Navy Returns to Compasses and Pencils To Help Avoid Collisions at Sea (nytimes.com)

An anonymous reader shares a report: Urgent new orders went out earlier this month for United States Navy warships that have been plagued by deadly mishaps this year. More sleep and no more 100-hour workweeks for sailors. Ships steaming in crowded waters like those near Singapore and Tokyo will now broadcast their positions as do other vessels. And ships whose crews lack basic seamanship certification will probably stay in port until the problems are fixed.[...] The orders issued recently by the Navy's top officer for ships worldwide, Vice Adm. Thomas S. Rowden, drew on the lessons that commanders gleaned from a 24-hour fleetwide suspension of operations last month to examine basic seamanship, teamwork and other fundamental safety and operational standards. Collectively, current and former officers said, the new rules mark several significant cultural shifts for the Navy's tradition-bound fleets. At least for the moment, safety and maintenance are on par with operational security, and commanders are requiring sailors to use old-fashioned compasses, pencils and paper to help track potential hazards (alternative source), as well as reducing a captain's discretion to define what rules the watch team follows if the captain is not on the ship's bridge. "Rowden is stomping his foot and saying, 'We've got to get back to basics,'" said Vice Adm.

Comments

Sigh.

[ledow]

Please explain why US Navy warhsips have crews who "lack basic seamanship certification".

I mean.. I understand that they might not have the piece of paper, the same way they might not have passed the official driving test to drive a tank, but surely... surely at some point... someone gave them the equivalent skills and/or sent them on the same kinds of training such that it would be a cinch to acquire such certification?

Re:Sigh.

[D.McG.]

Being able to fly, lead a target, and shoot down a MiG, has no bearing on knowing the rules of the road, being able to shift gears in a standard, hill start, etc. Different skillsets.

The OP has a valid point. If someone is training to get certified and is shadowed by someone who is certified, that's one thing. But if the bridge is filled with people that are not certified, that's a huge breakdown in the chain of command. The gov't spends HOW MUCH money on defense, yet we have untrained people on deck looking after a billion dollar boat? That's not what the taxpayers are expecting.

Re:Sigh.

[Anonymous Coward]

Because technology is making us lazier and dumber, not more efficient and smarter.
GPS can be hacked (sidebar: Why the actual FUCK are signals from U.S. GPS SVs not encrypted to prevent hacking?); a magnetic compass, not so much (or at least, not at a distance).
Are we lowering the bar, in all aspects of our society and not just within the military? Very possibly.

Re:Sigh.

[Grishnakh]

Please explain why US Navy warhsips have crews who "lack basic seamanship certification".

I read an article, I think on gcaptain.com, about this not long ago. Basically, it said that they just don't bother training them any more, because of cost-cutting measures in the late 2000s. They used to have some school they'd send them to to learn basic seamanship, but because of Congress's cost-cutting (Congress wants to spend lots of $$$ on weapons systems and shipbuilding, but they don't want to allow the Navy to spend any money on training), they closed the school and replaced it with a self-taught course on a bunch of CD-ROMs that sailors were expected to do on their own, *at sea*, while already way too busy with all their regular shipboard duties.

Ultimately, I think the blame probably lies with Congress. The military really isn't able to run itself that much and make its own decisions for how to do things and fund things; it's highly micro-managed by Congress.

Re:Sigh.

[The Snowman]

After all, if the military could make its own decisions about how to spend money, it'd be "wasted", so it "needs" Congressional "oversight". That's the root of the problem.

Article I Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution has not one but three clauses that enumerate Congress's authority over the military, including this one:

To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;

Back in the 18th century, military coups were more common than they are today. In fact the Articles of Confederation that predate the Constitution were even more restrictive than the Constitution: we barely had any military for the first decade. The compromise was to have a stronger military, but have a bit more oversight, especially with the budget. The goal was to have a military where commanders could focus on doing what they do well, killing shit, while Congress could regulate them (e.g. UCMJ) and pull the plug on relatively short notice and dry up funding if required.

Of course, ever since the end of WW2 and the start of the Cold War, the military budget is just a pork buffet. I seriously doubt there is any risk of a military coup in the USA, or any other concerns that prompted the budget micromanagement that we have today.

