Something is wrong with your bloody ships.

www.660news.com...

The title is a homage to Admiral Beatty, but it is fitting.
What gives? How is another modern warship unable to steer clear of an oil tanker?
this is the second one in a couple of months.

I'm sure the technology is fine, you yanks can make a bomb that will fly through a letter box, so I am sure you can make a decent surface tracking radar.

That leaves training. What is going on with your commanders? Has there been a degrading in the standards of your officers?
Maybe the USN needs a perisher type course for commanders?

a reply to: SprocketUK

If it is anything it is because crazy maneuvers are no longer necessary and part of what they expect to face..

The US navy could squash ALL the rest of the worlds navy's in an afternoon..

originally posted by: JoshuaCox
a reply to: SprocketUK

If it is anything it is because crazy maneuvers are no longer necessary and part of what they expect to face..

The US navy could squash ALL the rest of the worlds navy's in an afternoon..

It isn't about how many nukes you got, nor how many planes you can launch from all those carriers.

How is it that a modern warship seems unable to manoeuvre out of the way of a lumbering oil tanker?
Or did the person on watch simply not see it and realise the track was going to cross?

This is awful seamanship and, it makes me worry about whether the command would be able to actually fight their ship in a shooting war. You can have the most and the best ships, but if the people in charge of them aren't up to the job, you will just have a series of new reefs after meeting an average force.

I find this really worrying, and it isn't a dig at the US. There must be a real reason somewhere for this.

Dude, you riding on the wrong side of the road....

I think there is something afoot with these Tankers intentionally causing these

a reply to: SprocketUK

No other countries even have a navy that could give the US a shooting war..

The US has a bigger more advanced navy than everyone else combined..

Mainly because the concept of a navy is almost obsolete and only the US has a military industrial complex spending money on out dated tech.

I think Iran has spoofed all their GPS.

Just wait till they launch a Tomahawk, it might find the Whitehouse letterbox!

Wasn't some poor trump supporter sent the wrong way down a one way street by their Sat Nav last week killing a hippy?

originally posted by: Plotus
Dude, you riding on the wrong side of the road....

I think there is something afoot with these Tankers intentionally causing these

Kinda worrying if some slow tanker can hole a fast destroyer or frigate though...

originally posted by: JoshuaCox
a reply to: SprocketUK



No other countries even have a navy that could give the US a shooting war..



The US has a bigger more advanced navy than everyone else combined..



Mainly because the concept of a navy is almost obsolete and only the US has a military industrial complex spending money on out dated tech.

Hubris is often the cause of a great defeat.
A bunch of savages could never stand against a modern army, but time and again they do, from Yorktown, through Isandlewhana, Little Big Horn, Afghanistan and many others.

Whether the US navy can splat any other navy is moot if they can't steer clear of errant cargo ships.

a reply to: Forensick

Starred for the LOLZ

originally posted by: Plotus
Dude, you riding on the wrong side of the road....

I think there is something afoot with these Tankers intentionally causing these

You really think a 250,000 ton tanker is going to try and get out of the way of a ship weighing 3,000 tons ? really ?

there's another possibility, someone might have found a way to temporarily kill the systems on board? did this ship pass them at close range just to turn around and come back and ram them?

a reply to: JoshuaCox

By bumping into it randomly, 10 missing.

War 1 : Humanity 0

Human Stupity 1 : Random Happenstance : 1[

a reply to: SprocketUK

USS John S. McCain

That's all I needed to read. That ship is cursed with the name of a fool.

a reply to: SprocketUK

Yea because it always goes well for the less advanced civilization, lol..


It's a numbers and tech game..

Britain has like 4 battle ships, France 3, Russia 12 and the US 150...


There were more efficient ways to defend the oceans.. they are called planes lol..

So I mean that as a complement to them lol..

a reply to: FauxMulder

Your trump and savior said bash him, so all you faithful better get on it...

Perhaps the US Navy is seeking a way to justify the inclusion of more autonomous ships?

No crew, no crashes.

No crew, cheaper ships.

Cheaper ships, more ships.

More ships are better for the Navy (and the officers in the Navy).

Got to go re-fold my tinfoil hat.

originally posted by: JoshuaCox
a reply to: SprocketUK

Yea because it always goes well for the less advanced civilization, lol..


