Ask, and ye shall receive ...
Posted on 08/22/2017 11:38:08 PM PDT by drop 50 and fire for effect
Those of us who have been in the Navy, around the Navy, and have knowledge of the Navy’s processes and procedures understand full well that this isn’t “The Chinese did it” or whatever.
This is going to be poor seamanship, poor execution of processes, poor training, and poor leadership, exacerbated by factors such as extended operational cycles and PC crap thrown in for good measure.
That’s it. Those who know better understand fully that these incidents are the result of just that.
On this one thread, there are people speculating that the Korcoms/Chicoms/Russians did it, a series of disgruntled crews did it, and the only thing missing is that aliens did it.
People need to get a grip here.
Some of these conversations look ignorant at best, and downright evil at worst.
Appointed 7th Fleet Commander under the Obama Administration in September 2015.
So at least 17 sailors have been killed and three ships have seriously crashed in 23 months of his command of the 7th!
Heck. Everyone knows the military is not only far from perfect, it is frequently stupid and nearly always inefficient. But warfighting organizations by their very nature are not often efficient, they are by nature wasteful and destructive, because they are supposed to be destructive.
I often think back to stupidity, and I remember one night (Barcelona maybe) where men were lined up in the pouring rain on Fleet Landing, drunk and unruly because they were having trouble running the liberty launches due to high seas.
We went out, launches were filled I am certain far beyond any safe limit (packed in like sardines) as it poured rain and the boat pitched, yawed and rolled, going around and around waiting to approach the platform at the stern of the carrier.
Drunk men peeing over the side, barfing, yelling “F**K THE SHORE PATROL!” (As I saw my buddy strip off his Shore Patrol armband), fights breaking out, all that. They had some canvas coverings, and the water would pour off them in waterfalls onto anyone unlucky enough to be stuck in that opening between them.
When we finally approached the platform, it was crazy. They didn’t tie up to it, but simply maneuvered next to it, as a few drunk sailors leaped from the launch onto the platform. Bang, bang, bang, they would all jump in a short interval as people on the boat and the platform exhorted them onward.
Then, the sea would rocket the boat up where you were looking five feet down at the platform, then plummet down until you were looking five feet up at it, and would go through several iterations of this, until by chance, the platform and the launch were roughly on level with each other, and three or four drunk sailors would leap from the launch to the platform, bang, bang, bang, then the boat would heave up and down again, and the cycle would repeat itself.
It was wild. Drunk sailors were landing on the platform after jumping in a wide variety of stumbles as people would try to catch them.
I was gritting my teeth and sweating, I had to go so badly I was gripping my member with a death grip in my free hand to keep from going in my trousers.
The point is...it had to be one of the stupidest things, even in my drunken state, that I have ever seen. What possessed ANYONE in charge to try to get those launches out to the ship? They should have simply made us all wait there on Fleet Landing, in the rain, if need be.
It amazes me nobody fell in between the platform and launch to be crushed.
But that is the way things happen sometimes in the military. Sometimes people simply make bad decisions. People are tired. People are lazy. People cut corners.
And sometimes people get killed because of it. And that is, with nearly 100% certainty what is going on with this spate of mishaps involving our ships. It isn’t some asinine hacking.
Anyone know the name?
It’s certainly not the Navy I did my four years in. I haven’t seen it written but I wonder if the proliferation of cell phones and the hand-held devices that hook you right up to the internet and facebook/twitter etc. might be to blame for the seemingly lax state of readiness. Hard to mind your watch tasks when you are constantly posting and reading facebookers with their pictures of kids, pets, cars, morning dumps, half eaten sandwiches and whatever else they put on there. It was a big deal when we got mail call every second or fifth day out at sea. Of course guys would re-read every letter from mom/wife/girlfried and sometimes on watch. But there was no buzzing or ringing phone or lit-up screen to distract you. Halfway through my first WestPac, it was a big deal to be able to car my mom in Pennsylvania on a payphone along the seawall on the Wanchai side of Hong Kong. The conversation was clear as an Alexander Graham Bell and cost my parents $16.00 for the half hour. This was in ‘69. If I were CNO I’d be thinking long and hard about imposing severe restrictions on personal communications devices and internet access.
Every Navy ship has two chains of command. They are assigned to a Destroyer Squadron who is their administrative commander. When they deploy they CHOP (change of operational command) to a task force or something designated like 77.1 (the . is spoken as "dot" and the first 7 indicates 7th Fleet - the commander of which was relived in this instance.
Here's what rubs me about this. A ship like that usually never sees or hears from the top of the chain. All of the administrative stuff (like training and qualification) is handled at the squadron or group level. That level of command certifies that the ship is ready for deployment. It strikes me, based on my experiences, that the problem most likely lies at that level and I was wondering why the Fleet commander was canned. Then I recall an article I read on Gcaptain (Red Over Red, The Failure Of U.S. Navy Leadership). That explained it perfectly: public relations. He was ready to retire soon and will "take one for the team" and will not take any financial hit whatsoever. This is known in the military as "different spanks for different ranks.
All this talk of hacking and conspiracy makes me cringe as it deflects attention from the most likely cause, "familiarization breeds contempt."
When my ship deployed to the Pacific we (the bridge watch standing teams) were paranoid. We never saw shipping traffic like exists there. We were always on edge and whenever we did anything out of ordinary (even steaming through the Inland Sea during daylight) it was "all hands on deck." Both of these destroyers are/were home ported in Japan and see heavy ship traffic on a daily basis. I think they became familiar with it and comfortable around it and that is a bad combination. Let your guard down for a minute on a ship at sea in the early hours of the morning and you are asking for trouble. I suspect that the Fitzgerald was "doing circles" waiting to pull into her home port the next morning. I have done that a lot but it's one thing outside Pearl Harbor and quite another outside Tokyo Bay.
