Thirty days ago today the USS Fitzgerald (DDG-62) was rammed by the Japanese-flagged container ship ACX Crystal causing significant damage. This is the third essay about this unmitigated disaster. Unmitigated because no matter how it happened NOTHING GOOD can emerge from this for the USN and USA.

In trying to make sense of this, I have researched half a dozen military YouTube channels, some of them "official" as well as 50+ non-military videos. The first two essays contained many citations to videos, which I will try not to repeat.

Background information:

Fitzgerald essay number 1: Initial skirmish of World War 3: the battle of the Black Sea

Fitzgerald essay number 2: World War 3: a second front opens.

In those prior essays, I described many of the extant theories about the collision. As predicted newer and certainly enticing theories have arisen since then. More about those later.

Question 1: What was the Fitz's mission?

Of course, don't expect any answers from the USN. In fact, I do not expect one shard of truth to be emitted by the USN. It is sad that we KNOW we cannot and will not get truth from the US government.

Where was it? Here is a map of the duty station in April 2017. Smack in the center of this sea map of sea of Japan, off the Korean coast (disregard the arrowhead on this screen shot):

This shows clearly that the ship was roughly equidistant from the coasts of North Korea (NK) and Japan.

Why was it there?

Most likely explanation: electronic listening (spying) (9:49). One juicy target would be a super-sophisticated GPS site in Hamamatsu, the workings of which the Japanese are not sharing with us--and who can blame them?

Another quite plausible explanation was that the Fitz was offshore Korea for anti-ballistic missile purposes. (7:01). The Fitz is (was) one of 6 Navy ships capable of downing an ICBM, all station in or near Japan, apparently serving on rotation. A few days after the F/C (Fitzgerald/Crystal) collision, NK launched a bunch of ballistic missiles. Coincidence?

Implications of fleet depletion: The USN desires a 355 ship fleet. Currently it has about 274, of which only about 240 are service-ready. Here is a report issued 3 days BEFORE the collision about Fleet configuration and expansion (19:23). At present due to the "inadequate" funding (yes, you read that correctly--despite billions of DOD money apportioned to the USN), the poor fellows can only repair existing ships, rather than produce new ones.

Here's a little pre F/C USN propaganda about guided missile destroyers

Question 2: Who dunnit?

I don't think it was Col. Mustard in the drawing room with the silver candelabra. So there are a number of possibilities:
1. Russia--yes, it's always Russia
2. China
3. NK
4. Filipino ISIS members
5. Japan

Let's dispose of choices 4 and 5 first.

Filipino ISIS: Yes, they had a powerful reason to disable anti-ICBM destroyers because of their own impending missile tests. But do they have the means? One scenario has it that Filipino members of ISIS (15:02) may have sabotaged the Fitz when the Fitz was in Subic Bay in April 2017. So how would that work? Possibly a logic bomb set to be remotely triggered, disabling the Fitz. Not a bad theory, really, but too many stretches of credulity and access arise.

Japan: as noted above Japan has secret GPS facility in Hamamatsu which they would like to remain secret. So would they ram the Fitz? Highly unlikely. The would they risk going to war with the US, one of its strongest allies and trading partners?

So what about the suspects with the most to gain? First we'll define what could be gained by such a plot.

NK: reason to destroy Fitz (6:19). As stated above, the ICBM program, which is NK's prime method to dissuade foreign intervention, had to be protected by ridding the Sea of Japan from anti-ICBM weapons.

China: China is aggressively expanding military influence in the South China Sea (SCS). They have constructed a number of islands in the SCS as a defensive perimeter and are zealous in protecting them as well as fleet expansion. In fact, only 1 week before F/C occurred there was a confrontation between the USS Dewey and the Chinese military when it was thought the Dewey was "too close" to the artificial islands.

Russia: the Bear does not like to be bullied. I discussed in a prior essay about the Black Sea defeat of the Donald Cook without a shot being fired. I am not certain at all that the military, and most especially not the homicidal neocons, realized the full implications on an emotional level. Perhaps they didn't "get it" in a cognitive way also.

Here is more documentation about the prior Cook attack, not referenced in essay number 1.

Khibiny (EMP) immobilization of the Cook (4:10) in Russian with English subtitles.

Russia takes credit for EMP paralysis of the Cook.

One thing certain, Comrade Putin does want to send a warning to Trump that he will not be pushed around by bullies, meaning our Exceptional Empire. Briefly, I will refer the reader to some interesting information about the largely useless US tomahawk attack on the al-Sharyat Syrian airbase. Russia shot down 36 tomahawk missiles at Al-Sharyat (9:33). I guarantee that you will never hear a word of this from the MSM.

Intermediate considerations

Before we get to the "how was it done?" question, we need to understand a few things: witness reports, investigation progress, damage assessment.

A. Witness statements

Big problem here. Navy has placed a gag order on all US Naval participants in the entire affair. Here is one citation previously posted in essay 2 about a sailor thinking the Fitz was being attacked (10:01)

Here's a comment from an experience USN sailor with lots of Yokosuka port experience but who was not actually a witness. Yokosuka is the Fitz's home base.

