Posted on 01/11/2013 4:06:57 AM PST by rawhide
All things are possible. Tim Dorsey, as a LTJG intentionally shot down a
USAF recon plane. No court-martial, no discharge, no jail-time. All the
Navy did was ban him from flying likely because his dad was a carrier CO
at the time. Tim is now a Captain. The Senate recently refused to promote
him to the rank of Rear Admiral in the naval reserve because of the
shootdown.
Dorsey didn't bother sending an apology to the USAF crew injured in the
shootdown for decades but finally did when under consideration for the latest promotion.
“As others have pointed out, the Gulf is shallow, and relatively small. Any sounds produced by boats and other vessels radiate and bounce in every direction.”
Yes, that is exactly what I said!
You did, but you also said "a good sonarman would've heard it [the fishing boat]."
I'm saying, perhaps, a good sonarman would've heard it. The conditions are challenging in the Gulf, as we both agree. The fishing boat might've been idling, DIW, or otherwise indistinguishable from the ambient noise, in which case, even the best sonarmen would have a hard time detecting it.
I'm not excusing the incident, I'm just intimating there may be circumstances out of the control of sonarmen or the captain.
Nope the days of being able to run aground (like Nimitz did early on) or be involved in a collision at sea and not have it kill your career are long gone.
Shame ... Sounds like it was small enough that sonar couldn’t pick it up and that they were just a little too shallow. Periscope is only put up occasionally to check on things when at proper depth but they do tend to protrude out the top a bit similar to an antenna even when stowed - or at least older models did...
Are periscopes still optical? Surely they’ve gone full Digital by now...
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