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Reply to "What the deuce?"

gbrk posted:

There is no way given the avoidance systems on these ships along with the eyes of look outs and lastly the maneuvering capabilities of these ships that an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer  should be hit by any other vessel much less a huge oil tanker. 

Unless things have drastically changed in the Navy since I retired 11 years ago, any collision involving a U.S. Navy ship can be blamed on human error.  Besides the watch team in the pilot house, there are port and starboard lookouts and a stern lookout.  These lookouts are the ships last chance, after RADAR, to detect other ships.  All talk on a common internal network.  If a lookout sees a ship, he is supposed to report it to the Officer of the Deck.  If the ship continues in visual range, the lookouts are supposed to continue reporting on the ship.  The lookouts are supposed to be trained to determine if other nearby ships are on a collision course.  So, somehow, all these eyes failed to see the other ship, or failed to report what they saw, or were not trained properly, or whatever...

Ultimately, it is human error.

Unless all the lights were out on the other ship, which should have been picked up and tracked by RADAR. 


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