# USS John McCain Collision **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [August 21, 2017, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uss-john-mccain-collision/794246 "2017-08-21T03:07:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2017, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uss-john-mccain-collision/794246/61 "2017-08-23T15:54:32Z")
> [@GreenWyvern](#): > > This is a tacit admission that it was the fault of the crew. Since there have been repeated incidents, it’s \*not \*an admission that it’s the fault of the crew, but of their training or the procedures they were required to follow or perhaps of their equipment. If nothing really changed after the first time, which it apparently didn’t, that makes it a leadership failure. ---
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2017, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uss-john-mccain-collision/794246/62 "2017-08-23T16:09:46Z")
> [@Corry\_El](#): > > \*see post above. If per EMSA 2014 report that there are 125 ‘serious’ or ‘very serious’ collisions involving merchant ships per year and rough order of magnitude 100 times as many oceangoing merchant ships as USN ships, 3 collisions (including Lake Champlain’s non fatal one) in the whole USN per year is over twice the merchant ship rate. But if considering 2 ‘very serious’ in 2 months in one 8 ship ‘Desron’, then it’s a couple of 1,000 times the merchant ship rate. So the other thing about stats is how you frame it, but looks like a situation where leadership must make sure there isn’t a problem, not just assume there isn’t one. Comparing numbers in this way doesn’t do justice to the situation. A merchant ship may have only person on watch at night, and a minimum of radar and tracking equipment. A Navy vessel is expected to have a far higher level of discipline, training and equipment, good positional awareness, and a number of crew members on watch at any time - so the number of collisions involving Navy ships should be far less proportionally. We know that the problem with the USS Fitzgerald _was_ a crew problem - or a discipline, training and leadership problem if you prefer. You would expect that the causes had been addressed, and that the 7th fleet would be particularly vigilant about such things only a couple of months later. We don’t yet know all the facts, but it’s certainly not looking like a technical issue, or the fault of the tanker. > [@](#): > > Incidents such as those with the McCain and Fitzgerald incidents are troubling, said Jan van Tol, a retired commander of three war ships who now serves as an analyst with the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. > > ``` > “Navy destroyers are remarkably nimble and responsive, including rapid acceleration ability, thus should certainly be able to get out of the way of almost anything approaching ‘too close,’” van Tol said in an email. “Such close quarters situations should NEVER be allowed to develop without various watchstanders and watchteams being well aware that they are developing.” > > ``` > > [Navy’s top officer calls for fleet-wide review in light of McCain disaster](http://www.navytimes.com/news/your-navy/2017/08/21/cno-richardson-calls-for-fleet-wide-review-in-light-of-mccain-disaster/) ---
**Author:** ![scr4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/59ef9b/32.png) [@scr4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scr4)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2017, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uss-john-mccain-collision/794246/63 "2017-08-23T16:28:13Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > I’m not surprised to hear that Navy crews are over worked. Our entire military is underfunded and stretched thin. > > We’ve been deploying troops ever since 9/11. Our Navy has to contend with China’s Navy that keeps expanding. That’s hard on the men and the equipment. Even if the Navy is “underfunded and stretched thin,” the effect should be that the crew are away from home longer & more often than they should have been. It shouldn’t result in the crew getting insufficient sleep & rest _each day_. They wouldn’t let a destroyer leave port without a full complement of crew, would they? ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2017, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uss-john-mccain-collision/794246/64 "2017-08-23T16:46:51Z")
> [@GreenWyvern](#): > > Comparing numbers in this way doesn’t do justice to the situation. A merchant ship may have only person on watch at night, and a minimum of radar and tracking equipment. A Navy vessel is expected to have a far higher level of discipline, training and equipment, good positional awareness, and a number of crew members on watch at any time - so the number of collisions involving Navy ships should be far less proportionally. > > We know that the problem with the USS Fitzgerald _was_ a crew problem - or a discipline, training and leadership problem if you prefer. \*\*You would expect that the causes had been addressed, and that the 7th fleet would be particularly vigilant about such things only a couple of months later. \*\* > > We don’t yet know all the facts, but it’s certainly not looking like a technical issue, or the fault of the tanker. Bolding mine. That’s a \*wee bit \*optimistic. For sure within a few days at most a message will go out to everybody: “Heads up!! Be more careful, dammit!” But not actual procedural changes, modifications to watchstanding methods, sleeping schedules, new equipment or new ways to use it, new SOPs, etc. All of that will be a year or more in the making. And if indeed the underlying problem is simply lack of sleep in a culture that deeply values the idea that 24-hour alertness is something humans can do, well, … that’s not going to change until there’s been a lot of personal turnover among the culture-setters and a deeply unpopular intrusive inspection regime to find and root out any and all examples of backsliding. We’ve gone through similar evolutions in my industry over killing off defective but time-honored cultural attitudes. It’s the work of years to come to consensus on what to do instead and the work of a decade or more after that to thoroughly implement. