Astute Sub grounding 'catalogue of errors'

Twister_Ken said:
So, the First Sealord is tuned in, and decides Scuttlebutt has got it right - Garmin handhelds are what's needed.

He calls a conference, with the Vice Admiral Procurement, the Rear Admiral Electronics, the Vice Admiral Training, the Rear Admiral UKHO to discuss. They all arrive with their staff and their drivers in Whitehall. Full day spent discussing.

Electronics is sent away to set up a test programme to decide which Garmin model is a) most accurate and b) easiest for a stressed-up OOW to use. Will report in three months when another conference, same players, will consider.

Electronics recommendation is accepted.

UKHO is sent away to consider how to port super-duper top-secret eyes-only hi-def charts to the Garmin platform. Reports back that it can be done, two year lead time. Conference decides to go ahead.

Porting exercise over-runs by a year, due to involvement of Qinetiq.

At the next conference, procurement is sent away to negotiate the Garmin purchase, in special battleship grey cases.

Training is tasked to structure a Garmin Handheld Bridge Crews For The Use Of Training Course.

Requests the use of an Ardent-class for realistic training.

Request denied, but a full-scale mock-up of the top of an Ardent sail is commissioned to be built, conveniently close to a knocking shop in Devonport.

Building works delayed due to contract dispute with Symonvski, Bakowski and Zwolinski (Polska) Builders, completed 15 months behind schedule.

First batch of Garmins ordered, for training centre, from Marine Megastore. Whilst awaiting the extended delivery, First Sea Lord retires.

His successor calls for a review of the Garmin programme.
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And in the meantime, if the Navy's anything like the Army, the guys on the ground (err, water) have gone and bought their own anyway.

The Army have (had?) a thing called a Communications Electronic Instruction, a piece of paper with the day's callsigns, cipher sheets, frequencies, and sundry other items of radio arcana on it. On the only Regular Army exercise I have participated in, in Germany, the CEI was handed out at the start of the exercise and turned out to instead consist of a list of key individuals' mobile phone numbers.

Pete
 
Wot me worry?

Indirect quote here as I can't be arst going back to find the original.


"........no surrender worrior culture ........." Posted by jonjo5

I do so hope that is not a spell failure, as the thought of having guys who "worry" rather than guys who fight, in charge is appealing.
 
Twister_Ken said:
So, the First Sealord is tuned in, and decides Scuttlebutt has got it right - Garmin handhelds are what's needed.

. . . .

His successor calls for a review of the Garmin programme.
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Hilarious :D

But one detail you've forgotten: each Garmin would have to be resprayed grey and have a crowsfoot and Admiralty Pattern Number engraved on it.
 
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Ex-SolentBoy said:
You can make all the excuses you like but, simply put, people screwed up. You can have as much procedure as you like but as long as it is linear any fool can cause havoc.

Proper procedure allows for, and even assumes that stupid human error will occur. In this case the procedure did not seem to have sufficient layers. The point all the non-military novices are making is that if a non sub qualified numpty had been on board with a Garmin handheld, a loud voice and no career to worry about he, or she, would probably have averted the disaster.

The practice of the military investigating their own screw ups has some merit, as they have made their procedures so complicated that the assumption is that no one outside their sphere can constructively criticise. On the other hand this regime always creates an environment when management and procedure are never to blame, only some poor sod trying his best.

Firing the captain may well be a very stupid idea as well. Its convenient to blame him, but the system may well have let him down. From what I read in the press, it seems that management, politicians, military leaders etc always want to blame someone else than themselves.

Having spent a fortune training the bloke and promoting him, perhaps theY should consider that the system they forced him to adopt may well have been the problem.
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I think you may have missed something along the way my point all along has been this was a people failure not a gear failure. Having read the report I can see so many cockups in what was happening that I find it surprising they took as long as they did to fire the CO, His team was out of control and that was his responsibility.
 
jonjo5 said:
What you fail to understand is that people are fallible, your failure of perception on this matter is probably due to the fact you considered yourself the be Royal Navy's most infallible navigator.


No the problem is that the man up to with authority to decide where to aim the sub did not know where he was.

I am not against procedure, I am arguing for a £500 backup to mitigate the affect of failed procedure.
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Hey ho making those little assumptions again, I was a pretty average navigator, but I did manage to avoid the putty during my time. The problem was just that people cock things up and procedures are there to cover for this, that is why they has 2 OOWs and a POOW, the problem was they all seemed to be worrying about the less important things rather than ship safety. Even you must accept such a situation is a recipe for disaster. Flashy bits of kit are great but are no guarantee of success. Thet had some of the best nav kit available, and with a couple of clearing bearings and the working compass repeater on the bridge the OOW could have kept the boat perfectly safe. If he failed to do it right with existing working kit what proof have you that giving him another bit would have made the slightest difference.
 
It's amazing that people have failed to realise that the officer on the bridge forgot to take his chart up with him. Who's to say that he'd have remembered to take a hand held garmin instead?
 
The sub was well inside two red flashing buoys which were put there for a purpose - shallow waters! Most reasonable people would keep outside them even without the assistance of charts or electronics.

As they were only transferring crew there was no need to be anywhere near them, let alone inside them, as the distance to the shore facility was much the same from the deep water they had gone through for the last 1/2 miles.

