Yep. On the F-15 we had a rudder limiter that was a physical peg that would pop out behind the rudder that would prevent more than half rudder deflection when you were over 1.5 Mach. Anyone jamming on a rudder at those speeds deserves the flaming ball of supersonic debris they will get, but it was there.

Given the seemingly unnecessary rudder limiter, it is shocking that a warship would not have a similar feature on such a critical system.

On second thought, maybe its not shocking since when I was a functional test flight pilot the Air Force test procedure for that rudder limiter was to go faster than 1.5 mach, and push on the rudder until you feel the peg stop it

God bless those who lost their lives and their families. I hope they get to the bottom of this asap.

A hacked GPS isn't going to change the radar picture, and besides GPS failures/inaccuracy are not unusual as well as things every good mariner needs to be prepared for.

I read his response as more acknowledging the media has been bringing the issue up, and clarifying it will be one of the potential factors considered while making it clear he doesn't consider it likely.

So we are now learning there was a steering failure just before the collision?

I made several posts requesting people refrain from speculation for this exact reason.

Is everyone who immediately blamed the crew going to come back in this thread and apologize?

Whoops -I didn't read the next page of the thread (this one).

At speed steering by twin screwing is almost completely ineffective. I'm not familiar with those particular ships but the props may actually turn in the same direction as compared to a traditional set up which would be counter rotating. That would make maneuvering by use of the engines even less effective. Plus if the rudder was stuck at an angle more than just a few degrees it would be pretty useless if the ship was traveling at more than a couple of knots.

Is Mueller going to investigate possible hacking?  There seems to be equal evidence for that as with Trump and Russia.

None, but what stopped him before?

Prayers for the sailors and families.

So it was a malfunction?

Prayers to the sailors and their families.


I'm not up on all the gear a modern DDG has but does it have some sort of collision detection or avoidance system?

I imagine sleeping in DDG berths is unsettling now.

My wife said the cargo ships are running into US Naval vessels on purpose.

That was my gut feeling when I heard about this but the facts so far just show a series of accidents. Fitzgerald/Crystal was a freak collision allowed by humor error. McCain is tentatively looking to be a mechanical failure that veered the ship in front of rush hour traffic.

People are still going to get fired.

There was some statistic about commercial ships being sunk, but what about collisions? Are they fairly common? Are they usually of a nature such that there is minor damage and little chance of personal injury?

Clearly either China or Russia have a secret weapon than not only jams our radar, but also jams our weapon guidance system.


We are in deep shit if this is the case, all our battle groups are vulnerable.


Terrorist ran planes into buildings, now they are running frigates into naval ships

@H46Driver

For this civilian's education, what does "battle of Norfolk" mean?  Is it increasing demands from higher headquarters being levied at the expense of basic skills?

In any case, God bless the lost sailors, their families and their shipmates.

You clearly can't read.

Battle of Norfolk = the process of keeping ship's material condition satisfactory to go to sea.  Paint/corrosion, electrical equipment, preventative/planned maintenance, casualty maintenance repair, etc.  It's a huge burden, magnified by the practice of 'optimal manning' i.e. do the same work with fewer people, only as the ship gets older, it's not the same work; it's more work.

While that concept applies to equipment operated by all of the services, the magnitude of that impact is far greater on ships than planes, trucks, etc because 1) they are constantly immersed in a highly corrosive environmet and 2) people live on them 24-7-365.  You don't just get to turn them off, put them in the hangar, and go to work on them for a few days/weeks.

Correct.

It happens pretty frequently, almost always in crowded areas with limited room to maneuver. They vary from rubbing paint and denting hull plating to major damage and fatalities.  Even then, a little bump can cause serious damage when you are talking about tens of thousands of tons colliding.

With warships, you are much more likely to have fatalities and serious injuries because of the amount of people on board and where they live/work compared to a commercial ship that is mostly cargo space with very small crews.  Your average 500ft commercial vessel will have anywhere from 15-30 people, most of them in the superstructure.  Your average 500ft warship will have 260+ spread throughout the ships.  Berthing areas tend to be low in the ship as well.

ETA: fishing boats get smoked by deep drafts almost constantly.  Collisions between large vessels happen less than that, but they do happen.

Here, same area, almost the same strike too. This is why you don't cross in front of ships.

For the crowd - when a ship is operating in a higher risk navigation environment, like entering/departing port, maneuvering through waters with limited navigational options, or conducting UNREP/Flight Ops etc, it energizes equipment and mans positions to provide multiple redundancies for steering and electric power.

It's still possible to draw the short stick and have a failure occur at the worst possible time, leaving no options to avoid a collision, but prudent seamanship means that you take action to minimize your time in scenarios where you have no options if something fails, whenever possible.  FWIW, ships have had steering casualties while UNREPing and avoided collision.  Maybe the JSM experienced some sort of cascading or massive, multiple, simultaneous equipment failure previously unseen.  The investigation will tell us if that is the case or if procedural error and failure to execute emergency procedures was the problem.

Out of curiosity, could the larger black ship have avoided impact had they began to slow down much sooner?  I have no idea how long it takes for a ship that large to begin slowing down, just wondering.  

I'm not saying the large black ship is at fault, just wondering if they had the ability to avoid the collision.

That video is short, and only starts monents before impact, which is great for those of us with short attention spans, but not useful in analyzing this incident.

That right there is a great example of the shit sandwich that's very easy to happen in crowded areas.