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2017, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uss-john-mccain-collision/794246/65 "2017-08-23T16:52:59Z")
Late add: As a trivial example, if sailors (including officers) need 50% more sleep time to not be walking zombies then we either need to increase the ship’s complement by 30ish%, which can’t happen because there’s not enough bunking space, galley capacity, etc. Not to mention the extra payroll budget that would require. Or we need to figure out how to operate the ship with about 2/3rds the people on duty at any moment than we have now, so the remainder can get adequate rest. After an accident the idea that we can increase safety by reducing the people at work minding the ship seems … counterintuitive … to say the least. But it may in fact be what’s needed. Overcoming the public and institutional knee-jerk reaction in exactly the wrong direction will not be easy. Or quick. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2017, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uss-john-mccain-collision/794246/66 "2017-08-23T17:02:18Z")
> [@Corry\_El](#): > > There are a few 10,000’s of oceangoing merchant ships (nailing down one number is sensitive to the lower size cut off), order of 100 times as many as USN ships. The European Maritime Safety Agency’s “Annual Overview of Marine Casualties and Incidents 2014” (the 2015 report graphic is harder to read) counted 22 ‘very serious’ and 103 ‘serious’ collisions involving merchant ships worldwide. So considering the 7th fleet, 1 per month which would probably both qualify as ‘very serious’ even aside from the loss of life, is a huge number. Considering the whole USN for the year and the 7th fleet’s 3 serious or very serious collisions are the only ones, and taking the is USN as around 1/100 the size of the world merchant fleet, it’s not orders of mag but still a higher rate. And one would probably expect warships to avoid collisions better not worse than merchant ships. I’m not a seaman, but I would also guess that Navy ships spend less time than merchant ships in busy shipping lanes like the English Channel, where collisions are more likely. ---
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2017, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uss-john-mccain-collision/794246/67 "2017-08-23T17:12:20Z")
I wonder whether the problem is something more than insufficient sleep. If it was just one person watching a display, you could imagine that he simply fell asleep. But in this case there should have been two or more separate _teams_ of individuals on watch. Surely they couldn’t all have been asleep. My guess is that they were relieving the boredom by doing something else - playing computer games, watching porn, interacting on social media, etc. while on watch. Does anyone know whether the crew on a US destroyer has easy access to the internet? ---
**Author:** ![MichaelEmouse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/michaelemouse/32/101_2.png) [@MichaelEmouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MichaelEmouse)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2017, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uss-john-mccain-collision/794246/68 "2017-08-23T17:22:17Z")
> [@Pork\_Rind](#): > > Came here just to mention this, and beaten to the punch. Still, when I read that yesterday I was astonished that this is acceptable practice. I once worked at a newspaper in the production department and due to a variety of circumstances, I worked several looong days in a row with maybe 3-4 hours of sleep a night. After a few days I was a wreck that wasn’t safe to operate an Xacto knife, much less a warship. I’m confident if that situation went the length of a tour I would have had some sort of mental breakdown. Dunno how they do it. Drugs, likely. It used to be speed, now it’s Modafinil I think. It’s supposed to keep you going for 4 days without sleep. The sleep debt over a deployment must be pretty bad, though. Do US Navy captains have the attitude that civilian ships should get out of their way? It must be particularly embarrassing because if US Navy ships can’t avoid getting hit by big slow civilian ships, one wonders how well they’ll avoid getting hit by small fast missiles. ---
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2017, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uss-john-mccain-collision/794246/69 "2017-08-23T17:48:16Z")
