The Gun Counter

The real question is why they dropped it in the first place.

JustinR wrote:The real question is why they dropped it in the first place.

The failure of enough imagination to ever consider the possibility that the US will ever be challenged for technical superiority.

The assumption that since the GPS sats have been out of range of ASAT weapons until the present, they will always remain so.

Cutting training expenses so that savings can be applied to more "relevant" courses of study.

In short, stupidity.

Just guessing, but I'd be surprised if any of the official reasons didn't add up to the same answer.

I think that I was in the first class to not do it. Of course, I had a French exchange officer as my instructor and couldn't understand a damn word he said.

Maybe that's why I got a C.

Vonz, are they doing any land nav as part of nav class? We didn't, but I know that earlier classes did.

I suspect the decision had as much to do with only being able to cram just so much into 4 years as it did with cost savings. I'm guessing that some of the finer points of fighting under sail get glossed over these days, as well.

randy wrote: The assumption that since the GPS sats have been out of range of ASAT weapons until the present, they will always remain so.

If we can put them in orbit, can't someone else put something in orbit that will bugger them up?

Jered wrote:

randy wrote: The assumption that since the GPS sats have been out of range of ASAT weapons until the present, they will always remain so.

If we can put them in orbit, can't someone else put something in orbit that will bugger them up?

When they were first put up, my understanding is that the GPS birds were in a high enough orbit to be considered beyond the range of then existing or proposed ASAT weapons. Recent "accidents" with Chinese "satellites" give some suspicion that is no longer the case.

Glad it's back. I (never served) am learning how to use a navigation board for relative motion for some naval wargaming I do, and I have one of the better models of plastic Davis sextants. I want to learn how to use that better.

JAG2955 wrote:I think that I was in the first class to not do it. Of course, I had a French exchange officer as my instructor and couldn't understand a damn word he said.

Maybe that's why I got a C.

Vonz, are they doing any land nav as part of nav class? We didn't, but I know that earlier classes did.

Not sure. We did not do any land nav but did do celestial.

My boy is a Youngster so he is doing piloting this year and won't do celestial until next year. He said the new Sup was apparently pushing to bring it back from day one.

Since you have to know it (at least somewhat get your SWO pin, I don't know why they took it out.

BTW - some classmates of mine had an Italian instructor and had the same trouble, but I think that was for piloting.

BTW2 - It the leadership department, but there was an Argentinian SEAL equivalent officer and a Royal Marine officer who both fought in the Falklands and in fact the Royal Marine had shot and taken the Argentinian prisoner. That had to be awkward in the staff meetings.

My last ship, USS Quapaw (ATF-110), had three distinct electronic navigation systems; OMEGA, Loran C, and SATNAV (an early version of GPS). We set out from Port Hueneme bound for Pearl Harbor for fire-fighting training.
Loran C stopped working after we got out of sight of land ... After a week the SATNAV faulted

My experience with all those gadgets has often been that they (a) fail once out of sight of landmarks and/or (b) fail in fog. In addition, depth sounders invariably fail when negotiating shallows. Murphy's law.