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I would also like to know the answer to “a the hull of a billion dollar warship having much less intrinsic strength than a Korean built containership that

I would also like to know the answer to “a the hull of a billion dollar warship having much less intrinsic strength than a Korean built containership that was delivered for a fraction of the cost?” and the other construction questions asked in the article. This question is what made me doubt the rest of the article, which is ostensibly written by somebody with some level of naval expertise. I have no naval expertise, and the rest of the article seemed quite logical, but it seems strange to me to insist that this collision shouldn't have seriously damaged the Fitzgerald. 1. The Arleigh Burke class destroyers aren't big ships; the cargo ship was over 3x the size. 9,000 tons for the USS Fitzgerald compared to 30,000 tons for the cargo ship: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/06/18/world/asia/path-ship-hit-uss-fitzgerald.html?mcubz=1 https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/06/18/world/asia/pa... 2. I am not sure that any ship ever designed by humankind has been built to withstand a 20-knot broadside collision with a vessel of its own size without taking any damage, much less one with three times as much mass. As I said above I'm no naval expert; please take me to school if I'm spectacularly wrong here. 3. While it would certainly be possible to build such a ship, the weight of the ship would need to be increased by an incredible amount. It would be a very slow ship. Or it could be fitted with a much more powerful propulsion system, at a tremendous cost - more weight, more fuel consumption, more $$$. 3a. Modern (the last 100+ years or so) ship collision survivability design principles basically revolve around bulkheads. It's impractical to make the entire hull thick enough to survive any conceivable disaster (because the boat still needs to float - you can't just add ridiculous amounts of armor everywhere) so the general principle here is to contain hull breaches, not to make sure that no hull breach ever occurs. 4. Generally, modern naval battles are not fought by ships ramming each other. 5. So we can understand why the Navy didn't optimize for that possibility, and at some point decided on a "please try not to let other ships ram you broadside" doctrine. Which made a tremendous amount of sense for a very long time, until our ships' crews decided to start tossing themselves about into the paths of oncoming vessels. 6. Seriously though: building ships to withstand this kind of thing without a scratch is crazy for basically the same reasons why building planes to withstand midair collisions with bigger planes (or, really, anything bigger than a seagull) is crazy. All things considered, hats off to the designers of the Arleigh Burke class and the Fitzgerald's and John McCain's damage control crews. Considering the amounts of force involved here and differences in mass it's actually quite admirable that the god damn ships didn't snap in half or sink instantly.

jfoutz 9y ago
> This question is what made me doubt the rest of the article, which is ostensibly written by somebody with some level of naval expertise. It's possibly a naive statement. I think it's a trap. Fundamentally, the ship isn't designed to be hit at all. it's supposed to be fast and nimble. The walls could be paper thin (aside from getting shot at), because it's not supposed to be rammed in the first place. It creates a nifty dilemma. Either the whole class is poorly constructed, or those in command were complete failures. An expert would have a hard time saying the whole class is poorly constructed. Less important but still relevant, an inquiry maybe should explain the bow vs side issue in ship strength. It'll dissuade obvious misunderstandings from lawyers, legislators and the general public - non experts.
- protomyth 9y ago
  I posted part, which I guess is missing the whole context in the article. That line is attached to redundant power, communications, and other problems that happened after the collision. The author of the article is not exactly inexperienced in these matters.
  - JohnBooty 9y ago
    I don't think it was an out-of-context quote. The author questioned why the (theoretically redundant) power and communications systems were knocked totally offline, which seems like a very fair question, and one of great importance. But I read it as a separate question from the issue of why the cargo ship was able to damage the Fitzgerald.
- JohnBooty 9y ago
  Yeah that's my understanding. Destroyers (and really, any modern naval ship) are not designed to slug it out in ship-to-ship artillery duels like WWI battleships. They are there to launch missiles at targets from a safe distance. As WWII taught us, any surface vessel is essentially a sitting duck when it comes to air power in the form of planes, missiles, or missiles launched from planes. That is even truer today, as surface-to-surface and air-to-surface munitions have become that much more powerful and accurate. Designing a ship to withstand that kind of punishment is just impractical. The Arleigh Burke class can deliver some real destructive power but as always, air superiority is a must. (This is where I reiterate that I am not particularly knowledgable on this topic; please somebody correct me if needed)

jfoutz 9y ago

> This question is what made me doubt the rest of the article, which is ostensibly written by somebody with some level of naval expertise. It's possibly a naive statement. I think it's a trap. Fundamentally, the ship isn't designed to be hit at all. it's supposed to be fast and nimble. The walls could be paper thin (aside from getting shot at), because it's not supposed to be rammed in the first place. It creates a nifty dilemma. Either the whole class is poorly constructed, or those in command were complete failures. An expert would have a hard time saying the whole class is poorly constructed. Less important but still relevant, an inquiry maybe should explain the bow vs side issue in ship strength. It'll dissuade obvious misunderstandings from lawyers, legislators and the general public - non experts.

protomyth 9y ago
I posted part, which I guess is missing the whole context in the article. That line is attached to redundant power, communications, and other problems that happened after the collision. The author of the article is not exactly inexperienced in these matters.
- JohnBooty 9y ago
  I don't think it was an out-of-context quote. The author questioned why the (theoretically redundant) power and communications systems were knocked totally offline, which seems like a very fair question, and one of great importance. But I read it as a separate question from the issue of why the cargo ship was able to damage the Fitzgerald.
JohnBooty 9y ago
Yeah that's my understanding. Destroyers (and really, any modern naval ship) are not designed to slug it out in ship-to-ship artillery duels like WWI battleships. They are there to launch missiles at targets from a safe distance. As WWII taught us, any surface vessel is essentially a sitting duck when it comes to air power in the form of planes, missiles, or missiles launched from planes. That is even truer today, as surface-to-surface and air-to-surface munitions have become that much more powerful and accurate. Designing a ship to withstand that kind of punishment is just impractical. The Arleigh Burke class can deliver some real destructive power but as always, air superiority is a must. (This is where I reiterate that I am not particularly knowledgable on this topic; please somebody correct me if needed)