
Problems plagued U.S. Navy destroyer Fitzgerald before fatal collision - rmason
https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-navy/2019/01/14/worse-than-you-thought-inside-the-secret-fitzgerald-probe-the-navy-doesnt-want-you-to-read/#.XEFOvOop_SM.twitter
======
naval-gazer
Root causes for this mess:

* Navy culture where chronic sleep deprivation is used as substitute for battlefield heroics. Navy aviators have enough sleep scheduled. Surface Navy has not seen battle for ages. Being tired is a way to show you are pushing it to the limit. Everybody being so tired that they microsleep in the bridge is the standard condition. People in the bridge start teleporting from one place to another because you keep falling asleep constantly. Driving a car that tired is not allowed, but it's OK in the Navy.

* Lack of basic seamanship skills and experience. Officers are rotated inside the ship and outside the ship to completely unrelated posts. They learn basics of everything but master nothing. Navy officers have less experience in basic ship driving than anyone in the merchant fleet. Other navies specialize officers for different areas. Training is cut because there is no time for it, but that's not the core reason. You would need less training with more specialization.

* 7th fleet leadership continues to be a corrupt mess. Most of the ongoing bad stuff related to Navy happens in the 7th. Fat Leonard scandal, collisions...

~~~
cf141q5325
To the culture of deliberate sleep deprivation, the medical profession had(?)
something similar which resulted in the Libby Zion Law .

------
GeekyBear
According to retired officers, the issue stems from training cuts.

>For nearly 30 years, all new surface warfare officers spent their first six
months in uniform at the Surface Warfare Officer’s School in Newport, Rhode
Island, learning the theory behind driving ships and leading sailors as
division officers.

But that changed in 2003. The Navy decided to eliminate the “SWOS Basic”
school and simply send surface fleet officers out to sea to learn on the job.
The Navy did that mainly to save money, and the fleet has suffered severely
for it, said retired Cmdr. Kurt Lippold.

“The Navy has cut training as a budgetary device and they have done it at the
expense of our ability to operate safely at sea,” said Lippold, who commanded
the destroyer Cole in 2000 when it was attacked by terrorists in Yemen.

[https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-navy/2017/08/27/navy-
swo...](https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-navy/2017/08/27/navy-swos-a-
culture-in-crisis/)

~~~
jacobush
Ok, I don't like these bastards who attacked Cole, but how can they be
terrorist? They attacked a military target. Is it because they masqueraded as
civilians - didn't follow the laws of war?

~~~
dmurray
The word "terrorist" has been reappropriated, possibly because "guerilla
warfare", "asymmetric warfare" etc sound too glamorous. In the US it mostly
means any military action by non-state actors against the US and its allies.

~~~
balabaster
When you say non-state, you surely mean by parties whom aren't favourable to
US interests.

It's interesting that when a government or party that's _not_ in the US's best
interests is in power, it's okay for the CIA to use asymmetric tactics to fund
rebels and _favourable_ terrorism, stage coups d'etat, overthrow governments
and meddle in foreign elections but when those parties seek to do the same to
the US, it's terrorism.

Kind of hypocritical really. But that's US exceptionalism for you. It's only
bad when someone else does it.

It's almost impossible at this point to point a finger and say "there's the
bad guy, right there" because both sides are as bad as the other and both
using much the same tactics on one another, both spewing rhetoric and hatred
in the face of the other terrorists. It's like trying to mediate a
kindergarten playground fight where the cost of losing the fight is death
instead of being dragged to the principal's office by your ears. It's so
undignified it's nauseating.

~~~
fixermark
I imagine when a country is founded on an illegal uprising against a
significant world military and economic power that they go on to win,
exceptionalism ends up baked into their cultural DNA.

~~~
alasdair_
Isn’t every armed uprising “illegal” in the eyes of the group that used to be
in control?

~~~
gnu8
Depends on which side wins.

------
dba7dba
> The probe exposes how personal distrust led the officer of the deck, Lt.
> j.g. Sarah Coppock, to avoid communicating with the destroyer’s electronic
> nerve center — the combat information center, or CIC — while the Fitzgerald
> tried to cross a shipping superhighway.

I was shocked to read above. You don't personally trust someone or people in
CIC so you just don't communicate with CIC when you are crossing the most
congested patch of ocean on the planet?

What is this? High school??

