To whoever writes these things, please learn the difference between soldiers, sailors, and Marines.
It would seem that the 7th Fleet is having a collision of the month contest. Can this really be coincidence? Are there that many incompetent commanding officers of destroyers in the 7th Fleet?
I ache for the missing men, but if they havenât been found by now, they wonât be unless they are still in their bunks.
Eternal Father, strong to save,
Whose arm hath bound the restless wave,
Who biddâst the mighty ocean deep
Its own appointed limits keep;
Oh, hear us when we cry to Thee,
For those in peril on the sea!
Two âaccidentsâ in two months? Two, too weird.
Both collisions happened at night. Wonder what the sailors on watch were doing. Playing cards? Watching videos? It is pretty clear they werenât actually sailing their ship.
My brother was an enlisted man on the bridge of a destroyer years ago. As they pulled into Pearl Harbor one time he watched as the captain took control of the helm from a junior officer. He quietly said I need a 5 degree turn to port. The relieved helmsman immediately complied. He turned to the officer in charge of navigation and quietly said âlieutenant I donât want to lose my command in a collision with the the USS Arizona.â My point is quite often junior officers have major responsibilities. I really want to know who was on the bridge.
Story time! My avatar is the formula for the Poisson distribution. One of the famous data sets that popularized the Poisson was a study of death by horse kick in the Prussian Army. On average the Prussians lost one soldier a month to horse kicks but the distribution was not flat. There would be periods of no deaths for months followed by a cluster of deaths in one or two weeks. Or sometimes it would be flat or there would be a cluster of deaths by unit rather than time etc. It could be due to stable conditions, poor husbandry or horsemanship, bad training, disease etc. It turned out to be random, and the patterns were generated by chance. Freak occurrences do sometimes in time and place just by chance.
I can understand two terrorists in a row boat sneaking up on you but how do you not notice an oil tanker heading toward you?
(Iâm sure there will be alengthy investigation to answer that.)
Can you imagine if there had been two disasters like this under a Dem President?
It would seem the Commander-in-Chief of our military is incompetent.
Yeah, I know, that is harsh. Republicans would NEVER say such a thing about a Democrat President were two Naval destroyers to get in severe accidents involving soldier fatalities in just two monthâs time. NEVER.
Were so many Navy ships running into stuff during the Obama administration?
I forget. So much winning.
So thereâs reason to believe Russia is using GPS spoofing on a large scale. See https://www.newscientist.com/article/2143499-ships-fooled-in-gps-spoofing-attack-suggest-russian-cyberweapon/. The post notes a case where 20+ merchant ships in the Black Sea were, per GPS, 20+ miles away from their actual location. These GPS jammers also affect shipâs AIS system (similar to aircraft IFF) which may confuse matters.
No, itâs a new phenomenon with Trump. Probably happening because he demanded ship radar and sonar systems run on steam.
Get closer. I canât see if itâs a ship or not.
So that may be why weâre confirming North Korean missile launches with binoculars.
GPS jammer costs driver $32,000 after interfering with plane signals
An American engineer who used a GPS âjammerâ in a bid to dupe his bosses has been fined $32,000 (ÂŁ20,600) after the device interfered with plane signals.
An event like this would be a major inconvenience if a destroyer collided with a N. Korean vessel during the upcoming sea exercisesâŚ
âGee Ensign Pulver, too bad you left bridge watch to pee, now look what you started, a damned nuclear war!!â
Could be China. These are sea lanes approaching the South China Sea, and the Chinese objected just last week or so to the McCain being too near their manmade islands, on the mission from which it was now returning.
on the mission from which it was now being towed from
FIFY
And even if our warships arenât susceptible to this kind of spoofing, every other ship in that busy area is.
GPS or no GPS, sailors are taught incredibly esoteric and difficult skills like navigation and âLOOK! ANOTHER SHIP!â
I was willing to give the Navy the benefit of the doubt in the initial hours after the Fitzgerald incident, but this⌠the hell is going on over in PACFLEET?
It might be interesting if these guyâs smartphones were confiscated and it was ascertained exactly what function, if any, was being performed at the moment of impact.
They should also be looking at readiness and training procedures in Destroyer Squadron 15, at the very least, if not all of TF70, CSG5, and the 7th Fleet⌠but Iâm sure theyâre going to be doing that.