Is playing a light game of bumpercars with warships on manuvers a big deal for Naval Captains careerwise or is it usually overlooked if no loss of life occurs.
There will be an inquiry; there may or may not be a court martial, but both skippers are at the end of their naval careers.
It is a big deal and I’ve been told it can keep a captain from reaching flag rank it all depends on circumstances. Not all collisions are avoidable such as bumps when unrepping. I was on the Ranger when we had this kind of collision with the Wichita and AFAIK the skipper never faced any direct repercussions from it.
Though we did all call him Cap’n Crunch after that.
I don’t know if I would go that far galen ubal. A captain may never reach flag rank but the CO on the ranger was not relieved of command or anything like that.
In general any sort of collision, grounding and stuff like that results in a board of inquiry and can derail the CO’s career but it needn’t always do so. WWII Pacific Fleet commander (CINCPAC)Adm Nimitz grounded a destroyer early in his career and managed to recover from it.
From the cite: “After transfer to the destroyer Decatur, he ran the ship aground and was court-martialed, reprimanded, and denied his request for battleship duty; he was assigned to a submarine instead. In four consecutive undersea commands, he became a leading “pigboat” authority and built a reservoir of experience that proved invaluable in both world wars.”
I suspect, though, that most CO’s who have such accidents never do reach really high rank.
The captain owns the ship and is responsible for everything that happens onboard but he isn’t on the bridge at every moment.
I want to know what kind of holy hell the officers of the deck took for letting this happen. That doesn’t bode well for a junior officers career.
I was on the USS Detroit (AOE4) when the Kennedy came along side take on fuel. I don’t know who was driving the bird farm but goddamn that was a scary feeling seeing the overhang of the flight deck over my head. No bumps, but damn that would have caused a mess.
It’s true he isn’t on the bridge every moment, but since he 'owns" the ship (as you rather neatly put it) the Navy holds him responsible for what is done on the bridge at all times.
At a court martial, saying “Hey, I wasn’t on the bridge - blame the Officer of the Deck” will get the Captain exactly nowhere. In fact, it will mark him as someone who doesn’t understand the basic responsibilities of his job, and is thus unqualified to hold it.
Right. The pyramid of promotion get’s awfully thin when you get into the stratospheric ranks of things like a theater commander. Someone who has an unblemished career of competence will usually get the nod over someone who has a serious blemish somewhere along the line.
I remember Omar Bradley’s assessment of Patton in his book A General’s Story. In Bradley’s stated opinion Patton was so weak in organizing logistic support and other such non-combat details that he “could never attain anything higher than commander of such as 3rd Army.”
For most of us an army commander is really up there. To Bradley it was a lower ranking job.
The ultimate episode of peacetime manoevre collision, and how one man’s dominating personality can lead to tragedy
These are all anecdotal:
I was on the USS Ranger CV61 a conventional carrier. Before I was on board she had a collision with a supply ship around 1983 that damaged a sponson on the Supply ship. Inquiry determined the Capt of CV61 was at fault and he went to permanent land duty and had no chance of making admiral.
The Captain in charge of the Great Lakes Boot Camp was the same Capt. That ran the Big E (CVN-65 USS Enterprise) aground. In addition to running aground on a submerged sandbar, he had all non-essential personnel go up to the flight deck to run from side to side to try and rock the carrier loose.
Now I am not sure of my physics but I would think that even 4000 men at an average weight of <200 lbs could not move an 80000 ton ship.
Weight of Men 4000 * 200/2000 = 400 tons
400/80000 = .005
This would at quick glance and with some basic analysis appear to be useless.
His punishment was pushing Boots until retirement.
Wow. That’s, if possible, even more humiliating (and tragic) than the Wasa which sank, in the harbor, on her maiden voyage.
But then, most COs who don’t have such accidents never reach high rank, either, do they?
Ah, here is the link, here
The US Navy Tomahawk-shooter, USS Arthur W. Radford ran under the bows of the MV Saudi Riyadh causing 33 million in damages. In fact, IIRC, the Navy struck here as they had others of the type in mothballs. Nobody was killed.
Further, if my late-night memory serves, the skipper actually had the con! It seems the Skipper (Capt Ming ‘The Merciless,’ son of the other Ming) was testing some sort of radar off Norfolk Roads by making circles around some sort of buoy. Everyone was watching the Buoy, and wham! Right under the bow of an inbound merchie!
In any case, the commander was allowed to limp her back to port and was then given other duties.
Good point. There are a lot of ways to not make CNO besides a collision.
Small world. I was on the Ranger during that collision. It happened before 7:00 AM and I was on day shift so the first I heard about it was when the GQ alarm woke up the day shift.
Anyway, thanks for correcting my faulty memory.
Were you ship’s company or air wing? I was in VF-24 but did not complete that cruise. For unkown reasons I got my orders to shore duty a few months before my rotation date right in the middle of the cruise. I was flown off the day before thanksgiving when the Ranger was at anchor off Masira near Oman. IIRC the bow catapults were actually pulled
I wasn’t on board until September of 1985. I was Ship’s company.
I had a few friends that were on Board when it happened but none I seen in 15 years.
Racknfrackn enter button.
Ah, I got out of the navy in May '85
What I didn’t finish typing was the catapults were acually pulled out of the deck, almost completely crippling flight operations since they could not launch and recover at the same time and had less space to park planes. That, the collision and an engineering space fire that killed seven men made for some bad juju on that cruise.
By the time I got on board, her unofficial designation was the Danger Ranger, this went with the Shitty Kitty (Kittyhawk). Both had bad rep’s.
There was also a death in the Brig due to Marine abuse. I think this would have happen while you were aboard.
It had been known as danger ranger for a long time but even with all that went on I don’t think there was a single flight deck death on the '83/84 cruise. I did a cruise on the Connie and that was vastly different.
While I was in, the Connie had 2 jets ditch with one lost life and a Machine Space Fire that required massive assistance.
Not surprised the “Danger” tag predates the 80’s.