[HN Gopher] A submarine's weakness: its software?
___________________________________________________________________
A submarine's weakness: its software?
Author : jwithington
Score : 113 points
Date : 2021-12-07 16:07 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (fixvms.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (fixvms.com)
| pikzel wrote:
| This webpage could be a few lines html and css, but uses 172 node
| modules. 4240 files. The repo is 17.6 MB. We Deserve Much Better.
| jwithington wrote:
| how do you see this?? i'm a newbie to web development and
| selected https://github.com/yuanqing/single-page-markdown-
| website for something clean and minimal in design.
|
| but those are crazy stats! what would you suggest for newbies
| like me?
| joconde wrote:
| Jekyll is quite popular and generates very light webpages. I
| find the result pleasant to use. https://jekyllrb.com
| OldHand2018 wrote:
| The author seems to know about submarines, so let's give him (?)
| the benefit of the doubt... But without knowing the cause of the
| accident, the author is calling for a specific change. This seems
| problematic. Perhaps there is a very good reason that the
| computer system performs like this.
|
| Also, if you have the computer checking everything, then those 5
| people that are supposed to be redundantly computing the
| navigation plan are highly likely to be less diligent. Human
| nature and all. Isn't that likely to result in a worse outcome?
| zentiggr wrote:
| There is a specific reason for the system performing like
| that... a development process that lets somebody in a far off
| office choose software components for
| financial/political/office politics reasons, wires together
| separate programs doing each task that are developed separately
| with barely any integration testing until it's too damn late to
| fix anything, and a whole host of other "our team is going to
| do this part using X" bullshit that winds up with the overall
| system looking like somebody tried to use Legos in one part,
| Lincoln logs in another, pottery cast clay elsewhere, and has
| three different interconnection schemes because each level of
| bureaucracy involved mandated a different buzzword when it got
| to review things two to five years after the last level saw it.
|
| At least, that's what it looked like when I saw it in '98. It
| doesn't sound like it's gotten any better.
| jwithington wrote:
| I think you're identifying one of the strongest argument
| against my claims. Automated, or computer assisted, reviews
| will only increase error rate because humans will assume that
| computers took care of it all.
|
| You're probably on to something. When radar was first rolled
| out to all Navy ships to assist navigation (post WWII),
| accident rates actually _increased_.
|
| My hunch is that Sailors drove ships riskier thinking that
| radar would save them. A bit like the findings of seat-belt
| safety laws: no impact on fatalities.
|
| But I'm not agitating for full-blown computer reviews. It just
| feels like the software should have the computing capabilities
| of Excel lol
| limbicsystem wrote:
| That thing about seat belts - really? https://www.cdc.gov/tra
| nsportationsafety/seatbeltbrief/index...
| OldHand2018 wrote:
| Fair enough. Perhaps something like doing checks _after_ the
| plans have been manually computed, and then errors /warnings
| are flagged and used for evaluations and training. But then
| again, how is the culture of the Navy? Would such data be
| used exclusively to punish people?
| Jtsummers wrote:
| It's a tradeoff. Trusting computers too much gets you into
| trouble (loss of navigation skills, over reliance on a
| potentially faulty system), but having to do things manually
| and depending on discipline also doesn't scale. You need to
| maintain enough discipline (validate the computer's results)
| but still have a better source than "Well, myself and three
| others looked at this chart for an hour and couldn't find
| anything above 350FT".
|
| Discipline works until time pressure causes discipline to
| relax, and then the loosened discipline becomes the norm
| (normalization of deviance). There is no reliable way to
| restore discipline (in a timely fashion) after that happens,
| and then a collision would become inevitable. If you only
| rely on discipline, you're bound to fail. If you have means
| of relieving the reliance on discipline and don't use them,
| you're making a tragic mistake.
| riskneutral wrote:
| Everything about this hilarious and terrifying. It's hilarious
| and terrifying that they couldn't drive a $3 billion nuclear
| submarine without crashing it. That the navigation software on
| the sub is so bad that there is a website about it describing
| how its navigation software takes "minutes" to zoom in and out
| of maps. That if the sub were to be equipped with smarter and
| smarter autopilot software, the humans operators would
| eventually forget how to pilot the sub themselves the way that
| commercial airline pilots keep forgetting how to fly.