~~~
chopin
I was more shocked of the pee-filled bottles on the bridge. This hints to deep
cultural problems being present and an utterly incompetent upper management.

~~~
kittiepryde
That's pretty normal. You get people on watch for 4 to 6 hours at a time. They
can't leave. The bottle is sometimes the only option.

You can try and get a relief so you can go to the head, but it's generally
frowned upon if your that guy that always needs a head break, and in the
middle of the night, no one wants to wake up so you can go pee.

~~~
chopin
As I said, that's poor management. You will loose to an enemy who does it
properly. The US was once envied for their officers training and education.

Edited to add: Also, what will people do? They will drink less than they
should to avoid the humiliation. On top of a tired crew you will get also a
dehydrated one. This is a surefire recipe for bad things to happen.

~~~
adventured
> You will loose to an enemy who does it properly.

I agree with the need to always keep training in top shape.

There is no naval enemy on earth that is even remotely competitive with the US
in any regard.

Iran? North Korea? ISIS? What enemy?

Russia has no global naval projection, it can barely sustainably push beyond
the Black Sea with its surface ships. Their sub fleet is a medium threat. The
US is also not at war with Russia, they aren't actually an enemy. There is no
war coming with the Russians, they're only good for boogeyman status. They've
got a perma stagnant economy (Australia will surpass it soon) and melting
social-economic position (see: pension cuts making Putin unpopular), crimping
their ability to continue to spend on anything military (most of their
military is badly dilapidated, so they've taken to focusing very narrowly
because they can't field a high quality force across the board any longer;
this is also why Putin puts so much effort into screaming about his magic
super weapons that are unstoppable, their conventional military is rotting).

Could China one day be a naval enemy? Sure. At some point in the next 20 years
there could be a naval conflict near Chinese territory. The US isn't winning
that near-shore conflict short of going to a WW2 level output of ships. The
dumbest thing the US could do from a navy perspective is get into a naval
conflict with China close to their shores 10-20 years from now. It wouldn't
matter how well trained the officers are, it's an inherently losing position.

~~~
magduf
>There is no naval enemy on earth that is even remotely competitive with the
US in any regard. >Iran? North Korea? ISIS? What enemy?

It's a good thing the US is still friendly with Europe. Everything I've read
about their (admittedly much smaller) navies is that they're far more
professional and better run, and look at the Americans as unprofessional and
even dangerous when they have to do training exercises with them.

Of course, this shouldn't be too big a surprise; just take a trip to Europe
and see how much better day-to-day stuff is run. Public transit is excellent
and much larger in scope, unlike America where the subways are falling apart
and Amtrak is a joke. Airports are smoothly run, unlike America where they
aren't even paying the security people (TSA) to come to work. Bridges in
Europe aren't dilapidated and literally falling down like they are in America.

~~~
vigormortis
> It's a good thing the US is still friendly with Europe. Everything I've read
> about their (admittedly much smaller) navies is that they're far more
> professional and better run, ....

I wouldn't be so sure about that.

Norway managed to sink one of their own frigates.

[https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-
navy/2018/11/13/norwegia...](https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-
navy/2018/11/13/norwegian-frigate-sinks-after-it-was-rammed-by-a-tanker/)

Germany doesn't have anything left to sink.

[https://www.rt.com/news/418484-german-navy-ships-
shortage/](https://www.rt.com/news/418484-german-navy-ships-shortage/)

~~~
magduf
Good point about the Norwegian ship, but I have no idea what you're talking
about with the German Navy. They have over 60 ships, including 10 frigates, 5
corvettes, and 6 submarines, plus various other support ships. Their close
allies in Italy have 2 light aircraft carriers, 3 amphibious assault ships, 4
destroyers, 12 frigates, 8 attack subs, 1 corvette, plus others. Their other
close allies in France have 1 aircraft carrier, 3 amphibious assault ships, 14
frigates of various types, 6 attack subs, plus some other frigates and
corvettes, as well as 4 ballistic-missile subs. I haven't even gotten to the
other powers in continental Europe (Netherlands, Denmark, etc.). All together,
they seem to have a pretty sizeable defense force.

