The Gun Counter

Reports are coming in that the USS John S. McCain (DDG-56) was involved in a collision with a 30,000-ton oil tanker near the Malacca Straits. The McCain sustained damage to the port quarter, according to media reports, and five sailors are reported injured, 10 missing (SAR underway, and I'm praying for them).

I suspect heads are about to roll at DESRON 15.

I don't believe in coincidences; somethings going on...

Its not like you're supposed to be able to sneak up on a Navy Warship. There are overlapping levels of protection that are supposed to make this very difficult. The last line in these defenses are the watchstanders. There is supposed to be, at a minimum, a port and starboard bridgewing and an aft lookout. An actual person with eyes on the surrounding area. You spend an hour out there with absolutely nothing to do, so you might as well look for stuff. Backing them up are supposed to be numerous assets radiating on the mast. The OS's are supposed to be keeping track of this shit anyway. There's a big board on the bridge where deck watches and the OS's in CIC coordinate surface contacts and update every 15 minutes or so. A major part of this update is track #, bearing, and range of surface contacts. Is the entire CIC and bridge watch asleep? The would be an OOD, a BMOW, helm, lee helm (this may be redundant by now), messenger, JL Board (cant remember what JL stood for...), two bridgewing watches, and a fantail watch in addition to a CIC officer, at least one OS and likely one EW, if not actually more people. That's at least 12 people who are supposed to be knowing what is going on with regard to surface traffic. If the bridge is all asleep who is the EOOW communicating with? I'd think the entire engineroom watch team would notice nobody answering the phones on the bridge. I'd think if contact was lost, the engineroom Messenger would be dispatched to go see what's up.

This likely argues for something untoward going on, but dammit, this isn't supposed to happen just out there steaming around. Even in the dark.

Stow the tin foil talk for now. Way too early for that.

Straits of Malacca. Nuff said. If you've passed through there, even once, that's enough to sober a rush to judgement and speculation.

Busiest sealane in the world. Words just don't do the visuals justice.

The Fox story made a brief mention of someone saying young officers don't get the level of training that they used to get. And also mentioned 2 cruisers that of late one ran aground and spilled 1000 gallons fuel and another hit a South Korean fishing boat.

blackeagle603 wrote:Stow the tin foil talk for now. Way too early for that.

Straits of Malacca. Nuff said. If you've passed through there, even once, that's enough to sober a rush to judgement and speculation.

Busiest sealane in the world. Words just don't do the visuals justice.

I'm way more what's happening that's causing this than tinfoil.

Mod's comment of work schedule on CG and DDG platforms in 7th Fleet is pretty illuminating. Even on the 4-8's we only worked about 80-100 hours per week. This lady's schedule made mine seem like a Caribbean vacation.

That comment of mine was direct in particular at you Steamforger. It was more a general comment over the din in enlisted berthing.

There may well be something nefarious going on. But, when in New York one hears hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras.

This may just be the accumulation of years of decline in standards and training. Let's get the remains out of dogged & damaged spaces, get them buried with honors they deserve, get the logs and investigation details all reviewed and _then_ let's see if there's been any Zebras on Broadway.

Lots of Nav blogs and commenters going at it. This is one keeps it sane.Lazarus comment at the top is particularly germaine IMHO.

Lazarus • a day ago
Surface warfare training has been crippled and reduced since the 1990's. Closing SWOSDOC was foolish and as done as a cost saving measure. The surface Navy must re-establish a professional officer training program that eschews simulators and computers in favor of real shipboard and classroom training.

In other news, spent good part of that afternoon walking (and paddling) down memory lane at the old San Dog NTC/RTC. Now repurposed and rebranded as "Liberty Station." Thank you very much Dan Rostenkowski and BRAC.

Wife and I took the afternoon off and had a paddleboard date. Put in at the ramp at the back end of the boat channel where Special Services boat rentals used to be -- right across from the MCRD marina. Near where the old pistol range building was I think. While I walked past Preble Field (and had liberty run and graduation day flashback), she paddled down about to the bridge from Camp Nimitz at the USS Neversail. I met her there and paddled back into the wind while she walked back and explored some of the park that's built along the channel now. Brought on a bit of the melancholies it did. Paddling past what remains of Camp Nimitz, the R&O building, my first barracks (Division 8), trying to remember what it all looked like back then before they removed a lot of the buildings.

Fish rots from the head down?

SEAMANSHIP AND LEADERSHIP
CIRCLES IN SURFACE WARFARE TRAINING
APRIL 6, 2016 STEVEN WILLS 1 COMMENT
By Steve Wills

Surface fleet leadership engaged in a number of innovation attempts beginning in the 1970s and culminating with the commissioning of the Basic and Advanced Division Officer Courses (BDOC) program in 2012. Nevertheless, not all of these attempts were well-thought out. One of these missteps was the high profile closing of the Surface Warfare Officer School Division Officers Course (SWOSDOC) in 2003. This change appears to have come from a misguided desire to decrease personnel costs, improve the flow of officers from commissioning source to the fleet, improve retention of Surface Warfare officers, and appear to innovate within the zeitgeist of the “transformation” movement of the early and mid 2000’s. . .

RTWT

Official word at this point now is the McCain lost steerage.

Point of impact looks like a very low speed 90 deg hit abeam from bulbous bow of the tanker. Like it was backing down and allllmost pulled it off in time.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/08/21/politics/ ... 39AMVODtop