Uss Fitzgerald Collision

[Stuart Galbraith]

 

Do they not use simulator training for this kind of thing now?

Simulators for training what kind of thing? Civilian nautical colleges and naval training centres both commonly use bridge simulators for training and assessment.

 

 

...the naval ship exclusion zone that's been legally mandated by many nations...

The what? Since when? Even if such a thing did exist in a nation's TTWs, it doesn't apply on the high seas. USN aircraft carriers have a bit of a thing for asking/threatening vessels to keep well clear, but apart from those I've not come across any warships that thought they had special rights to an exclusion zone.

 

Just a matter of interest, how often do they do that in the RN?

[Anixtu]

Just a matter of interest, how often do they do that in the RN?

There's a fairly good summary of RN simulator capabilities and use in this article: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/upgraded-ship-simulator-aids-royal-navy-training

 

All stages of navigational training, and then ad-hoc when units want to use them. If you are getting enough sea time for real, there isn't much you need to use the simulator for outside of assessing situations you don't want to do for real. It's a way to do some things on the cheap too.

 

For example, the RN have three levels of "Navigator" training. (In this context the Navigator is the officer responsible for drawing up passage plans and conducting pilotages). Preliminary Navigating Officer for small ship navigators - MCMVs, patrol ships, etc. Sub-Lieutenants and junior Lieutenants. The "practical" element of this course is entirely on simulators - it's cheap. The next level up Fleet Navigating Officer (Lieutenants, training to be navigator on frigates and destroyers) runs for, IIRC, two weeks in the simulator and one week on (usually) a frigate or destroyer at sea. Relatively expensive as to run the course for (I'll guess) 20 trainee navigators ties up that asset for the week. The highest level navigational course "Specialist Navigating Officer" (for senior Lieutenants and Lieutenant-Commanders becoming capital ship navigators) still mixes simulator time and real ship time, but they use the simulators do to stupid things that you wouldn't risk a real ship doing, like 30kt runs all the way up the Clyde in to Gareloch.

 

Specialist Navigating Officer is the first time a lot of the theoretical and background training catches up with the lowest level of qualification of their Merchant Navy counterparts - e.g. traditional celestial navigation using paper books instead of the whizzy computer programme that the RN normally rely on, proper analysis of Rule of the Road, etc. OTOH they do stuff that very few MN navigators would contemplate. Horses, courses, etc.

Edited August 13, 2017 by Anixtu

[Stuart Galbraith]

Thanks, thats really interesting.

[Ken Estes]

Heads are starting to roll:

 

http://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/navy-hands-penalties-on-collision-both-ships-made-errors/

[shep854]

As expected.

[DKTanker]

 

 

The Navy review of what happened aboard the ship following the collision found that the seven deaths could not be blamed on misconduct.

Huh? Does that leave open the possibility of negligent homicide?

[MiloMorai]

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2017/08/20/navy-uss-john-s-mccain-collides-merchant-vessel/584808001/

 

Must be something wrong with US Navy ships.

[Ken Estes]

 

 

 

The Navy review of what happened aboard the ship following the collision found that the seven deaths could not be blamed on misconduct.

Huh? Does that leave open the possibility of negligent homicide?

 

I dunno Dave, seems too weird for me to understand.

[Ken Estes]

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2017/08/20/navy-uss-john-s-mccain-collides-merchant-vessel/584808001/

 

Must be something wrong with US Navy ships.

 

How very prescient.

[Stuart Galbraith]

And suddenly you have to stop and wonder if all those outlandish stories about ships automatic pilots being hacked are not quite so outlandish after all.

[mnm]

Same as with the June 22nd of 1893 RN incident.

[DougRichards]

I used to have living in the small block of apartments a young woman by the name of Zoe Tryon. The name will not be familiar to those of Sam, A beautiful young woman, whose mother was for a time the girlfriend of a certain Charles Windsor: yes, Prince of Wales.

 

I was not close to Zoe, but I helped her break into her apartment when she forgot her key once.

 

Why do I mention this?

 

It was her great great grandfather, Vice Admiral Sir George Tryon who managed to sink a ship of the line in the Mediterranean in 1893. The main problem being that this was a ship of the Royal Navy and he was the admiral who commanded the maneuver that sunk it.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Victoria_(1887)

 

Failures in command are not a thing of recent history.

Edited August 21, 2017 by DougRichards

[GARGEAN]

And suddenly you have to stop and wonder if all those outlandish stories about ships automatic pilots being hacked are not quite so outlandish after all.

Yes. Definitely russian hackers.

[Anixtu]

And suddenly you have to stop and wonder if all those outlandish stories about ships automatic pilots being hacked are not quite so outlandish after all.

It is quite possible, depending on the system and whether it has a connection to the Internet or other vulnerable network. Certainly the case on some civilian ships, which can be controlled remotely. I am quite certain not the case on USN ships.

[Stuart Galbraith]

 

And suddenly you have to stop and wonder if all those outlandish stories about ships automatic pilots being hacked are not quite so outlandish after all.

