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As a former ordnance officer: lol No one is going be the CO the opens fire on a non combatant drone on the USA coast, as you'd lose your command pretty fast.

As a former ordnance officer: lol No one is going be the CO the opens fire on a non combatant drone on the USA coast, as you'd lose your command pretty fast. Edit: I can't post faster, so here's a response to a reply: I didn't peruse the logs myself, so I don't know the situation, but the rules of engagement are pretty strict, and also they may not have even had ordnance onboard for the weapons needed to take out one of these things. Not every ship carries live rounds all the time, and near the USA coast we pretty much never wanted to have loaded guns. Like I said elsewhere, the US Navy isn't a bunch of untrained psychos looking to shoot stuff. Officers and enlisted are trained to put our lives on the line, not get scared and shoot everything that looks weird or threatening. I don't get the bloodlust shown in here!

King-Aaron 6y ago
So serious question from an operational perspective: One of these drones were over the helipad, which I would have assumed would be considered 'controlled airspace'... If they knock down drones that go over airports, why not over a military vessel's airspace? Or is it not considered restricted airspace if not in use? etc
- angry_octet 6y ago
  Conditions off the Californian coast are different to a Straight of Hormuz transit. Every deployment will have command guidance, RoE, threat briefings, maintain a picture of possible threats etc. A ship doing routine training is probably under default 'self defence' rules. And no CO wants to be the one to mistakenly blast some civilians into pink mist.
  - ddalex 6y ago
    Experience shows that mistakenly blasting some civilians into pink mist doesn't mean anything if those civilians aren't white US citizens on US soil...
    - angry_octet 6y ago
      You can certainly choose to believe this, but it is wrong. What you are referring to is choosing to blow something up based on a systematic approach that follows the laws of armed conflict, with frequent legal oversight, separate after action review, in a system that strongly punishes failure to follow process. This system is fully endorsed by the US Congress, representing the citizenry. So if some civilians get blown up, 9/10 it was a deliberate decision.
      - ddalex 6y ago
        I meant that there are no actual repercussions. E.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cavalese_cable_car_disaster_(1998) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cavalese_cable_car_disaster_(1... repeated incidents where US killed citizens of other countries with impunity and no repercussions for the perps
        angry_octet 6y ago
        Rogers certainly got off lightly, as did the system that promoted him, and the US has to own that, along with all the other atrocities. The US pays in a thousand ways they choose not to account for -- the guilty have externalised the costs.
tgflynn 6y ago
I don't understand that mentality. At the very least I would think they would be considered a security risk since they could be spying on sensitive systems. It's not like we're talking about manned aircraft here.
- refulgentis 6y ago
  Same mentality that would fire a CIO whose breach mitigation strategy was to unplug a couple computers in the "server room" - its a nonsensical reaction that only demonstrates your lack of knowledge and your inability to recognize your lack of knowledge, you're not going to get much out of hand ordnance in a situation like this
  - wahern 6y ago
    To be fair, they equip the SNOOPIE team w/ COTS, hand held video cameras rather than installing some sophisticated, centrally managed surveillance camera system. OTOH, it's much less dangerous for a bunch sailors to run around on deck with cameras than with shotguns.
  - tgflynn 6y ago
    I don't see any real similarity between those two situations. There aren't any details in the article on the size of the drones or their distance but I think a destroyer would have a wide range of weapons available from which to choose the appropriate level of response. Doing nothing and hoping it goes away doesn't seem like the wisest response to this type of incident.
    - refulgentis 6y ago
      Not trolling you, genuinely trying to bridge a communication gap I see both sides of: they, and I, reacted literally to I think what you meant to be hyperbole, i.e. by saying "Surely one of the people on the deck with a shotgun could have a go at it without revealing too much secret information", you meant to say "why didn't they take any aggressive action?": The other comments speak to various factors why it was more complicated, and just affirming that decision wouldn't have enabled action, TL;DR: you don't start throwing $500K missiles at lights 1,000 feet above deck when you're right off the coast of the US, and also we don't have nearly all the info here, just a subset of a subset of docs that got through via FOIA two years ago, you can safely assume that would have been considered at the time
