Posted on 11/01/2017 9:46:20 AM PDT by gandalftb
I appreciate the humor.
Thank you.
However, for the purpose of edification, 16knots (18.5mph) is a decent transit speed for a ship that exceeds 400ft in length.
Any faster and bumping into 30ft swells puts unnecessary stress on the ship AND the crew. It burns too much fuel too.
Those big seas are not found in the littorals like the South China Sea. However, there’s 7,000 miles of open ocean to get there.
7,000 miles.
I remember my Youngster Cruise aboard the USS CORONADO (Norfolk-Europe [Portsmouth, Rotterdam, and Kiel] 1973). While I did serve my duty on bridge lookout and “Midshipman of the Watch”, I spent most of my time down in the engine room, learning how to scrape down the boiler bricks and repairing pumps. I don’t remember any sense of urgency in the speed that we were maintaining to make the crossing. My best guess would be probably somewhere between 12 and 16 knots.
Any faster is tooo much work.
Even walking to the Chief’s Mess becomes work over 15kts:)
But seriously, folks get injured. The chow hall is restricted in what they can serve. Folks get really TIRED.
Try cooking eggs at any speed over 12kts! Or deep fried shrimp or French Fries. The fryers and grills are locked down.
So much stuff starts splashing around that you end up with diesel fuel in your coffee. A true delicacy I might add.
And you waste gas.
Worked with a guy who was a hydraulic mechanic on the Enterprise (carrier, not the star ship) - he said scary is seeing even her struggle through some mammoth Pacific ocean swells.
I surely respect your craft, sir. (no pun intended)
Having read the entire report, I am speechless at the incompetency of the crew of this ship. If this is the situation throughout our entire Navy, I would be scared shitless if we had to go to war today.
Once on a Pacific transit circa 1980 on the USS Tarawa (LHA-1) we encountered a particularly nasty storm we had to steer around.
We had blue water coming over the flight deck (90ft above the water line) and white water crashing the signal bridge (180ft above water line).
That was a ride for the ages.
Holy crap. My skipper and I did better on a 50 foot charter boat at night.
The Slave Master goes down to the hold and makes an announcement:
“Men! I have some good news for you! Rations will be doubled this morning! The bad news? Captain wants to water ski this afternoon.”
One of Grandpas favorite jokes. ;)
What are they going to do when they finally do tangle with the Chicoms and the call comes out fish in the water or vampire, vampire, vampire? Lots of dead sailors and sunk or damaged ships but one hell of a diversity program in place!
That's where I got it from ...
Say ... did your Grandpa know my Grandpa? Did anyone ever see them together at the same time?
They made sure to recruit a lot of very good video game operators.
The Chicoms don’t stand a chance against these guys an their toys.
However, any US ship that gets hit is likely to sink. Nobody knows how to fight fires or do damage control, just like all the other basic seamanship skills have been neglected.
The only thing that will keep them off the bottom is superior construction.
We build really, really good ships and put really, really good weapons systems on them.
Now we need some really good sailors to go with the mix.
