I’m well aware of “If it’s grey, stay away” but these three incidents show a complete loss of situational awareness, not basic arrogance. Is it even possible to hack, jam or spoof GPS? Well, yes it is. (Made in China).
Is it possible to confuse the shit out of a Navee ship? Maybe.
Listening to the Porter audio gps/ais failure would explain the OOD’s statement “I have a green light, port aspect on this guy” if their electronics were working I would expect a range, bearing and Cpa.
US Navy GPS is an encrypted signal so it’s very unlikely that it was spoofed. Someone could block/jam it but I doubt that is the case as it would be very obvious to investigators.
Yes, but probably only the commercial unencrypted GPS signals, not the encrypted, more precise .mil signals. “GPS” is a satellite nav system provided by the US gov’t, primarily for military use. Also, note that if GPS is spoofed in some area, all nearby ships will be affected.
Is it possible to confuse the shit out of a Navee ship?
Some would say that is the natural state of a USN ship’s bridge.
Honestly this sounds like the Navy blowing smoke, if it were an actual suspected cause the Navy should/would be too embarrassed to admit such a vulnerability, plus “it’s classified for security reasons”, etc.
GPS spoofing is possible. All big powers as Russia, China and the US can do this, gradually taking over the system but only in a certain area. However, all ships in such an area are affected, not just one. So it will be immediately evident that spoofing is taking place.
Agreed on the eyeballs, but as anyone who has lost all e-nav at night in confined waters with multiple crossing situations can tell you, it takes a few minutes to switch over to eyeball and paper nav.
M-channel encrypted GPS is on a separate frequency, looks like someone could jam only the Military encrypted channel, the merchant wouldn’t notice.
Maybe a state actor with its own GPS system and a habit of hacking U.S. things.
All big powers as Russia, China and the US can do this,
Of course they can, and some nations can possibly spoof the encrypted signals. But, it’s not just nations who have this capability. As for regular GPS signals, you need about $1000. USD worth of hardware and some free software. Here is a tutorial:
Ditto that, assuming that somebody knew how to use them was on watch and not occupied with other duties. Most ARPA equipped radars have GPS input, but that is not required for the ARPA to perform (just make sure your doppler speed log is on). The GPS input might be related to an AIS feed or GPS input to the gyro for latitude and speed adjustments. Possibly it would be for an integrated navigation system (ECDIS & ARPA combined with the ability to have radar olverlay on your ECDIS). Another option is if an auto-track option was used on the auto-pilot (waypoint to waypoint route) as opposed to giving the auto-pilot a heading setpoint. Enough of a bump in the GPS position when in auto-track would cause a significant course change to reduce the cross-track error. Most of those potential issues except for a bad GPS speed corrupting your gyro heading would not come up unless some sort of automatic pilot was in use.
Tough, but doable, especially if there is more than a few people on the bridge. An unsteady course (something probable in the event of a gyro failure until you were steadied up on the standard compass) may lead to an inaccurate relative motion line and not indicate a risk of collision when there is one.
Good points, though they literally have several OS rates in CIC doing rapid plotting on moboards (supposedly) for many contacts.
Realistically with any kind of traffic around, even a dedicated team would have trouble plotting even a few contacts consistently, especially with a changing course.
“Hormuz transit … There was a conversation over the net between the bridge and the TAO about a possibly (sic) contact not under command in front of us. We avoided that contact, checked the radar and didn’t have much. SWS had a few hits on the radar but there was not a steady track on the contact. Over the net in heard the OOD say that we were coming up to flank speed to avoid the NUC contact. We went hard right, then hard left to avoid this contact. All of us in combat thought we were clear when we heard we were slowing to 5 knots. Not more than 30 seconds later the ship started coming through the wall. Combat had no warning at all that we were going to collide as we had no paint on this guy. It happened so quickly that there was no time to brace for shock or the collision alarm. It happened so fast. I will never forget that sound or the smell that went along with it.”
Gyro input loss all the the myriad of beeping alarms that it triggers on nearly every devise on the bridge are an enormous distraction and a real safety hazard.
With a small crew, the need to go to hand steering on magnetic compass and deal with the alarms, and still navigate, is a challenge.