tgflynn 6y ago
If anyone (with sufficient resources) can send a drone swarm to go harass, or worse, anyone, including the US Navy, and there's nothing that can be done about it then eventually I think something quite bad is going to happen. It reminds me of 9/11. Everyone knew that crashing commercial aircraft could cause a great deal of destruction but somehow we could never prepare for such a scenario until it actually happened.
- perryizgr8 6y ago
  > Everyone knew that crashing commercial aircraft could cause a great deal of destruction but somehow we could never prepare for such a scenario until it actually happened. Are we prepared for that today?
  - asdff 6y ago
    Well they installed locks on the pilot's door which seems to have neutered the approach so far.
    - reirob 6y ago
      Interestingly and off topic, the same lock that is intended to prevent take over of a plane, was used by a pilot to crash the plane and kill all 150 people [1]: > The crash was caused deliberately by the co-pilot, Andreas Lubitz, who had previously been treated for suicidal tendencies and declared "unfit to work" by his doctor. Lubitz kept this information from his employer and instead reported for duty. Shortly after reaching cruise altitude and while the captain was out of the cockpit, he locked the cockpit door and initiated a controlled descent that continued until the aircraft impacted a mountainside. [1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germanwings_Flight_9525 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germanwings_Flight_9525
      - stjohnswarts 6y ago
        Nothing is 100%. Clearly the chances of leaving doors wide open is much more dangerous than locking them.
naikrovek 6y ago
> I don't get the bloodlust shown in here! This is how untrained people think. This particular group (the people who frequent this site) would probably want to know, quite strongly, what the craft are trying to do, and who was piloting them. It was probably russia fucking with us from a submarine nearby.
- galaxyLogic 6y ago
  Sounds reasonable. Or whoever was behind the crazy infrasound weapons used against US diplomats in Cuba.
  - King-Aaron 6y ago
    Was that ever actually proven to be an infrasound weapon? I recall the story being pretty odd and it just slipped out of the spotlight
    - mike_d 6y ago
      Nobody knows for sure, however the most plausible explanation put forward is neurological side effects of a banned pesticide being sprayed heavily in the embassy compound to combat Zika. They found the same pesticide was in use in Guangzhou, where diplomatic personnel complained of the same issues. https://www.scribd.com/document/426438895/Etude-du-Centre-de-traitement-des-lesions-cerebrales-de-l-Universite-de-Dalhousie https://www.scribd.com/document/426438895/Etude-du-Centre-de...
JMTQp8lwXL 6y ago
What's surprising to people is the fact that rules of engagement are inconsistent across government entities. E.g., when you think of local police, people characterize firearm usage in a way that is not measured or protocol-driven. So people are substituting the experiences they're familiar with, and applying them (incorrectly) in a naval context.
- lambda_obrien 6y ago
  This is probably it, even between branches there are major differences, the Navy and Air Force both tend to be more educated than the ground forces which tend to attract soldiers and Marines who want to play Battlefield games in real life.
sneak 6y ago
There's no blood in a UAV, shooting one down is only destruction of property, not bloodlust. It's intellectual curiosity. Nobody would be harmed by blasting one and figuring out what it is and who it belongs to.
- renewiltord 6y ago
  The problem is when you make a mistake and now an Iranian plane is in the water. Part of the job of the armed forces is that they stand and handle the risk far more intelligently than we would, i.e. they don't react in terror constantly.
  - sneak 6y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran–U.S._RQ-170_incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran–U.S._RQ-170_incident
  - lamontcg 6y ago
    Three responses up though someone is just suggesting that a sailor with a shotgun could take down one of the drones that was hovering close over the helipad. That negates the possibility of misidentifying a plane as a drone, or hitting anything unintended, or of any risk of taking down a plane at all. There's a wide gulf of responses between that and firing off an anti-aircraft missile in a "using a bazooka as a flyswatter" kind of application.
wing-_-nuts 6y ago
There's a difference between going 'weapons free' with the ship's AA CIWS vs sending some MPs up with small arms (some of these things were close)
stjohnswarts 6y ago
Shooting down unaccounted for drones isn't bloodlust, it's common sense. They should have taken down at least a couple of them to try and ascertain what's going on, how can you defend against something that you don't understand.