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| > That if the sub were to be equipped with smarter and
| smarter autopilot software, the humans operators would
| eventually forget how to pilot the sub themselves the way
| that commercial airline pilots keep forgetting how to fly.
|
| Well the lack of situational awareness with EFIS (glass
| cockpit) systems is a known issue. Pilots tend to 'switch
| off' because of the low workload and then when something goes
| wrong they're not aware of the situation because they haven't
| been following along.
|
| This has contributed so some incidents such as the AF 447
| crash where the pilots were basically unaware of the actual
| situation of the plane and flew it straight into the ground
| (well, sea).
|
| I can understand the Navy wants its crews to be more involved
| for that reason (and perhaps also because the enemy might
| deliberately instill confusion by messing with navaids etc),
| but I think there should be at least a warning if you try to
| do something that's known to be stupid.
| kbenson wrote:
| > Also, if you have the computer checking everything, then
| those 5 people that are supposed to be redundantly computing
| the navigation plan are highly likely to be less diligent.
| Human nature and all. Isn't that likely to result in a worse
| outcome?
|
| I'm not sure I've even seen a situation in practice where an
| additional safety check made the situation worse. Those same
| people that shirk their duties and half-ass their job under the
| assumption the computer will just find the problems generally
| make a plethora of other mistakes if a computer isn't there to
| double check.
|
| Computer verification of work, usually done by applying rules
| and heuristics, is useful and when done well, and roughly
| analogous to an additional human checker IMO. If policies and
| expectations are set right, it's a better outcome.
|
| This may or may not follow for the initial calculation being
| done by computer and then checked by a human. Some of the
| competitiveness of people to make sure they do the job well and
| don't need fixes from a computer/human checker go right out the
| window and perhaps that does lead to complacency.
| soneil wrote:
| > Also, if you have the computer checking everything, then
| those 5 people that are supposed to be redundantly computing
| the navigation plan are highly likely to be less diligent.
|
| This is surprisingly easy to fix. If the computer notices
| before the human, call that a failure. Say, if the computer
| spots terrain higher than the current depth within X radius
| (that wasn't intentionally planned for), that's a failure.
|
| I assume the military already has a regime in place to handle
| "you dun goofed". You can string failsafes after goofed but
| before the wall.
| toast0 wrote:
| > Those same people that shirk their duties and half-ass
| their job under the assumption the computer will just find
| the problems generally make a plethora of other mistakes if a
| computer isn't there to double check.
|
| If they half-ass, but follow the computer fixes, maybe nobody
| knows they were half-assing. If they half-ass and other
| people fix it, their half-assing is known and remediations
| are available.
| kbenson wrote:
| It's pretty easy to have the computer log and/or notify
| about failures. Presumably if a person is double checking
| and notices repeated failures, they would be expected to
| notify superiors that there's a problem somewhere. I'm not
| sure why we would assume the computer would do any less.
| 9999px wrote:
| Yeah...sure...it hit a "seamount" - it's _definitely_ not out-
| classed and out-matched by Chinese unmanned submarine drones.
|
| https://metallicman.com/uss-connecticut-black-operations-sub...
