USS J McCain / Alnic MC collision near Singapore

It’s becoming obvious that Navy officers are well trained bureaucrats with ridiculously little seagoing training, skills, or experience.

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What I have always found strange is the difference in the Navy warfare officer communities. Aviators seem to take great pride and spend a lot of time perfecting their skills as pilots. Specwar officers officers seem to take great pride and spend a lot of time perfecting their skills as operators. Surface warefare officers seem to train to be quasi-shore based paper pushers who are forced to take sea billets to advance and dont seem to have too much interest in being a skilled seafarer. They do not, in fact, train to be skilled seafarers. Rather, they seem to train to be weapons/tactics officers who happen to also have to drive their weapons platform to the combat area as an auxilliary duty. They seek to achieve competency rather than mastery in navigation. This is simply my observations from working with and knowing several Naval officers. I cant speak for submariners as I havent known any.

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As UK MN Tech Super, I do not compute why a warship with all its sophistication, does not have the equivalent of ARPA which was introduced in the 80’s complete with CPA and all…

If you’re going to run a red light, your velocity v is inversely proportional to your odds of being involved in a collision, especially for very high values of v. Some conditions apply.

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I don’t disagree, but the environments are extremely different. Although the following is based on experience from long ago, I don’t believe it has changed much.

Newly commissioned Ensigns headed for aviation will spend about 18-24 months doing nothing but training. Their only responsibility is learning aviation and qualifying. A fresh Ensign headed for a ship gets some initial training, but he/she will still be a junior Ensign when they get to a ship. Once there, they will be assigned as a Division Officer, with responsibility for personnel, spaces on the ship, watchstanding, and progress towards SWO qual. The burden is heavy.

When I was a LT CHENG on a frigate, we had a LAMPS Det embarked. A LCDR OinC and three LT pilots. They had a CPO plus eight enlisted. During our six-month deployment, the three LTs each spent two months as Division Officer, Operations Officer, and Maintenance Officer - so all their tickets were punched at the end of the deployment. In other words, their primary role was flying and not much else burdened them.

While most ships are manned with approx 10% officers, the typical fighter squadron is close to 50-50. All the ships officers have a lot (too much) of other responsibility besides watch standing, while most of the aviators aren’t burdened with any responsibilities other than their primary role.

I am not trying to defend or damn either surface or aviation community. It’s just the way it was back then, and likely the same now.

I can’t comment on the other two communities you mentioned.

100,000 HP and you get hit by an oil tanker, I just can’t understand this.

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My heart goes out to the families of the missing sailors of the USS John McCain. My thoughts and prayers are with you. Thank you all, for your Service!

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This is a clear demonstration of the USN’s priorities.

That sounds correct and it’s a sad state of things.

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You only listed their shore duty assignments. So you won’t see much sea experience there. Do you have their at-sea assignments?

Navy Operational Support Center (NOSC) is the ‘new’ name for a Naval Reserve Center.

No, That’s all I found.

A previous poster only listed the shore duty assignments of the CO & XO. Here is a bit more info from the McCain’s Navy.mil web site and the sea duty assignments for the CO & XO:

CDR Alfredo Sanchez. CO. Previously XO of McCain from April 2015 to July 2016 when he took over as CO (Fitzgerald’s CO did the same: XO first and then CO. Typical for forward deployed ships). Two Department Head tours: USS Rentz (FFG-46) and USS Gettysburg (CG-64). Both as Chief Engineer (probably meaning very little bridge time). Two Division Officer tours: USS Enterprise (CVN-65) as Third Division Officer and USS Bunker Hill (CG 52) as Damage Control Assistant.

CDR Jess Sanchez, XO. Limited Duty Officer (Surface Ordnance). Enlisted billets onboard USS Belknap (CG-26) and USS Spruance (DD-963). Division Officer tours on USS Cowpens (CG-63) as System Test Officer and USS Halyburton (FFG-40) as Electronics Material Officer. Two Department Head tours on USS McCampbell (DDG-85) as Weapons Officer and then Combat Systems Officer.

Note: At-sea Division Officer tours are usually 3 years each and Department Heads tours are usually 1.5 years each. Dates weren’t listed on the web site.

Another interesting and irrelevant bit of info: Both are originally from Puerto Rico.

Source: http://www.public.navy.mil/surfor/ddg56/Pages/PastLeadership.aspx#.WZtqryiGNin

I heard this last night. I was rather shocked to hear it has happened again and the No of fatalities appears to be higher at 10.
10 families will never be the same again. Very Sad.
Why did it happen? To early to speculate. Generally speaking a collision requires a significant error by both ships. I doubt this would be any different. Right now just thinking about those who were lost.
Naval vessels have large crews and have to provide quarters for them somewhere. Some are bellow the waterline and vulnerable to flooding. Unavoidable I suppose

Mustang? I’d expect more out of a mustang than a ring knocker, and would expect a crew of officers that have it instilled to listen to the Chiefs if they say “Sir… you’re fucking up…”

Something bothers me. The area where those ship navigate are not war zones and there is no war going on there and still they keep their AIS turned off which can be very confusing for merchant ship who rely a lot on AIS for its quick acquisition of data and collision prevention (much faster than radar). Stopping acting like Rambo might help sometimes.

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Wow, they have less navigation/bridge experience than a junior 3rd mate. With all the sophisticated electronics on board they should just let the electronics take full control and operate the ship autonomously.

I suspect they’d be a lot less reluctant if everyone in the universe couldn’t pull AIS data off the web.

Yes a Mustang, but an ordnance expert, not a ship handler. Let’s face it, until we see the following at the start of a 2036 Hollywood blockbuster, things will continue:

On March 3 2019, the United States Navy established an elite school for the top one percent of its Surface Warfare Officers (SWO’s). It’s purpose was to teach the lost art of seamanship and to insure that the handful of graduates were the best sailors in the world.

They succeeded.

Today, the Navy calls it Seamanship Excellence School. The SWO’s call it:

TOP SAIL

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And it looks like they are getting one.

Not a problem so long as they seriously redefine “competent.”

While AIS is a very good tool, relying on it over plotting of radar returns (be it with ARPA or manual plotting) can lead an officer to an incorrect conclusion and possibly turn it in to a technology-assisted collision due to incorrect use of your tools. I for one don’t expect US warships to transmit AIS data and don’t assume lack of an AIS target indicates lack of a physical vessel.

Singapore is of course an area with high traffic density and I would expect small craft in the area that did not have AIS in use at all along with them being poor radar targets. As good as radar ‘can’ be, certainly this is not the place to be glued to the monitor, the view out the window might be quite enlightening.