If you’re lucky, you get a good Grandpa who tells you corny jokes. :)
I miss both of my Grandpas so much. They were awesome, hard-working, God-and-Grandma-Fearing men. :)
Excerpt from the Final Report, Section 3:
Of the 42 Sailors assigned to Berthing 2, at the time of collision, five were on watch and two were not aboard. Of the 35 remaining Sailors in Berthing 2, 28 escaped the flooding. Seven Sailors perished. ... The occupants of Berthing 2 described a rapidly flooding space, estimating later that the space was nearly flooded within a span of 30 to 60 seconds. By the time the third Sailor to leave arrived at the ladder, the water was already waist deep. Debris, including mattresses, furniture, an exercise bicycle, and wall lockers, floated into the aisles between racks in Berthing 2, impeding Sailors’ ability to get down from their racks and their ability to exit the space. The ship’s 5 to 7 degree list to starboard increased the difficulty for Sailors crossing the space fromthe starboard side to the port side. Many of the Sailors recall that the battle lanterns were illuminated. Battle lanterns turn on when power to an electrical circuit is out or when turned on manually. The yellow boxes hanging from the ceiling in Figure 14 are battle lanterns. Sailors recall that after the initial shock, occupants lined up in a relatively calm and orderly manner to climb the port side ladder and exit through the port side watertight scuttle. Figure 14 provides an example of the route Sailors would have taken from their racks to the port side watertight scuttle on a ship of the same class as FITZGERALD. They moved along the blue floor and turned left at the end to access the ladder. Figure 14 provides an example and sense of scale. Even though the Sailors were up to their necks in water by that point, they moved forward slowly and assisted each other. One Sailor reported that FC1 Rehm pushed him out from under a falling locker. Two of the Sailors who already escaped from the main part of Berthing 2 stayed at the bottom of the ladder well (see Figure 8) in order to help their shipmates out of the berthing area. The door to the Berthing 2 head (bathrooms and showers) was open and the flooding water dragged at least one person into this area. Exiting from the head during this flood of water was difficult and required climbing over debris. As the last group of Sailors to escape through the port side watertight scuttle arrived at the bottom of the ladder, the water was up to their necks. The two Sailors who had been helping people from the bottom of the ladder were eventually forced to climb the ladder as water reached the very top of the Berthing 2 compartment. They continued to assist their shipmates as they climbed, but were eventually forced by the rising water to leave Berthing 2 through the watertight scuttle themselves. Before climbing the ladder, they looked through the water and did not see any other Sailors. Once through the watertight scuttle and completely out of the Berthing 2 space (on the landing outside Berthing 1) they continued to search, reaching into the dark water to try to find anyone they could. From the top of the ladder, these two Sailors were able to pull two other Sailors from the flooded compartment. Both of the rescued Sailors were completely underwater when they were pulled to safety.
They won’t do better. They’ll continue the AA crap.
My theory, as a licensed captain for the past 40 years, is that their are too many people on the bridge and in the operations command chain and they become a distraction. On commercial vessels the captain is the steersman, throttle man, navigator and radar observer. He also is the sole lookout, operates the radio and has responsibility for all actions of his crew. On a typical navel vessel their are 6 to 10 people ( McCain had 12) performing the same task and reporting up the chain to a commander who makes decisions to maneuver down through the chain. What could possibly go wrong? I operated many types of oilfield support vessels in all weather and high traffic areas. You must have a comprehensive situational awareness and be able to react to unusual situations in seconds. My opinion is that reaction time and judgement is compromised through the military mind set. When seconds count you cannot wait for someone to come on the bridge, acquire situational awareness and make a judgement call to tell a group of sailors to turn the helm and reverse one or more throttles. That sets up a cluster that might be to late anyway. I have never had a problem spotting a navel vessel day or night. They all have the same requirement for running lights that commercial vessels and operate under the same COLREGS (Rules of the Road).
“You must have a comprehensive situational awareness and be able to react to unusual situations in seconds.”
That’s most difficult to do at 20kts in congested sea lanes.
Who does that but an idiot?
20 friggin’ knots.
Was on the Indy (CV-62) in the early 90s. We got sandwiched between two typhoons and took water over the bow for the better part of two days at all of about 5 knots. Had a helo fold a rotor blade back over her top because the winds were too high to safely fold them and a line snapped.
The small bows were hammered. Japanese destroyers - 1 lost a mast, the other a sonar dome. 2 of ours either flooded or lost their domes. Everyone ended up safe in the end. XO was green to the gills which made me smile ear to ear and really pissed him off :)
I recall on the FFG (RMD - FFG60) averaging 15-18 on transits and kicking it up to 25 when conducting ops. I wall allowed to plan one op against some squadron mates with Korean and Japanese on our side. We went in dark, rigged as fishing vessels, close to shore total emcon except the Koreans were exchanging chatter pretending to be regular fishermen, did that at like 5 kts and basically got around behind them. Right at the end of the exercise - everybody on the other side thinking we missed each other - we lit em up heavy: simulated guns, harpoon, even a few torps we got that close.
That is one of my finest memories...that and sending a sub back to the docks after pounding them for 2 days straight... they missed an isolator on something coming out of the yards but managed to pass initial noise inspection.
Good times.
When the collisions occurred, one of the more popular theories, on FR, was that the merchant ships intentionally rammed our ships. Another one was that the Chinese or the Muzzies had somehow taken control of either our ships or the merchant ships and maneuvered them into collision.
A few of those that had actually been to sea on real ships recognized it for what it was, human screw-ups most likely on the destroyers.
ping
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