USS Fitzgerald Rammed by ACX Crystal

[JJ_BPK]

This picture of the Crystal track brings up a point I made in another thread. How often are data points taken??

1)Using WAG, I think the data points of the Crystal track at the time of impact, are about 7-10 minutes apart.

2)Using WAG, If you look at the distanced covered between the data points. The closer the marks the slower the ship, and the further apart the faster the ship. That would mean that some data points are up to 1 miles apart.

If the collision happened at point X, it appears the Crystal had speed up, possibly to avoid collision?? and the right angle is only because of the time elapse between data points.

Just found this Burke class destroyer rudder stress test..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzveUz-WRGQ

REF: The small island Toshima is aprox 1.6 miles in diameter.

[Team Sergeant]

Originally Posted by Old Dog New Trick

Complacency, distraction, overconfidence or just ignorance will get you into trouble fast.

Arleigh Burke class of guided missile destroyer can probably track, in real time, 100 ships and 100 aircraft..........

This "collision" should have never have happened, ever. Not to a US "combat" warship.

Those seven dead are the fault of the failed Navy leadership.

[LarryW]

Originally Posted by Team Sergeant

Those seven dead are the fault of the failed Navy leadership.

Concur, sir. IMHO, good leadership can fail and sometimes bad leaders can appear heroic. There's never an excuse for failure when the lives of your crew depend on you. When you fail, you have to own it. The good leader owns it and the shitty leader blames everything and everyone else. We'll learn more when the JAG is done. They'll look at tracks of both ships, weather, visibility, the deck and CIC logs, the night orders written by the CO, the training records, qualifications and performance records of the watch standers, witness testimonies, and every scrap of similar information they can get from the merchant, and more. They'll know what happened, but whether they ever find out why is another matter. But, knowing what or even why won't change the fact that seven sailors died, and that the CO is ultimately responsible. Like you said, TS, "failed Navy leadership".

[ddoering]

I foresee the Navy losing confidence in the ship Captain's abilities and he will be removed to a shore job pending retirement/removal from service.

[JJ_BPK]

Originally Posted by Team Sergeant

Arleigh Burke class of guided missile destroyer can probably track, in real time, 100 ships and 100 aircraft..........

This "collision" should have never have happened, ever. Not to a US "combat" warship.

Those seven dead are the fault of the failed Navy leadership.

Agreed,,

I was only talking to the world tracking system used by the commercial systems and the track chart being used by MSM as a talking point.

The real data points as tracked by the Fitz and the Crystal will tell the story..

[MR2]

Originally Posted by ddoering

I foresee the Navy losing confidence in the ship Captain's abilities and he will be removed to a shore job pending retirement/removal from service.

I foresee Navy leadership assigning a second (civilian) Captain on all ships to oversee (counter-command) AKA Political officer.

[LarryW]

Originally Posted by MR2

I foresee Navy leadership assigning a second (civilian) Captain on all ships to oversee (counter-command) AKA Political officer.

Unfortunately, sir, you'll probably see what will look like the results of an investigation into a plane crash, and that is to bury the incident in information and data, make bold resolutions as to what should "never be allowed to happen again", assign blame, Court Martial the guilty and praise the dead, blah, blah. When stupid hits the fan it's rarely one thing but a whole damned library of things, both materiel and personnel.

Here're some questions:
What were the orders and were they being followed?
Were all watch standers (including lookouts) stationed, trained and qualified?
Was all equipment operating at 100%.
What was the visibility? At that lat/long the moon sat at 2018, and the wreck happened at either 0130 or 0220 (depending on who you listen to) so no moon.
The ACX was enr from Nagoya to Tokyo. Was there a Coastal Pilot on board? Should there be?
Wsa the ACX operating Iron Mike (auto-pilot)?
Who was the OOD on the DDG? Ops-boss, Navigator, a Department Head? Was that person distracted with preps for entering port and not paying attention to the surface situation?
What were the Standing Orders and Night Orders re: high density traffic schemes?
Was the ACX overtaking the DDG? If so the DDG is required to maintain course and speed.
What kind of surface watch was being maintained in CIC (Combat Info Center)?
(...and about a zillion other questions)

Sir, after diesel submarines I became an old surface warfare ship driver, and the more I wonder about what happened, etc the more pissed off I get. The CO is responsible, always. Can't get beyond that.