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VeJLwUfLcEU
| groby_b wrote:
| The guy running that blog "has been in MAJestic", "which
| brought you velcro, LEDs, nanotechnology"
|
| Uhuh. Right there, a highly trustworthy source.
| [deleted]
| toxik wrote:
| I think the US misses the cold war and is trying its damn best
| to find a new adversary to compete against. It's been said
| before, winning the cold war made the US arrogant and
| complacent.
|
| Nb I'm talking about countries as if they were people, I do not
| mean that people in these countries are thinking these things.
| kcb wrote:
| Something doesn't add up here. If it's China's official policy
| that it blatantly and deliberately attacked a USN warship, why
| aren't we at war with them? They've never directly attacked any
| other US ships or planes in the South China Sea.
| Wohlf wrote:
| Because even if true neither country wants to go to war,
| countries test each other's military responses all the time
| and it never goes much further than sending in jets/ships to
| watch each other while some diplomatic phone calls take
| place.
| kcb wrote:
| Blowing up a USN warship is not testing, it's action.
| jmnicolas wrote:
| Yes but it wasn't supposed to be there. Are you going to
| start WW3 for material damages? Even if the entire sub
| had been destroyed, would you start WW3 for a few hundred
| people?
|
| No. You take the losses, put a brave face and spin a
| story about navigation error. Then if you think you
| weren't in the wrong and they need to get a lesson you
| destroy something of theirs a while later.
|
| Btw, I'm not saying that's what's happened. I'm just
| hypothesizing that in case it happened like that they
| wouldn't start WW3 over it.
| pphysch wrote:
| Foreign spies are caught and punished/executed probably every
| year more or less. And governments have virtually no
| incentive to admit "hey my spy got caught by the enemy".
| Ditto for stealth submarines.
| kcb wrote:
| It's really hard for me to believe the USN allows countries
| to blow up their warships then has the courtesy to hide it
| domestically. The whole purpose of the USN is a show of
| force and power projection. If countries are allowed to
| take that sort of action without immediate retaliation that
| is all gone.
| pphysch wrote:
| Why is that hard to believe?
|
| Firstly, they didn't blow it up. If the Chinese story is
| true, they surgically disabled it. Either way, no
| American blood was shed.
|
| Secondly, the modus operandi of the contemporary Pentagon
| is walking a fine line between a) inflating foreign
| threats to secure Congressional funding and b) deflating
| any challenges to the perception of American military
| supremacy. Defending Americans from actual threats is a
| distant follower.
| kcb wrote:
| > This was an intentional placement. This locations was
| as far away as possible > from the nuclear power plant
| for a close local directed-explosion attack.
|
| > It was then ignited, and ended up causing serious
| damage to the bow of the boat > and a complete loss of
| sonar sensing ability.
|
| Surgically disabled by blowing it up.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > If the Chinese story is true
|
| It is not "the Chinese story"; were it the actual
| official Chinese story we wouldn't be getting it by this
| circuitous route, we'd get it from Chinese state media,
| both in Chinese for domestic consumption and English
| (etc.) for international consumption.
|
| There are many criticisms you can make of the PRC, but
| "they are incapable of assuring that their official
| position is heard clearly and loudly" is...not among
| them.
| pphysch wrote:
| > There are many criticisms you can make of the PRC, but
| "they are incapable of assuring that their official
| position is heard clearly and loudly" is...not among
| them.
|
| What an incredible claim. Americans think China is
| literally committing a Holocaust right now.
| Chinese/Russian media is soft/hard censored on the
| biggest Western social platforms and official narratives
| from those governments almost never make it to
| American/Western ears without massive amounts of spin
| from Western state/corporate media.
|
| Besides, there is a strong explanation for why Beijing
| didn't broadcast this: they don't want to inflame
| tensions, especially in the runup to the Olympics.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Americans think China is literally committing a
| Holocaust right now
|
| Yes, but they aren't exactly unaware that China's
| official position is that they are not, and the awareness
| of this official position doesn't come through random
| minor internet sites reporting "official" accounts
| machine translated after being received from anonymous
| friends who got release that were authorized by Beijing.
|
| Getting the official story heard loudly and clearly and
| getting it believed are too very different goals.
|
| > Besides, there is a strong explanation for why Beijing
| didn't broadcast this: they don't want to inflame
| tensions, especially in the runup to the Olympics.
|
| Yes, that's a very plausible reason why, even if this
| highly improbable story were true, it wouldn't be China's
| _official story_ right now.
