USS J McCain / Alnic MC collision near Singapore

This article suggests that a lot more is going on than human error can explain alone. I found it helpful, perhaps you will, too. http://www.businessinsider.com/hacking-and-gps-spoofing-involved-in-navy-accidents-2017-8

There are basically always at least 2-4 people looking at the surface radar picture, one to two on the bridge, and one to two in CIC. Generally the OOD should be one of the ones on the bridge looking at it / using it to maintain SA.

If there are questions as to a radar return, then sonar could get involved, or sonar could be the initial gaining sensor and cue the bridge that a ship is around that maybe the radar hasn’t seen yet or doesn’t have a good return on.

GPS spoofing in the straights of malacca and only two vessels got into a knock up, one of them having the man power and the non GPS reliant technology to make sure they didn’t get into a collision.

Yes GPS’s can be spoofed, but no, this isn’t a Tom Clancy novel.

2 Likes

Perhaps. But when the Admiral quoted in the article says there are no indications of electronic intrusion but all options will be considered, perhaps not.

It is hard to admit mistakes and even harder to admit systemic break downs in procedure, but there is no fixing the problem if you are not willing to find the root cause. That is appearing more and more to be seamanship skills. GPS spoofing is a thing, but compasses and eyeballs are a little more difficult to fool. I think I’ll wait for the investigation report.

1 Like

The Navy doesn’t really go easy on itself, no matter how appealing that sounds. GPS Spoofing isn’t the only possibility, and electronic targeting can be very specific, so the fact that no other ships were affected isn’t sufficient to rule it out.

2 Likes

I do agree that the people quoted in the article are groping, but their suggestion shouldn’t be written off as fantasy out of hand. You might be surprised what can be done, I was - until I saw some of it first hand.

1 Like

all 3 ships i was on had keels laid before or during WWII. we had a 1950’s radar and a DRT table and 2 or 3 around the DRT, everything calc’d manual. The only input to the DRT was the pit log & compass. Nothing was in visual range that we couldn’t instantly respond to a query on the 1MC; range, bearing, course, speed, CPA and time to. Out in open water during a transit we had a skeleton crew in CIC for any incidental contact that popped up on the horizon… the radar’s horizon. On one, the radar op’s seat was the bowplanesman seat off a sub and CIC was the coldest space on the ship on those cruises into the South or Western Pacific.
A careful exam of the enlarged photos and the divers damage reports indicate the claimed angle as the DD actually floated up on the bulbous bow wave exposing the keel of the warship to damage not otherwise acquired if she’d been broadsided… If she’d been beam to the MM bridge would’ve seen the starboard in one case or the port in the latest case running light right in front of them. It you look at the theory of the extended bow, it creates the vessel’s bow wave around the full 360 degrees of the vertical plane unlike the knife edge with its two sides. I haven’t looked at this one but the first MM’s bow extension is 30ft creating a large enough of a distortion in the water’s surface for the DD to begin to float up it and list over on the lee side before actual contact is made, exposing the keel to more damage than you’d expect. Of course this is all conjecture on my part.

remember, the DoD does have access to the secure GPS… give me a 2 pound tin coffee can and I can defeat any covert GPS jammer on the planet and if you try to put a jammer in space it is exposed to god and everyone. and the gps antenna in the coffee can will still work adequately for ship nav.

1 Like

You mean 21MC (AKA “bitch box”). The 1MC is the ship’s announcing/public address system that goes to all spaces. And it is one-way.

2 Likes

That’s why it has to be something else, if it’s EW at all. That many incompetent seamen is equally unbelievable. I plan to wait until the investigation runs it all to ground before tossing sailors under the bus.

Here’s a little light reading…

http://www.dtic.mil/get-tr-doc/pdf?AD=ADA456656

There are vulnerabilities, and they know it.

http://www.insidegnss.com/node/5566

Here is a quote from the chief investigator of the Porter collision.

“Beyond seamanship, less tangible aspects from leadership to fatigue have been explored. Other lessons are beyond the scope of this discussion;”

What lessons could be beyond the scope of that investigation?

What’s beyond seamanship, leadership and fatigue?

Here’s a post by Mikey.

http://forum.gcaptain.com/u/Mikey

“We had no paint on this guy”

Buggy software? Crash, freeze, "Updates are ready for your CiC?

(I was making a perfect landing with a DDG’in the CMA simulator when’s the port cp controller stuck at back slow, tried walking her in but appearently those things don’t walk).

Operative words there are “On the planet”.

You would think it is inconceivable, but believe me, the navy is really shitty at driving ships.

They’re great at flying planes, and running nuke plants, but they have made ship driving not a primary profession of the people doing it. Plenty of people on the navy will agree with the statement.

Just since may I can think of three instances that happened to me personally where I interacted with naval vessels that seemingly had no idea what they were doing, who was around them, and what anyone else was doing.

You would think it is inconceivable, but believe me, the navy is really shitty at driving ships.

They’re great at flying planes, and running nuke plants, but they have made ship driving not a primary profession of the people doing it. Plenty of people on the navy will agree with the statement.

Depends on the ship of course, some of them have decent bridge teams, but on the whole I’d say you’re pretty accurate. The effect of not having dedicated bridge officers and having them all be general officers.

On my current ship, it would be a huge deal if something were around us and we caught it late. Just happened to us on the last underway(smallish fishing boat a few miles offshore, no lights on at midnight, no radar return. Only even knew it was there due to sonar and NVG).

1 Like

The effect of not having dedicated bridge officers and having them all be general officers.

This is the crux of the whole matter. You cannot treat a basic and life saving skill as navigation as a simple means of getting a ship from A to B and treat it as just another management tool. Navigation is an art and science that can only be mastered by long dedicated study and experience.

In heavy traffic sometimes it’s sometimes not a matter of vessels not being seen but rather a matter of prioritizing what is seen. A good AB/lookout will have some understanding of traffic situation and will report a vessel a second time if he thinks the mate has overlooked something.

On other hand some ABs just report every light they see without understanding, which if anything just adds to the workload. Some mates do the same thing with the ARPA, just reading off bearing/ranges/CPAs/TCPA without no appreciation of which ones need priority. In heavy traffic that is sometimes more of a distraction then a help.

2 Likes

This article in NYT is a few days old and probably read by many here: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/25/world/asia/navy-collision-uss-mccain-oil-tanker.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
It does bring up some of the same points about the danger when warships operate “secretively” in high traffic areas, but more interesting is the comments, which is not the skrill blaming of anybody, or speculating on hacking and foreign merchant ships being weapons of China/North Korea/Russia or any other “enemy” of US.

Latest from Today newspaper in Singapore: http://www.todayonline.com/singapore/us-navy-recovers-all-10-sailors-uss-john-s-mccain

Why it took so long to gain access when there are any number of drydocks within a few miles from Changi Naval Base is a mystery. With the vessel sitting on the blocks it should be no problem draining the flooded compartment and no danger of sinking or capsizing the vessel in the process.
More secrecy maybe??

yes, i believe 1MC ends up being the generic term.

all of the bridges of U.S. Navy vessels I spent time on were teams, very well trained teams. some might even believe it enhances the OOD’s situational awareness and ability to establish priority of focus.