OT: Update on Collision

[Anachro]

The Navy is already talking about ending naval air defense duties and shifting responsibility primarily to land units. That in and of itself would remove a large operational burden which, combined with increased ship numbers, would theoretically allow more time for training. Currently there are too many missions and too few ships. Given the modern state of our military industrial complex, ship counts will only move up slowly if at all however.

[RangerJoe]

But ships and crews serving other areas don't seem to be having those problems as those in the Western Pacific. I have had intense training with little or no sleep. Part of it is par for the job but it seems to be extreme here. 100 hour plus work weeks? Four to nine hours as OOD besides their regular jobs? Important billets not filled for two years?

Also, if the necessary and important equipment was not working correctly on the Fitzgerald, why was it even allowed out of port? When I was a maintenance clerk in the Army, I would not let vehicles be dispatched if they were unsafe or not working properly - I let the commander dispatch them if he wanted them in the field.

In Lt Coppocks case where she pled guilty:

Coppock said she didn’t rely enough on the officers on watch in the ship’s combat information center (CIC) to help keep track of the surface contacts as a back up to her crew on the bridge. Prosecutors and defense attorneys that the conditions aboard Fitzgerald made the collision more likely.

“Coppock failed in her duties, but she received very little support,” prosecutor Lt. Cmdr. Paul Hochmuth argued during the sentencing portion of the trial.
“Being complacent was the standard on USS Fitzgerald.”

During the sentencing portion of the trial, lawyers for the defense outlined the gapped billets and inability to complete training on Fitzgerald. For example, the ship had been without a chief quartermaster for two years before the collision, and the SPS-73 navigation radar was unreliable, defense attorney Lt. Ryan Mooney said, quoting from the Navy’s investigation into the collision. The watch stander in the CIC who operated the SPS-67 search and surveillance radar was unfamiliar with the system.

https://news.usni.org/2018/05/08/former ... more-33476

Note: Edited to include the missing link!

[JohnDillworth]

In rereading the report I feel the Navy failed their own people those nights. So many mistakes were made but I don't believe for a second that these were just "bad nights". On both ships it seems that chaos was standard operating procedure. I think we are fortunate that worse didn't happen. I expect some of the problems not mentioned might be longer tours at sea and an increased operational pace for the Navy in general. The only encouraging thing is that the Navy was able to produce a report like this even though it cast them in a terrible light. Step 1 is admitting you have a problem. The fleet is now under new management and this report is a blueprint of what needs to be done better.

[RangerJoe]

I agree. The proper tools and equipment to do the job, the right personnel and the time and effort to put it all together into a useful weapon system instead of one just there, appearing to be useful but is broken.

[Hermit]

I will speak from personal experience. I was in the naval aviation program during 1987, and personally saw women pilots-in-training passed through under lesser standards than male pilots. I had good flight grades, but failed my carrier quals and was washed out of the program. A female student pilot with less grades than mine was allowed to transfer to the P-3 pipeline. I'll be the first to admit that monthly demands of the service played a factor. For instance, a student pilot who landed a T-2 with gear up was allowed to progress since there was a shortage that month, but a few months later, a student pilot who did not maintain the current average grades was released. Both of them were male, by the way.
And as for collisions, I was on the bridge of the USS South Carolina (CGN-37, the ship I was assigned to after washing out of the flight program) when it hit the Manongahela at a pier in Norfolk in 1990, on our way to Desert Shield. All male crew... go figure. In my opinion, it was the captain's direct fault for giving maneuver commands in the middle of the departure, and intimidating the junior officers who were then afraid to correct him. Capt. Anthony "2-knot Tony" Mitchell was relieved of command after they got back from deployment. Of course, it didn't help that he had run his previous command (USS Ramsey) into a bridge pier.

[MuguNiner]

This is not the first time in history that this sort of thing has happened. Here is a good read. Lots of incompetent officers that got rank for no good reason and didn't like to talk to one another... And they were men! [X(] And in the end it was bloody carnage!

[RangerJoe]

But as I liked to tell someone:

They took the guns.

[Orm]

ORIGINAL: RangerJoe

But as I liked to tell someone:

They took the guns.

Didn't they have to abandon them as soon as they took them?

[RangerJoe]

Yes they did abandon them. They also weren't followed by the Heavy Brigade neither did the Heavy Brigade take the guns on the right flank. The French cavalry did take the guns on the left flank.

The 670 men of the Light Brigade charged through about 5200 Russians putting many to flight.

[Zorch]

ORIGINAL: RangerJoe

Yes they did abandon them. They also weren't followed by the Heavy Brigade neither did the Heavy Brigade take the guns on the right flank. The French cavalry did take the guns on the left flank.

The 670 men of the Light Brigade charged through about 5200 Russians putting many to flight.

The reason for the Light Brigade's charge was to cover the retirement of the Heavy Brigade after their successful charge. But Someone Had Blundered.

[RangerJoe]

The light brigade was supposed to recapture the ground where some Turkish guns had been lost to the Russians. The idea was to either kill the Russians or make them flee, leaving the guns. The orders were verbal and not written. Since the officer who brought the orders died almost immediately, it is difficult to ascertain exactly what happened.

[Lokasenna]

ORIGINAL: Zorch

ORIGINAL: RangerJoe

Yes they did abandon them. They also weren't followed by the Heavy Brigade neither did the Heavy Brigade take the guns on the right flank. The French cavalry did take the guns on the left flank.

The 670 men of the Light Brigade charged through about 5200 Russians putting many to flight.

The reason for the Light Brigade's charge was to cover the retirement of the Heavy Brigade after their successful charge. But Someone Had Blundered.

The reason for the Light Brigade's charge was.... testosterone and folly.

I highly recommend this podcast episode on the topic:
http://ourfakehistory.com/index.php/sea ... t-brigade/

Actually, I recommend that podcast in general.