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Naval Vessels, Shadowy by Intent, Are Hard for Commercial Ships to Spot
- eps 9y agoWouldn't the burden of steering off collision courses be on these shadowy hard-to-spot ships then?
- maxaf 9y agoEspecially considering that their sensor suites must be orders of magnitude more powerful than commercially available civilian equipment.
- aaronmdjones 9y agoPrimary navigation radar gives away your position, as does active sonar, in the same way that AIS does. If they have the latter off, it's not unreasonable to assume they also have the others off. Passive sonar would pick up a tanker if the engines are running fast enough or the ship isn't particularly streamlined (which tankers invariably aren't) so this is probably a failure of communication.
- gaius 9y agoCrew on the bridge with NODs would seem to be a no-brainer in those conditions, at least.
- blincoln 9y agoSeems like the naval vessels should be using passive radar detection as well, if they're not already. That wouldn't protect them from everything, but it should catch all of the big commercial vessels, right?
- krisoft 9y agoThe tanker was broadcasting its position. That's how we have this nice visualization. I don't understand why you are talking about active systems. They should just have listened to AIS messages. Likewise also don't understand why the article goes on and on about more clever ways the collision avoidance system could be programed. No collision avoidance system can help you if the operators of the stealthy war-machine drop the ball.
- aaronmdjones 9y agoOh, I wasn't aware you can receive other ship's AIS position updates while your own system wasn't active. Even in that case, it's the same as the passive sonar example I illustrated: the ship is there and you can see it, but they didn't avoid it anyway. Failure of communication.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- mikepurvis 9y agoIt's ridiculous that they're out there unlit and not broadcasting their position, and somehow not 100% liable for the damage caused by such behaviour.
- frandroid 9y agoAnd you know, turn on the lights if necessary...
- dhimes 9y agoThe navigation lights should be on. They are not immune to the ColRegs (but they can add more lights and dayshapes if they want as long as they don't add anything confusing). I don't understand how, after three accidents, they don't have a policy of careful watch in an area like that. Something still doesn't smell right with the info we're getting.
- frandroid 9y agoMy theory is this is a covert operation by the Chinese to disable the U.S. 7th Fleet, one merchant ship collision at a time. :)
- alain94040 9y agoYes, the tanker belongs to "Restricted in Ability to Maneuver", which means they have priority over pretty much anything. You can't ask them or expect them to detour to avoid you, you must avoid them.
- jnty 9y agoThat's not correct - according to the Collision Regulations, simply being a large ship does not make you "restricted in ability to maneuver." That definition is reserved for vessels carrying out an activity which restricts them from altering their course, such as dredging or mine clearing. A large oil tanker may be "constrained by draught" in a narrow channel in which case it does indeed have right of way over smaller vessels, but larger vessels will be constrained too so "priority over everything" becomes a pretty meaningless concept as everyone will have it. In open water, large vessels like that give way to smaller vessels when appropriate all the time. https://www.navcen.uscg.gov/?pageName=def3g_RAM https://www.navcen.uscg.gov/?pageName=def3g_RAM https://www.navcen.uscg.gov/?pageName=def3h_CBD https://www.navcen.uscg.gov/?pageName=def3h_CBD
- psadri 9y agoNonetheless, I'd expect a far more agile battleship to be able to move itself out of harm's way.
- docdeek 9y agoRelevant Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Regulations_for_Preventing_Collisions_at_Sea https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Regulations_for_...
- bflesch 9y agoThis article contains yet another beautiful visualization by the NYT team. Really adds to the article and gives insight into how this incident developed and how to assess it in the greater picture. Convinced me to think about it as an accident instead of some conspiracy to hurt us navy through various merchant vessel crashes.
- pvg 9y agoThe visualization is pretty but missing an essential bit of info: scale.
- dsfyu404ed 9y agoI expect the navy to adopt slightly modified SOPs to prevent this from happening in the future. In a less friendly neighborhood of the ocean no vessel would be allowed anywhere near that close to a navel vessel without permission. It's not like they don't already know how to protect themselves.
- dhimes 9y agoI expected that after the first incident.
- dsfyu404ed 9y agoBig organizations have slow turnaround times. Policy changes need to be investigated thoroughly for unexpected consequences before implementation. Lives are at stake here. You can't just do another round of VC funding to get more of them.
- dhimes 9y agoBah, safety issues can cause pretty rapid change because, as you agree, lives are at stake here. We're talking about navigating a congested waterway, something where the technology and policies already exist for doing safely.
- sathackr 9y agomakes me wonder how much they're really paying attention if they can be hit by a 30,000 ton tanker without anyone so much as sounding an alarm. If that tanker were loaded with explosives and had malicious intent, we'd be missing a lot more than 10 sailors. edit: changed 12,000 ton to 30,000 ton. It was carrying 12,000 tons of fuel oil but is a 30,000 GT vessel.
- wbl 9y agoWhy do they not transmit location during relatively peaceful times? There is more of a threat from collision then hostile action in these waters.
- noir_lord 9y agoBecause if a surprise war was launched the first salvo would take out more of your ships. Broadcasting your position in peacetime sounds good until it's not peacetime. Of course the question is then - is any nation-state suicidal enough to launch a large scale pre-emptive strike on the US Navy.. Terrorists of course are another matter.
- Raphmedia 9y agoWhat's the point of patrolling if you transmit your location? Imagine how useless local police cars would be if they were equipped with a public GPS.
- wyldfire 9y agoIn a hundreds-of-million USD war vessel, LIDAR-or-some-other-clever-tech-based collision sensors sounds like a well spent couple-of-hundred-k. Probably not-too-hard to upgrade the fleet for a few billion USD. Just spec it to GD like "y'know that beep that I get on my car when I'm about to backup into a tree? Let's get that on these boats."
- mikeash 9y agoI'd think that they'd already have radar systems that can track every ship in a 50-mile radius.
- kchoudhu 9y agoUsing radar gives away your position and radar capabilities. For this reason, most active navigation measures are (almost) never used on naval ships.
- mikeash 9y agoGood point. Does this apply even in peacetime while in friendly waters? I suppose you never know when you might become a target.
- kchoudhu 9y agoPeace can turn into war very quickly indeed, so my understanding is that the Navy prefers to err on the side of caution.
- oh_sigh 9y agoPlease tell me how a radar switched to off would give away the position of the ship in a war time situation.
- kchoudhu 9y agoYou're sailing through the Strait of Hormuz, one of the busiest shipping channels in the world. There isn't a shooting war underway, but you are within range of Iranian cruise missiles and naval craft. It's not exactly war, but it isn't exactly peace. Do you see what I'm driving at?
- ed312 9y agoCould it be possible there was hostile action aboard the US Navy vessel? There may have been a (possibly classified) incident in progress at the time of the collision. If there were truly no confounding factors... this should be massively embarrassing and _at_least_ career-ending for those who failed to act while on watch.
- ceejayoz 9y agoA screw-up seems a lot more likely. The Navy just punished another crew for running a destroyer into a cargo ship. I'd imagine we'll see a similar response here.