John McCain Does A Gerald Ford Impersonation

It sounded like an ocean going tug to me and not a harbor tug.

"The Japanese tug boat lost propulsion and drifted into the USS Benfold during a towing exercise. The U.S. guided-missile destroyer sustained minimal damage, and there were no reported injuries on either vessel, according to a press release from the U.S. Navy's 7th Fleet."

Doesn't sound too bad to me. We like to think the tug boat ripped a hole in the ship but I bet it's just a simple very low speed love tap and given the Navy's recent history everyone is freaking out as usual.

Question: In such a towing exercise I would assume the Navy ship is simulating a situation where it has no propulsion. Is it possible they just couldn't get the engines up and running fast enough to avoid a collision? Or is it as simple as pressing a button and hitting the throttle?

I would assume they never secured the engines. They would just stop them. Firing a COGAG system isn’t as slow as coal or oil fired boilers, but it’s not exactly fast either.

This really sounds like what an exercise is for. The problem presented itself and they worked it. No big deal (except it makes for good press).

There is also the mass and inertia of the ship to deal with. Even if they could get the engines to go from "idle" to "full" in a couple of seconds, that ship ain't gonna be moving all that fast for at least a few minutes.

Ex-U.S. Navy officers face negligent homicide charges over ship collisions

Fight the Ship
Death and valor on a warship doomed by its own Navy.

There's a USS Benfold?

If you're aft of the USS Benfold and 30 degrees to starboard, are you on the Benfold's Five?

No. You’re on the starboard quarter. They anticipated that joke 500 years ago.

This was absolutely true when I was stationed on Fitz in the early 2010s.

The article mentioned the shitty ass radars that barely worked, and that was a problem even when I was aboard. I was friends with a couple of the sonar techs there.

Also, wow the ship went to complete shit after we left. When I was aboard, we had a crew of 240 people and we were better trained and never missed key qualifications. Like the only time we came really close was when Engineering lied about their maintainance and did fuck all during the 3 month yard period and we ALL got roped into fixing that shitshow for the next three weeks. But overall, we had the best scores in the fleet and got pulled for assignments because of our readiness, not despite a demonstrated lack thereof.

And it's a shame that those who have pointed this out are facing the punishment and not the leaders who continually ignored them, but I expected nothing better from the Navy, to be quite honest. Makes me glad I left before the system fucked me over.