U.S. destroyer collides with oil tanker in Strait of Hormuz

[Platapus]

http://www.cnn.com/2012/08/12/world/meast/bahrain-navy-collision/index.html

"The U.S. Navy said its guided missile destroyer collided with a Japanese-owned oil tanker in the Strait of Hormuz early Sunday morning."

Ohh this is not going to look good on a performance review. :nope:

The Navy hates it when their boats bump in to other boats. :yep:

[Gargamel]

I think my brother in law is the helmsman on the porter.

That would explain a lot. :hmmm:

I'm actually serious.


Edt. Nope he's on the Harper's Ferry. I wouldn't put it past him to a pull a "hey watch this". He's told me about how the OOD sometimes has him run over whales intentionally

[Platapus]

He's told me about how the OOD sometimes has him run over whales intentionally

Do you think he is just BSing you or does this really happen (and if so, do they actually run over the whale?)

[Stealhead]

It sounds a bit BSish to me if a ship can just run over a whale why have they used harpoons for all this time?:hmmm:

I think that the whale would have the awareness that something else large was near to it.

It must not be so easy or again why bother with a harpoon?

That and in my experience many people are full of it and will embellish.For example my neighbor was in Vietnam and I know he
was a true combatant but the story he tells about shooting an M79 into an old french bunker on the beach while he was drunk on R&R I know that it is not true.
I know this because his older brother was also in Nam in a different unit and he says his brother never got a single starch in the war.

Not saying that Gargamel is but his in law is most likely full of it.

[Gargamel]

He says he's done it at least once. He's really not bright enough to make that up, so I believe him.

And considering we've had a semi recent thread about drag racing destroyers, I tend to believe these types of shenanigans occur all the time.

[eddie]

I'd like to know how the hell this happened!! With all the modern radars they have, how could you not detect an oil tanker!?!:doh:

[magic452]

Somebody forgot to tell them that the war was over sixth odd years ago.

Magic

[Catfish]

After this other quoted post in the Olympic thread after the play against Japan, i am sure it was meant as a "revenge for Pearl Harbour".
:dead:

[Jimbuna]

Could have been a lot worse if the tanker hit her side on.

[kraznyi_oktjabr]

I'd like to know how the hell this happened!! With all the modern radars they have, how could you not detect an oil tanker!?!:doh:Right now it looks like major screw up in part of Porter's watchstanders. Tanker was outbound and Porter was inbound - port side to port side. (EDIT: Initial information I heard stated this - it has not been confirmed and may be incorrect) Still impact damage is on Porter's starboard side which hints to destroyer trying to cut across tanker's bow.

There are some theories (some from ret. USN officers) circulating in internet how this may have happened and with current available information it looks like blame will land on Porter's OOD/XO/CO et. al.

Thank God this didn't become USS Hobson (DD-464) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Hobson_%28DD-464%29#Sinking) remake.

[Catfish]

Hmm, i used to sail a lot in channel, North sea and baltic sea. Usually a sailing boat under sail not motoring has always the way of right, however: It is only sensible (reasonable?) that you as the smaller boat evade any merchant shipping in time, executing clear maneuvers early enough for the other ship to see your intention and how you change course.
(A complete different story in dense fog if your sailing boat has no radar - you will have to hoist a metallic refector so they "see" you on their radar in time, also giving acoustic signals regularly and lighting up your sail with a torch may help - or not.)

Now for the life of me i cannot imagine how a destroyer in plain daylight and equipped with radar and a military watch, can overlook a tanker :huh:

Greetings,
Catfish

[kraznyi_oktjabr]

<snip> Now for the life of me i cannot imagine how a destroyer in plain daylight and equipped with radar and a military watch, can overlook a tanker :huh:

Greetings,
CatfishThe Norfolk, Virginia-based ship is part of the U.S. 5th Fleet and left its home port on March 12. The Navy said the accident, which occurred Sunday at about 1 a.m. local time, was not combat-related.Article (http://edition.cnn.com/2012/08/12/world/us-japan-navy-ship-collision/index.html?hpt=hp_t3)

[Stealhead]

He says he's done it at least once. He's really not bright enough to make that up, so I believe him.

And considering we've had a semi recent thread about drag racing destroyers, I tend to believe these types of shenanigans occur all the time.


Or maybe an officer or enlisted man observed that he is a dimwit and told him to run over a whale or told him that he just did because they knew he would believe it and they now laugh about it with friends while drinking.


I have seen those who are a bit slow on the uptake get used for entertainment by others often in the military.In the Air Force they where told to find some "flight line" or "high speed tape" other times they where told to make an aluminum foil arrangement held in the hands while the person holding them spun in a circle this was supposed to help calibrate radars.If these things where done in the Air Force I can imagine a "sharp" Navy helmsman being told too run over a whale and the he had been successful.

[Fincuan]

Article (http://edition.cnn.com/2012/08/12/world/us-japan-navy-ship-collision/index.html?hpt=hp_t3)

1 AM and darkness is not a problem these days. That's what you have ARPA radars, AIS, navigation lights and observers for. Not spotting a ship-sized vessel just can't happen unless several people are ignoring their duties and/or asleep, which doesn't happen on a warship. Warships are run with a fairly large watchstanding crew compared to their civilian counterparts. Incompetence, however, can happen on any ship.

In any case several officers' careers just came to an abrupt stop.

[kraznyi_oktjabr]

1 AM and darkness is not a problem these days. That's what you have ARPA radars, AIS, navigation lights and observers for. Not spotting a ship-sized vessel just can't happen unless several people are ignoring their duties and/or asleep, which doesn't happen on a warship. Warships are run with a fairly large watchstanding crew compared to their civilian counterparts. Incompetence, however, can happen on any ship.

In any case several officers' careers just came to an abrupt stop.I know and I agree. I only pointed out Catfish's misunderstanding in time of the incident. I don't understand how this happened - amount of errors that have to happen to get into this point is significant. Investigation report will be interesting read - assuming ofcourse that USN dares to publish it.

[Platapus]

Here and on other forums on the Internets Tubes, people are asking the question," How could they not see the tanker?"

Well they probably did see the tanker. They are pretty big. However, seeing it and avoiding it in a narrow channel is different. These were not two big boats all alone in the middle of a big ocean. They were in probably the most heavily traveled 2 mile wide channel in the world.

Clearly mistakes were made and people need to be held accountable for any mistakes. But I really don't think that not seeing the tanker/destroyer was the issue.

[kraznyi_oktjabr]

I found this to be quite interesting read:
http://cdrsalamander.blogspot.com/2012/08/porter-collision-1st-hand-report.html
As poster points out this is one person's point of view and in no way complete.

[Fincuan]

I found this to be quite interesting read:
http://cdrsalamander.blogspot.com/2012/08/porter-collision-1st-hand-report.html
As poster points out this is one person's point of view and in no way complete.

Interesting post, and the comments too. The blog post and the comments seem to suggest that US Navy ships, or at least this particular ship, don't normally have a civilian type maritime radar with a master display on the bridge. Does anyone know if that's really the case? Judging by various pics of USS Porter I'm seeing at least two such antennas in the forward mast, and imho it would make no sense to put the master displays anywhere else except for the bridge.

[kraznyi_oktjabr]

Interesting post, and the comments too. The blog post and the comments seem to suggest that US Navy ships, or at least this particular ship, don't normally have a civilian type maritime radar with a master display on the bridge. Does anyone know if that's really the case? Judging by various pics of USS Porter I'm seeing at least two such antennas in the forward mast, and imho it would make no sense to put the master displays anywhere else except for the bridge.Arleigh Burke class has two somewhat comparable radars.
AN/SPS-67 (AN/SPS-(V)2 onboard Burkes, pic below)
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8c/USS_Paul_Hamilton_radar.jpg
which is digital version of AN/SPS-10 (pic below)
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/ce/USS_Raleigh_%28LPD-1%29_SPS-10_radar_2.jpg
and AN/SPS-73 (AN/SPS-73(V)12 onboard Burkes, no pic).

AN/SPS-67 is military radar used for surface search and navigation. AN/SPS-73 is militarized civilian Furuno radar. If I have understood this correctly both radar sets use console originally developed for AN/SPS-73 and that console is in bridge.

I would appreciate if some Navy people here could say is that true?

[geetrue]

Ships going through the straits would have a special sea detail with the navigator, ood and radarman and sonar and CIC all on special alert.

Does anyone know what time this occured, day or night?

and yes ships do run over whales, but surely not on purpose.

My boat the USS Salmon SS 573 ran over a whale one time in the North Pacific.

Conn/sonar "what was that bump?"

Sonar/conn "not sure sir we are surrounded by biologistics"
"our best guess it that it was a whale sir"

Conn eye

We didn't go back to check lol

[kraznyi_oktjabr]

Does anyone know what time this occured, day or night?1 am (01:00) local time - early morning. (post #12)

[Hanomag]

I swear my only collision... and thats because I overly 1048X out of harbor which we all know is a NO NO... :arrgh!:

http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c93/MakoStreak/WTF-1.jpg

So that being said with no 1048x in RL.. How many yin yangs did it take to screw this whole thing up? :o

[A Hidden Soul]

I swear my only collision... and thats because I overly 1048X out of harbor which we all know is a NO NO... :arrgh!:

http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c93/MakoStreak/WTF-1.jpg

So that being said with no 1048x in RL.. How many yin yangs did it take to screw this whole thing up? :o

That's to funny because I have a similar picture heading out of Pearl Harbor. Execpt they backed into me which was rather odd...

http://i50.tinypic.com/1651qo.jpg

End result he fell off and blew up afterwards. That guy lead that ship to the bottom of that straight.