Drone crashes into Navy ship

National news reporting tonight of a radar testing drone crashing into a Navy ship and injuring 2 sailors.

www.cnn.com...

It was a BQM-74 radar target. Both sailors were treated for minor burns, and the ship (USS Chancellorsville) is back in port with minor damage.

reply to post by Sammamishman


At least it wasn't tested on another country's ships. Sorry to read about the injuries though.

reply to post by Zaphod58


I wonder if they were using the drone to test the ships weapons tracking/telemetry systems against simulated anti ship cruise missiles and the drone took its role a little to seriously.
The Navy does use the BQM-74's to fire munitions at to get accurate weapons telemetry so they programmed the drone to make a close pass by the ship that got a little too close.

OH god this is just too funny. The thing punched a 2 foot hole in the ship, which isn't the funny part. The funny part is that Chancellorsville is testing Aegis 9.0, the most advanced software to date. It's the only ship in the world with Aegis 9.0, and it apparently watched the BQM-74 all the way to impact with the ship. The scary part is that apparently the CIWS opened fire, and completely missed. Top speed of the BQM-74 is only 600 mph. If CIWS couldn't hit that, what's it going to do against a real missile?

reply to post by Zaphod58


Oh boy....it looks like they have some bugs to work out of the system.

Is CIWS controlled/tied into Aegis? I thought they were stand alone systems with their own radar guidance and I wonder if any other ship defense system was used but also failed.

Zaphod58
OH god this is just too funny. The thing punched a 2 foot hole in the ship, which isn't the funny part. The funny part is that Chancellorsville is testing Aegis 9.0, the most advanced software to date. It's the only ship in the world with Aegis 9.0, and it apparently watched the BQM-74 all the way to impact with the ship. The scary part is that apparently the CIWS opened fire, and completely missed. Top speed of the BQM-74 is only 600 mph. If CIWS couldn't hit that, what's it going to do against a real missile?

Ouch.

Someone is going to be drawing social security stamps soon methinks.

Back to the old drawing board i suppose, and lots more lovely development money for the arms manufacturers.

Is there a refund policy if the system doesn't work i wonder? I'm guessing not!

reply to post by Sammamishman


They are. Apparently the safety systems that were in use prevented a full up engagement with more than CIWS.