Howza ’bout that collision between the container ship and the USN destroyer in Japan? How could that happen? Simple. Incompetence. The captain was prolly asleep in his sea cabin but he’s ultimately responsible so his career is over. Depending on how far the shit rolled down hill the XO might be done. Certainly the OOD (Officer of the Deck) is finished.
I don’t know how things work today but 50 years ago when I was in the Navy the following would have happened.
1. The tube jockey in CIC would have spotted the contact and put a mark on top of it with a grease pencil.
2. Two minutes later, he would have put another mark on top of it.
3. Two minutes after that he would have put a third mark on it and drawn a line through the three marks past the center of the screen. That would have given him the range and bearing of the CPA (closest point of approach.)
4. Meanwhile he would have given the range and bearing of each mark to one of his buddies who would have put them on a maneuvering board (or if he was by himself like we were on the Iredell County he would have put marks on the maneuvering board himself). It would only take another minute to figger out the course and speed using simple geometry, a parallel rule, and a pair of dividers.
5. Then the tube jockey would say over his sound powered phones, “Conn Combat. Contact designated (designation) bearing (the bearing) distance (the distance) CPA (number of yards and bearing to CPA) Course (the course) speed (the speed).”
6. This info would be passed to the OOD who would now take appropriate action. There was also a radar repeater on the Conn so the OOD could easily figger out CPA all by himself. Even officers can do it.
All of this should take no more than eight minutes if your radar dudes have anything on the ball. Hell, I was an ET and I could do this shit in eight minutes easy.
What prolly happened was there was an ensign on his first deployment standing OOD and he figgered he wasn’t gonna turn aside for any ship. This is the US Navy. I know the type.
Back in 1967 we were traveling from Long Beach back to San Diego. I happened to be in CIC when a whole crap load of contacts appeared on the radar repeater. We had a snot nosed ensign who wanted course, speed, and CPA of every single contact. There were over 40 of them. It was a freakin’ sailboat race. We told him that and said he might want to consider not driving through the middle of a sailboat race and sail had right of way over power. Didn’t do a bit of good. He chugged right through the race at twelve knots. How we managed not to hit any of the sailboats was a stroke of luck. We did get a lot of fingers from the sailors. I wish I could have been a fly on the wall when the Captain chewed his ass out. I’m sure the Navy heard from the sailing association.
I figger sumpin’ like that happened in Japan. How can a destroyer not avoid a container ship? Especially with all of the warnings unless the dudes in CIC were asleep and the OOD was totally incompetent.
Any squids wanna check in?
Navy Retired, 30 years. HMCS. I totally agree Denny, no excuses for this mishap, not in this day and age of electronic sensors. I’m sure some computer somewhere on the ship all ready had an alternate course plotted out, but some butter bar desires to ignore it. I said to myself as soon as I heard the news, (even more so after the announcement of the 7 sailors killed) CO, XO, OOD, and perhaps the entire bridge watch crew no longer have a career. My sympathies to the families of those needlessly killed.
You are probably right on the money. I remember going through the Straits of Messina in the wee hours on our way back from somewhere to Gaeta, Italy (Homeport for the 6th Fleet Flagship – USS Puget Sound at the time). Ships, boats and ferries (crossing the strait) all over the place, probably a bit busier than the sealanes leading into Tokyo Bay (not so many small boats and probably no ferries there). We usually had a really experienced OOD during that transit (and I’ll wager that the CO was wide awake and within whistling distance of the bridge). We had good radar – not as hi-tech as combat ships, but more than sufficient to do the job, and plenty of lookouts even though it was pitch-black dark. If we ever had a close call, I am totally unaware of it.
I read there may have been an EMP employed against the Fitzgerald, which would be very troubling. Also, downplaying such an event could be expected. I too, cannot believe the flying bridge watch, bridge, CIC, or a crew member on a smoke break didn’t report the contact before the casualty. An active-duty squid may have skinny on the scuttlebutt. Yet, that is all it will be until an official report.
Retired Puddle Pirate
What actually runs modern warships? Computers. Can computers that have been thought impregnable be hacked? More likely than treason class incompetence with what, 20 people? I’m watching to see how/if this gets explained.
Denny, I’m not sure if you are aware, or if you care, but there is a page for your old ship. http://www.hullnumber.com/crew1.php?cm=LST-839 It is a roster of crew. You can sign up if you so desire.
Already did a few years back.
The reports I’ve read say the Captain was asleep in his cabin below the bridge. He had a head injury and was airlifted out. No matter, he’s done and his career is down the toilet. The OOD & JOOD are done as well. All will be flushed out with ugly discharges and service records. That’s the Navy way. The advanced systems they have today should have had warnings and/or sirens blaring before this happened. Your incompetence statement is spot on.
Remember back in “69” when the Frank Evans was cut in half by the Melbourne during exercises in the So China Sea. Captain was sleeping, he was Court Martialed and flushed out like a turd in the crapper. The two incompetents on the bridge had no business being there, Captain should have known their capabilities which, were shit. They survived the court martial, even with guilty pleas, but never got rank after that. Go figure. The Asshole Admiral that presided over the board of inquiry tried to put all the blame on the Melbourne and made a real spectacle (or was that Testicle) of himself. What a Dickhead. In that case, 74 Sailors died, and the two unqualified Assholes responsible for their deaths skated. We saw the remains of the Evans in dry dock in Subic and it looked like a giant Sawsall sliced it in half. Still can’t imagine how the rear half stayed afloat. With the Fitzgerald there are no excuses. It will be interesting to see how it all goes down and how the discipline gets dished out.
