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

features.propublica.org

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

#81

Post by patrickg_zill »

da_chicken wrote: post #20
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…

> 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.

There are phone switches that were made in 1982 that are still running phone service, including 911 calling, for mid-sized towns.

And yes, postfix or Exim or qmail, once set up, in a fixed configuration like boat only email, could easily run for decades automatically.

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

#82

Post by dwd »

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.

That's also the case for cheap office printers where a new printer is cheaper than replacing the ink. They make their money on the cartridges and practically give the printers away to try and lock you in.

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

#83

Post by CamperBob2 »

arminiusreturns wrote: post #18
module0000 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)

But humans aren't logical entities.

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

#84

Post by amphibian87 »

rebuilder wrote: post #80

I'm sure it's an interesting article, but unfortunately the fancy format renders it very difficult to read (Firefox on Android). Scrolling down, I found the single word "FIGHT" overlaid on a pov shot of a ship's interior, then further down, two stripes of colour, and scrolling further down, nothing else, until the actual content finally loaded. Even then, the text kept jumping up and down as I tried to read. Not real…

There's an app for that called Pocket. You may already have it it's owned by Mozilla now, removes ads and makes it way easier to read articles. Also dark mode.

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

#85

Post by setr »

jessaustin wrote: post #79
setr wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s fine and well, but irrelevant to what I said. I failed to deduce the fallacy myself or find anyone else doing it for me, thus I’m asking.

The fact that it includes the word "never" was the clue for me...

Which I responded to. Reading never as never is more of a misinterpretation than anything else.

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

#86

Post by vkou »

genkimind wrote: post #44
lainga wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I think the high operational requirements expose a culture/procedural/values problem of the shipboard Navy overall, it's just particular visible in 7th fleet because of the unsustainability of the workload.

I obviously haven't done an A/B study, but I would figure that having periods of crunch time (long or short) with periods of sane time would both keep military units in practice for when they do need to be up for three days on four hours of sleep AND let them train/maintain/not crash their ships into other ships.

But I doubt that the culture described in TFA, and this thread evolved in any way but organically.

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

#87

Post by Tsubasachan »

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…

Nothing new really. You should read up on the state of the Navy in 1941 just before Pearl Harbour. Or just before Korea in 1950.

Armies are in a boom and bust cycle. When the last war is over they lose their funding and priority over other stuff. Until the next war begins.

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

#88

Post by UweSchmidt »

dwd wrote: post #82
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.

That's also the case for cheap office printers where a new printer is cheaper than replacing the ink. They make their money on the cartridges and practically give the printers away to try and lock you in.

Supposedly those cartriges in those cheap office printers are not full when you buy them, so this crazyness doesn't work out. Besides, a large organization should be able to procure ink at a reasonable price...

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

#89

Post by metta2uall »

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…

I really don't understand why the operational tempo is so high given that it is peacetime?? Surely some "missions" can be sacrificed as the Navy was clearly not coping. It sounds to me like one possibility is that senior "leaders" wanted to keep increasing the tempo to make themselves look better on paper..?

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

#90

Post by ForHackernews »

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.

On the other hand, being able to unload on your printer with automatic weapons must be immensely cathartic.
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