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How To Defeat Japan's Best Radar Defense System? Use A Fishing Boat

from the ouch dept

Wed, Feb 20th 2008 9:26pm — Mike Masnick

A brand new Japanese warship that apparently has the country's latest and greatest radar system, was unable to spot a fishing boat in its path, leading to a collision and two missing fishermen. This is raising all sorts of questions about the quality of the radar system, but some are saying that the collision was really due to human error and that the radar system is designed more to watch out for missiles in the air, rather than ships below it. That's a fair enough response, but does point out that vulnerabilities come from all directions -- and you can make the best system in the world, but if it's looking for the wrong thing, it won't stop something bad from getting through. It does seem rather ironic to set this ship up to be the best in the world at spotting threats from the sky -- and forget to include a decent system to find threats right next to it in the sea.

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Filed Under: fishing boat, japan, radar, warship

18 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 20 Feb 2008 @ 11:17pm

Hmm
Interestingly enough, since that was the Aegis system, it is also the USA's best system as well...
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Anonymous Coward, 20 Feb 2008 @ 11:23pm

There are no perfect systems
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bobbknight, 20 Feb 2008 @ 11:36pm

Why Does The US Navy Still Have Lookouts?
Because the radar and sonar still do not see things floating awash, nor small wooden boats out at sea.
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African Boy, 21 Feb 2008 @ 12:12am

From Japan with Love
Now to get my hand on this car (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/02/14/ncar114.xml) and a pistol. Then I can take over Japanese naval systems
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Gojira, 21 Feb 2008 @ 4:47am

Excellent
They'll never see me coming...
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Gene C (profile), 21 Feb 2008 @ 4:50am

High Tech Ship
To bad they can still spot the whales
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Larry, 21 Feb 2008 @ 6:18am

SPY-1 don't work dat way
AC 1 is correct, this ship has a version of the Aegis weapon system. However there are several things to consider (as they aren't discussed in the news article linked above or any I can find)
1. How far out to sea did this happen? I'm not sure what procedures the Japanese follow for radar their restrictions, but in most areas, that radar (SPY) cannot be radiated in vicinity of land/populated areas.
2. The radar is NOT designed to "see" close aboard. There ARE several systems onboard to designed specifically to deal with close in contacts.
I will say that the Japanese are excellent mariners and shiphandlers, but they may be learning now that with all the automation Aegis is capable of, there is no (repeat: NO) substitute for trained and experienced MK-1 eyeballs using ALL available sensors (visual, radar, etc) to drive the ship around.
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Anonymous Coward, 21 Feb 2008 @ 6:32am

I bet the guy steering the boat had a hard time explaining that one.

Both of them, really. Firstly, a warship is supposed to have highly trained people on every post. They shouldn't be hitting anything. Secondly, warships are really, really big, even the little ones. How didn't the fishing boat spot them?
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Anonymous Coward, 21 Feb 2008 @ 6:36am

Aegis is a missle defense system. Blaming that is like blaming the airbags if a safe falls through your cars roof and kills the driver.

The Abrams tank is the best tank around but it has blind spots close up. The Titanic was an unsinkable ship, except for one small (or big, depending on how you look at it) problem.

Shit happens.
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That Guy, 21 Feb 2008 @ 6:48am

At least..
At least they didn't say it was unsinkable. We all remember the last guys who said that.
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Rick Shaw, 21 Feb 2008 @ 7:27am

Worst RADAR Ever!!!
they used to handle this with one guy dedicated to 'watching' the ocean and it worked .... Most of the time worst Radar ever!!!!!!
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JustMatt, 21 Feb 2008 @ 8:07am

A someone who spent a few years at sea
Yeah,there are several factors here. If the radar was in active or passive mode, how much metal was in the boat, if someone was watching the screen, if they thought it was reflections from the wavecaps, the actual and relative speeds and directions of each boat, etc.

Also, good point about the whales Gene C.
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j4yx0r, 21 Feb 2008 @ 11:00am

Just Like Beggar's Canyon Back Home
Hope they remembered to hide their exhaust ports.

~j
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Anonymous Coward, 21 Feb 2008 @ 11:10am

Its a good thing the Aegsis Missle Defense system didn't pick up the boat as a threat. Aegsis isn't a radar system, it is a ballistic missile defense system. It is connected to anti-missile missiles. Had it read the boat as a threat, it would have automatically blown it out of the water.

Of course, since they just ran the boat over, guess there isn't much difference.
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Tim, 25 Feb 2008 @ 1:17am

Re:
I'm with Anonymous Coward on this one. The Aegis isn't designed to protect the ship -- it's designed to help the ship track long-range missiles so that a missile defense system (which may or may not be based aboard the ship itself) can shoot them out of the air (theoretically) before they hit Tokyo. Having an Aegis on board has nothing to do with the crew failing to avoid a small boat on the ship.
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Graham, 28 Feb 2008 @ 5:45pm

A US ship's Aegis saw an Iranian airliner. The human observer decided the airliner (still climbing after takeoff) was a fighter plane diving to attack the ship. The missile didn't miss, and there were no survivors. The ship's captain got a medal for that day's work.

Technology doesn't always fail. Humans frequently do.
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BL, 9 Sep 2009 @ 4:33pm

Na
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Techo, 9 Sep 2009 @ 4:35pm

Dat is so retarded
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