Political Officer? Yeah, right. That would make the ship more effective and the crew safer, huh? Kind of like gun control.

[Team Sergeant]

Originally Posted by LarryW

Political Officer? Yeah, right. That would make the ship more effective and the crew safer, huh? Kind of like gun control.

Already have them in the military, they are called "JAGS". They have infiltrated all the way down to battalion level. They should only be at Special Forces Command level and above. They have time and time again thwarted combat missions all over the world.

You call them jags, I call them marplots.

[LarryW]

IMHO, this is a good read, and if not "good" well then emotionally real. Being a sailor is no more challenging than any other military role, but it has its own tough road from time to time and its own rewards. Who knows what the final JAG is going to reveal. One thing is certain, seven sailors are still on patrol, and one of them gave his life trying to get his shipmates out of that flooded birthing space. The hole left by the ACX Crystal measured 10x10x14x14. Pretty damned big hole. Anyway...

To The Fightin’ Fitz
By Sean Patrick Hughes

We don’t write books or make movies about the men and women who drive ships any more. But maybe we should.

There’s nothing quite like it. There’s no peace like the peace you step into when you walk out onto the bridge wing to see a million stars, brighter than you’ve ever seen poking holes in the pitch black sky. And the only sound is the slow crash of the bow as it plunges through the rolling sea, casting off that eerie green glow. The smell of burnt coffee and the taste of Copenhagen seep into you as you wedge yourself in next to the empty captain’s chair to keep your eyes on the horizon for a while because you’ve got a thousand miles behind you and a thousand more to go on en route to places unknown, no course change for days.

That’s the beauty when it’s slow. And quiet.

When it’s not, it’s frantic. It’s living geometry. It’s the constant math of your speed and your heading and how long you have until your next decision. Because when you’re moving that unforgiving monster, wrong decisions are expensive. You only get to make them once. You’ve got one eye on the channel, one eye on the traffic, one eye on the aircrafts landing on you and one eye on the bottom of wherever you are. Because if you don’t keep enough space between you and anything else or enough water under you, it’s all over for someone. You’re standing on 9,000 tons of steel and machinery plowing through the water with the force of a couple hundred tractor trailers. Mastering it is the height of man’s mastery over physics.

It’s a hell of a task.

But that’s not the hardest part. The hardest part is the life. It’s living, forever, stuck one foot in two worlds. Bored or stressed. Nothing in between. It’s coming off the bridge of the ship at 7Am after five hours of watch and walking into the blinding light of the wardroom to eat and start your day. Because the ship and your team don’t care that you were up all night driving. The shaft is still turning and the war is still going. So you try to gut your way until noon and the fatigue starts to shut you down whether you like it or not. Then you grab what sleep you can, hope that nothing your team runs breaks and get ready to do it again on the mid-watch.

Six on, eighteen off. Six on. Twelve off. The days blur together. You talk on the radio in your sleep. And you run drills so often you can still remember the cadence of your tasking fifteen years later as you sit down to write a blog post about it.

I did three deployments in the ten years I served on active duty as a surface warfare officer in the Navy. Two attached to SEAL Team One. And one, on an Arleigh Burke class guided missile destroyer, the same class of ship as the USS Fitzgerald that collided with a Philippine flagged container ship off the coast of Japan a few days ago. Nothing about the two war time deployments I did in special operations took out of me what normal life on board that ship did. It’s gritty, brutal, thankless work. And it’s done by people who aren’t looking to cash in on a career of motivational speaking or book signing when they get done.

It’s done by hard men and women, often times with nowhere else in the world to turn.

It’s done by sailors.

I don’t have any idea what happened on the USS Fitzgerald when it collided with that massive merchant. But I have a pretty good idea what happened before it. And what happened after. Someone somewhere was putting up with a pace and a level of personal sacrifice few will ever know just to do the job of a sailor. And someone was running towards the rushing water and flooding compartments instead of away from them. Because they knew that’s the only way to keep the old girl afloat. And that was their duty. Above all.

Ship. Shipmate. Self. The unfair code of the sailor.

Every time a ship of war pulls back into the harbor, it’s a celebration of the iron men and women who bring her in. It’s a damn hard life. Harder than you can imagine. The Fightin Fitz pulled in seven souls light this time. Honor them like fallen heroes. Because that’s exactly what they are.

https://chartwellwest.com/2017/06/19...-fightin-fitz/

[LarryW]

USS Fitzgerald (DDG 62) Petty Officer First Class Gary Rehm, Jr. did what he felt was his only option. Seems it was a family trait, too. RIP with gratitude, hero. Fair winds and following seas.