> [@lazybratsche](#): > > This may be the case. It may even be a lack of sleep and attention that not even coffee can fix. > > On Reddit, I’ve seen accounts of sailors that have served recently on US ships, some even on destroyers in the 7th fleet ([this thread](https://np.reddit.com/r/navy/comments/6uz5hj/uss_john_mccain_collides_with_merchant_ship/dlx2esb/?context=3) has been particularly informative). They all talk about being overworked, and not getting enough sleep. Normal duty rotations might leave 6 hours for sleep, but that can get cut down to 4, which of course means sailors are lucky to get 3 hours of decent quality sleep. Stories of dozing off during a watch, or making stupid mistakes due to lack of attention, are common. > > Apparently there is some [Navy research on crew endurance](https://my.nps.edu/web/crewendurance/index) pointing out how this is a terrible way to run a ship, but the culture of overwork is entrenched. And on smaller ships like destroyers, there isn’t any room to house enough sailors to keep everything manned with less demanding duty schedules. > > There’s also some grumbling about slipping training standards, but that’s harder to evaluate as a layman reading anecdotes like this. I have to say, that thread on reddit makes horrendous reading. I was once on a schedule where I got almost no sleep every fourth night for more than a year, and had no chance of extra sleep on the other days. That doesn’t sound too bad at all by comparison, but it took a serious toll and I was a real wreck at the end of it. So were all the other guys on the same schedule. ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2017, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uss-john-mccain-collision/794246/70 "2017-08-23T22:55:58Z")
Commander of the 7th Fleet, Vice Adm. Joseph Aucoin  got canned. [https://www.google.com/amp/amp.usatoday.com/story/592685001/](https://www.google.com/amp/amp.usatoday.com/story/592685001/) His dismissal makes sense. The overall readiness of the ships, in his command is the Fleet Commander’s responsibility. Whether it’s over worked crews or lack of training something has to change. A new leader can evaluate what’s going on and get the problems corrected. ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2017, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uss-john-mccain-collision/794246/71 "2017-08-24T00:29:33Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > That’s a \*wee bit \*optimistic. For sure within a few days at most a message will go out to everybody: “Heads up!! Be more careful, dammit!” You have to wonder if the reaction to the first accident was for everyone to double down on additional training, making the situation worse if the problem was in fact related to insufficient sleep. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2017, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uss-john-mccain-collision/794246/72 "2017-08-24T00:57:36Z")
Either more training or COs saying things like “I don’t want 2 lookouts on duty at all times per SOP, I want 3.” For whatever specialists are required for whatever functions; doesn’t have to be lookouts. With a 50% increase in man-hours required but zero increase in headcount, each worker with that qualification now needs to put in 50% more watchstanding time. Which, unless a lot of other work and make-work is cut, may result in a 90% reduction in sleep opportunity or actual sleep. Not directly related, but I recall earlier discussions about USN submarine ops. As I think I recall it, they run on an 18 hour day composed of 3 shifts of 6 hours each. Which is intended as watch-stand for 6, relax or do other work like office tasks or training or study or drills for 6, and sleep for 6. I guess eating, showering, and shitting come out of the middle 6 somehow. Anyhow, by design humans are spectacularly bad at an 18 hour sleep cycle. Men rapidly become depressed zombies. And yet despite all evidence to the contrary the Navy persists that this is the way to run a multi-million or even billion dollar submarine. In my industry we’ve made a lot of progress in the last 10 years on understanding just how fragile human performance is with inadequate sleep either near term or long term. Over massive screaming by the carriers the FAA finally upgraded the rest and duty regulations a few years ago to a more scientific footing that recognizes that sleep-deprived people are an active hazard and you can’t substitute training or discipline or dedication or professionalism or drugs for sleep. We workers “paid” for those safety improvements with other changes to our worklives to keep the whole thing mostly cost-neutral from the carriers’ POV. The difference in immediate and cumulative fatigue between the old rules and the new is night and day. So this is a topic rather near and dear to my heart. I certainly don’t know that chronic fatigue was at the heart of the Navy’s apparent problem. But I’d be willing to bet it’s a part. ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2017, 4:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uss-john-mccain-collision/794246/73 "2017-08-24T04:31:24Z")
> [@GreenWyvern](#): > > Admiral Aucoin isn’t being removed for nothing. While I agree that to this arm chair admiral, it appears more likely than not that there is a systemic problem here, it’s impossible to tell at this stage if it’s really the fault of that particular admiral. Perhaps it’s the entire Navy culture which is leading to this. This rush to place blame on one particular person happens a lot in Japan, and it often hinders efforts to make necessary improvements by assuming that it’s an individual at fault rather than the system being bad. ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2017, 12:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uss-john-mccain-collision/794246/74 "2017-08-24T12:20:22Z")
