Apparently, it doesn’t.
The officer of the deck is responsible for the safe navigation of the ship. Everyone on the bridge and cic answers to him. The OOD only answers to the captain in those matters.
these accidents are starting to smell like that to me. i bet the lower down in rank you get in these incidents the clearer the peril and the greater clarity about exactly what should have been done.
it can not possibly be lack of nav info, my guess is the nav station is awash in really good info on collision and target tracking.
Your question assumes/presumes that was the problem - we don’t have enough data to really have a clue about how two of our war ships ended up being disabled by civilian vessels in that arena of operations. No way it is pure coincidence or as simple as “nobody had the authority to avoid a collision”.
Yes, there IS an officer on deck. But he and his significant other fudgepacker are over in a corner, otherwise occupied. Just as Barky Obama arranged it. IMHO.
I’m waiting for these scenarios to appear in upcoming sci fi space novels.
Diversity...
...don’t make it harder than it is.
We were square underneath the Golden Gate and had no room to maneuver, stopping distance for a tender is about 1000 yards.
His piece of crap hit the bow and scraped down the starboard side as we passed.
He was hanging on to his capsized sailboat, I watched while standing right above him leaning on the rail.
Laughed my butt off when I saw it sink in our prop wash aft of us.
35 years ago, I was the Special Sea and Anchor Helmsman on a tin can headed into Mayport. My orders were to steer a specific heading. The current was pushing us to starboard and I had to use left hard rudder to maintain the course, but we were headed straight for the jetty.
I was about to tell the OOD the helm was unresponsive when he ordered me to “Mind my helm”. The Captain looked at the Rudder Angle Indicator on the bridge, saw that the rudder was hard left and took command from the OOD and ordered Full Emergency Reverse on the port engine.
Suffice to say the OOD was not experienced in these matters.
When ever the Commanding Officer is off the bridge the Offucer of the Deck is responsible for the safe navigation of the vessel.
How does a Navy destroyer get hit in the port aft by a partially loaded tanker going 9.2 knots?
Granted it was a typical morning rush hour into Singapore. But somehow the McCain got itself in the way of the Alnic MC, got hit, and 10 sailors are likely dead.
Check out the tracking video of the Alnic and others. It is surprising there were not other accidents dodging the disabled McCain and Alnic.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlrA36GzHNs
I believe the speed limit in the Traffic Separation Zone is 12 knots and the collision happened just after the Alnic entered the zone. Was the McCain speeding and then hit the brakes as it entered the Separation Zone?
Based on the fact that our 7th Fleet destroyers seem to be under the command of the Keystone Kops, I would wager that the answer to your question is a resounding "no."
“Iceberg dead ahead! Turn! Turn!
“Ah.. which way?”
BAM! CRUNCH!
Been happening for a long time. The lookout on the Titanic did not have binoculars as they were stowed away and the guy with the key was on shore for that trip. The captain meanwhile said full speed at night while in an area of icebergs. Kinda like the Italian captain who wanted to show off for people on shore and ended up grounding his ship and abandoning it afterward.
When I was in VietNam we had to get approval from McNamara before things that would seem to most people to be at the E5 level of decision making.
One thing the convinced me to favor small government is that big government does not work very well ... with the military being a prime example.