King-Aaron 6y ago

So serious question from an operational perspective: One of these drones were over the helipad, which I would have assumed would be considered 'controlled airspace'... If they knock down drones that go over airports, why not over a military vessel's airspace? Or is it not considered restricted airspace if not in use? etc

angry_octet 6y ago
Conditions off the Californian coast are different to a Straight of Hormuz transit. Every deployment will have command guidance, RoE, threat briefings, maintain a picture of possible threats etc. A ship doing routine training is probably under default 'self defence' rules. And no CO wants to be the one to mistakenly blast some civilians into pink mist.
- ddalex 6y ago
  Experience shows that mistakenly blasting some civilians into pink mist doesn't mean anything if those civilians aren't white US citizens on US soil...
  - angry_octet 6y ago
    You can certainly choose to believe this, but it is wrong. What you are referring to is choosing to blow something up based on a systematic approach that follows the laws of armed conflict, with frequent legal oversight, separate after action review, in a system that strongly punishes failure to follow process. This system is fully endorsed by the US Congress, representing the citizenry. So if some civilians get blown up, 9/10 it was a deliberate decision.
    - ddalex 6y ago
      I meant that there are no actual repercussions. E.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cavalese_cable_car_disaster_(1998) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cavalese_cable_car_disaster_(1... repeated incidents where US killed citizens of other countries with impunity and no repercussions for the perps
      - angry_octet 6y ago
        Rogers certainly got off lightly, as did the system that promoted him, and the US has to own that, along with all the other atrocities. The US pays in a thousand ways they choose not to account for -- the guilty have externalised the costs.

tgflynn 6y ago

I don't understand that mentality. At the very least I would think they would be considered a security risk since they could be spying on sensitive systems. It's not like we're talking about manned aircraft here.

refulgentis 6y ago
Same mentality that would fire a CIO whose breach mitigation strategy was to unplug a couple computers in the "server room" - its a nonsensical reaction that only demonstrates your lack of knowledge and your inability to recognize your lack of knowledge, you're not going to get much out of hand ordnance in a situation like this
- wahern 6y ago
  To be fair, they equip the SNOOPIE team w/ COTS, hand held video cameras rather than installing some sophisticated, centrally managed surveillance camera system. OTOH, it's much less dangerous for a bunch sailors to run around on deck with cameras than with shotguns.
- tgflynn 6y ago
  I don't see any real similarity between those two situations. There aren't any details in the article on the size of the drones or their distance but I think a destroyer would have a wide range of weapons available from which to choose the appropriate level of response. Doing nothing and hoping it goes away doesn't seem like the wisest response to this type of incident.
  - refulgentis 6y ago
    Not trolling you, genuinely trying to bridge a communication gap I see both sides of: they, and I, reacted literally to I think what you meant to be hyperbole, i.e. by saying "Surely one of the people on the deck with a shotgun could have a go at it without revealing too much secret information", you meant to say "why didn't they take any aggressive action?": The other comments speak to various factors why it was more complicated, and just affirming that decision wouldn't have enabled action, TL;DR: you don't start throwing $500K missiles at lights 1,000 feet above deck when you're right off the coast of the US, and also we don't have nearly all the info here, just a subset of a subset of docs that got through via FOIA two years ago, you can safely assume that would have been considered at the time

tgflynn 6y ago

If anyone (with sufficient resources) can send a drone swarm to go harass, or worse, anyone, including the US Navy, and there's nothing that can be done about it then eventually I think something quite bad is going to happen. It reminds me of 9/11. Everyone knew that crashing commercial aircraft could cause a great deal of destruction but somehow we could never prepare for such a scenario until it actually happened.

