Posted on 12/23/2019 8:54:41 AM PST by Oatka
Dakota Bordeaux had rarely traveled outside his home state of Oklahoma before he joined the Navy in February 2017. Hed certainly never seen the ocean.
But only four months later, Bordeaux was standing at the helm of the USS John S. McCain, steering the 8,300-ton destroyer through the western Pacific. Part of the Navys famed 7th Fleet, the McCain was responsible for patrolling global hot spots, shadowing Chinese warships in the South China Sea and tracking North Korean missile launches.
It filled the high school graduate with pride.
Not many people of my age can say, Hey, I just drove a giant-ass battleship, said Bordeaux, 23.
To guide the McCain, Bordeaux relied upon a navigation system the Navy considered a triumph of technology and thrift. It featured slick black touch screens to operate the ships wheel and propellers. It knit together information from radars and digital maps. It would save money by requiring fewer sailors to safely steer the ship.
(Excerpt) Read more at gcaptain.com ...
Good to know. I’d hate for us to waste the honor of ship-naming on that horrible little person who deserves none.
Actually, the destroyer was named after Juan as an afterthought...was originally named after real heroes.
This warship was originally named after John S. McCain, Sr., and John S. McCain, Jr.,[2] both admirals in the United States Navy.
John S. McCain, Sr. commanded the aircraft carrier USS Ranger, and later the Fast Carrier Task Force during the latter stages of World War II. John S. McCain, Jr. commanded the submarines USS Gunnel and USS Dentuda during World War II. He subsequently held a number of posts, rising to Commander-in-Chief of the United States Pacific Command, before retiring in 1972.
These men were, respectively, the grandfather and father of Senator John S. McCain III.[4]
On 11 July 2018, just 1 1/2 months before John McCain passed away, at a rededication ceremony, Senator John McCain was added as a namesake, along with his father and grandfather.[5]
Well, there was this one where they drove in to a cargo carrier.
And in his defense I believe it was the Boatswain that steered the ship in to the oil tanker by not completing the shift of the throttle controls from one console to the other thus decoupling the screw speed controls.
The rudder remained at 0 degrees throughout the accident. It was the difference in screw speed that drove the ship to the left.
Just my reading of this account but I think the kid was a scapegoat.
You misunderstand what I wrote. What you don’t do is “change the configuration of the SCC” while you are in a restricted maneuvering condition or situation. You configure the ship for such a transit BEFORE you begin, not when a failure could cause collision, injury and death, as happened in this case. Is that more clear?
On the tin can I was on, Quartermaster 2, lead navigator, we had a couple of deck apes who took the helm when we were involved in close maneuvers...refueling, etc.
We QMs mostly stood helm watch when at sea...we were busy manning our navigation/piloting stations in close stuff.
The John McCain for whom the ship was actually named, was commander of the Naval Forces in the Pacific and led the victorious Solomon Islands air campaign.
Somewhat later the ship was allowed to carry the same name of the infamous pilot who in a fit of rage got shot down in North Vietnam
In the nuclear power world we have a term for this sort of problem: Human Factors.
It should be immediately obvious what each work station controls. They should look markedly different.
If both operators need to know the status of the other operators system, the components that the operator is not in control of should be shaded out so that the operator knows that he is not in control of those components.
A few small words in a box are not sufficient in a stressful situation to clue you in that you are not in control when everything else on the screen looks exactly the same.
I can just see them explaining that it may not be the terminology that only 1% may understand, we wrote that so ALL could understand.
You know, the old ‘we are just so much smarter than ALL of you’.
Like BO gets/got a FULL SLIDE on Corps(e)man, 57 states, Biden with his ‘stand up so we can see you’, that 3 letter word J O B S and lists of thousands of gaffes that never get mentioned, yet the MSM claims they are unbiased. (well they pretty much don’t even attempt that anymore).
Got it.
The captain, trying to avoid a problem by dividing the workload precipitated the accident.
Mostly we use deck seamen for helmsmen now, but sometimes QM’s. Between the combining of the QM and SM ratings and reduced manning, we don’t have as many QM’s any more. Transiting the Strait of Malacca, they should have been at a “modified sea and anchor detail”, and probably should have been operating under restricted maneuvering doctrine. Splitting the SCC when the CO did was a fatal mistake.
Thanks for that...good sailing!
We could go on and on - I won't - over the wisdom of trying to combine the functions of helmsman, EOT operator, the entire CIC watch team, and the officer of the deck and place them in the hands of a junior enlisted man with four months' service in place and then blaming the poor SOB when the thing throws a shoe in the middle of some of the world's most congested waters. Somebody had to sign off on fielding the system and it's that somebody who should hang. Somebody who noticed it was so flawed it needed constant patching should have been listened to when he complained that the thing wasn't ready for prime time. People don't drive cars with controls systems that flaky much less 8600-ton warships.
It takes a lot of gross incompetence on the part of many people for a Destroyer to be t-boned by a tanker traveling at 8 knots. Paint dries faster than a ship going that slow.
It seems the Navy brass is still trying to cover up their derelict management by putting the blame on technology.
Well, these are the same Navy brass that approved the technology.
America has far too many grossly incompetent (and many times corrupt) people in all areas of government. The FBI/DOJ also comes to mind.
We used to run a lost control of steering drill every watch. Then switched control to after steering. We actually once lost steering control while underway refueling. It pays to train.
There is a scene in the classic coldwar flick “Fail Safe” that comes to mind. The character “Gordon Knapp” advises an Air Force General as follows:
“The fact is, the machines work so fast . . . they are so intricate . . . the mistakes they make are so subtle . . . that very often a human being just can’t know whether a machine is lying or telling the truth.”
Boat crash compilation video:
https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=giant+boats+crashing&&view=detail&mid=4113D9ECD54F4F23BA464113D9ECD54F4F23BA46&&FORM=VRDGAR&ru=%2Fvideos%2Fsearch%3Fq%3Dgiant%2Bboats%2Bcrashing%26FORM%3DHDRSC3
And they also affirm the malfunctioning and misuse of human engineering, contrary to the instructions and purpose of its Creator :
Northrop Grumman Earns Top Score in 2018 Corporate Equality Index...Receives 100 percent rating on Human Rights Campaign Foundations annual scorecard for LGBT workplace equality for fourth year in a row. https://news.northropgrumman.com/news/releases/releases-20171110-6652130
Yet we all have sinned, and there is still room at the cross for all who will come to God in repentance and faith, and trust in the Divine Son of God sent by the Father, the risen Lord Jesus, to save them on His account, by His sinless shed blood, and thus be baptized and live for Him. Acts 10:36-47
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