IIRC, the Beks Halil was overtaking the other ship, got way too close, and the water being displaced by the Beks Halil forced the stern of the smaller ship to starboard (which would push the bow to port)

The Beks Halil can't turn to port, they are in a head on situation with another ship.  The smaller ship can't turn too hard to starboard, thier stern can get sucked in to the Beks Halil.  Ultimately they decided to do (almost) nothing and they took the hit.  The smaller ship could have tried a very (very) shallow turn to starboard, but that could put them in front of the ship the video is being taken from.

Sounds like upper management CYA mode. Blame the ''hidden Russian'' instead of looking at themselves.

Occam's Razor and all that.......

My initial reaction is, "GOOD!"

Would your experience contradict my lack thereof?

In 50 years, there has not been a similar type of destroy/merchant collision; and now there are two within a month by the same 7th fleet in the same side of the world. Now, a total of five collisions in one year.

Something is broken.

Uhhh, no.

GD never fails.

Thank you for your insights.

It's MUCH sooner. A ship like that takes miles to come to a stop.

I never said a genius designed it. It took about 4 times happening before our D.C.'s fabricated a plate to cover it that you had to push your finger behind to turn steering pumps off.

Regarding our hard over loss of steering. That was a system with 3 sumps, one for port and starboard pumps, and a center reservoir. They were separated by baffles. Hydraulic fluid could migrate from sump to sump. We were running on a single turbine at the time so the torque was heeling us over a LOT. 18,000 hp from a FT4A (J75) will do that. The bridge had selected the opposite side steering pump because we run odd numbered machinery on odd days and even on even. In a perfect storm of events, we continually rolled to one side, and the hydraulic fluid migrated sumps away from the steering pump that was online. It ran dry, and being an axial piston pump decided that was a good reason to commit suicide. Upon loss of all hydraulic pressure on either side of the pump (swash plate controlled steering commands) the rudders were free to flop over hard 35. And they did. For the Lulz. I had just finished bolting a 500 pound filter housing in place when it happened. I hit the bulkhead. The filter housing would have gone through the bulk head.  In a situation like that it's possible that switching pumps would have corrected the situation. But at the same time it could've been caused by a system not being in tact. If the throttleman and boatswain mate of the watch Ran to aft steering to engage the trick wheel while the damaged pump was still selected, they would not have been able to regain steering. Only switching to the other pump would have regained steering.  If there was a "system not intact" and we had lost all hydraulic fluid then even switching to the trick wheel or manual local steering would have had no effect and the ship would have been dead in the water until we could refill the steering system from the engine room's hydraulic fluid reservoir... with 5 gallon buckets.

Like I said before, I have never set foot on a DDG so I don't know the plant configuration. But a lot of people are asking how this could happen to a turbine powered ship with 2 steering pumps. I'll tell you. Run a set of BECCE's or go through TSTA and you'll find out how close you are to not coming home.

Not "almost" but it is "completely." This isn't docking or open ocean traveling with the rudder locked at zero. When the rudder decided to go play wheel of fortune, you hang on for the ride and hope you can slow down... preferably not in the path of another ship.

I appreciate the statement, but unlike the Fitzgerald, it seems that some sailors were lost out to sea. At least with the Fitz, they were all still onboard and Navy divers made quick recovery of their remains to lay them to rest. Hope the remaining missing are found soon.

Almost any warship or cutter has berthing at or below the waterline. My berthing area and my A-gang shop had the waterline marked on the interior bulk head. It puts a lot into perspective now. Like how much I had really placed in the hands of the frat boy JO's on 00-04's or 04-08's.

C'mon, you know it's The Russians™

I suspect our operation systems are being hacked.  Two destroyers crippled within a short period of time suggests something f*cky is happening.

No.

Incompetence in one, possible steering causality in the other.

The USS Antitem ran aground earlier this year off the coast of Japan, the USS Guardian ran aground on a marked reef off the Philippines a few years back and was a total loss, the USS Porter had a collision with a VLCC in the Persian Gulf a few years back as well. It's not something fucky. It's poor training, poor watchkeeping, and poor seamanship. I'm sure exhaustion and a high operating tempo has not helped either.

Posting a graphic of the same statement doesn't make it less wrong.

As was just mentioned, USS Porter, 2012. Gee, that was only going back 5 years, not 50.

The desire of humans to see conspiracy behind random events is exceeded only by their desire to believe in non-corporeal beings.

IIRC, the minesweeper was running the required electronic charts, which had the seamount in the wrong location. Epic fuckup, not a conspiracy.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2017/08/22/head-navys-7th-fleet-to-be-relieved-duty-after-second-deadly-mishap-in-pacific.html

They're firing admirals now.

Does this mean the curfew is gone?

Sucks.

I get it, but it still sucks.

They were using the wrong scale on their ECDIS display. But again that MK1 eyeball of the lookout saw breakers on the reef and the correct light.

Yep.  Even in the private sector, leadership at that level comes with a lot of responsibility and accountability.   Look at the recent VW scandal as an example of some execs that probably didn't have direct knowledge of the issues (some did though) found themselves on the hot seat because folks in their organization screwed up really bad.

I'm sure the individual involved by every other account has an impeccable record (hence even achieving that rank) but he probably fully accepts that a certain level of accountability to the results of his command knowing that ultimately he is responsible for putting in place the right organization and leadership structure to run the rest of the organization.

If this is found to be incompetence, neglect, or even wilful negligence at some lower level, it still is on his shoulders to build a team and culture that calls that out well before things like this happen.

KennyW1983 - I hope you're right.  It would be very disturbing if something was f*cking with our ships.  We're not at war and the risk of losing lifes is too great.  Besides, it's expensive as f*ck to fix ships.