Friday, October 21, 2022

ON TRUST

 It is all right there in the header photo. There is trust at just about all levels in the navy. The destroyers would trust that we got all the mines, in turn we would trust that they would deal with any air or surface navy threat. I sense that the trust is broken. Neither crew has given any room to doubt underlying incompetence in the other.

Oddly enough, that was the way it was in 1987. Little has changed. For starters, I wouldn't trust the MCM to find a mine and were I on a sweep I would expect mostly to get run over by a destroyer of my own navy or savaged by its anti-ship missiles when they lose the picture.

Ask me how I know.

6 comments:

Dave said...

How do you know? That has to be an interesting story.

Anonymous said...

I served on DD’s, DE’s and ended up on a mine countermeasures staff. So, I have a bit of experience with what you are talking about. And when you loose the bubble, bad things can happen: see August, 1964.

HMS Defiant said...

The USS Guardian, on a reef. It was spared getting run down by 7th fleet's destroyers which collided with anything in the way. And there was that moment in the Gulf when we got hit by another MSO.

Don McCollor said...

Like most ships, a MCM probably can find a mine - once.

HMS Defiant said...

found this in August of 1964. Thank you. It just popped up in google/
https://www.history.navy.mil/research/library/online-reading-room/title-list-alphabetically/t/tonkin-gulf-crisis/formerly-classified-documents-from-2-aug-4-aug-1964.html

SCOTTtheBADGER said...

That sort of thing has been going since the 1950's, like when the CO of MISSOURI, decided he could use the same channel the destroyers were using, despite it only having 15 feet of water in it.