Listening to some republican congressman tonight..

[bodie54]

...on AM radio telling me the reason we've had two recent collisions between navy ships and commercial ships is...


Because our defense budget isn't big enough :1orglaugh


For any who aren't aware, here's the scoreboard:

United States 611 billion
China 215 billion
Russia 70 billion
France 56 billion
UK 48 billion
Japan 46 billion
Germany 41 billion
Isreal 18 billion

https://www.google.com/imgres?imgur...ved=0ahUKEwj41IaW9oDWAhWHgFQKHXZYAWEQ9QEIKjAA

 

[mongo18]

That might have been some poor phrasing, but I have heard a couple of sources talking about how overworked the US Navy is, and that quite likely was a factor.

Whether that means you need more ships, or less for your navy to worry about, I dunno, has anyone discussed that before??? :dunno:

 

[Mayhem]

The ships they've run into (twice?!?!) don't exactly make sudden moves. I have limited but relevant maritime experience and I'm scratching my head.

 

[sean miguel]

There have already been 4 of these accidents with U.S. Navy ships in the Pacific this year alone. The other ones were a ship running aground off the coast of Japan and the other was a collision with a fishing boat.

Mostly due to human error. There are so many safeguards in place to prevent these kinds of accidents from happening including right down to simply the human eyeball. This is a training and leadership issue. The commanders of each boat are immediately relieved of duty as well as those responsible on watch. But this latest incident went as far up as the Commander of the 7th Fleet who was also sacked.