I read about such, um, issues a while back. Seems that there were more and more shipboard systems, but each was evolving on its own way lacking a common strategy. That means the systems were often fundamentally incompatible and therefore unable to communicate. Sounds silly, but I think an example was that neither the radars nor the sonar could send target information to the guns.
Say what you will about Windows, but it at least offered some potential solution. While we laugh about Windows on warships giving a whole new meaning of the BSOD, I believe that it behooved the military to give it a try. Of course, the military doesn't like to talk about how its weapons systems work and I guess we'll never know for sure what really happened. But I can envision the Navy wanting a integrated situation where the OIC could point to a target and click 'kill'. The ship would then use all of its resources optimally to attack and destroy while, at the same time, defending itself from everything from missiles to a lovesick whale. -----Original Message----- From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Dave Day Sent: Friday, April 06, 2012 2:20 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: USS YORKTOWN(was Accessing USS on Mainframe thru Telnet) It's hard for me to imagine the navy allowing itself to get into a situation where the operation of the ship's main engines and steering would be completely subject to some PC, or number of PC's on a network within the ship. I put just shy of 3yrs. in an engine room aboard a navy ship, back in the 1960's. The ship had redundancy built into practically every piece of equipment that was needed to maintain steerage, even down to manual pumps to pump hydraulic fluid thru the steering gear. If you are dead in the water, you are a sitting duck. They just don't build 'em like that. They may have waited some period of time before going to manual systems to get underway, but I doubt seriously if a network crash would would have prevented complete movement. --Dave On 4/6/2012 1:54 PM, Mike Schwab wrote: > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Yorktown_(CG-48) > On 21 September 1997, while on maneuvers off the coast of Cape > Charles, Virginia, a crew member entered a zero into a database field > causing a divide by zero error in the ship's Remote Data Base Manager > which brought down all the machines on the network, causing the ship's > propulsion system to fail.[5] [deleted[ Atlantic Fleet officials also > denied the towing, reporting that Yorktown was "dead in the water" for > just 2 hours and 45 minutes.[6] [deleted] > > On Fri, Apr 6, 2012 at 8:32 AM, McKown, John > <[email protected]> wrote: >> Probably, given how we do things anymore, it would likely run Windows. I >> dread the day that we lose a war because our weapons "blue screened". >> >> -- >> John McKown >> Systems Engineer IV ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN NOTICE: This electronic mail message and any files transmitted with it are intended exclusively for the individual or entity to which it is addressed. The message, together with any attachment, may contain confidential and/or privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use, printing, saving, copying, disclosure or distribution is strictly prohibited. If you have received this message in error, please immediately advise the sender by reply email and delete all copies. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
