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US Destroyer collides with merchant vessel in South China Sea (yes, again)

J

j_k_redtail

Member
The Associated Press
The Associated Press @AP
BREAKING: U.S. Navy says 10 sailors are missing, five injured after USS John S. McCain collided with merchant ship.
 
R

Relentless 757

Member
This is the 4th incident that has occurred this year. Also, I read an article saying all 4 ships involved have the Aegis Missile Defense System, which can possibly be used as a defense against any North Korean missile launch.
 
I

i-Lo

Member
Pertaining to the GPS spoofing: The vessels are still equipped with RADARs which are closed systems and ALL vessels (especially in a hectically busy place as S. China Sea) at all times shall maintain human lookouts who are to continually survey their surroundings by all means (sight, sound and electronically) practicable to assess risk of collision. It's the Rule 5 (lookout) of the Collision Regulations that all vessels must abide by under IMO convention.
 
T

Tamanon

Banned
Relentless 757 said:
This is the 4th incident that has occurred this year. Also, I read an article saying all 4 ships involved have the Aegis Defense System, which can possibly be used as a defense against any North Korean missile launch.
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It is a little curious. Wonder if we're seeing some subterfuge going on.
 
Agent_Carnage

Agent_Carnage

Member
Something aint right here. How can it happen again just 2 months after? Surely the Navy would of tighten up training after the fact.
 
T

TarNaru33

Banned
Tovarisc said:
And what is your point? That because US has more boats this is somehow acceptable?
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His point is an obvious "of course it makes sense mathematically that U.S would have more naval collisions/issues than other navies considering U.S has the largest navy in the world and the only true blue water navy".

It doesn't take much to understand what a person is saying if you aren't biased or reaching. Comparing it to other nations is silly. There are many shipwrecks a year, so I am not too surprised.
 
H

Herr Schwarz

Banned
Vectorman said:
Lol if Chinese merchant ships are accidentally hitting our ships with ease, how are they gonna stop a boat or anything else that might hit them on purpose?
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They're not. In some of the war games in naval combat it's actually strategically sound to attack vessels of that power with a similar strategy
 
HighResTomato

HighResTomato

Member
Oberon said:
Correct me if I am wrong, but wasn't a thread about possible ( russian) hacking involving american ships recently?
Click to expand...

hackedspeedo.jpg


I'm sure people are able of spotting behemoth ships for miles and miles away.

alnic-mc_9396725_113483.jpg
Click to expand...
 
B

BackLogJoe

Member
Horrible. Everyone involved in watchstanding in the control room or involved with navigation is going to be doing a lot of extra training.
 
D

Dishwalla

Banned
Fuck if sailors are stuck in shaft alley that doesn't sound good, it's pretty hard to get out of there quickly. Shaft alley is like four decks down with the only way in or out a ladder in a trunk that is straight up. Really don't like the sound of this.
 
C

commedieu

Banned
It's clearly tampering. That or we need trillions of dollars refunded from an inept military.

So what's it going to be? Human error, again...?


Something is rotten.
 
B

bananas

Banned
commedieu said:
It's clearly tampering. That or we need trillions of dollars refunded from an inept military.

So what's it going to be? Human error, again...?


Something is rotten.
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I am a quarter master in the US Navy.

I will say where this occurred is extremely narrow, that said, that ship shouldn't have gotten so close. Even if the merchant ship is more at fault, the Navigation team fucked up. The combat team fucked up since they have a picture of what's going on. The Office of the Deck and Conning officer fucked up. The Captain fucked up because he's the captain.
 
B

bananas

Banned
bobbytkc said:
Don't they have somebody just looking out at the ocean for ships? I mean, that is a gigantic vessel.
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Yes, there are people whose only purpose to look out and watch for shit. They're called Lookouts

Everyone on the bridge also had a responsibility to act as Lookouts as well
 
C

commedieu

Banned
bananas said:
I am a quarter master in the US Navy.

I will say where this occurred is extremely narrow, that said, that ship shouldn't have gotten so close. Even if the merchant ship is more at fault, the Navigation team fucked up. The combat team fucked up since they have a picture of what's going on. The Office of the Deck and Conning officer fucked up. The Captain fucked up because he's the captain.
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Thanks for your service. This just seems like a mind boggling amount of mistakes and computer systems ignored/failures for this to happen twice. These mistakes keep costing lives.

How do you describe the fuckups in order to paint a picture of a scenario that all of these levels of checks and balances were flatly ignored..

