>>The USS Fitzgerald, an anti-ballistic missile destroyer that was part of the USS Ronald Reagan carrier strike group, will no longer be ready to defend the carrier and other ships from missile attacks launched from North Korea<<
Does the Navy have no other anti-ballistic missile destroyers in the Pacific? In the fleet? Get one on station quick. Also, issue an order to sink ANY ship that attacks.
Collision avoidance systems on airplanes utilize transponder information to generate bright easily monitored depictions of aircraft in vicinity. Still, crews relentlessly scan surrounding airspace for visual signs of traffic. At night, obviously, traffic will disappear if not showing beacons and strobes. It seems plausible that primary radar could miss an incoming vessel with minimum cross section coming straight at you at high speed. No lights no transponder...this was an attack.
Disturbing.
It’s abject incompetence on the part of the US crew to allow themselves to be rammed at sea by any vessel.
There’s no set of circumstances that could absolve this crew.
None.
Bogus story. There have been posts of the transponder track of the cargo ship.
FAKE NEWS!
My opinion on this whole incident is that the cargo ship was outside or on the edge of the shipping lanes because of all the traffic going in the opposite direction. Look at the tracking of the cargo ship.
The Fitzgerald was loitering outside of the shipping lanes and the cargo ship crew was not paying attention.
As far as the Fitz goes, I believe there is to many chains of command to make fast decisions.
Just my humble opinion.
AIS Track showing the course and speed of the ACX Crystal during the time of collision with the USS Fitzgerald Image via MarineTraffic.com. According to this the tracking was on.. When I saw the tracking I also thought it was very interesting maneuvering. When I saw the damage to both ships I thought interesting method of attack on a warship!
http://gcaptain.com/high-resolution-photos-us-navy-destroyer-collision/
How many other ships in that area at the time this happened?
Veeeery interesting!
Someone uses those ship tracking sites should be able to check out the transponder being on or off.
I sailed a small boat across the Pacific with two other people.
Before setting out we got some advice from an acquaintance who was also a small boat sailor.
He was also an experienced captain on a merchant ship with a large, well known company sailing regular routes back and forth across the Pacific.
He said that in his experience many merchant vessels do not keep a constant lookout or radio watch at sea in spite of the law requiring them to do so.
He recommended on taking evasive action immediately upon sighting a large vessel.
He said when he is sailing his sailboat and spots a large vessel, especially a merchant vessel,
as soon as he can discern their course he alters his course to about a 90 degree angle to theirs.
It puts as much distance as possible between the two vessels and eliminates any doubt on the
other ship as to your course and intentions (assuming they have a lookout).
Especially at night.
And that turned out to be good advice as we encountered large vessels at night with no effective
visible lights and no answer to our radio call.
Thankfully we had a small boat radar and could pick them up, calculate their course and take evasive action.
In the old military the word SNAFU was common. Same as Normal...All F__ked Up.
There was no way in hell that the alarm systems, radar systems and lookouts did not see the ship coming at them! However, we will never know the real story because top brass protects top brass.
Given what little I know about the incident I’d have to conclude that the crew of the USS Fitzgerald was negligent/incompetent/improperly trained. Or some combination of those. All boaters know that it’s the primary responsibility of the smaller, more maneuverable watercraft to avoid collisions on open water regardless of the circumstances that brought the larger, less maneuverable watercraft into close proximity.
Impossible it’s invisible without a transponder. Even the Raytheon on our old Grady White would show any vessel within its range. I’d assume modern military technology has to be way better than a late ‘90s recreational system.
A little off topic but I saw a report several months ago that Japan has more destroyers in the Pacific than the U.S. Navy does.
Am I wrong, or wasn’t there another “accident” in this region involving a US warship just a few weeks ago?
And like I said yesterday, one of my earliest thoughts was Ramming people in the Streets of Europe and ramming a ship have something in common.
My question is why no evasive measures!
Ten years from now I'm sure we'll find out that the captain of the U.S. ship was a pregnant transgender male wearing a p#ssy hat.