Quote:The USS Fitzgerald was under its own power but had limited propulsion after being involved in a collision with a Philippine-flagged merchant vessel ACX Crystal while operating off the coast of Japan, according to the U.S. military.

One sailor has been injured and the U.S Navy is working with the Japanese Coast Guard to conduct a medevac via helicopter. There are currently no reports of any deaths.

The incident happened 56 nautical miles southwest of Yokosuka, Japan.

The ship suffered damage on her starboard side above and below the waterline. The collision resulted in some flooding. The full extent of damage is being determined.

Quote:The collision occured at approximately 2:30 a.m. local time on June 17.

“There is no danger of the ship sinking,” one official told Fox News.

(06-16-2017 09:01 PM)Fort Bend Owl Wrote:  The story I saw said 7 sailors are missing still.

Why does our destroyer suffer significant damage but the Phillipine vessel suffer minor damage? Shouldn't a multi-billion dollar destroyer be able to not look like a cheap Prius after a collision?

(06-16-2017 09:38 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  How can a ship with sophisticated radar and sonar gear designed to analyze and defend against threats before they can inflict damage....get damaged by a freighter moving at maybe 20 knots on the high seas? How does the freighter even get within a few hundred yards of the destroyer? Its not like this happened in the constricted waters of a port or harbor. I know one captain that no longer has a career.

(06-16-2017 09:01 PM)Fort Bend Owl Wrote:  The story I saw said 7 sailors are missing still.

Why does our destroyer suffer significant damage but the Phillipine vessel suffer minor damage? Shouldn't a multi-billion dollar destroyer be able to not look like a cheap Prius after a collision?

ETA - looked it up. The USS Fitzgerald was built some time ago but it is estimated to be a $1.5 billion dollar destroyer. So technically it's not a multi-billion dollar destroyer (but pretty darn close to it).

(06-17-2017 06:26 AM)Fort Bend Owl Wrote:  But shouldn't you be defending the captain too? The collision occurred at 1:30 am. There's a very good chance he was asleep. Should he be held accountable if it was one of his subordinates at the helm?

(06-16-2017 11:56 PM)john01992 Wrote:  Because the destroyer got t-boned by a container ship that has more than 3x the tonnage. I know you are looking for faux outrage but come on.

(06-17-2017 06:26 AM)Fort Bend Owl Wrote:  Okay good enough. I hadn't read any stories that mentioned whether the Phillipine vessel was fully loaded or not. I'll let it go.

(06-17-2017 08:55 AM)JMUDunk Wrote:  Heard this last night.

Only reaction WTF?!?

A 20-21st century US Destroyer can't see a freaking container ship on their path from 100 miles (literally) away?!? Cmon.

Yes, yes they can. This one is completely FUBAR and someone(s) very high up needs some unpaid vacation stay somewhere.

This wouldn't/can't happen with even a small civvy vessel in tight quarters, how on earth can this happen in open ocean with state of the art equip?

Colossal failure somewhere, here.

(06-17-2017 09:08 AM)Fo Shizzle Wrote:  

(06-17-2017 08:55 AM)JMUDunk Wrote:  Heard this last night.

Only reaction WTF?!?

A 20-21st century US Destroyer can't see a freaking container ship on their path from 100 miles (literally) away?!? Cmon.

Yes, yes they can. This one is completely FUBAR and someone(s) very high up needs some unpaid vacation stay somewhere.

This wouldn't/can't happen with even a small civvy vessel in tight quarters, how on earth can this happen in open ocean with state of the art equip?

Colossal failure somewhere, here.

I agree. The only possible reason I could see would be a electronics system failure of some type. It is inconceivable that this could happen in a modern Navy.

(06-17-2017 06:26 AM)Fort Bend Owl Wrote:  Okay good enough. I hadn't read any stories that mentioned whether the Phillipine vessel was fully loaded or not. I'll let it go.

But shouldn't you be defending the captain too? The collision occurred at 1:30 am. There's a very good chance he was asleep. Should he be held accountable if it was one of his subordinates at the helm?

(06-17-2017 07:22 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(06-16-2017 11:56 PM)john01992 Wrote:  Because the destroyer got t-boned by a container ship that has more than 3x the tonnage. I know you are looking for faux outrage but come on.

(06-17-2017 06:26 AM)Fort Bend Owl Wrote:  Okay good enough. I hadn't read any stories that mentioned whether the Phillipine vessel was fully loaded or not. I'll let it go.

Tonnage in this context has nothing to do with whether or not the container ship was full or empty. It's a standard measure of displacement.

The real problem is that probably the strongest part of the merchant ship (the bow) hit probably the weakest part of the destroyer (midships).

There is another issue here. Military ships are supposed to be built to higher damage control standards than merchant vessels (they do get shot at). But that costs more. So in recent years (really since WWII) the US Navy has (as most foreign navies have) been relaxing those standards. If that had been an LCS (the Navy's latest small combatant type), it probably would have sunk (they're made of aluminum). This ain't your daddy's Navy.

(06-17-2017 10:15 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  This one is difficult to understand. The captain was injured and evacuated. That would put him somewhere near the collision. Two obvious places would be on the bridge or in his sea cabin right behind the bridge. If he was not on the bridge, he should have been called by the Officer of the Deck (OOD) long before the collision. IIRC our standing night orders were to call the captain any time any contact was tracking on radar to have a closest point of approach (CPA) of 3000 yards or less. Anything that's going to have a CPA under 1000 yards, the captain should probably be on the bridge.Unless they were in heavy fog, which is not indicated in the reports, they should have had visual contact out to well over 10 nautical miles (not sure of height of bridge, but with the Aegis radar it's going to be pretty high. When you have visual contact there is a pretty easy rule of thumb. Steady bearing, decreasing range (SBDR) means you are on a collision course. That's actually a principle I use to teach pursuit angles for defensive players. You want to see the bearing changing one direction or the other; if it's drifting right, you're going to miss it to the left, and vice versa (obviously the defender wants it steady).

I guess it could be possible that one or the other turned at the last minute. But if that could cause this, you were way too damn close to begin with. It would appear from the collision location that the destroyer was trying to cross the bow of the freighter, in a situation where the merchie would have had the right of way. That may not prove to be the case, but everything points there. The only possible scenario I can come up with is that either the merchie sped up a bunch (which it doesn't have the power to do, so that didn't happen) or the destroyer lost the load just as it tried to cross.

One other thing. We've got a lot of gadgetry on Navy ships these days--GPS, automatic helmsmen, etc. There has been a lot in the professional literature about how we are losing our seamanship capabilities. If Russia shoots down our navigation satellites, is there anybody onboard who can do celestial? Those skills should not have deteriorated this far, in any event. But I could see some gadget breaking down and people spending their time trying to fix the gadget instead of watching where they were going.