|
| It's not, however, even a remotely plausible reason why
| it would be the _official_ story and simultaneously
| _completely absent from official media_ and yet still
| authorized for release via the channel supposedly used
| here.
| pphysch wrote:
| Don't confuse "official" with "true". Beijing is happy,
| officially, to accept Washington's story that they
| clumsily crashed into a rock.
|
| The "true" story is really only relevant to the military
| planners on both sides. And presently it doesn't serve
| either of their interests to broadcast it publicly.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Don't confuse "official" with "true".
|
| I'm not.
|
| The claim in the article which provided the story is that
| it is the "official Chinese story". The article carefully
| avoids claiming that the story is _true_ , though it
| obviously wants people to conclude that.
|
| > Beijing is happy, officially, to accept Washington's
| story that they clumsily crashed into a rock.
|
| Right. So the simplest claim in the article about the
| story--that it is China's official story--is simply
| false.
|
| > The "true" story is really only relevant to the
| military planners on both sides. And presently it doesn't
| serve either of their interests to broadcast it publicly.
|
| Or, maybe the true story is what is officially broadcast,
| and the one with the obvious lie about the nature of the
| story is false beyond just that obvious lie?
| jmnicolas wrote:
| > then has the courtesy to hide it domestically
|
| If you don't hide it, you will be forced to retaliate. Do
| you start WW3 for material damages because your public
| opinion's pride has been hurt?
| kcb wrote:
| It's not pride that has been hurt...it's a US navy
| warship being blown up.
| echelon wrote:
| We might already be at war, and it seems to be escalating.
|
| The Biden admin is growing cold to both China and Russia.
| They just announced they won't support the 2022 Olympics.
|
| Cyber warfare and espionage are reaching new peaks.
|
| Russia just blew up a satellite, which caused NASA astronauts
| to take shelter. Target practice for fog of war.
|
| China demonstrated their orbital hypersonics and glide
| platform, which is hard to track and defend against. Nuclear
| MAD that defeats US countermeasures.
|
| Russia is amassing forces to take over Ukraine and Georgia.
|
| China is increasing incursions over Taiwanese airspace.
|
| China is delisting from US exchanges.
|
| The US pulled out of Afghanistan, freeing up personnel and
| logistics. The best reason to do this was to prepare for a
| two front war. They could have otherwise remained deployed
| indefinitely.
|
| Australia and Japan are buffing their navies and warfare
| capabilities substantially.
|
| The US is in the awkward period between upgrading existing
| systems and designing next generation weapons.
|
| We might really go to war in 2022 if China and Russia think
| they can take Ukraine and Taiwan. A hot war.
| [deleted]
| pphysch wrote:
| Let's examine these claims:
|
| > The Biden admin is growing cold to both China and Russia.
|
| Washington has been cold to both nations for the better
| part of a decade/century depending on your perspective.
|
| > They just announced they won't support the 2022 Olympics.
|
| False. Virtually all American athletes are attending.
| Whether the Biden admin is diplomatically boycotting or
| _wasn 't even invited_ is a matter of perspective.
|
| > Cyber warfare and espionage are reaching new peaks.
|
| > Russia just blew up a satellite, which caused NASA
| astronauts to take shelter. Target practice for fog of war.
|
| > China demonstrated their orbital hypersonics and glide
| platform, which is hard to track and defend against.
| Nuclear MAD that defeats US countermeasures.
|
| > Russia is amassing forces to take over Ukraine and
| Georgia.
|
| > China is increasing incursions over Taiwanese airspace.
|
| When a historically passive person starts acting
| assertively, an unscrupulous observer might judge it as
| aggression. Russia and China are demonstrating that
| Washington is no longer the undisputed military superpower
| it once was, that it can't bully anyone it wants. This has
| critical geopolitical implications but does not necessarily
| point to an inevitable war.
|
| The fact is that USA has hundreds of overseas military
| bases while Russia and China combined have less than 10.