Says little for the training and leadership on the sub that such basic errors can occur.
 
Woodlouse said:
It's amazing that people have failed to realise that the officer on the bridge forgot to take his chart up with him. Who's to say that he'd have remembered to take a hand held garmin instead?
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Try and keep up - some ex submarine navigators have pointed out that your DON'T normally have a chart up on the top of the fin in a submarine.

kyleview said:
The sub was well inside two red flashing buoys which were put there for a purpose - shallow waters! Most reasonable people would keep outside them even without the assistance of charts or electronics.

As they were only transferring crew there was no need to be anywhere near them, let alone inside them, as the distance to the shore facility was much the same from the deep water they had gone through for the last 1/2 miles.

Says little for the training and leadership on the sub that such basic errors can occur.
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Why do people who think that the world beyond the buoyed channel is completely out of bounds? The submarine weren't following the buoyed channel and they might have been spending lots of their time outside it during the trials that they were undertaking for all sorts of good reasons. All the evidence is that they knew where they were - but the man on the bridge either ignored or didn't respond to the increasingly urgent reports from those plotting that they were standing into danger.

Like many such accidents, it was a series of errors and failures that compounded to make a mess.
 
john_morris_uk said:
Try and keep up - some ex submarine navigators have pointed out that your DON'T normally have a chart up on the top of the fin in a submarine.
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It's hard to keep up after 200 plus posts but I remember one stating that the chap up top had forgotten to take a chart with him but had requested one to be sent up. Anyway, I give up here, this thread has gone round and round in ever decreasing circles since about the 4th post.:D

Anyway, as a parting shot, isn't the fin on a submarine technically called the sail? Or is that an americanism?
 
Woodlouse said:
I
Anyway, as a parting shot, isn't the fin on a submarine technically called the sail? Or is that an americanism?
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Definitely an americanism - therefore by definition totally unacceptable. Harrumph!

In fact 'fin 'doesn't sound right to me either. What was wrong with 'conning tower'? (Cue - Warrior Priest)
 
parsifal said:
In fact 'fin 'doesn't sound right to me either. What was wrong with 'conning tower'? (Cue - Warrior Priest)
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I'm told that was technically a part of the pressure hull protruding upwards inside the fin. Therefore in older submarines they were almost synonymous. But modern ones don't have such a pressurised protruberance, so the sticky-up bit is a fin only.

Pete
 
parsifal said:
Definitely an americanism - therefore by definition totally unacceptable. Harrumph!

In fact 'fin 'doesn't sound right to me either. What was wrong with 'conning tower'? (Cue - Warrior Priest)
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Technically the conning tower is inside the fin, it is a tube nowadays about 10feet tall with a hatch at both the top and bottom. It raises the access to te casing/fin a bit more above the water line. In the early boats the OOW stood in the tower lookig out of the top to 'con'the boats leading to the term conning tower. The fin (sail if you are in the US navy) is the streamlined fairing round the periscopes and other masts (radio, radar, snort induction, and snort exhaust) and the bridge is a small platform at the top front providing space for the OOW and lookout.
 
When I travel northbound under the Skye Bridge I travel mid channel and only leave the buoyed chanel to run down Loch Carron after clearing the first set of buoys.
Why because firstly there are all sorts of odd currents doing odd things and odd very sharp objects that only appear at low tide called rocks.
May I remind those who are unaware that the tidal flow that begins between fastnet and landsend is funnelled up the Irish Sea where it joins the tidal flow coming round northern Ireland and the whole lot goes through Kylerea several hundred yards wide and then on through the narrows at The Kyle of Lochalsh.
I have stood still southbound under the Skye Bridge when I once got it wrong and in Springs it can be in excess of 10 knots.
The sub was operating in a very complex tidal and ground situation further exacerbated by the night lighting which is a weird mix of darkness;orange street lights; and various spots and floodlights from various harbours and docks.
It was a silly place to carry out the excercise and the captain should have known this.
 
jonjo5 said:
A month later a bored PO who is also a cycling enthusiast camouflages the Garmin yellow cases with some black handlebar cloth tape. CO approves and posts the reel of cloth tape around the squadron.
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Nay, nay and thrice nay! Tape results in mankyness; they must be handed to the chief tiff(W) and request that he get one of the hands who's good with a brush to give them a nice coat of matt black paint; there's always at least one closet signwriter on board.

In reality you'd just ask Garmin for a few in the usual black or even the funky camo green that they do hand-helds in.
 
Minn said:
If "top front" is a term of art in today's Navy much is explained.

"fore upper section"?
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I chose terminology to suit the audience. Mind you it was common in my day, when we still issued the tot, to not use nautical terms, but these fashions come and go.

Time for some Egyptian PT.
 
maxi77 said:
Technically the conning tower is inside the fin, it is a tube nowadays about 10feet tall with a hatch at both the top and bottom. It raises the access to te casing/fin a bit more above the water line. In the early boats the OOW stood in the tower lookig out of the top to 'con'the boats leading to the term conning tower. The fin (sail if you are in the US navy) is the streamlined fairing round the periscopes and other masts (radio, radar, snort induction, and snort exhaust) and the bridge is a small platform at the top front providing space for the OOW and lookout.
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I see. Thank you.

Maybe if they started started calling it a 'conning tower' again, it might remind those in it why they are there. ;)
 
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