Quote:
Originally Posted by natehale1971
Very true Tony... i was just going by something i had heard about that happened during the past twenty years. Because I swear I read about the two ships swapping paint after I got out of the Navy... and that it had happened at night, and the computers acted up and said the ships were about twenty meters further apart than they actually were. Thus when they saw the running lights they thought everything was okay, the guys on watch were saying "i think they are too damn close!" and the offical statements were "no the computer says were safely apart" and when they got really close even the officers in charge said "They're to f**king close!" and started to pull out of their turns. and they scrapped as they turned apart.
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In 1964 the Royal Australian Navy lost the destroyer HMAS Voyager due to a collision. The Voyager was cut in half by our carrier HMAS Melbourne.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melbour...ager_collision
Two Royal Commissions were held into the incident (the only time two Royal Commissions have ever been held into the same incident) with the second focussing on allegations that the captain of the Voyager may have been unfit for command (apparently he was an alcoholic).
Given the modest size of the Australian Defence Force (both then and now) we really couldn't afford to lose a destroyer that way. Now we'll probably never again see an Australian aircraft carrier sinking an Australian destroyer because we now longer have an aircraft carrier. But that's fine because our best buddies the USA has more than enough aircraft carrier to go around