perryizgr8 6y ago
> Everyone knew that crashing commercial aircraft could cause a great deal of destruction but somehow we could never prepare for such a scenario until it actually happened. Are we prepared for that today?
- asdff 6y ago
  Well they installed locks on the pilot's door which seems to have neutered the approach so far.
  - reirob 6y ago
    Interestingly and off topic, the same lock that is intended to prevent take over of a plane, was used by a pilot to crash the plane and kill all 150 people [1]: > The crash was caused deliberately by the co-pilot, Andreas Lubitz, who had previously been treated for suicidal tendencies and declared "unfit to work" by his doctor. Lubitz kept this information from his employer and instead reported for duty. Shortly after reaching cruise altitude and while the captain was out of the cockpit, he locked the cockpit door and initiated a controlled descent that continued until the aircraft impacted a mountainside. [1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germanwings_Flight_9525 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germanwings_Flight_9525
    - stjohnswarts 6y ago
      Nothing is 100%. Clearly the chances of leaving doors wide open is much more dangerous than locking them.

naikrovek 6y ago

> I don't get the bloodlust shown in here! This is how untrained people think. This particular group (the people who frequent this site) would probably want to know, quite strongly, what the craft are trying to do, and who was piloting them. It was probably russia fucking with us from a submarine nearby.

galaxyLogic 6y ago
Sounds reasonable. Or whoever was behind the crazy infrasound weapons used against US diplomats in Cuba.
- King-Aaron 6y ago
  Was that ever actually proven to be an infrasound weapon? I recall the story being pretty odd and it just slipped out of the spotlight
  - mike_d 6y ago
    Nobody knows for sure, however the most plausible explanation put forward is neurological side effects of a banned pesticide being sprayed heavily in the embassy compound to combat Zika. They found the same pesticide was in use in Guangzhou, where diplomatic personnel complained of the same issues. https://www.scribd.com/document/426438895/Etude-du-Centre-de-traitement-des-lesions-cerebrales-de-l-Universite-de-Dalhousie https://www.scribd.com/document/426438895/Etude-du-Centre-de...

JMTQp8lwXL 6y ago

What's surprising to people is the fact that rules of engagement are inconsistent across government entities. E.g., when you think of local police, people characterize firearm usage in a way that is not measured or protocol-driven. So people are substituting the experiences they're familiar with, and applying them (incorrectly) in a naval context.

lambda_obrien 6y ago
This is probably it, even between branches there are major differences, the Navy and Air Force both tend to be more educated than the ground forces which tend to attract soldiers and Marines who want to play Battlefield games in real life.

sneak 6y ago

There's no blood in a UAV, shooting one down is only destruction of property, not bloodlust. It's intellectual curiosity. Nobody would be harmed by blasting one and figuring out what it is and who it belongs to.

renewiltord 6y ago
The problem is when you make a mistake and now an Iranian plane is in the water. Part of the job of the armed forces is that they stand and handle the risk far more intelligently than we would, i.e. they don't react in terror constantly.
- sneak 6y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran–U.S._RQ-170_incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran–U.S._RQ-170_incident
- lamontcg 6y ago
  Three responses up though someone is just suggesting that a sailor with a shotgun could take down one of the drones that was hovering close over the helipad. That negates the possibility of misidentifying a plane as a drone, or hitting anything unintended, or of any risk of taking down a plane at all. There's a wide gulf of responses between that and firing off an anti-aircraft missile in a "using a bazooka as a flyswatter" kind of application.

wing-_-nuts 6y ago

There's a difference between going 'weapons free' with the ship's AA CIWS vs sending some MPs up with small arms (some of these things were close)

stjohnswarts 6y ago

Shooting down unaccounted for drones isn't bloodlust, it's common sense. They should have taken down at least a couple of them to try and ascertain what's going on, how can you defend against something that you don't understand.