Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Death and Valor on an American Warship Doomed by Its Own Navy

features.propublica.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 108 posts

Re: Death and Valor on an American Warship Doomed by Its Own Navy

#11

Post by [deleted] »

crushcrashcrush wrote: post #4
smacktoward wrote: post #2

A dozen or so [maintenance issues] were considered more serious. They included problems with the ship’s primary navigation system. It was the oldest such system among destroyers based in Japan. It was running on Windows 2000, even though other ships had been upgraded. It could not display information from the AIS. The broken email system had a “major impact” on the ship’s day-to-day operations. Microsoft Outlook did…

Corruption my friend. Direct from a deployed friend's mouth: "When laser printers would run out of toner on base in Iraq, we wouldn't order more toner (we couldn't) - we'd order another entire printer and use the toner cartridge in the new one, and shoot at the printer on the range." Your tax dollars at work.

[deleted]

Re: Death and Valor on an American Warship Doomed by Its Own Navy

#12

Post by smacktoward »

dragonwriter wrote: post #7
smacktoward wrote: post #2

A dozen or so [maintenance issues] were considered more serious. They included problems with the ship’s primary navigation system. It was the oldest such system among destroyers based in Japan. It was running on Windows 2000, even though other ships had been upgraded. It could not display information from the AIS. The broken email system had a “major impact” on the ship’s day-to-day operations. Microsoft Outlook did…

> How the hell does a first-line warship of the United States Navy get into a state like this? Command negligence at very high levels, a high optempo without adequate attention to readiness and discipline. > Based on the article it sounds like the excuse they've settled on is just blaming everything on the crew Unless you are including the chain of command above the ship's commander up through and including the 7th F…

> The cluster of 7th Fleet incidents (the Antietam grounding and the Fitzgerald and McCain collisions) resulted in at least the dismissal of the 7th Fleet commander, the Task Force 70 commander, and the Destroyer Squadron 15 commander, and the early retirement of the head of Naval Surface Forces.

This is good to hear, thank you! I'm glad that accountability for these kinds of systemic problems doesn't stop at the captain's chair.

Re: Death and Valor on an American Warship Doomed by Its Own Navy

#13

Post by brianpgordon »

jessaustin wrote: post #3
smacktoward wrote: post #2

A dozen or so [maintenance issues] were considered more serious. They included problems with the ship’s primary navigation system. It was the oldest such system among destroyers based in Japan. It was running on Windows 2000, even though other ships had been upgraded. It could not display information from the AIS. The broken email system had a “major impact” on the ship’s day-to-day operations. Microsoft Outlook did…

Microsoft Outlook did not work. Nor could commanders communicate over a classified email system... A functioning local email system requires very little resources. This is really an indictment of M$, that they couldn't set up a server that would just run for a couple of decades. If sendmail had been installed in the mid-90s when DDG-62 was commissioned, it probably would still be functioning. Yes we know that it woul…

There are many things that could have gone wrong. Maybe they ran out of disk space. Maybe some critical certs expired.

Re: Death and Valor on an American Warship Doomed by Its Own Navy

#14

Post by boomboomsubban »

genkimind wrote: post #8
crushcrashcrush wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Corruption my friend. Direct from a deployed friend's mouth: "When laser printers would run out of toner on base in Iraq, we wouldn't order more toner (we couldn't) - we'd order another entire printer and use the toner cartridge in the new one, and shoot at the printer on the range." Your tax dollars at work.

It has nothing to do with corruption. See my other comment.

You say an overextension of resources is one of the factors, which corruption would play a role in.

Re: Death and Valor on an American Warship Doomed by Its Own Navy

#15

Post by jessaustin »

brianpgordon wrote: post #13
jessaustin wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft Outlook did not work. Nor could commanders communicate over a classified email system... A functioning local email system requires very little resources. This is really an indictment of M$, that they couldn't set up a server that would just run for a couple of decades. If sendmail had been installed in the mid-90s when DDG-62 was commissioned, it probably would still be functioning. Yes we know that it woul…

There are many things that could have gone wrong. Maybe they ran out of disk space. Maybe some critical certs expired.

