They called it Automatic Information Data Beacon AIDB. I never heard of it before. Let's assume it is like IFF, an electronic beacon that gives identification. It also gives away your position, and apparently the Navy usually operated with AIDB turned off for stealth reasons. Now they have ordered warships to turn it on claiming that it would talk to merchie autopilots and get them to change course to avoid collisions.
Yeah right. the big merchies, supertankers and the like, draw so much water that they will run aground if they steer out of the dredged channel. Running a big merchie aground costs like crazy and the owners figure running anything down is cheaper than running their ship aground. Their skippers are not going to maneuver to avoid cross traffic like US destroyers. They are going to steer straight ahead, and lesser vessels better get out of their way. It seems like our Navy doesn't understand this.
Old Admiral Dan Gallery, writing in the 1960's, understood this. He wrote "Steer well clear of any merchie, lest he decide to liven up your day by ramming you." I wonder what orders the officers of the deck on those two US destroyers had. Were they ordered top steer well clear, or were they ordered to insist on their right of way?
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