| Many of those American bases are on the doorstep of both
| competitors. Until China is parking carriers in the Gulf of
| Mexico, it hasn't even begun to reciprocate American
| military assertiveness/aggression.
|
| > China is delisting from US exchanges.
|
| ...and relisting on e.g. HKEX which is historically
| accessible to international investors from America and
| elsewhere. More likely, Chinese companies are hedging
| against the collapse of Wall St. (if the Fed raises rates)
| or the USD (if they don't).
|
| > The US is in the awkward period between upgrading
| existing systems and designing next generation weapons.
|
| Like the F35? Pretty sure that failure has nothing to do
| with "bad timing" and everything to do with the corrupt
| state of Washington and the Pentagon.
|
| > We might really go to war in 2022 if China and Russia
| think they can take Ukraine and Taiwan. A hot war.
|
| Why, though? Whose interests does it really serve?
| handrous wrote:
| > > > The US is in the awkward period between upgrading
| existing systems and designing next generation weapons.
|
| > Like the F35? Pretty sure that failure has nothing to
| do with "bad timing" and everything to do with the
| corrupt state of Washington and the Pentagon.
|
| IIRC this concern is mainly about attack sub
| capabilities, and the US navy _will in fact_ enter a
| period of exceptionally poor preparedness for operating
| in the waters around Taiwan in the event that war breaks
| out, for a few years between about 2025 and 2030. This is
| due to procurement decisions made years and years ago,
| since there 's huge lead-time on building new ships.
|
| Whether this actually means anything--I don't know.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > If it's China's official policy that it blatantly and
| deliberately attacked a USN warship, why aren't we at war
| with them?
|
| It is not China's official position, which is why this
| supposed "official story" is not sourced to any official
| Chinese media, but to an email, supposedly sent by the
| author's anonymous friend, that contains information that was
| supposedly authorized by Beijing on the "official Chinese
| story" which nevertheless the PRC has _not_ released through
| any of its many state controlled media outlets.
|
| (It plausibly could have been authorized by Beijing for this
| exact use: divisive propaganda through multiple steps of
| deniable cutouts that has nothing to do with either the facts
| or China's official public position. Or it could just be an
| invention of the author, or the author's anonymous,
| unaccountable friend.)
| nick238 wrote:
| The 'Forum' link goes to
| https://github.com/invictus2010/fixvms/issues which seems to be a
| private repo. Is that intended?
| jwithington wrote:
| thanks nick! that is not intended. let me make it public.
|
| i called it a forum because readers in the military-world may
| be less familiar with "issues" in github ;)
| mprovost wrote:
| When I saw the URL I assumed the article was going to reveal that
| modern submarines are still running VMS on DEC Alphas (or a
| VAX!). Honestly I was surprised when that wasn't the case.
| pacman128 wrote:
| I thought the same at first. I worked on the Air Force AWACS E3
| (https://www.af.mil/About-Us/Fact-
| Sheets/Display/Article/1045...) program as a contractor in the
| 2000's. It had dual IBM-360 computers and wireframe-like
| graphics for their radar displays at the time. This was the
| Block 30/35 version. It looks like from the link that they may
| have completely transitioned to the Block 40/45 version which
| replaced the 360's. They were talking about this move when I
| worked there 16 years ago.
| bmmayer1 wrote:
| This is fascinating, but also fascinating that submarines have
| been operated in real world conditions based purely on sonar for
| over 100 years.
| flatline wrote:
| My first house is on that map of the Severn River. I have that
| nautical chart printed out hanging on a wall.
| [deleted]
| mightyham wrote:
| Crappy pieces of software like that cannot simply be wholly
| blamed on the vendor. It's up to navy leadership to decide how to
| distribute funds to vendors to develop software. I wouldn't be
| surprised if there is a high up navy officer who likes VMS,
| thinks that the missions planing process is fine the way it is,
| and doesn't want to allocate money for anything beyond bug fixes.
| Things like that happen all the time in government software
| contracting.