Those are issues that would arise within a couple of years, not over 20 years later. If the ship doesn't have anyone qualified to administer computers, then archiving etc. would have to be automated. If the ship used to have such personnel and no longer does, that is certainly a problem at a higher level than the captain.

Re: Death and Valor on an American Warship Doomed by Its Own Navy

#16

Post by darkpuma »

module0000 wrote: post #9
genkimind wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has nothing to do with corruption. See my other comment.

Hanlon's razor at work... "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity"

But never forget that malice does exist, and the clever malicious will often conceal their malice behind a veil of plausible stupidity.

For instance, "Oops I accidentally forgot my briefcase full of classified documents on the bus" is as old as spycraft itself.

Re: Death and Valor on an American Warship Doomed by Its Own Navy

#17

Post by lainga »

genkimind wrote: post #10
smacktoward wrote: post #2

A dozen or so [maintenance issues] were considered more serious. They included problems with the ship’s primary navigation system. It was the oldest such system among destroyers based in Japan. It was running on Windows 2000, even though other ships had been upgraded. It could not display information from the AIS. The broken email system had a “major impact” on the ship’s day-to-day operations. Microsoft Outlook did…

I spent 5+ years on a ship in 7th fleet and am all too familiar with what was described above. I would attribute it to a few things. Mostly the over-extension of resources and people. The operational tempo in 7th fleet is absolutely ridiculous, so everything that isn't "mission accomplishment" gets pushed to the wayside. Training, making sure equipment is properly fixed.. our days were so jam packed full of bullshit…

Would you say this is primarily a resource problem? A culture problem with the 7th Fleet? A culture problem in the USN overall?

Re: Death and Valor on an American Warship Doomed by Its Own Navy

#18

Post by arminiusreturns »

module0000 wrote: post #9
genkimind wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has nothing to do with corruption. See my other comment.

Hanlon's razor at work... "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity"

I like to remind people that Hanlons razor is a logical fallacy, and really shouldn't be used nearly as much as it is, especially the way it is (in an isolated context)

Re: Death and Valor on an American Warship Doomed by Its Own Navy

#19

Post by Neil44 »

brianpgordon wrote: post #13
jessaustin wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft Outlook did not work. Nor could commanders communicate over a classified email system... A functioning local email system requires very little resources. This is really an indictment of M$, that they couldn't set up a server that would just run for a couple of decades. If sendmail had been installed in the mid-90s when DDG-62 was commissioned, it probably would still be functioning. Yes we know that it woul…

There are many things that could have gone wrong. Maybe they ran out of disk space. Maybe some critical certs expired.

I was wondering if the previous power issues mentioned had borked the exchange database. Still, thats a day or two to fix, not weeks.

Re: Death and Valor on an American Warship Doomed by Its Own Navy

#20

Post by da_chicken »

jessaustin wrote: post #3
smacktoward wrote: post #2

A dozen or so [maintenance issues] were considered more serious. They included problems with the ship’s primary navigation system. It was the oldest such system among destroyers based in Japan. It was running on Windows 2000, even though other ships had been upgraded. It could not display information from the AIS. The broken email system had a “major impact” on the ship’s day-to-day operations. Microsoft Outlook did…

Microsoft Outlook did not work. Nor could commanders communicate over a classified email system... A functioning local email system requires very little resources. This is really an indictment of M$, that they couldn't set up a server that would just run for a couple of decades. If sendmail had been installed in the mid-90s when DDG-62 was commissioned, it probably would still be functioning. Yes we know that it woul…

> This is really an indictment of M$

No, it really isn't. For two decades all across the world people have kept Outlook running well enough to function in all sorts of scenarios, including those more difficult than a military ship at sea.

It's not like Thunderbird and Alpine are magically immune to having corrupted data stores and invalid configurations. This is entirely due to lack of proper maintenance.

Post reply on HN