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JM Bradley

When the USS Dolphin suffered a severe flooding accident, the US Navy came to a similar determination – no one was fired. One the sailors (an E-6 at the time, later a Chief Petty Officer) received a medal for his actions. http://www.navy.mil/submit/display.asp?story_id=5397
That was unusual, but the right thing to do.

IqbalAhmed

There is more to come.

The senior students involved in the training have gone on to ‘pass’ the Perisher course.

We can look forward to future collisions and mealy mouthed defence of incompetence masked by odes to service and duty.

Keith

I guess with all your Naval or military service coupled with years of expertise in command of a nuclear submarine you would have done better ??

Bottom_feeder

What would you know?

Dern

Shocker out Islamic state resident slandering and badmouthing the rn. Why don’t you go blow yourself up?

IqbalAhmed

Lol

According to the STRN crowd, I’m either a Islamist or a Commie Putin bot. You guys need to compare notes and a decision on which it is. Due to ideological incompatibility, I can’t be both!

Steve

Let me tell you, mate, that you act like both and you probably represent both! Your treasonous talk echoes everyone that hates this country and the Western world.

Derek

No, you’re the allocated troll from Momentum. Look guys, you fall into his wide open trap every time. Just ignore every one of his posts as if he doesn’t exist and then he has no purpose and will be rendered harmless. This is a site for those who support the RN, therefore Iqbal is clearly here as a disruptor. Stop engaging and he will be reallocated to where he can do more harm and we can get on with our thoughts on how to Save the Royal Navy.

Rob

and remind me what submarine you served on????

seems to me that you are a desk bound twonk who thinks he understands naval warfare and the culture of acceptable risk which is inherent to success

if you have nothing to say thats worthy of debate then please return your head to the dark space between your Gluteus Maximus

Leigh

Oh here we ago again, more troll like baiting from the bottom end of the food chain.

Steve

Hahahahahahahahaha. You just make me laugh!! We say this every time, but you clearly dont have a clue as to what you are on about.

Julian Edmonds

The correct term is plonker. To be a wanker you have to get it up!

T B D'Agostino

The submarine fleet is streached beyond breaking point. The SSN fleet is being asked to keep tabs on the Russians, protect our SSBNs, protect our carrier group and perform training, with too few boats. Any incident, accident or breakdown therefore has a devastating knock on and it is totally unacceptable that a training accident results in a complete removal of such vital front one capabilities. That is the streached beyond breaking point made real and not just scare mongering posturing to try and make a point. That is a dereliction of the government’s duty of care to protect this country above all other duties.

Can we therefore still just accept that we will not get anymore SSNs and/or SSKs to help plug this gap? In reality SSKs would supply relatively cheaper alternatives to training boats, first command coastal platforms and special forces insertion.

So what’s the solution? First the Trident successor programme has to transfer to central funding. Second that released funding to be spent on our real life deterrent, extra SSNs and a few SSKs to release SSNs to the deterrent role.

Why am I referring to deterrent when discussing SSNs? Because they are the assists the Russians actually worry about and that is a true deterrent.

IqbalAhmed

The Russian naval threat is being overstated.

If the Soviet Union couldn’t launch an opposed landing in Britain during the height of its power in the Cold War, Putin’s Russia certainly won’t.

As for the Russians sailing close to our waters and protecting sea bed cables, one is ‘friendly diplomacy’ to which we should respond in kind at NATO level and the other requires diversifying cable networks, building resilience and relying on the good fortune that most of the network is very remote and cables are protected by armour. We need maritime defence systems eg. Patrol boats and processes in our home waters and not more large offensive vessels. Thankfully the Russians are reliant on the same cable network.

David Stephen

You really are confused. First you question the competence of our crews then you want more patrol boats, which would be crewed by the very same people. And nobody except you mentioned and opposed landing. Just because Russia can’t invade the UK does not mean they pose no threat.

Leigh

You really do froth and drool don’t you, stop eating cat litter and clean your teeth, your breath stinks.

Steve

You only have to look at the number of minus votes you’ve got to realise how pathetic and childish your remarks are!! Your perception equals that of a child!

IqbalAhmed

Steve: ‘You only have to look at the number of minus votes’.

Well d’oh genius. STRN and its posters only represents a niche part of the right wing spectrum of the population and politics.

Most discussions on STRN come down to funding and I think my views better represent both moderate right and left. You’ll note that neither the party in government or opposition sees the Russians as enough of a threat to hike up defence expenditure.

Pacman27

A great article and one that has structure and balance.

Everyone makes mistakes in life and sometimes those mistakes are significant. What this article deals with very well is the fact that all the simulators in the world cannot replace the real thing.

One thing I would say is that with 2optical masts on board and 2 captains – perhaps in future 1 concentrates on safety using one of the masts and 1 concentrates on teaching using the other mast.

I understand this is an advanced course, but maybe this is a solution.

All in all I think the RN have managed this well and the reason for all the hype is that it is so unusual which is testament to the overall success of the RN’s processes.

SilentMajority

Very true, well put.