The only thing that really strikes me as curios is that the Master of the ship that hit the Fitzgerald blamed in on them because he said he signaled them with a light. WTF? In any close situation bridge-to-bridge VHF channel 13 was *ALWAYS* used to hail and I think the Colregs require it but am too lazy from typing all this typing to look it up.
Ask, and ye shall receive ...
I agree 100% and I have also wondered if that has any effect. I was a letter writing machine at sea (if you didn’t write any letters...you didn’t get any letters)
I have also assumed that it would be strictly and completely verboten to have a laptop, tablet, or phone on any kind of watch, no matter what (unless it was some desk watch in a building while ashore or something) but I don’t know anything about that.
I wonder if some other Freepers who have more recent experience could enlighten us.
There also seems to be unverified statements going around that Navy ships at sea no longer have exterior deck watch lookouts, and I simply refuse 100% to believe that unless someone can verify that with evidence. But that is the nature of the Internet now, people are repeating that, without evidence, in a number of threads.
On a lighter side, how I remember buying those rolls of quarters...and the “dink dink...dink dink...dink dink...dink dink...dink dink...dink dink...dink dink...dink dink...dink dink...dink dink...dink dink...dink dink...dink dink...dink dink...dink dink...dink dink...dink dink...dink dink...” as you entered them in, all the while there might be someone on the other end going “Hello? Hello! Hello?”
Hehehehe...then in the middle of the discussion the recording “Please add another dollar twenty five to continue the conversation...”
Don’t miss that. You know what I do miss, though? Wanting to be home so bad I could taste it! Actually, not the actually wanting to be home, but the way the anticipation racked up the experience so far, you couldn’t help but have fun. I just talked to someone recently who said that when I came home, nobody slept for the entire time I was home, because I wouldn’t let them!
Yeah say 09 at 30 years, 75% of 16440$ a month ....12330$ a month, plus 100% disability doubling retirement pay , and add Social Security x 12 ....he’ll be ok.... near 300,000$ a year. Poor guy ....
I agree 100%. It is making me irritable and angry.
(Thanks for your service, btw) Your input on things like this is invaluable, since you have experience as an OOD and understand completely how these things can go wrong.
I just sent this email to a bunch of people I know:
*********************************************************************
In light of the recent collisions of US Navy ships in 2017, there are many questions about how this kind of thing could possibly happen.
In 1969, the Melbourne–Evans collision was a collision between the light aircraft carrier HMAS Melbourne of the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) and the destroyer USS Frank E. Evans of the United States Navy (USN). On 3 June 1969, the two ships were participating in SEATO exercise Sea Spirit in the South China Sea. At approximately 3:00 am, when ordered to a new escort station, Evans sailed under Melbourne's bow, where she was cut in two. Seventy-four of Evans' crew were killed.
Wikipedia: Collision between the HMAS Melbourne and USS Frank E. Evans
In response to this, the US Navy created a training film that describes this accident, and the bridge and watchstanding procedures that should have prevented it: "I Relieve You, Sir"
Even though technology changes, many of these ritualized processes (some that date back hundreds of years) still apply even today. *********************************************************************
I regret that there are some people who may get miffed (if they are astute enough to recognize the spirit in which the image is posted) but I feel like that old proverb about teaching pigs to sing...
There were several of us Freepers wondering about that, and that was similar to what I postulated...she was in a holding pattern of some kind on one side of the sea lane, then made the move to exit and head south when the trouble began.
Sometimes people simply make bad decisions.
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After a string of prior accidents they still get nearly 20 people killed and commit actions worth nearly a billion dollars in damage putting the country at risk in an extremely unstable area of the world ? Because they are complacent and tired ?
Actually, I think the Fitzgerald had left her home port (Yokosuka) around midnight and was heading to the southwest to Subic Bay...but I might be remembering that incorrectly.
It’s as plausible as Ancient Aliens ...
Don’t get me wrong. I hold the Captain and crew as accountable as I would hold a surgeon.
If a surgeon performs a procedure and forgets some key step resulting in harm, it doesn’t make any difference how or why the step was skipped. There are no excuses. It is their job, and we depend on them to do it.
But yes...people do make bad decisions. Heck, if we have a B-2 bomber and a error is made by a pilot, crew, or maintenance, you can be out a number of lives and a billion dollars right off the bat.
how do you explain it
“It isn’t some asinine hacking.”
I am often astounded how susceptible some folks on the right are to the “conspiracy”. Something nefarious, advanced and secret that is harming or threatening impending harm.
What I’m hearing from those folks on this forum is:
- The Nav systems and radars were hacked
- Ships control was hacked and steered into the path of harm
- The merchant was ALSO hacked as above
- The hundreds involved, and probably hundreds more who know, are keeping the hacks all a secret so as to avoid embarrassment.
- It was Norklandia, no, China. No, has to be the Russians.
I don’t know how many of them ever sailed with Uncle Sam, but it’s amusing to watch...I’ll give ‘em that. No matter how many times seasoned Shellbacks tell them “That’s not the way it works”...they cling to their conspiracy, probably due to some cognitive dissonance.
The fact that absolutely NONE of it makes any sense whatsoever appears beyond their comprehension.
The Navy has a long history of strict accountability. While it is unlikely this will effect his pay and/or rank, he will retire under a cloud which may prejudice his future employment prospects.
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