On a side note, when I was on the Iwo Jima, a slimy E-3 stole some new binoculars from a storage cabinet and mailed them home. When the shortage was discovered, I was written up by the Asswipe Navigator because I was the leading Petty Officer and therefore responsible for the loss. Not surprising, three days later his prized Lt Commander hat was devoured by Jaws in the Pacific Ocean. Bwahahaha, Karma is a Bitch ain’t it.
I was in Subic about the same time. We went on a salvage hunt to see if we could get some stuff but we were already beaten to it.
Shame on you for removing his hat before you tossed it in the sea. 😉
http://www.destroyersonline.com/images/dd754019.jpg
A shot of what was left of the Evans
You may have seen the poster from despair.com where there’s a sinking ship with the caption, “Mistakes: It could just be that the purpose of your life is to serve as a warning to others.”
Hey Denny;
I never had heard about what had happened to the Evans so I did some research and found out a lot. Here is the link of what I did. http://mydailykona.blogspot.com/2017/06/the-hmas-melbourne-and-uss-evans.html
I normally don’t promote my blog on somebody’s elses. so I hope you don’t mind. I learned a lot. Thanks to your commenters
I don’t mind as long as you don’t do link whoring.
You broke it down correctly – as a FTG-2 (70-75) if I spent 8 minutes figuring out range, direction and speed of a contact – Well I am dead meat.
One of my ‘B’ School classmates went down in the Evans collision. I was off the coast of Vietnam in USS Chevalier DD-805 at the time. Thanks to Bob for sharing his research. Evans sinking resulted from total FUBAR and too many sailors died.
CBDR
Constant Bearing Decreasing Range – in other words, get the fuck out of the way
I have a hard time believing this was incompetence. I saw my share of it (USS Nimitz 1992-1995) but there would have to be 20 incompetent people all on watch at the same time on the bridge, in CIC, and on multiple radar watches, etc. for this to happen. I suppose 1 dickhead OOD could have ignored all the warnings, but that is an incomprehensible level of incompetence, even for a Naval Academy grad.
Had to get that in there – I was ROTC 🙂
Anybody who’s spent a lotta hours on the bridge as JOOD (U) or OOD (U) knows about ColRegs, Cap’n’s night orders, CPA, and CBDR.
Given a clear night with no reported complications in traffic or sea conditions, even in congested shipping lanes, I cannot imagine a situation in which a properly manned and trained Navy ship of the line could have been struck by a 30,000-ton merchant on her starboard side without some kind of unprecedented massive equipment failure and zombie apocalypse.
In ANY case, the night orders would have clearly stated “Call me” for any CPA within 2000 or 3000 yards and certainly a CBDR, unless the CO was a total jerkoff.
The track of the ACX Crystal indicates no sudden maneuvers prior to impact, and all indications are that she was on autopilot considering how the track righted itself after the collision and didn’t do the 180 until several minutes later when somebody was awakened by the noise and jarring and got up to see what they’d hit.
What’s hardest to believe is that with a Helmsman, BMOW, QMOW, JOOD, lookouts, and a qualified fleet OOD up there, SOMEbody had to see what the hell was happening even if the surface search radar was OOC.
So without an EMP and an accompanying space-alien intervention, somebody fucked up BIG time. USN will point fingers at the merchant skipper, faulty devices, and lack of communications. Still, at least 3 commissions are toast.
The WestPac nights have seen strange sights
In the island straits and seas.
Those shipping lanes cause skippers’ brains
To either fry or freeze.
And mid-watch blues on a picket cruise
Can bring visions to the watch
But a starboard hit in the depth of it
Can be nothing but a botch.
I was waiting for your comment Ron since you spent many hours as JOOD and OOD. This was a major fuck up and you’re right that
at 3 commissions are toast. The Captain’s career is over. I used to think officers went to college to learn how to be stupid.
LOL- “Even officers can do it.”
Your sequence of events is spot on, although ours would have begun with “load tubes 1 through 4” and the ending would have been slightly different.
Not an expert in this field, but I once read an article P.J. O’Rourke wrote
about a tour he took on a guided missile ship. These modern vessels
are so tightly networked and highly defended that this sort of thing
should not even be possible!
All commercial traffic sports AIS transponders, add RADAR and SONAR,
any other naval vessels within a 500-mile bubble that all share the
same defense network, including submarines and aircraft, and even the
ability to detect the location of man overboard devices and EPIRB’s in the
immediate area and there should be NO excuse for this kind of accident!
In was an RD2 and in 1970 was on a DD the same class and fram as the Evans, and we had an ET2 on board who had previously been assigned to the Evans, and he was on the Evans when it was hit. He had been in his bunk the OPS/Comm berthing compartment at the time of the collision, which was located underneath the mess deck, forward, one deck below the main deck. Power went out and all they had were the battle lanterns. He was blind without his glasses and he said an RDSN helped him find his glasses., but after that the RDSN was never seen again. Somehow the ET2 got up the ladder to the mess deck and up one more to the main deck and over the side. Later on in the Gulf of Tonkin we encountered the Melbourne and were tracking it. The ET2 refused to leave CIC until the Melbourne was out of range. By the way, the Melboune had a history of cutting destroyers in two and had done it before to an Aussie destroyer. The Aussies called the Melbourne the destroyer destroyer.