
Naval Vessels, Shadowy by Intent, Are Hard for Commercial Ships to Spot - andysinclair
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/25/world/asia/navy-collision-uss-mccain-oil-tanker.html
======
eps
Wouldn't the burden of steering off collision courses be on these shadowy
hard-to-spot ships then?

~~~
alain94040
Yes, the tanker belongs to "Restricted in Ability to Maneuver", which means
they have priority over pretty much anything. You can't ask them or expect
them to detour to avoid you, you must avoid them.

~~~
jnty
That's not correct - according to the Collision Regulations, simply being a
large ship does not make you "restricted in ability to maneuver." That
definition is reserved for vessels carrying out an activity which restricts
them from altering their course, such as dredging or mine clearing. A large
oil tanker may be "constrained by draught" in a narrow channel in which case
it does indeed have right of way over smaller vessels, but larger vessels will
be constrained too so "priority over everything" becomes a pretty meaningless
concept as everyone will have it.

In open water, large vessels like that give way to smaller vessels when
appropriate all the time.

[https://www.navcen.uscg.gov/?pageName=def3g_RAM](https://www.navcen.uscg.gov/?pageName=def3g_RAM)
[https://www.navcen.uscg.gov/?pageName=def3h_CBD](https://www.navcen.uscg.gov/?pageName=def3h_CBD)

~~~
psadri
Nonetheless, I'd expect a far more agile battleship to be able to move itself
out of harm's way.

------
wyldfire
In a hundreds-of-million USD war vessel, LIDAR-or-some-other-clever-tech-based
collision sensors sounds like a well spent couple-of-hundred-k. Probably not-
too-hard to upgrade the fleet for a few billion USD.

Just spec it to GD like "y'know that beep that I get on my car when I'm about
to backup into a tree? Let's get that on these boats."

~~~
noir_lord
They already have multiple systems that do proximity warning plus manned
crews.

Lots of things beeping and going off just results in them been ignored, this
had happened on flight decks and hospitals.

Semi-autonmous collision avoidance that's on by default however could be an
interesting idea.

To err is human, to really fuck up requires a computer - as one of my
professors used to say.

~~~
MengerSponge
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alarm_fatigue](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alarm_fatigue)

------
bflesch
This article contains yet another beautiful visualization by the NYT team.
Really adds to the article and gives insight into how this incident developed
and how to assess it in the greater picture.

Convinced me to think about it as an accident instead of some conspiracy to
hurt us navy through various merchant vessel crashes.

~~~
pvg
The visualization is pretty but missing an essential bit of info: scale.

------
sathackr
makes me wonder how much they're really paying attention if they can be hit by
a 30,000 ton tanker without anyone so much as sounding an alarm.

If that tanker were loaded with explosives and had malicious intent, we'd be
missing a lot more than 10 sailors.

edit: changed 12,000 ton to 30,000 ton. It was carrying 12,000 tons of fuel
oil but is a 30,000 GT vessel.

------
dsfyu404ed
I expect the navy to adopt slightly modified SOPs to prevent this from
happening in the future.

In a less friendly neighborhood of the ocean no vessel would be allowed
anywhere near that close to a navel vessel without permission. It's not like
they don't already know how to protect themselves.

~~~
dhimes
I expected that after the first incident.

~~~
dsfyu404ed
Big organizations have slow turnaround times. Policy changes need to be
investigated thoroughly for unexpected consequences before implementation.
Lives are at stake here. You can't just do another round of VC funding to get
more of them.

~~~
dhimes
Bah, safety issues can cause pretty rapid change because, as you agree, lives
are at stake here. We're talking about navigating a congested waterway,
something where the technology and policies already exist for doing safely.

------
wbl
Why do they not transmit location during relatively peaceful times? There is
more of a threat from collision then hostile action in these waters.

~~~
noir_lord
Because if a surprise war was launched the first salvo would take out more of
your ships.

Broadcasting your position in peacetime sounds good until it's not peacetime.

Of course the question is then - is any nation-state suicidal enough to launch
a large scale pre-emptive strike on the US Navy.. Terrorists of course are
another matter.

------
docdeek
Relevant Wikipedia article:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Regulations_for_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Regulations_for_Preventing_Collisions_at_Sea)

------
ed312
Could it be possible there was hostile action aboard the US Navy vessel? There
may have been a (possibly classified) incident in progress at the time of the
collision. If there were truly no confounding factors... this should be
massively embarrassing and _at_least_ career-ending for those who failed to
act while on watch.

~~~
ceejayoz
A screw-up seems a lot more likely.

The Navy _just_ punished another crew for running a destroyer into a cargo
ship. I'd imagine we'll see a similar response here.

