You don't get to be an O-6 running a ship like that as a dummy. This is a case of a cascading failure of enlisted up through OOW, and the O-6 will pay the price with his career.

Both Shu (former) and Benson (current) Captains are O-5 Commanders.

O-6 commands a DESGRU, not a single destroyer.
Interesting.
Earlier today web sites reported Shu as being the CO. Even the Navy sites.
Couple hours later they all say Benson is the Captain, replaced Shu a month ago.

And, how and where was CDR Benson injured?




https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4204/3406 ... f0f93.jpg/

O6s captained the ships I was on. Only time an O5 got the job was when's promotion would come within 3 months.
Must be dependent on type of ship.

It is with command line officers.
Destroyers get a Commander
Cruisers and carriers rate a Captain
Boomers get a Captain, fast attack subs only rate a Commander.

Experience and rank required for the level of the vessel vary.

Our LST had a CDR later promoted to CPT as the CO.
Not a major ship, but the gator navy is different.
Amphibious ships CO has to equal or outrank the embarked Marine commander, usually a Lt. Colonel or full bird.
Plus amphibious ships capable of deploying aircraft have to have a CO/XO one of whom is surface warfare qualified, and the other air qualified.

Every CO of the Fitzgerald has been an O-5 CDR.
On promotion to O-6, they give you command of a larger ship like a cruiser, command a destroyer squadron/group, or move you to another position higher up in the fleet command working for an Admiral.

Yep, both skippers of my DDG were CDRS.

Taking into consideration that he was injured in the collision, the extent unknown, don't you think that your prediction may be premature and maybe even moot if he doesn't fully recover? I've been looking all over the "net" for more information but it appears that even foreign media is reporting the same information that is being put out by 7th Fleet.

All kinds of speculation is possible but so far very few facts have been released. Even with small boats that are far more maneuverable, when the other "skipper" makes an unexpected move you may end up getting center-punched without it being your fault at all. I've had it happen to me both in sailboats during a race and in a 35' twin engine cruiser with lots of power and maneuverability. Even when communicating on "bridge to bridge", you run into people that mistake what you just told them YOU will do for what you want THEM to do.

I'll wait for the rest of the story.

The rest of the story may seem to matter to us, but delliottg is speaking from experience, not feeling. The captain will take this hit as a career ender or a permanent desk job unless the USN has changed in a big way.

It's extremely unlikely that he'll ever get command of a ship again, even if the collision was through no fault of his own. However, by definition, anything that happens to the ship under his command is his fault even if there were nothing he could have done to prevent it or he wasn't even on board. The reason I said he'd be lucky to stay in the USN was because it's possible he'll be given a shore based job depending on the results of the inquest, but it's most likely he'll be relieved of duty and either court-martialed, or allowed to retire depending on the inquest.

The CO of nuke school in Orlando when I was there in the early 80's was rumored to have struck bottom with his submarine (I don't know if this was true), but he was given command of nuke school. I just find it hard to believe that any skipper, even in crowded areas would allow another vessel to approach within a couple of miles unless they had absolutely no choice. I talked to my brother (retired USN line officer (meaning he stood bridge watches underway)), and his standing orders at the time (late '70's, early '80's) were to begin maneuvering to avoid collision when the other ship's closest point of approach fell below two miles or about 3500 yards.

From the pictures it appears that the Fitzgerald was the burdened vessel as the merchant ship was on his right. On an crossing course, the vessel to the right is considered privileged and the "stand on" vessel, the vessel on the left is the burdened vessel and must give way. This is fine and well until the burdened vessel is a giant ship and the privileged vessel is a little destroyer (comparatively) then even if the privileged vessel has "right of way", they still become burdened because of their better maneuverability and the "rights of gross tonnage", the bigger vessel almost always has right of way, no matter what. The rules of the road don't specify who has the right of way, they give guidelines with the sole goal to be collision avoidance. Maybe the mate on watch on the merchant vessel got his rules backwards? Maybe they both maneuvered to avoid and instead made it worse (this happened a lot prior to radar). Maybe the mate or the officer of the deck gave a backwards order (hard to starboard instead of hard to port, etc.)? These are all just guesses with no data to back them up.

I agree with you, there has been precious little information given out, and assuming the CO doesn't die of his wounds, his inquest will take weeks or months to resolve and there's no guarantee we'll ever hear the results.

Having done man overboard drills....................
7 sailors still missing after a 24 hour search is not good at all.
Prayers for them and their families.

It's dark out there at 2:30am
If I went to the fantail and told the after lookout with sound powered phones "I'm going to jump over in 3-2-1"...................
By the time they turned the ship around I doubt they could find me anytime soon.
And the Fitzgerald was a crippled ship.
May be different now with GPS and computers than calculate the sea and wind but I dunno.

ABC news just showed the track of the two ships. They claim the cargo ship passed them by then "hooked a U-turn" before spearing the destroyer.

Got a link?

That destroyer and it's crew had the speed and capability to outmaneuver ANY 700 foot container ship, damn near run circles around it.
Fitzgerald has a flank speed of about 40 knots.
A loaded container ship while maneuvering is maybe 5-10 knots max, sharp turn could capsize going much faster and even the new ones max speed in calm water in a straight line is at about 21 knots.

As said above, Navy ships NEVER lets other vessels come up close unless doing a coordinated maneuver such as UNREP.

ABC broadccast it on TV but doesn't show it on their website

Here's the same information from a different source:

http://maritimebulletin.net/2017/06/17/uss-fitzgerald-collision-with-boxship-acx-crystal-japan/

Yep, my ancient DDG (Adams class) could do a hair over 35 knots with all four boilers lit off and cranking (and it was a sight to see, giant rooster tail shooting up, stuff from the Viet Nam war being shaken down out of the overheads, dust everywhere, felt like the deck plates were going to rattle your teeth out). We watched SpruCans race away from the pier in Gitmo, where they'd go from cold plant to flank in probably less than 10 minutes. A proper light off procedure for my tin can started 72 hours prior to getting under way. One time we discovered a Soviet "fishing vessel" (we counted no less than 72 individual antennae on it) and escorted it out to the 12 mile limit. They pretended they didn't understand what we wanted, so the skipper ordered tight turns around this maybe 125' ship until they decided he was serious. We were probably never more than 2-300 yards from them during the turns (we were also doing them to count antennas). The point is, the Fitzgerald could have easily outrun and out turned any large merchant vessel, so there must be more to the story that we don't know about.