Slashdot Mirror
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.
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.
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.
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.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101