> [@GreenWyvern](#): > > RSo the crew of one ship in the 7th fleet is negligent, undisciplined and/or badly trained. The crew of another ship in the 7th fleet is negligent, undisciplined and/or badly trained. How do you know all this? I keep a very close eye on this stuff as part of my work and AFAIK there has been no report into the cause of the first incident, and certainly no report into the cause of the second. You are engaged in classic armchair pontificating, with no basis that I can see beyond a pissweak _res ipsa_. > [@GreenWyvern](#): > > I don’t see chance as playing much part at all. Here’s the really short version. Any safety system that assumes chance will not play its part (as you do) is assuming that absolute control can be achieved, ie that the system can be foolproofed. I would bet London to a brick the US navy is not that stupid. _Everyone_ and \*everything \*fucks up now and again. Accidents in any halfway decent system are typically caused by the off chance failure of multiple failsafes. > [@](#): > > If the collision was due to a mechanical failure, or if it was the fault of the tanker, the Navy wouldn’t have ordered an operational pause or replaced the admiral in charge. This is a tacit admission that it was the fault of the crew. ROFL. Good one. ---
**Author:** ![wevets](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e9a140/32.png) [@wevets](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wevets)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2017, 1:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uss-john-mccain-collision/794246/75 "2017-08-24T13:03:12Z")
> [@scr4](#): > > Even if the Navy is “underfunded and stretched thin,” the effect should be that the crew are away from home longer & more often than they should have been. It shouldn’t result in the crew getting insufficient sleep & rest _each day_. They wouldn’t let a destroyer leave port without a full complement of crew, would they? They would and did, unfortunately: > [@Philip Ewing for NPR](#): > > One problem was years of Navy penny-pinching, in which ships sailed with smaller crews, creating more work for the sailors who remained, which meant less time for hands-on training — and more rust, broken equipment and other such problems. > > “It appears the effort to derive efficiencies has overtaken our culture of effectiveness,” the report said. > > Navy leaders said they were taking those insights to heart — adding sailors back to crews and renewing their focus on training and competence. > **[Navy Navigation Errors May Have Killed More Troops Than Afghanistan So Far in...](https://www.npr.org/2017/08/23/545297589/navy-navigation-bungles-may-have-killed-more-troops-than-afghanistan-so-far-in-2)** > > The Navy has commissioned its latest big investigation after a series of deadly accidents in the Western Pacific, but there are no easy answers to the problems with the fleet. I’m not sure if the USS Fitzgerald or McCain were undermanned, since it sounds like the Navy’s been trying to address this problem. But it is possible. ---
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2017, 1:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uss-john-mccain-collision/794246/76 "2017-08-24T13:04:29Z")
> [@Princhester](#): > > How do you know all this? I keep a very close eye on this stuff as part of my work and AFAIK there has been no report into the cause of the first incident, and certainly no report into the cause of the second. You are engaged in classic armchair pontificating, with no basis that I can see beyond a pissweak _res ipsa_. You ask how I know that ‘the crew was negligent, undisciplined and/or badly trained’. There has been no final report, but in ‘keeping a close eye’ perhaps you missed the [preliminary report and line of duty investigation](http://www.secnav.navy.mil/foia/readingroom/HotTopics/USS%20Fitzgerald/Supplemental%20Inquiry%20USS%20Fitzgerald.pdf), and the actions taken against the officers and crew for _failure of duty_: > [@](#): > > Adm. Bill Moran, the deputy chief of naval operations, said that Vice Adm. Joseph Aucoin, head of the Navy’s 7th Fleet, plans to relieve Cmdr. Bryce Benson for cause. > On Thursday, the Navy released a preliminary report on the June 17 collision between the Fitzgerald and the freighter ACX Crystal off the coast of Japan.About a dozen sailors in all face some punishment, including all of the destroyer’s watch. Further sanctions are possible, Moran said. > “Clearly at some point, the bridge team lost situational awareness,” Moran said. > Aucoin acted swiftly because the investigation indicated serious mistakes were made by the crew, Moran said. The Navy has lost confidence in the sailors being relieved. > > [Navy report: Fitzgerald commander lost "situational awareness," fired](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/08/17/commander-stricken-destroyer-fitzgerald-relieved-after-navy-report-cites-failures/577805001/) So Adm. Moran says that “ **serious mistakes were made by the crew** ”. In other words what I said was accurate. > [@Princhester](#): > > Here’s the really short version. Any safety system that assumes chance will not play its part (as you do) Please don’t set up straw men and attribute fanciful ideas to me in order to knock them down. Or at least don’t imagine that nobody will notice what you’re doing. > [@Princhester](#): > > _Everyone_ and \*everything \*fucks up now and again. Accidents in any halfway decent system are typically caused by the off chance failure of multiple failsafes. Yes, the chance of each crew member fucking up is a completely independent variable. It just so happened by random coincidence that everyone on watch happened to fuck up at exactly the same time. No doubt that’s what the final report will say. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2017, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uss-john-mccain-collision/794246/77 "2017-08-24T13:54:59Z")