It is quite possible, depending on the system and whether it has a connection to the Internet or other vulnerable network. Certainly the case on some civilian ships, which can be controlled remotely. I am quite certain not the case on USN ships.

 

 

Yeah, I was more thinking a civilian ship being put on a collision course.

 

Well if its not that, its going to happen to somebody sooner or later. Gawd help us if its an LNG carrier.

[rmgill]

And suddenly you have to stop and wonder if all those outlandish stories about ships automatic pilots being hacked are not quite so outlandish after all.

Better to attribute to incompetence that which is normally ascribed to malice.

 

Over at Commander Salamander's blog, the old salts are relating that the Training of Surface Warfare officers has declined with very few training cruises for middies and I guess Lt's on ship handling in real space. Simulators and books are what they do. The other complaint is the lack of a dedicated guy on a radar all the time looking at raw data instead of what has data links and IFF. Almost as if there's an expectation that wartime combatants will have IFF responding to radar sweeps.

 

4 separate ships in collisions and groundings in 8 months. All combatants.

 

 

[Stuart Galbraith]

Probably right Ryan, but at this point I dont know whats worse to believe. That potential adversaries have a means of causing maritime collisions and retain deniability, or the US Navy seems to be displaying and uncommon lack of seafaring skills of late. Neither is particularly palatable, one of them would appear to be true.

 

Could sequestration be partly responsible for this?

[rmgill]

Sequestration and other budget idiocy combined with grotesque expenditures for things like LCS and green fuels at 3-4 times the price of normal fuel oil.

[2805662]

 

 

 

And suddenly you have to stop and wonder if all those outlandish stories about ships automatic pilots being hacked are not quite so outlandish after all.

It is quite possible, depending on the system and whether it has a connection to the Internet or other vulnerable network. Certainly the case on some civilian ships, which can be controlled remotely. I am quite certain not the case on USN ships.

Yeah, I was more thinking a civilian ship being put on a collision course.

 

Well if its not that, its going to happen to somebody sooner or later. Gawd help us if its an LNG carrier.

I think you're on to something with the cyber aspect. Spoof the civilian ship's GPS, use the Automatic Identification System for targeting (everyone is squawking, remember), watch the fireworks.

[glappkaeft]

Another collision:
Navy Orders ‘Operational Pause’ After USS John S. McCain Collides With Tanker

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/navy-orders-operational-pause-after-uss-john-s-mccain-collides-n794546

 

Edit: Missed Milos post.

Edited August 21, 2017 by glappkaeft

[Jeff]

What the frack people? Driving ships is what you do!

[nemo]

 

 

 

And suddenly you have to stop and wonder if all those outlandish stories about ships automatic pilots being hacked are not quite so outlandish after all.

It is quite possible, depending on the system and whether it has a connection to the Internet or other vulnerable network. Certainly the case on some civilian ships, which can be controlled remotely. I am quite certain not the case on USN ships.

Yeah, I was more thinking a civilian ship being put on a collision course.

 

Well if its not that, its going to happen to somebody sooner or later. Gawd help us if its an LNG carrier.

I think you're on to something with the cyber aspect. Spoof the civilian ship's GPS, use the Automatic Identification System for targeting (everyone is squawking, remember), watch the fireworks.

 

 

Not quite sure how that would work. If you are shifting the GPS coordinates for everyone, that will include the target -- hence no collision will happen, unless you are directing it to something that does not use GPS -- such as a shoal or rock.

[2805662]

 

 

 

 

 

And suddenly you have to stop and wonder if all those outlandish stories about ships automatic pilots being hacked are not quite so outlandish after all.

It is quite possible, depending on the system and whether it has a connection to the Internet or other vulnerable network. Certainly the case on some civilian ships, which can be controlled remotely. I am quite certain not the case on USN ships.

Yeah, I was more thinking a civilian ship being put on a collision course.

 

Well if its not that, its going to happen to somebody sooner or later. Gawd help us if its an LNG carrier.

I think you're on to something with the cyber aspect. Spoof the civilian ship's GPS, use the Automatic Identification System for targeting (everyone is squawking, remember), watch the fireworks.

Not quite sure how that would work. If you are shifting the GPS coordinates for everyone, that will include the target -- hence no collision will happen, unless you are directing it to something that does not use GPS -- such as a shoal or rock.

But you're not shifting everyone's GPS - the US Navy one is protected against spoofing by encryption. It'll disregard the spoofing, whereas the civilian GPS (on the tanker) won't. You're using the security differential to your advantage.

[DKTanker]

But you're not shifting everyone's GPS - the US Navy one is protected against spoofing by encryption. It'll disregard the spoofing, whereas the civilian GPS (on the tanker) won't. You're using the security differential to your advantage.

Moreover, who's to say the encryption used by the US Navy hasn't been compromised? If it has been then it stands to reason both the naval vessel and the merchant vessel could be spoofed independently.

[bojan]

There is still observation, as unfashionable it is in this age of reliance on GPS and electronics. How did that fail?

Edited August 22, 2017 by bojan