Naval misshaps
Discussion
rich 36 said:
Out of interest.
I searched all over the place using predictable
key-words, concerning the unhappy nautical/achitectural event, but everyones keeping schtum'.
Interesting - considering I remember watching it on the BBC news... Mind you, it was before the interweb thingy was hatched.
Glen
Actually, it was a Leander class Frigate called HMS Jupiter that collided with London Bridge in 1984. Its' commander did get promoted (not directly afterwards) but was only ever really given desk jobs. He finished his career as London Area Officer of the Sea Cadet Corps. I know as I was an NCO at the time.
Imadreamer said:
Actually, it was a Leander class Frigate called HMS Jupiter that collided with London Bridge in 1984. Its' commander did get promoted (not directly afterwards) but was only ever really given desk jobs. He finished his career as London Area Officer of the Sea Cadet Corps. I know as I was an NCO at the time.
Sorry, meant to say that I was an NCO when he was Area Officer and have chatted to him many times.
Couple of Naval mishaps
HMS Glorious's collision with the French Liner Florida in 1931
And the biggest Naval mishap of the last century, the scrapping of HMS Warspite.....here's a photo following her abortive attempt to escape the scrappers blow torch by running aground at Prussia Cove, Cornwall in 1947. They couldn't even scrap it with dignity.
HMS Glorious's collision with the French Liner Florida in 1931
And the biggest Naval mishap of the last century, the scrapping of HMS Warspite.....here's a photo following her abortive attempt to escape the scrappers blow torch by running aground at Prussia Cove, Cornwall in 1947. They couldn't even scrap it with dignity.
andy mac said:
Didn't something happen a few years back on the thames, involving the 'Ark' maybe? It ran aground, or something..
Warships quite commonly run aground.
HMS Nottingham anyone?, that was quite spectacular considering she had just been expensively refitted with the latest kit only for it all to take a swim.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/2349449.stm
St Albans got crunched by a ferry not to long ago. I remember as I was duty QM on the Anglesey when I heard a very loud crunch and upon having a look it was a rather large ferry squashing HMS St Albans into the side of Portsmouth dockyard.
www.news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/2365603.stm
A lot of low speed incident occur because as most people realize Warships are not very good at maneuvers at low speeds.
The Navy isn't too keen on publishing accidents. The information is out there if you look hard enough. Try listing a modern weapon system in the search so google only pics up the current generation warship.
of a sight larger than a car!Nah it's all relative, the odd dink every now and again has to be expected. Yes they are well trained, yes their kit costs a lot of our money and no we'd like them to look after it. However they are moving around the globe and by the nature of the job moving in and out of fairly hostile (in an environmental sense and some times military sense) waters. A warship doesn't run like a supertanker and because of their job they are run manually with all the computing power put over to creating a fighting platform. You can merrily set up a supertanker or a car ferry to trundle backwards and forwards on a set well charted route all day every day with little if any human intervetion with collision evasion programs that is not an option in a warship. RN captains and navigators are amongst the best trained in the world but with what they have to deal with accidents will and do happen. That is why if you crash a warship and you can be seen not to have been negligent it won't harm a career, I had a similar conversation with some soldiers one day who were laughing about the latest RN shunt, when I asked how many landrovers and tanks they smashed up the reality struck home. RN captains are simply playing with bigger toys than the rest of us and when things go wrong it happens on a bigger scale.
mel said:
Nah it's all relative, the odd dink every now and again has to be expected. Yes they are well trained, yes their kit costs a lot of our money and no we'd like them to look after it. However they are moving around the globe and by the nature of the job moving in and out of fairly hostile (in an environmental sense and some times military sense) waters. A warship doesn't run like a supertanker and because of their job they are run manually with all the computing power put over to creating a fighting platform. You can merrily set up a supertanker or a car ferry to trundle backwards and forwards on a set well charted route all day every day with little if any human intervetion with collision evasion programs that is not an option in a warship. RN captains and navigators are amongst the best trained in the world but with what they have to deal with accidents will and do happen. That is why if you crash a warship and you can be seen not to have been negligent it won't harm a career, I had a similar conversation with some soldiers one day who were laughing about the latest RN shunt, when I asked how many landrovers and tanks they smashed up the reality struck home. RN captains are simply playing with bigger toys than the rest of us and when things go wrong it happens on a bigger scale.
The best collision detection device is the mark one eyeball. The number of near misses and collisions that happen at sea precisely because ships are only using their autopilots/radars is suprising.
The sea also tends to amplify mistakes. If one thing goes wrong, a situation can very quickly become much more serious.
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