> [@TokyoBayer](#): > > This rush to place blame on one particular person happens a lot in Japan, and it often hinders efforts to make necessary improvements by assuming that it’s an individual at fault rather than the system being bad. Scapegoating is pretty common in the US too. A calamity means the gods have been angered, and a human sacrifice is required to appease them. ---
**Author:** ![bob\_2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bob_2/32/3341_2.png) [@bob\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_2)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2017, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uss-john-mccain-collision/794246/78 "2017-08-24T14:17:10Z")
Yes- hang an admiral. ---
**Author:** ![Corry\_El](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecae2f/32.png) [@Corry\_El](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Corry_El)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2017, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uss-john-mccain-collision/794246/79 "2017-08-24T15:21:07Z")
> [@GreenWyvern](#): > > Comparing numbers in this way doesn’t do justice to the situation. A merchant ship may have only person on watch at night, and a minimum of radar and tracking equipment. A Navy vessel is expected to have a far higher level of discipline, training and equipment, good positional awareness, and a number of crew members on watch at any time - so the number of collisions involving Navy ships should be far less proportionally. OK everyone doesn’t read every post but I said the first time you’d expect the naval rate to be lower not higher. My point with the numbers is just that how much higher it’s been lately for 7th Fleet or USN depends a lot on how you frame it. But to me it’s sufficiently obvious there’s likely enough to be a systemic problem for USN leadership to assume so. But just to comment further on reasons you’d expect warships to have a lower accident rate. It’s mainly because they should, in peacetime, be able to adapt their operating profile to concentrate on safe navigation with less conflict with commercial considerations than merchant ships typically do, in getting to a particular place at a particular time, and the amount of time they spend in congested areas. But OTOH the personnel situations on naval and merchant ships are very different. Naval officers have to lead and train large numbers of relatively inexperienced enlisted people, with some help from limited number of experienced enlisted. They have to train that group to do all kinds of combat related activities which are hypothetical as far as every day operation of the ship. Then if aiming for a full career they have to also accrue points in areas like shore assignments, further education etc to be ‘well rounded’. The first of those issues can’t be avoided. You can’t perform the combat mission with a few long term career people, you need the less experienced people. The personnel/promotion system for naval officers might be debated at the margin. But merchant officers mainly just operate their ship in the normal way, that’s their career. They lead a much smaller (sometimes nowadays they even outnumber it) cadre of unlicensed people with the same single job focus. They don’t train for some other hypothetical mission aside from that. As other well informed voices have said, these collisions very rarely occur because nobody saw the other ship, so more people to spot the other ship, like ‘don’t they have radar?’, is not the issue. It’s much more likely a problem of coordination, or possibly a material failure (of steering suggested in latest incident don’t know if it will pan out but possible in general). In these respects the big team of people, a lot of them relatively inexperienced, who have to coordinate on a warship, and its more mechanically complex nature, are not advantages. However once again, given its looser operating profile (and better speed and maneuverability in case of a DD type ship) a naval vessel should be able to avoid collisions at least as well as a merchant ship, so no disagreement on that basic point. ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2017, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uss-john-mccain-collision/794246/80 "2017-08-24T15:40:45Z")
It’s troubling that redundant systems are failing. First there’s electronics on the bridge and CIC. Then they have trained lookouts stationed around the ship. There’s radio communication. Get out of the way!! Yet somehow, the same Naval group based in Japan has 4 collisions since Jan. 2017. That many redundant safety systems shouldn’t fail this often. A former Navy Helmsman and Lookout wades in. [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/vQFSpLDla6c/maxresdefault.jpg "USS Fitzgerald DDG-62 Collision from US Navy Helmsman and Lookout") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQFSpLDla6c) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uss-john-mccain-collision/794246.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uss-john-mccain-collision/794246.md?page=5)