I also blame Bush 2 for a lot of the military problems we have, including the one called out in the article. Back in the mid-2000s, he insisted we needed more "boots on the ground" (i.e. Army and Marines) without increasing the overall military size. He gutted the Air Force and Navy. Probably half of those cuts were necessary regardless, the other half hurt. The lack of training called out in the article is a symptom of the larger issue of "doing more with less" - not necessarily a bad idea, but it has to be implemented correctly. Skimping on core training such as "navigating and piloting naval vessels" and "working 100 hour weeks and getting insufficient sleep" is not doing more with less: it is doing less with less. Source: I was active duty in the mid-2000s while Bush 2 was President.

Re:Sigh.

[hey!]

And will those apps simulate the sun as well so you can bring it down to the horizon?

Let's be clear in any case what problem we're solving. A sextant is an essential tool (along with a chronometer) in determining latitude and longitude -- position on the Earth. This is where Mercator projection maps are handy: it helps you choose a heading that will get you somewhere you can't see.

What's going on here is that ships are running into each other in crowded sea lanes. So somehow the instruments available to the people piloting these ships plus their own eyes aren't enough to prevent a collisions that old-school pilots would have avoided. And I'm fairly sure this is not because it's not physically possible to process the information. It may be that reliance on technology to do most of the hard work has reduced the pilot's habitual engagement and awareness.

There is another solution, which is to have the ships completely robotically piloted. You'd still train pilots to handle ships manually for unusual situation, but you wouldn't count on having perfect human attention directing the ship 7x24.

Re:Sigh.

[arglebargle_xiv]

It's not just the training, the thing that really struck me is:

Ships steaming in crowded waters like those near Singapore and Tokyo will now broadcast their positions as do other vessels.

So when the entire world is relying on AIS to avoid collisions, the US navy isn't providing that in the middle of busy shipping lanes? It's a fscking aircraft carrier, how invisible is that going to be when it's going through the Singapore strait? Turn on AIS in busy areas and you won't need to go back to pencil and paper...

Re:Sigh.

[Teancum]

The fear is that somehow an enemy could use that positioning data to target a U.S. Navy ship and use it in a preemptive attack.

I agree with you in terms of a navy ship in the middle of a major shipping channel when they aren't in the middle of a war operation though. Sort of akin to a police car that shouldn't have his lights on or doing other thing than simply being an ordinary commuter in ordinary traffic when they are traveling from one point to another.

A similar situation happens with air traffic, where military jets often don't turn on transponders to indicate position or other normal transponder information if they are on a war footing. Yes, it is dangerous and something they need to deal with as well. On the other hand, the USAF does have times those military jets do turn on transponders if they want to have civilian aviation stay out of the way or if the military jets are trying to play nice and friendly with civilian air traffic.

Perhaps the last couple of decades of being in a continuous global war is something that is getting out of hand.

Re:Drawback of automation

[bobbied]

However, there ARE ways to enforce accuracy.... Make the bridge crew enter their manual position observations and calculations and then routinely judge the accuracy of the manual log with the automatic position logs. If there are variances, they will need to be explained. If you are not accurate enough with your manual entries, you don't keep your qualification.

I always wondered why the Navy gave up the celestial navigation qualification requirement. Never made sense to me.

Where DOES the money go?

[rbrander]

It's hilarious to read comments and posts about how this is due to "budget cutting". These cuts are not perceptible at taxpayer level. https://www.statista.com/stati... ...yes, there's a "drop" in there from 2011-2016, but I believe that's in overseas adventuring. Far more importantly, the "drop" is to the 2008 budget, more than double the 2000 budget, when there were few of these collisions. It's now nearly $2000 per American citizen. Add up all spending on Pentagon, DOE (nukes), DVA, and the spy/surveillance services, debt servicing, and it's a trillion a year, nearly $10,000 per household.

And yet, there isn't enough money for the PEOPLE in the American military, not even enough for their really basic training. Is is really all blown on overpriced weapons systems? Can't you include training in the weapons-system budget or something? Sneak it in.