It is bizzare that everyone, who is seemingly highly trained, dropped the ball on all accounts.

How does no one go "shit. There's a oil tanker." / the end.

Ineptitude is one thing. But with all of the crew, how can it be on this scale?
 
T

Tecnniqe

Banned
Incompetence on both ships, more so since a military ship allows itself to be rammed.

How the fuck does none of these ships see this coming?
 
S

seanoff

Member
One is a manoeuvrable warship, one is a tanker.

The McCain should be able to do laps of the tanker when both at full speed.

Large merchant vessels arent built to change direction quickly. The warship is.

One of the laws of the sea. Keep out of the way of tankers.

I dont understand how the crew of the warship got into that position.
 
D

DarkJediKnight

Member
This is beyond fucked up. God speed to those who are missing. I still don't understand how you can't see a giant fucking ship from miles away coming towards you.
 
D

danthefan

Member
Ether_Snake said:
In the previous thread I think I posted an image of the path the ship took which looked like it had been on purpose.

Edit: found it
bmXUC7v.jpg

But I would assume if this was the case, even if the US wouldn't try to shout it without having clear undeniable proofs, that they wouldn't have blamed themselves.

Seems a shakeup is due at the navy.
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It was explained very clearly in the last thread that ships maneuver like that to shed their speed. These huge boats take an incredibly long time to stop. It was not on purpose.
 
D

DarkJediKnight

Member
xkramz said:
Not if it's 6am and the ship is painted mostly black.
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Jesus. Is that all it takes to hit a giant, electronic heavy, sophisticated warship?

Black fucking paint?

Don't these things have radar and sonar that detects - I don't know, a missle coming it's way, let alone a several hundred feet long ship?
 
P

PdotMichael

Banned
As someone who works in the shipbuilding industry, something like that can't happen.
Every ship has a AIS to avoid exactly that. The Americans are most likely turned it off because they are a bunch of idiots - who does that in fucking peace time? And combine that with a lazy service culture on navy ships.
 
D

Dishwalla

Banned
PdotMichael said:
As someone who works in the shipbuilding industry, something like that can't happen.
Every ship has a AIS to avoid exactly that. The Americans are most likely turned it off because they are a bunch of idiots - who does that in fucking peace time?
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When I was stationed on my old destroyer the AIS was on a laptop and the bridge watch standers would always close the laptop(we tried to disable sleep mode on the comp when the lid was closed, but the program still would cease running), then call down to us ETs about how the AIS wasn't working. Kept telling them again and again not to close the computer, and to instead put a filter over the screen at night to mask the light(no white lights topside after dark, only red lights). So I could easily see the bridge watch standers unwittingly disable the AIS.


Also saw many an officer complain about not being able to see contacts on their radar displays, only to find out that their brightness was turned all the way down. Nine times out of ten when there was an issue with the equipment it was user error and not the actual gear.
 
S

Souldriver

Member
Dishwalla said:
When I was stationed on my old destroyer the AIS was on a laptop and the bridge watch standers would always close the laptop(we tried to disable sleep mode on the comp when the lid was closed, but the program still would cease running), then call down to us ETs about how the AIS wasn't working. Kept telling them again and again not to close the computer, and to instead put a filter over the screen at night to mask the light(no white lights topside after dark, only red lights). So I could easily see the bridge watch standers unwittingly disable the AIS.


Also saw many an officer complain about not being able to see contacts on their radar displays, only to find out that their brightness was turned all the way down. Nine times out of ten when there was an issue with the equipment it was user error and not the actual gear.
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This reads like a fucking Family Guy script. So ridiculous.
 
D

Dishwalla

Banned
Souldriver said:
This reads like a fucking Family Guy script. So ridiculous.
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I... guess? I know people like to think military members and especially officers are smart and know what they are doing, but they are just as dumb as every one else. Everyone knows people that they work with who always make dumb mistakes or screws things up. Well guess what there are tons of em stationed on those multi billion dollar at sea warships.
 
B

Blizzard

Banned
I thought this was the same news story when I saw it on CNN for a second, how bizarre. I hope the best for the missing sailors. :(

According to CNN the navy ship should have definitely been able to outmaneauver the oil tanker no matter what, and even if some sort of crazy GPS malfunction was going on, I would think that radar would detect it or something. Who knows.


*edit*
norm9 said:
Nobody's perfect. If this a rare occurrence, then its fine
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This is the 4th time THIS YEAR a U.S. Navy warship in Asian waters has had a collision. It's kind of crazy at this point.
 
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