Japan also has a pretty sizable Navy with over 120 ships.

~~~
vigormortis
Ships afloat does not mean they're operational or combat effective. Some of
those ships are quite old and are badly in need of replacement or upgrades.
Many of them are under crewed. The numbers of ships are a starting point, but
really don't tell much of the story.

None of Germany's 6 subs were operational at the beginning of last year. That
may have changed since, but the underlying reasons, poor planning and lack of
spare parts, are still there. Only 9 of 15 Frigates were operational and the
lead of their new class of frigates, the F125, failed sea trials. The Navy
subsequently refused to commission the ship. Admittedly, these are not
necessarily crew training issues, but crews without operational ships are not
likely to maintain a desirable level of combat readiness. These issues aren't
just limited to the Navy; ground forces are also in a bad state.

France and the UK are in better shape, but the Royal Navy in particular has
holes in its capabilities where the US Navy is expected to fill in. They're
regaining some capabilities with their new (and only operational) carrier, but
it's not even clear if it has a functional air wing yet as the F-35B's they
purchased only began carrier operations this past September. Another carrier
is under construction, but it may be awhile before their carrier based naval
aviation becomes combat effective.

The remaining European Navies are pretty small and pretty limited in what they
can do. They tend to focus on ASW with some surface warfare capabilities, but
are again dependent upon one of the larger Navies for air defense.

Japan may well be the most combat effective of the bunch, but that's a
completely different theater of operations.

This isn't intended to be a rah-rah, USA forever sort of rant. Everyone,
including the US, seem to have let things slip to the extent that combat
effectiveness is becoming questionable.

[https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/germanys-navy-
dead-26...](https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/germanys-navy-dead-26566)

[https://www.dw.com/en/no-more-missions-for-germanys-navy-
war...](https://www.dw.com/en/no-more-missions-for-germanys-navy-warns-armed-
forces-ombudsman/a-42535481)

[https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/02/20/german-armed-
for...](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/02/20/german-armed-forces-not-
equipped-do-job-rules-watchdog/)

------
nowarninglabel
They should get Captain Marquet of "Turn the Ship Around!" to go get them ship
shape. The book has some really good lessons on how shifting leadership style
and culture can produce dramatically better results.

~~~
doodliego
After reading the article, no, the Navy probably does not need more overpaid
business consultants with powerpoints full of easy answers. It needs to do
something about inexperienced, undertrained, overworked crews in its ships.

The CO and XO shouldn't be sleeping while their ship is crossing a busy
sealane full of behemoth freighters driving on autopilot in the dark.

~~~
PhantomGremlin
_The CO and XO shouldn 't be sleeping while their ship is crossing a busy
sealane_

Why aren't these people "the best of the best", to quote the trite line from
Top Gun?

According to Wikipedia, the US Navy has 282 deployable combat vessels. It
employs a total of 325,673 active duty personnel plus 270,265 civilian
employees.

So out of those 600,000 people, they can't find a few thousand who are
willing, able, and capable of commanding a destroyer? The US Naval Academy
alone graduates 1000 people a year. Where do they all go? What do they all do?

Really? I'm serious. My understanding is that the absolutely most prestigious
military assignments are in "command" positions. Those assignments are the key
to climbing the promotion ladder.

This whole thing makes no sense to me.

~~~
drblast
The top grads of the academy get their pick of jobs and most of them pick
aviation or nuclear surface/subs.

Surface warfare officer is not the most desireable job for most people.

And it sucks so bad most people have much better options and leave after the
initial five year commitment.

~~~
dmurray
Why is that? Battleships are badass and you don't have to spend the whole time
in a tiny metal box underwater. If you're joining the Navy, don't you want to
be in command of a big ship in the open seas?