[video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vP_DNq5osYQ]

This video is highlighted--because I want you to watch and listen about statements made by Capt Advincula (Crystal) and by Navy spokesperson (10:51). This video will be extremely important in understanding possible mechanisms of attack plus prevarications.

Here is a reference to Fitz crew readiness and the magic belowdecks phone call (8:28)

Here is analysis of Capt. Advincula's three lies about the collision. (10:11).

B. Investigation

This investigation is about as transparent as Comey's investigation of the Clinton emails. In fact, the Navy has blocked Japan from investigating the collision (14:03). This video also details inconsistencies in the proffered USN stories/explanations/fairy tales about why captain was in cabin at 0130 and why general quarters was not called immediately.

Here is a USN lie about the collision proven by ship courses during the episode (11:16).

C. Damage assessment:

This is the most important part of solving the mystery. Before one can postulate the means for execution of the F/C collision, we must have an accurate damage assessment. How severe was it. Where was it located. What mechanism(s) could account for the observable damage.

In addition to damage, the collision courses of the two ships are quite important. Much of that was discussed in essay 2.

In order to understand damage, comparison with other disasters at sea would be very helpful. Unfortunately, since 2014 there have been quite a few, which of course surfaced only briefly in the MSM before being sunk by the USN.

When F/C collision occurred on the open" sea, pictures of both vessels were restricted to areas above the water line. The Crystal was at least partially loaded with containers, while the Fitz had taken on large amounts of water, pushing hull normally above the waterline to below it. Therefore, neither areas of interest regarding lower hull damage to the Fitz were visible.

First consider the Fitzgerald damage compared to the USS Cole. Here is a video showing the Fitzgerald being brought into dry dock at Yokosuka (13:10). Narration begins at ~10:35 explaining the process.

Here is the official Navy version of the dry docking procedures as the Fitzgerald enters dry dock on 7/11/17. Two things of note about this article. Number 1, at the time of rescue, the captain was hanging onto the hull; so evidently he escaped captain's quarters--or perhaps had been on the bridge at the time of collision. Number 2, The incident occurred 6/17 but Fitz didn't reach port until 24 days later. Ostensibly the extra 24 days were required for underwater welding of the damaged hull.

The next video is made by a crusty, curmudgeonly old salt, navythomas8 assessing the heretofore below water line damage (14:54). The videographer explains alterations of the hull and basic ship construction, which begin with the keel. The sound quality is poor at times, but intentionally or unintentionally, this fellow is funny as hell.

A technical question arises about hull scorching (7:26). Scorch marks from the Cole, which was attacked by a small rubber craft containing 700 pounds of high explosives above the waterline are compared to scorch marks below Fitz's waterline. The implication is that scorching would not occur during a simple collision.

Another peculiarity is that the Cole was attacked during daylight with most of the crew awake. Although damage to the Fitz was much more extensive than to the Cole (10:51), only 7 sailors on the Fitz died compared to 17 on the Cole. Worth thinking about but doesn't really prove anything. However the low Fitz mortality count would comport with the theory that the Fitz crew had already assumed battle stations.

In addition to the Cole / Fitz comparison is a comparison to collision with DDG Porter (7:43) involving a much larger oil tanker than the ACX Crystal. The Porter / tanker collision was almost head-on yet damage to the Porter was less than to the Fitz. The Porter did not have significant below waterline damage.

The above-mentioned crusty curmudgeon explains what happens during a real collision (21:09). Unfortunately any bridge conversation around the time of this collision is unavailable or else non-existent. An example of what collision-related communication occurs during collision (16:07). Also ship monitoring occurs even off ship, such as by military satellite. This brings into question how the F/C collision could have occurred without anyone, even not on either ship, knowing. No good explanation forthcoming.

As mentioned in part 2 of this saga, the "bulbous bow" was discussed. It has been posited that the Crystal's bulbous bow caused the extensive below waterline damage to the Fitz. However it is posited by Floria Maquis that the Crystal's bulbous bow was incapable of inflicting such damage (8:45). Below are two pictures of the Crystal's bulbous bow taken the day after collision.

Crystal's bulbous bow port side:

Crystal's bulbous bow starboard side:

Fitzgerald below waterline patch (in dry dock):

Fitzgerald damage above and below waterline:

Note that the above water damage lies somewhat aft of the below waterline damage. How could this oblique damage be inflicted by a cargo container which was not listing? No matter what the angle of collision was, the damaged areas should be one above the other when the striking ship (Crystal) is not listing.

Now that the damage has been more fully, but still incompletely disclosed, we get closer to determine the mechanism of the damage. Simple collision? How does that square with below waterline damage obliquity, lack of bulbous bow damage. Something else underwater must account for the below deck damage.

We will leave the discussion at this time with much still uncovered. We need to determine the weaponry which in turn might aid in identifying the culprit.

More later.