On Mon, 19 Jun 2017 09:54:36 -0400, Keyser Soze
wrote:

On 6/19/17 9:39 AM, Mr. Luddite wrote:
On 6/19/2017 9:26 AM, Keyser Soze wrote:
On 6/19/17 9:20 AM, Tim wrote:
FWIW, I picked this up from a French gentleman in FB.

"In France whe have more informations ...
It's a japanese container carrier boat but With a Philippine flag and
crew.
And this boat at the Last moment abruptly changed his direction ...
Investigation is underway With this crew..."


NPR has a pretty decent early analysis of what might have gone
wrong...it includes this about a previous incident on a similar
high-tech ship:

Sailors in the Fitzgerald's combat information center and on its
bridge are responsible for using the ship's sensors to plot the
location of each one, as well as the directions they're headed and the
speed at which they're sailing. Officers and sailors must at all times
keep what the Navy calls good "situational awareness" about not only
what their own ship is doing, but about what might be ahead in the
next patch of ocean where the Fitzgerald wants to sail.

In 2012 a sibling of the Fitzgerald, the destroyer USS Porter, was in
a congested, high-traffic seaway called the Strait of Hormuz — the
ribbon of water that connects the Persian Gulf with the Arabian Sea —
when it collided with an oil tanker. The Navy's investigation later
found that as sailors tried to keep track of the traffic all around
them, including those ships headed the other direction, they lost
focus on their own immediate course ahead.


Ergo, the high technology doesn't always promote good seamanship.
Training as careful sailors may be more important than training as
operators of computer consoles.


It will probably please you to know that Navy ships do not rely only on
computer consoles for situational awareness. Ask any sailor who has
stood watches while underway.



Well, that certainly explains the infallibility of our naval ships.

I am still waiting for more information before I start jumping to
conclusions.
I have seen the track of the freighter but I have not seen that laid
down over the track of the destroyer. There is a lot of chatter out
there but not much that has been confirmed.

As for the ship itself, WWII pretty much proved big heavily armored
"battleships" were just bigger targets. They were really only useful
for shore bombardment. Light and fast is better than slow and tough
because armor seldom actually stood up to a large naval rifle in the
first place. Most naval museums seem to show a piece of armor over a
foot thick with a bullet hole in it. These days the hole is likely to
be through the deck anyway, even from a missile.