Eclipse Impact: Bupkis
George Ure's Urban Survival Blog
Posted on August 21, 2017
http://urbansurvival.com/eclipse-impact-bupkis/

[snip]

Yes, another ship collision. Military affairs contributor “warhammer ” (a patriotic brother of the oak leaf cluster sort) figures it thisaway:

“We now officially have a trend – another U.S. Navy ship collided with a commercial shipping vessel in the Malacca straits. No reports of casualties so far, but the Chief of Naval Operations and CINCPAC cannot be happy with the USS John McCain’s latest incident.

I’m not inclined to believe in coincidences. Verging on being alarmist, it is now entirely within the realm of possibilities that American ships are being probed for potential weaknesses – procedural, technical or otherwise. My bet is China could be pulling the strings if such a strategy was in fact a reality.

All eyes in the Pentagon should now be locked onto Indonesia. A critical shipping lane to the Indian Ocean and West Africa is suddenly hazardous to American Navy war ships.

Are Navy navigators and other bridge command crew really this bad? Something just doesn’t feel right. “

The good news, at least for the Captain and XO, is that this time the ship was struck on the left (port) side. Which as we explained in the previous discussion is the preferred side because the vessel that struck the McCain was (under Admiralty Law) the give-way vessel.

The only time that the give-way vessel is not “in the wrong” is when the stand-on vessel, in this case the McCain, failed to hold course and speed. Other than this requirement, the left-side ship should be prepared to write a sizeable check for damages.

But warhammer’s point is that this is likely foreplay to the Chinese preparing the chessboard for what will likely evolve into plenty of “Straits of Hormuz-like” games of chicken to be played this time with PLA/Navy of China, not the sea-faring mullahs of Iran.