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SN Greg Wright
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Edited 7 y ago
In fact, SGM Erik Marquez , the concept you outline is codified by law. In nearly 100% of cases of collision at sea, both vessels will be found at fault, because COLREGS (the rules of the road that everyone has to follow, civvie and military alike), specifically contains a clause that says, paraphrasing, 'nothing in these rules is intended to prevent the use of common sense in order to prevent a collision'. Or, put another way, 'you can break all these rules, so long as you don't collide'.
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SSgt Boyd Welch
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I think that we have become too dependent on technology and less on hands on observation. Plus the possibility exists that we are being "spoofed" by stealth technology. Radar spoofing is old technology. Who knows what our aggressors have now. Just because it is a civilian ship doesn't mean that it's not in foreign state service. The next one that rams a US ship needs to be sunk.......
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Cpl Jeff N.
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You have to start to wonder if there is too much reliance on technology and perhaps not other ways to navigate, see threats etc.
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SGM Erik Marquez
SGM Erik Marquez
7 y
I was thinking the same thing....
So, Did the machine not do as designed?
Did the machine do as designed but was ignored,or overridden by a human?
Did the machine do as designed, said warnings were observed and provided to "leadership" and Leadership decided to not take action as it was the other ships "duty" to maneuver and avoid.

Id bet once two captains make that same decision and realize too late the other is not going to do what they anticipated (maneuver and avoid the collision) its too late to completely avoid the collision and you just mitigate best you can, notify of impending collision and watch it happen.
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CWO3 Randy Weston
CWO3 Randy Weston
7 y
Yes, there is a high reliance on technology and for the most part, it functions well, particularly radar. Sonar not so much due to the amount of sound in the water within primary shipping lanes. My problem with this is what in the hell were the lookouts doing? According to what I have heard, this class of ship normally has a port and stbd lookout on the bridge wings. I qualified lookout as a young SA on a submarine and we took pride in identifying anything including periscopes during training exercises in state 3 seas only 20 ft off the surface. These guys are 40 to 50 ft off the surface, which gives them another 2 to 6 km range. So, besides the several radars, you should have the 2 lookouts providing information such as contacts, contact classification, and angle on the bow, which can be used in determining bearing rate. Zero bearing rate is not good. As was determined in the USS Fitzgerald incident, there has to be many failures for this to happen.
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