| jwithington wrote:
| i dont doubt this! someone is accepting this work despite
| decades of submarine officers losing their minds at it
| ok_dad wrote:
| That's because the Navy doesn't rely on software to do these
| checks, the officers and crew are supposed to ensure they don't
| crash. This idea of having software check things is dead in the
| water, because of that. The real problem is training, and much
| like any other human problem, this one cannot be solved through
| technology; it has to be solved by culture changes.
|
| VMS, however, was horrible a decade ago, and I'm not surprised
| it's still horrible. We used paper charts rather than VMS back
| then because it was so horrible.
| KineticLensman wrote:
| > This idea of having software check things is dead in the
| water,
|
| I accept that people have to make the judgement calls and sign-
| off, but if the maps are in fact accurate why couldn't the
| computer at least issue a warning / red flag or similar when
| there are obvious problems (requested depth within some
| threshold of the actual depth).
|
| I came across a scenario editor for a land training simulator
| that didn't provide any way of testing intervisibility between
| two points. The course authors wasted vast amounts of time when
| assigning vehicle positions clicking around maps to see if
| potential targets were in fact visible to the trainees. An auto
| check would have allowed the course authors to use their
| expertise to do things that couldn't be automated, building
| better scenarios faster.
| ok_dad wrote:
| I agree in the case of planned maneuvers for sure, however if
| you want the result of the "5 Whys" (kinda joking) then my
| answer is: because the contractors that build this stuff SUCK
| ASS. Sorry for the harsh language, but I worked on a pre-com
| ship during my time (an LCS, go figure) while it was being
| built, and the absolute lack of standards on every level
| (from the top of the SWO military chain through the dogshit
| contractors) is part of what made me leave the Navy.
|
| I'm not gonna complain about it too much, but man oh man, I
| think you and I could build better software than what I saw,
| and I don't even know you from Adam.
| wyldfire wrote:
| For sure the vendors are garbage. But maybe the COTR
| should've rejected the work if it was unacceptable.
| pdonis wrote:
| _> maybe the COTR should 've rejected the work if it was
| unacceptable._
|
| That would require the spec to have been written to allow
| that kind of rejection. I strongly suspect the spec was
| not written that well.
| [deleted]
| jwithington wrote:
| I do want to build better software for DoD, but I can't
| figure out how to sell in. I'd start by tackling VMS! No
| clue how I'd go about it though.
| captainredbeard wrote:
| My understanding is that all government vendors must be
| listed on the GSA - getting onto that is a start. Or, buy
| a company already listed and then start fighting for
| procurement contracts.
| foxyv wrote:
| This difficulty is part of why their software is so bad.
| zentiggr wrote:
| Without having a foot in the vendor / contracting
| process, it's going to be near impossible.
|
| Other responses have mentioned some routes inside... but
| beware... make the incumbents look bad too much and
| you'll be bought out and shut down.
|
| Pride takes a seriously distant back seat to maintaining
| the current procurement monopolies and relationships, and
| maximizing contract payments for the least effort.
|
| I'll stop there before I start to incriminate myself or
| get on watch lists if I mention possible solutions.
| tedmiston wrote:
| Defense contracts are awarded extremely subjectively:
| there is very much an old boy network in play here. There
| are only a few primes. If you dig deeper into the "small
| businesses" that are awarded contracts, many / most are
| started by people already deeply involved in the defense
| space.
|
| The Air Force has an initiative called Kessel Run [1] to
| embrace agile software development -- that might be your
| best route to building better software for the DoD. I'm
| not sure if other branches have similar programs.
|
| https://breakingdefense.com/2021/10/not-going-solo-air-
| force...
| alwayshumans wrote:
| The vast majority of navigational incidents are caused by human
| error, but better systems would give the crew a chance to
| realise their mistakes
|
| At the moment lots of maritime crew have alarm fatigue, the
| system constantly warns them of danger so they learn to ignore
| alarms and when something super serious does happen, they can
| ignore it
| [deleted]
| jwithington wrote:
| Sure, the officers and crew are ultimately responsible. But how
| are "we" enabling the officers and crew to do their jobs?
