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So, we spent all the time and money confirming what USN already knew?

by vaidhy 3y ago

kneebonian 3y ago
USN != USCG. See my other comment in this thread that can explain it well.
- garbagecoder 3y ago
  That doesn't matter, dude. This is all set up on an ICS model. They're highly coordinated. Turn on your news sometime and one guy, a fire chief, a sheriff, or maybe rarely a military guy will be speaking and it won't be because they rock-paper-scissored for it. I'm the last person to deny the massive frustrating bureaucracy that is the US military, but in this kind of thing, that's not an issue. Former O-4 17 alpha. I was even less connected to the Coast Guard than the Navy is, but since they do port security, including cyber, if there was an issue there they were involved.
  - HWR_14 3y ago
    Wouldn't it be possible, if the Navy program were too secret, that they had no counterpart in the Coast Guard cleared for it?
    - garbagecoder 3y ago
      Of course it's possible, but this isn't one of those things. Certain aspects of the systems are breathtakingly reported as "top secret" in the press, but the existence of sonar systems good at hearing and sifting noise to recognize that kind of sound is widely known. We know Coca Cola exists. Hell we know the ingredients, but we don't know the recipe. One of the first things I imagine an incident commander would do would be to ask if anyone has anything like that. Any ships in the area, military or civilian or foreign hear/see anything that they know of. Sounds like he got that information soon. Does that mean the whole thing was a waste of time? Without knowing more about exactly what they did or didn't do, I can't say. And whether they should have done all of this is besides the point. They decided to do a search. And until they could connect that sound with the vessel, they needed to keep looking. This is why stupid people doing stupid shit isn't just a Darwin Award situation. Search and rescue types don't want to stop until they succeed and you're putting them at risk too. They leave bodies on Everest, I would hope this was only ever just to confirm they were dead and no one was going down there but who knows.
cjensen 3y ago
You can't "know" with 100% certainty from a sound, and generally searchers don't give up until they must.
- noah_buddy 3y ago
  This reminds me of a thorough and depressing write up of the lost hikers in a south western desert. An experienced search and rescue guy spent years finding where they perished, navigating bureaucracy and the arid landscape even though the victims were certainly deceased.
  - BXLE_1-1-BitIs1 3y ago
    There's a guy whose truck was found in the bushes off a gravel road in the mountains. Subsequent searching turned up camping equipment and a laptop. He had terminal cancer. Some years later I spotted a thigh bone that turned out to be from a moose.
  - jonah 3y ago
    Aahh, you're probably talking about Tom Mahood's: The Hunt for the Death Valley Germans. They were in Death Valley NP. An epic and gripping tale for sure. It made quite an impression on me as I was joining my local SAR team. https://www.otherhand.org/home-page/search-and-rescue/the-hunt-for-the-death-valley-germans/ https://www.otherhand.org/home-page/search-and-rescue/the-hu...
    - BestGuess 3y ago
      Well there goes my evening. thank ya kindly for sharing sir. I hear tell lots of independent people who are doing things anyway, like magnet fishers or sonar people and the like. Lots of times local PD's are very hostile like that story sort of indicated about the local sheriff with sharing information, threatening tresspassing where there ain't no tresspass or laws broken, refusing to share any information, things like that. Wish that sorta thing would stop. Meanwhile you get others who welcome any help at all and seems to me like they usually get answers that way at least by exclusion. We could use more of that where people got the skills and stuff to do it safely, but that's my mostly ignorant guess of the situation. Don't know nothin about SAR or the like so take my limited notion for what it is I suppose. If you've more to tell or share I'd be much obliged
dontupvoteme 3y ago
Good OPSEC comes at a price.
dessimus 3y ago
Even with the USN knowing it was fruitless, the USCG can use the activity to look at its operations and determine what improvements for SAR might exist in a way that pre-planned training exercises can not.

So, we spent all the time and money confirming what USN already knew?

by vaidhy 3y ago

So, we spent all the time and money confirming what USN already knew?

kneebonian 3y ago

USN != USCG. See my other comment in this thread that can explain it well.

garbagecoder 3y ago
That doesn't matter, dude. This is all set up on an ICS model. They're highly coordinated. Turn on your news sometime and one guy, a fire chief, a sheriff, or maybe rarely a military guy will be speaking and it won't be because they rock-paper-scissored for it. I'm the last person to deny the massive frustrating bureaucracy that is the US military, but in this kind of thing, that's not an issue. Former O-4 17 alpha. I was even less connected to the Coast Guard than the Navy is, but since they do port security, including cyber, if there was an issue there they were involved.
- HWR_14 3y ago
  Wouldn't it be possible, if the Navy program were too secret, that they had no counterpart in the Coast Guard cleared for it?
  - garbagecoder 3y ago
    Of course it's possible, but this isn't one of those things. Certain aspects of the systems are breathtakingly reported as "top secret" in the press, but the existence of sonar systems good at hearing and sifting noise to recognize that kind of sound is widely known. We know Coca Cola exists. Hell we know the ingredients, but we don't know the recipe. One of the first things I imagine an incident commander would do would be to ask if anyone has anything like that. Any ships in the area, military or civilian or foreign hear/see anything that they know of. Sounds like he got that information soon. Does that mean the whole thing was a waste of time? Without knowing more about exactly what they did or didn't do, I can't say. And whether they should have done all of this is besides the point. They decided to do a search. And until they could connect that sound with the vessel, they needed to keep looking. This is why stupid people doing stupid shit isn't just a Darwin Award situation. Search and rescue types don't want to stop until they succeed and you're putting them at risk too. They leave bodies on Everest, I would hope this was only ever just to confirm they were dead and no one was going down there but who knows.

cjensen 3y ago

You can't "know" with 100% certainty from a sound, and generally searchers don't give up until they must.

noah_buddy 3y ago
This reminds me of a thorough and depressing write up of the lost hikers in a south western desert. An experienced search and rescue guy spent years finding where they perished, navigating bureaucracy and the arid landscape even though the victims were certainly deceased.
- BXLE_1-1-BitIs1 3y ago
  There's a guy whose truck was found in the bushes off a gravel road in the mountains. Subsequent searching turned up camping equipment and a laptop. He had terminal cancer. Some years later I spotted a thigh bone that turned out to be from a moose.
- jonah 3y ago
  Aahh, you're probably talking about Tom Mahood's: The Hunt for the Death Valley Germans. They were in Death Valley NP. An epic and gripping tale for sure. It made quite an impression on me as I was joining my local SAR team. https://www.otherhand.org/home-page/search-and-rescue/the-hunt-for-the-death-valley-germans/ https://www.otherhand.org/home-page/search-and-rescue/the-hu...
  - BestGuess 3y ago
    Well there goes my evening. thank ya kindly for sharing sir. I hear tell lots of independent people who are doing things anyway, like magnet fishers or sonar people and the like. Lots of times local PD's are very hostile like that story sort of indicated about the local sheriff with sharing information, threatening tresspassing where there ain't no tresspass or laws broken, refusing to share any information, things like that. Wish that sorta thing would stop. Meanwhile you get others who welcome any help at all and seems to me like they usually get answers that way at least by exclusion. We could use more of that where people got the skills and stuff to do it safely, but that's my mostly ignorant guess of the situation. Don't know nothin about SAR or the like so take my limited notion for what it is I suppose. If you've more to tell or share I'd be much obliged

dontupvoteme 3y ago

Good OPSEC comes at a price.

dessimus 3y ago

Even with the USN knowing it was fruitless, the USCG can use the activity to look at its operations and determine what improvements for SAR might exist in a way that pre-planned training exercises can not.