Joseph P Farrell – Yesterday I began a review of the various hypotheses being advanced to explain the rash of collisions of US naval warships, the two most prominent being the recent ramming of the USS Fitzgerald off the coast of Japan, and the ramming of the USS John McCain off of Singapore just last week. While the news stories are spinning these as collisions, the damage to the ships being done in each case, with the ships being struck more or less forward-midships (starboard side on the Fitzgerald) or aft-midships (port side, apparently, on the McCain) are more characteristic of ramming than collision.
This raised the question, as I outlined yesterday, of why the crews undertook no evasive action? As I reviewed yesterday, the US Navy appears to be opting for the “implied incompetence hypothesis,” rather than entertain the much more disturbing possibility that the crews might not have been able to evade the oncoming ramming.
This raises the related question: what about the crews of the ships doing the ramming? One source indicated that the tanker which struck the McCain was a largely automated ship, which raises that question into stark relief. But automated or not, the question remains: why was no evasive action taken by the warships? (Or was it attempted, and we’re just not being told?) And why was no evasive action attempted by the crews of the ramming ships? (Or, again, was it attempted, and we’re just not being told?)