| Manually verifying minimum soundings is a terrible use of one's
| time AND something that a computer will beat a human at every
| time.
| [deleted]
| jvanderbot wrote:
| A colleague visited a multi-billion-dollar, safety-critical
| facility that had adopted automated alarms based on safety
| rules.
|
| He was there because they were asking for software to help
| them sift through the cacophony of constantly-firing alarms
| which were distracting all their staff playing whack-a-mole
| "disable" and ruining situational awareness.
|
| I imagine it's similar here. Do you want the sub to move up
| automatically? To fire an alarm? To dissalow a maneuver?
| Absolutely not. Imagine a crew knowingly pushing their
| vehicle into potentially dangerous maneuvers and spending
| those critical moments fighting the vehicle or disabling
| alarms.
|
| This is how the "stick pusher" causes crashes on airplanes.
|
| The fault lies with whomever commanded the maneuver, not with
| the ship for doing a minor mutiny to prevent it.
|
| Now, as a counterpoint, see the f-16 auto-maneuver (I think
| this is a representative link):
| https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA583778.pdf
| Jtsummers wrote:
| > I imagine it's similar here. Do you want the sub to move
| up automatically? To fire an alarm? To dissalow a maneuver?
| Absolutely not. Imagine a crew knowingly pushing their
| vehicle into potentially dangerous maneuvers and spending
| those critical moments fighting the vehicle or disabling
| alarms.
|
| These kind of systems typically have manual overrides. If
| the operator truly believes they know best (or are in an
| exceptional situation that the automated system cannot
| account for), they can override the automated system
| (including many, if not most, safeguards). That's design
| 101 when you're building critical systems.
| jvanderbot wrote:
| I imagine there are systems which are much more mature
| and un-intrusive, but my limited experience with the
| space has been quite negative.
| Jtsummers wrote:
| > The real problem is training, and much like any other human
| problem, this one cannot be solved through technology; it has
| to be solved by culture changes.
|
| What this makes me think of:
|
| > Why test software? It's a culture problem, not a technical
| problem. Just write correct software.
|
| As long as no one ever makes a mistake it's a totally valid
| approach...
| tra3 wrote:
| Remind me when USS McCain collided with another ship in a busy
| channel [0]. Because of a UI issue, they couldn't figure out
| where throttle control was and ran into someone. Which is crazy
| to me.
|
| I was going to say, that there probably a few dozen people that
| use submarine nav software, so it's hard to get a representative
| sample of usability...but then it occurred to me that airplane
| software has a fairly limited audience too.
|
| What's the process for test for developing aircraft software? How
| is nav done in aircraft? Theoretically they have the same issues
| (like hitting the ground).
|
| [0]: https://arstechnica.com/information-
| technology/2017/11/uss-m...
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| I think there are several orders of magnitude more planes than
| submarines.
|
| From Wikipedia:
|
| Los Angeles class submarines built: 62, entering service 1976.
|
| Abus A350s built: 443, entering service 2015.
| tra3 wrote:
| Fair enough, I suppose. The article author was comparing
| submarine nav software to phone nav software though and
| google says there are 5+ billion mobile users. That's another
| couple of order of magnitude more. That'd explain why mobile
| software is more polished. I guess any kind of mass market
| product would be higher quality. The same argument ("number
| of eyeballs") has been used with open source software vs
| closed source.
| Animats wrote:
| _" Because of a UI issue, they couldn't figure out where
| throttle control was and ran into someone."_
|
| That's happened more than once. NYC ferryboat allision.[1] It's
| another case of touchscreen mania. With ship controls, it's
| common to have more than one control station for basic helm and
| throttle. When docking, it's common to drive from a control
| station where you can see the dock. So which station has
| control is an issue. Some systems have physical feedback, so
| that the wheel and throttles at all stations move together.
| That avoids mode confusion.
|
| