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

http://www.cnn.com/2012/08/12/world/...ion/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:

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

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

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.

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.

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:

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

Magic

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:

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

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) remake.

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

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.

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.