USS Fitzgerald Sailor Sacrificed Himself to Save Lives after the Crash

One of the 7 sailors who died aboard the USS Fitzgerald saved more than a dozen of his fellow shipmates before he ultimately lost his own life, The Daily Beast reported.

The USS Fitzgerald collided with a Philippine-flagged merchant vessel about 56 miles off the coast of Japan on Saturday.

Seven sailors were later found dead in flooded compartments on the ship.

When the Fitzgerald collided with the merchant ship, 37-year-old Fire Controlman 1st Class Gary Leo Rehm Jr., "leapt into action," according to The Daily Beast.

The Fitzgerald was struck below the waterline, and Rehm Jr.'s family was told by the Navy that he went under and saved at least 20 sailors, according to WBNS-10TV in Columbus, Ohio.

But when he went back down to get the other six sailors, the ship began to take on too much water, and the hatch was closed, WBNS-10TV said.

"That was Gary to a T," Rehm Jr.'s friend Christopher Garguilo, told NBC4i in Columbus, Ohio. "He never thought about himself."

"He called [the sailors on the ship] his kids," his uncle, Stanley Rehm Jr., told The Daily Beast. "He said, 'If my kids die, I'm going to die.'"

Rehm Jr. was known to invite "his kids" over to his house in Virginia when their ship was docked in the US, his uncle said. "He was always ready to help anybody who needed it. He was just that kind of guy."

"Gary was one of those guys that always had a smile on his face," Daniel Kahle, who had served with Rehm Jr. on the USS Ponce, told The Chronicle-Telegram. "(Gary was) such a great guy and (it's) such a great loss. He needs to be remembered for the person we all knew him to be."

Rehm Jr.'s uncle told The Daily Beast that he followed in the footsteps of his grandfather by joining the Navy straight out of high school.

Rehm Jr. was considering retiring soon but also hoped to make captain one day, his uncle told The Daily Beast.

The Fitzgerald is named after another sailor, Navy Lt. William Fitzgerald, who, like his father, also joined the Navy right out of high school.

In August 1967, he was advising South Vietnamese forces at a compound near the Tra Khuc River delta when they came under heavy Vietcong fire.

Fitzgerald ordered the South Vietnamese forces and civilians to escape into the river on small boats, but he was killed while covering their escape with small-arms fire.

Rehm Jr. was raised in Elyria, Ohio, and is survived by his wife, Erin

http://www.military.com/daily-news/2...ves-crash.html

[Team Sergeant]

Very sad those sailors died because of a serious lack of leadership.

[hoot72]

Originally Posted by Old Dog New Trick

I started sailing at 14 and later racing sailboats as a Captain of the boat at 16 and then by chance spent three years on a MAROPS team before retirement. Of all the times I nearly died on the water it was at night navigating by lights, sound, and instruments.

Complacency, distraction, overconfidence or just ignorance will get you into trouble fast.

Very well said OD. As a former navigator on schooners, I can attest to how complicated it can be at night especially on busy shipping lanes. And the need to be on extra guard and to take neccessary action by fore-seeing a problem before it happens.

[hoot72]

Originally Posted by Team Sergeant

Arleigh Burke class of guided missile destroyer can probably track, in real time, 100 ships and 100 aircraft..........

This "collision" should have never have happened, ever. Not to a US "combat" warship.

Those seven dead are the fault of the failed Navy leadership.

Something or a bunch of things led one thing after another to this terrible tragedy. Totally agree this should not have happened.

I just cannot understand for the life of me, how it did happen. Especially to a good ship with the most advanced equipment of the AB class.

[Old Dog New Trick]

That was fast.

Check out this article from USA TODAY:

Commander of stricken destroyer Fitzgerald relieved after Navy report cites failures

https://usat.ly/2x8KuqB

Lots of heads rolling.

[LarryW]

And heads should definitely roll, sir.

Read a redacted version of CARGRU-5s preliminary findings and the egress of sailors from the disaster of their crushed berthing space in neck deep water in the dark is nothing short of amazing. As is typical there were deeds above and beyond to save lives and the ship itself.