It's a numbers and tech game..

Britain has like 4 battle ships, France 3, Russia 12 and the US 150...


There were more efficient ways to defend the oceans.. they are called planes lol..

So I mean that as a complement to them lol..

I totally agree re how the wars played out, that doesn't disguise the harm done by them initially though. It would be a dark day for the USN to lose a couple of ships in an engagement and, if these two collisions are a result of poor skill, or poor leadership, then it's something that is a dangerous prospect.
That's why I asked, as I said in the OP, it isn't going to be a tech issue, at least I don't think so....So what is going on? It's not about who has the biggest boats, or the most, how many ships might be lost that would otherwise be fine under better command?
Battleships? Got a source for that?
I ask because battleships only exist as museum pieces these days.

The captain was testing the rum stores onboard .

a reply to: SprocketUK

When seeing the news yesterday about the McCain collision, your thread title was the first thing that popped into my mind....after my very first thought which was:

WTF???

Having had a career in the US Navy, this many collisions and mishaps with our ships in such a short period is flabbergasting, worrisome and just out right scary.

During my time in the 1980s and 1990s, things like this were pretty much unheard of, or were very isolated incidents with many years apart. Running aground was always a danger, but there were ways to keep that from happening, still, it could happen (areas where sand bars shift).

Collisions on the other hand.....there's a very good reason why you keep your ship away from other craft on the water: it doesn't stop on a dime, nor does it turn on one, and neither does theirs.

There are plenty of times when your ships will be very close to each other: operational formations and replenishment at sea, both of which require precision timing, excellent training, and are still dangerous as hell, but can be done just fine, IF all the rules and procedures are followed.

After this 4th incident in such a very short time period, I'm thinking something I was worried about from several years ago is now coming true: lack of training has come back to bite the US Navy in the ass.

Many years ago, the US Navy decided to do cuts with it's training. When I read about this, my first thought was: Oh that's going to come back to haunt them.

You see, there are several reasons why we have the best military in the world, and it's not just because we spend so much money on it, but also how it's set up and used:

All volunteer force.
Pay your people well.
Lots of maintenance on the equipment.
High tech available to them.
Training.....Training.....Training......TRAINING!

During my time in the Navy and the 3 ships I served on, Training was all. Training ruled, and failure to train was dealt with harshly.

You were constantly doing drills and training. Didn't mater if you were tied up in port, at anchor or out to sea underway. And we trained for more than just what equipment we worked on. We had to train for other areas of the ship too:

Damage control.
Fire fighting (pretty much trained to fight any kind of fire known to man).
Sea and Anchor details (pulling into port, anchoring, tying up to the pier).
Underway replenishment (either via helicopter or by pulling up along side another ship).
Engineering Casualty drills.
Detect To Engage drills.
Security drills.

The list goes on and on.

I'm starting to think that there isn't a problem with our ships.....they are very advanced pieces of technology.....but there IS a problem with our sailors: From Seaman Recruit Ricky to Captain Ahab and that problem is: LACK OF TRAINING.

I'm not going to say that a collision is impossible. There are circumstances that can lead to one. But what normally leads to it would have to be a very set state of circumstances.

More often than not what leads to collisions is a lack of training, understanding and not following procedures that are there for a reason (and they have them from hard lessons learned in the past).

I don't know what is going on here with so many collisions in such a short time period, but if it's what I suspect, the US Navy better get it's head out of it's rear end and get back to doing what we used to do when I was in: Train and Drill the hell out of our sailors....it's what made us so good at our jobs back then.

originally posted by: SprocketUK
www.660news.com...

The title is a homage to Admiral Beatty, but it is fitting.
What gives? How is another modern warship unable to steer clear of an oil tanker?
this is the second one in a couple of months.

I'm sure the technology is fine, you yanks can make a bomb that will fly through a letter box, so I am sure you can make a decent surface tracking radar.

That leaves training. What is going on with your commanders? Has there been a degrading in the standards of your officers?
Maybe the USN needs a perisher type course for commanders?

I think whoever is steering is blind drunk personally.

a reply to: JoshuaCox

Britain has like 4 battle ships, France 3, Russia 12 and the US 150...

You need to get into the modern world.

Navies don't use Battleships anymore.