They can't manage ships or navigate, but they are Woke AF. Fire, Fire, Fire: How Navy Failures Destroyed the Bonhomme Richard
Actually running decent disaster drills takes time, is hard, takes time away from being woke, but disaster drills can actually find problems. Like dead batteries.
In July of 2020 a fire lasting 5 days raged in the USS Bonhomme Richard, an 844 ft LOA (length overall), 27,000-ton Wasp Class Amphibious Assault Ship that was dockside at San Diego Naval Base. The ship was destroyed.
How the drills went.
A guy with a flag simulates a flame, and a nozzleman says…I am squirting you with water…and then they say…fire is out.
What happened in an actual fire.
In addition to poorly run and deficient drills, many of the ship’s crew had not donned Self- Contained Breathing Apparatus (SCBA) in over a year, did not know how to use or activate Aqueous Film Forming Foam (AFFF) or halogenated hydrocarbon (Halon) firefighting systems, and were unaware of where to locate and use Emergency Escape Breathing Apparatus (EEBA).
There was no “map of the ship” (Fire Control Plan as required by IMO SOLAS convention) available to shoreside firefighters when they arrived at Pier 2 at the San Diego Navy Base to assist in the firefighting effort. And there were no fire standpipes on the pier to supply firefighting water. [SNIP]
Mismatched hose threads, lack of compatible radios and common frequencies, inability to locate the fire, inability to provide firefighting water, no SCBA refilling capability, portable pumps inoperable, dead batteries in equipment, inability to accurately account for all crew, inability to take correct draft readings (required for stability calculations), not accounting for free surface effect, and a “leadership vacuum”.
There is more, and all if it is depressing.
Hat tip to Irons in the Fire. What happens when a military force stops worrying about inconsequential things like disaster drills
and concentrates on PC bullshit.
As for the navigation failures... see this link for a collection of 4 screw-ups from a few years back.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Comment Moderation is in place. Your comment will be visible as soon as I can get to it. Unless it is SPAM, and then it will never see the light of day.
Be Nice. Personal Attacks WILL be deleted. And I reserve the right to delete stuff that annoys me.