Another Navy ship collision in the Pacific
Another Navy ship was involved in a collision in the Pacific on Saturday, this time with a Japanese tugboat.
The USS Benfold, a guided-missile destroyer, sustained minor damage when a tugboat lost propulsion and drifted into the ship, the Navy said. No one was injured on either vessel and an initial assessment of the damage showed that the destroyer only sustained minimal damage including scrapes.
It sounds as if the majority of the blame falls on the tugboat, though one must still wonder how a Navy destroyer was unable to avoid the drifting tugboat.
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Another Navy ship was involved in a collision in the Pacific on Saturday, this time with a Japanese tugboat.
The USS Benfold, a guided-missile destroyer, sustained minor damage when a tugboat lost propulsion and drifted into the ship, the Navy said. No one was injured on either vessel and an initial assessment of the damage showed that the destroyer only sustained minimal damage including scrapes.
It sounds as if the majority of the blame falls on the tugboat, though one must still wonder how a Navy destroyer was unable to avoid the drifting tugboat.
Readers!
Every February I run a fund-raising drive during my birthday month. This year I celebrate my 72nd birthday, and hope and plan to continue writing and posting on Behind the Black for as long as I am able.
I hope my readers will support this effort. As I did in my November fund-raising drive, I am offering autographed copies of my books for large donations. Donate $250 and you can have a choice of the hardback of either Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8 or Conscious Choice: The origins of slavery in America and why it matters today and for our future in outer space. Donate $200 and you can get an autographed paperback copy of either. IMPORTANT! If you donate enough to get a book, please email me separately to tell me which book you want and the address to mail it to.
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. My analysis of space, politics, and culture, taken from the perspective of an historian, is almost always on the money and ahead of the game. For example, in 2020 I correctly predicted that the COVID panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Every one of those 2020 conclusions has turned out right.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
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4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
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Cortaro, AZ 85652
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Because it was tugged during a certification exercise where I suppose the ship was supposed to play disabled to begin with (why otherwise exercise tugging it).
There was this Australian aircraft carrier from ww2 that sank two destroyers. Unfortunately both destroyers carried allied flags and sank after colliding with the aircraft carrier i non-combat situations.
I have a hard time coming up with a scenario where this was the ship’s fault. By their nature, tugs are much more maneuverable than ships. I would assume that the tug was being used to help maneuver the ship, but I don’t know this (this is another frantic day, without time to read other articles).
If the tug was helping maneuver the ship, they were probably going very slowly, and large ships have very little maneuverability at low speeds. Tugs are typically used in tight situations where a ship would have a hard time maneuvering on its own; for example, tugs can be used to move a ship sideways, which it obviously can’t do on its own (although some smaller ships have bow thrusters, essentially propellers mounted on the side of the bow to give thrust in a sideways direction).
I’ll try to find out more details late tonight, when I’ve met all of today’s deadlines.
This appears to be a non issue incident related to U.S. war ships and their readiness if this was a close quarters low speed situation and they were not underway and on patrol.
The issue of concern arises when a ship is underway taking care of business whether during peace time or during conflict and evasive maneuvers are required but no one knows what the hell to do and serious damage and / or loss of life occurs.
“I have a hard time coming up with a scenario where this was the ship’s fault. By their nature, tugs are much more maneuverable than ships.”
*Everything* that happens on a US Navy ship is the responsibility of the Captain. Its crew have to spend time in training
The US Navy, over the last 10 years, has been forced by Congress and the WH to cut training to the bone and into the bone. This is an issue both for funding the training itself, and for funding sufficient ships and sailors to have 1/3rd on patrol, 1/3rd in training, and 1/3rd in maintenance drydock, while still performing the duties required of the Navy. For instance, the current deployment of 7 carriers out of 11 is a wrenching distortion of the pattern needed to keep the Fleet fit to fight. 7 Carrier Task Forces deployed may be desperately needed for the present Korean problem, but it is going to hurt down the line, in both maintenance and training.
You *cannot* simply stop and start a Navy! It will take 12 years to repair fully the damages done to the US Navy in the last 10 years. Get used to that. Those who wanted to *force* long term changes against US policies defending industrial society around the world often find the Navy budget to be their longest lever, and they have used it, persistently, and will continue to try to do that.
@Tom
“It will take 12 years to repair fully the damages done to the US Navy in the last 10 years.”
That’ SLS talk!
If it had taken 12 years to replace the Pearl Harbor ship losses in 1941, you’d be speaking Japanese today. And you refer to less training for a while, and suddenly the US Navy cannot float. Ridiculous!
Check the USNI News site. This was a towing exercise, ie Destroyer was dead in the water and being towed by a tug, not maneuvered by the tug. Big difference.
tug lost power and either Destroyer continued to drift into tug or the other way around.
alex-
appreciate those factoids.
NBC news = they create lies wholesale and peddle them at retail.
Alex Andrite: Thank you. This clarifies things, and explains to me why no other news source picked up the story. As Wayne notes, the news source, NBC, is highly unreliable. I should have held off posting until I had more confirmation of the incident.
Mark Levin:
“The Media in this country do not understand, that they are hated by everybody…”
2-16-17 clip
https://youtu.be/epxR8Di7ClI
5:58
I don’t see anything factually wrong with the NBC article. It described “a minor collision” and said, “The USS Benfold, a guided-missile destroyer, sustained minor damage when a tugboat lost propulsion and drifted into the ship”. They brought up the previous, more serious incidents, but in no way implied that this incident was anywhere near on par with those.
LocalFluff,
One problem with the story about the Aussie carrier; Australia didn’t have any carriers during WW2.
Tom Billings, I agree with your larger points, but I think this accident is unrelated to them. There is certainly a pattern of collisions at sea that point to serious deficiencies, but this particular accident doesn’t seem to fit the pattern.
I say this highlight the excellent points you brought. I didn’t realize that we have 7 carrier groups deployed; as you said, this is going to bring about some serious challenges!