Maybe it’s not good to name ships Fitzgerald, what with the Edmund Fitzgerald fate.
I agree with the defense attorney that the real problem was higher up the chain of command.
They were probably so busy retrofitting it for LGBTs that no one looked outside to see what was going on.
They were just having a friendly hand of poker ... nickle and imes really what’s the problem? /s
I feel secure knowing that the U.S. Navy looks like America!
*spit*
Great! But you have to turn it on first, or barring that actually look at it.
I agree with you; as a LTjg OOD (one of three) on a Nimitz class in the late 80s, this is just embarrassing. We used to steam across the entire Pacific with NO radar operating. This entire crew appears to have been a disaster waiting to happen. If that XO didn’t particularly trust that OOD, HE should have been on the bridge if the CO couldn’t be bothered to.
At any rate - the OOD could have just stopped the ship to sort things out. As my first CO said - you can’t hit anything if you’re DIW.
As the discussion here shows. There is seldom just one cause of the problem.
What is the solution?
Thanks. In case you have not found it yet this site can be fun.
http://www.navsource.org/archives/10/16/160532.htm
Agree that diversity is not our strength, merit is.
However, there is likely more than meets the eye.
Our windowless bridge ships solely dependent on electronics, are terrible vulnerable to GPS / radar / comms jamming and location spoofing...
Official navy incident reports would never reveal extent of vulnerabilities that can be exploited:
An army rots when its officers are incompetent. Unless the officer corp is a strict meritocracy, brave men die needlessly. Navy ships in the modern technological era of stealthy missiles and drones are floating coffins unless their defensive systems work perfectly. Incompetence in the name of diversity will result in even greater disasters. Wonder how many senior commanders who objected to the affirmative action nonsense were forcibly silenced or retired. If Trump has a second term, he will need to mercilessly purge the military and restore a warrior ethos.
I have a nifty little fish finder on my boat. Surely, the military has something called a big @ss ship finder aka radar. If all else fails, stand out on deck and pay attention or is that asking too much?
She looks competent, make her OOD.
Iceberg! Wait, wait, wrong ocean...
I will speculate that during the court martial proceedings is the first time they realized how deficient preparation for their duties had been.
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