~~~
ams6110
This was a destroyer though. Pretty small compared to a battleship or a
carrier. Not really a high prestige command.

~~~
JohnBooty
Battleships were phased out decades ago.

Really, the advent of military aviation made them more or less obsolete in
_WWII._

There were almost no ship-to-ship battles involving battleships in WWII; they
were used almost exclusively to shell inland targets close to shorelines, but
there are much more efficient ways to do that and those ways aren't limited to
striking targets within gun range of the shoreline.

So it's pretty much carriers and destroyers as far as combat ships on the
surface these days. (Not sure the term "destroyer" is used much these days,
but the non-carrier surface combat ships are roughly comparable in size to
what would have been called a destroyer in the old days)

And then of course you have the many amphibious assault ships, support ships,
etc.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_currently_active_Unite...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_currently_active_United_States_military_watercraft)

------
TecoAndJix
I was stationed on a Destroyer from 2015-2017 and subsequently deployed with
them as an IT in the radio shack. CIC looks like something out of a movie (and
really the only part of the ship that does) - it's very dark, has lots of
glowing monitors covered in charts, surveillance feeds, and a whole lot of
people. In the radio shack, we worked 12 on, 12 off, 7 days a week. I cannot
remember CIC's watch rotation exactly but it was similar. On that deployment
CIC had one sailor who went up to captain's mast for falling asleep at his
station. I remember emphasising with him - sitting in a chair, in the dark,
for hours on end while monitoring a feed that never changes. That being said,
it was our only incident in CIC and our captain "Hammerin Hank" took care of
the incident appropriately. There are several things in this article id like
to speak on:

>He saw kettlebells on the floor and bottles filled with pee.

Peeing in bottles is something i have only heard of engineering doing - in
engineering spaces. You will get labeled a nasty-mothafucka if anyone catches
you regardless. To fill a bottle in CIC (with the exception of a few curtained
off spaces) would require the complicity of several watchstanders. Where was
chief? Where was LT? The kettlebells are really not a big deal - we all would
"borrow" things from the gym to get a little pump on watch because there is a
LOT of downtime. I can imagine sitting at a CIC station just knocking out some
curls to stay awake. We did pull-ups on light fixtures in radio.

>Some radar controls didn’t work and he soon discovered crew members who
didn’t know how to use them anyway.

HA! Most of the equipment on ships is ancient. Things are ALWAYS breaking. How
we treat the topside steel is analogous to how we treat equipment - prime and
paint over it! When something breaks you submit a casualty report to let Big
Navy know. If you need a part you have to wait to hit port or receive it at-
sea replenishment. Troubleshooting consists of tribal knowledge and talking
over the IP phone to a shore station. Watchstanders not knowing how to use the
equipment is completely UNSAT (there is of course an "A" team and a "B" team
on every ship, but the basic knowledge should be there). While there are a lot
of useless bodies on a ship, you should not be sitting a watch station unless
you have completed your personal qualification standard which needs to be
signed off by someone who is qualified. Some of them even require you sit a
board and get quizzed. That also being said, i have traded dip for signatures
before.

We had this poster in our chow line that talked about when the exception
becomes the rule (wish i could find the quote). Basically, all the little
"exceptions" you make to the rules start to become normal and then new and
junior sailors think these exceptions are actually rule. These all build and
build until you are so far from baseline you don't even remember what baseline
was. The fitz and mccain no doubt were a result of this phenomenon. Failures
on every level from junior enlisted to the Captain. It breaks my heart these
sailors lost their life as the result. I really loved my time in the Navy (and
miss it!) but the operation tempo in the current climate is just not healthy
and i imagine this won't be the last tragedy to happen unless something
changes.

~~~
curveship
Thanks for your perspective, very interesting.

I'm really surprised that all it takes to be declared qualified is the
signature of someone else who's qualified. That leaves lots of room for
slippage and social pressure, like the dip you mention. It also leaves no one
specifically responsible for the crew's level of qualification. A cynic might
say that was the point of the system: we know this is going to fail, so make
sure no one is directly in the line of fire when the shit cannon goes off.

~~~
frankydp
There is generally written testing involved, along with a multi-person
board/interview that is a direct knowledge test under that inherent stress of
face to face.

------
walrus01
The most amazing things to me is that _all_ of the non-military vessels in the
area at the time were transmitting AIS. Isn't a warship supposed to be able to
navigate in a combat environment, with the presence of jammers, based only on
its radar data?

Having precise AIS data flowing in for every ship in the area is navigating on
"easy mode".

------
cmurf
In a related article at navytimes.com published two days earlier, the
Panamanian owners of the other ship involved, have agreed to pay the U.S.
government ~$27 million in a settlement. [https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-
navy/2019/01/11/ship-own...](https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-
navy/2019/01/11/ship-owners-to-pay-us-government-for-fitzgerald-
collision/?utm_source=clavis)

Naturally we're not supposed to infer “any liability, negligence, breach of
duty, or wrongdoing” by either party as a result of such a settlement.

