Is our military in revolt?

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gardener4life
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Is our military in revolt?

Post by gardener4life »

OK, just two days ago I saw another article like this one for one of our big military ships colliding with a Japanese tugboat. That was less than a week ago. Then I see this.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-42078318

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-42041704

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w172vgh8cd1dt3r

There's no way that the world is so small that our Navy ships could be having collisions and breakdowns every week (OK so this one was an aircraft) but the others there were 2 collisions within a very short time of each other. They build these things so that they aren't supposed to breakdown. And yet its like every time I look at the news now I wonder what the heck is going on with our country. This seems to me that there's internal strife in the military. They seem to be looking for chances to cause collisions so they won't have to go to war. This is really a classical example of a soldier shooting himself in the foot or arms to get away from going to the frontlines, which happened in just about every war between now and a hundred years ago.

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gkearney
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Re: Is our military in revolt?

Post by gkearney »

I have some experience in the matter of the operations of large vessels of this type and I really don't think these are deliberate acts.

Rather I suspect we have a situation where the captains and senior officers have permitted operational lapses to occur under their commands. In particular I suspect that these officers have come to rely to much on the advanced technology found on modern ships and were either not posting or not giving proper attention to the warnings relayed by the men standing watch. I think that the reports of enquiry of these events support this conclusion. In one case, for example, the helm of a vessel were transferred from one position on a bridge to another when the helman was having difficulty maintaining a proper course while also monitoring speed. However the officer of the deck at the time either did not know, or more likely forgot, that unless helm and speed control are uncoupled prior to this transfer taking place both will follow over to the new position. This resulted in a crewmember losing helm and speed control all at once. The report went on to note that the officer had not followed procedure of giving the command, having the command repeated back to him by the impacted crew members and then having to order complied with and then confirmed by the crew.

Such old customs where the orders of an officer are confirmed by the crew is as old as seafaring itself and exist for good reasons. No one, not officers or the lowliest recruit are immune from errors in both decision making or communication and these check and balances between the officers and the men under his command try to minimize these kind of errors. When officers, and the blame ultimately lies with them, rely too much on technology and their own perceived mastery of that technology tragic results are almost sure to follow.

Rand
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Re: Is our military in revolt?

Post by Rand »

Are you sure our military hasn't been hacked by the Chinese, and they are messing with us?

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gkearney
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Re: Is our military in revolt?

Post by gkearney »

Rand wrote: November 22nd, 2017, 8:47 am Are you sure our military hasn't been hacked by the Chinese, and they are messing with us?
Even if the Chinese or other actors had hacked the systems of the ships, proper shipboard command and control processes if implemented and carried out correctly should have prevented such an accident. These were collisions in daylight and in carm seas. It is precisely this reason why you never trust a single shipboard system and why you always confirm and reconfirm orders.

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harakim
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Re: Is our military in revolt?

Post by harakim »

gkearney wrote: November 22nd, 2017, 10:19 am
Rand wrote: November 22nd, 2017, 8:47 am Are you sure our military hasn't been hacked by the Chinese, and they are messing with us?
Even if the Chinese or other actors had hacked the systems of the ships, proper shipboard command and control processes if implemented and carried out correctly should have prevented such an accident. These were collisions in daylight and in carm seas. It is precisely this reason why you never trust a single shipboard system and why you always confirm and reconfirm orders.
I'm not sure how you're addressing his question. If the Chinese hacked the ship's computers and drove it into something, how could command and control processes prevent that?

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harakim
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Re: Is our military in revolt?

Post by harakim »

Also, I am pretty sure the F-22 downings were caused by Chinese parts that had defects in them. Also, our "greatest ally" is known for selling our secrets to China. Combine those facts and my knowledge of hardware/software and I think it's quite reasonable that most of our military systems, until a few years ago, were intentionally produced with flaws.

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gkearney
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Re: Is our military in revolt?

Post by gkearney »

harakim wrote: November 22nd, 2017, 10:33 am
gkearney wrote: November 22nd, 2017, 10:19 am
Rand wrote: November 22nd, 2017, 8:47 am Are you sure our military hasn't been hacked by the Chinese, and they are messing with us?
Even if the Chinese or other actors had hacked the systems of the ships, proper shipboard command and control processes if implemented and carried out correctly should have prevented such an accident. These were collisions in daylight and in carm seas. It is precisely this reason why you never trust a single shipboard system and why you always confirm and reconfirm orders.
I'm not sure how you're addressing his question. If the Chinese hacked the ship's computers and drove it into something, how could command and control processes prevent that?
Modern warships are not piloted remotely by computers, they are still piloted by helmsmen, sometime with computer aided systems but always with traditional mechanical systems in place as well. So if an order were given to steer a particular course and the ships systems were to fail and not steer that given course the command and control systems would be switch over to the manual/traditional system. This is why even with all our GPS systems ships and their crews still have compasess on the bridge and officers and crews are still taught traditional celestial navigation.

It is generally considered good practice to verify the ships systems by checking them against the older methods. Along with traditional methods such as consulting a compass this also includes posting men on watch at the bow, stern and on each side of the vessel and heeding their warnings. I suspect and again the reports I have seen would seem to confirm that we had officers who had become too dependent upon the technological systems at their disposal and did not implement the backup and generally nontechnical methods to confirm their positiion, speed and heading and to insure the orders were being understood and followed.

Had these methods and processes been in place even if the Chinese had somehow managed to take over control of the helm of the ship remotely the older systems of watchstanding, traditional navigation and manual backup systems should have been employed to take control of the vessel and prevent an accident. The fact that they were not indicates a failure of command.

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harakim
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Re: Is our military in revolt?

Post by harakim »

I remember on the USS Wisconsin, I was told that the US Navy no longer requires celestial navigation courses. Apparently that was recently resumed: https://www.npr.org/2016/02/22/46721049 ... r-officers

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