~~~
jessaustin
That seems likely to be more related to specifics of law of the controlling
jurisdiction than to anything else. I don't blame the Panamanians or their
insurance company for wanting to just put this all behind them. Collisions
with USN are sort of like "Acts of God" anyway...

------
dba7dba
> Since 2015, the Fitz had lacked a quartermaster chief petty officer, a
> crucial leader who helps safely navigate a warship and trains its sailors —
> a shortcoming known to both the destroyer’s squadron and Navy officials in
> the United States, Fort wrote.

The accident took place on June 17, 2017. So for 2 - 3 years, they couldn't
find a chief petty officer to accept the assignment?

I wonder, were potential chief petty officers avoiding the ship knowing it was
a bad assignment, with crew that had low morale and not enough training?

~~~
ams6110
Couldn't "find" one? Wouldn't they just order someone to fill the position? I
didn't realize that postings in the Navy were optional assignments. Maybe they
are for enlisted crew positions?

~~~
JaimeThompson
Ordering people to take such positions in peace time is a good way to stop
them from reenlisting.

~~~
jessaustin
The normal way to encourage people to take shit jobs is to increase the
compensation until the positions are filled. When the admirals ask why they're
making less money than QMs, the answer might rouse their slumbering curiosity
about conditions on ships under their command. Of course it's against
regulations to adjust compensation in order to fill required combat roles,
because the admirals don't actually want to know any of this shit.

------
boomboomsubban
So they're publishing a Navy report on the issue, they withheld publishing
until the Pentagon gave them the OK, and the report seems to place as much
blame as possible on the sailors. But it's not blatant propaganda because the
Navy really doesn't want this public!

If the Navy feels understaffed and overworked, they can stop illegally
blockading countries.

~~~
dba7dba
Umm, the Navy has do what they are told, even if they feel they don't have
enough people/equipment.

Also, which countries is US actively blockading illegally?

~~~
eesmith
I think the OP refers to the (de facto) blockade of Yemen -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockade_of_Yemen](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockade_of_Yemen)
.

Quoting from that link, "The United States had joined the blockade in October
2016" and "According to the international law of naval blockade the naval
measures conducted by the coalition led by Saudi Arabia do not amount to a
naval blockade in the legal sense" and "Due to the devastating famine in Yemen
and supply shortage of essetinal goods, which are caused by the enforcement
measures, the naval operations off the coast of Yemen are criticized as a
violation of international humanitarian law."

------
jessaustin
I'm glad that OP changed the title from the goofy "Worse than you thought"
that TFA has. As usual, when USA military keeps secrets, a prudent person
assumes the absolute worst. This is actually sort of good news, in that we can
probably determine at this point that there wasn't a meth-fueled sex orgy
going on the bridge at the time of the collision. (although, those urine
bottles...) Now as for the ongoing binge at 7th fleet HQ, that probably
continues unabated...

Navy Times should hold its readers in higher esteem. _Of course_ we assumed
the worst.

~~~
fixermark
It's useful to remember that the first instance of the government using "State
Secrets" as a defense to withhold evidence was in a civil trial about
culpability in the deaths of contractors that were testing Cold War
equipment...

... and when the relevant documents were declassified, it was revealed that
the secret the government was hiding was that test was run on a plane with a
grossly-substandard maintenance history.

[https://www.thisamericanlife.org/383/origin-story/act-
two-0](https://www.thisamericanlife.org/383/origin-story/act-two-0)

------
jayalpha
Unfortunately, an urban legend:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lighthouse_and_naval_vessel_ur...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lighthouse_and_naval_vessel_urban_legend)

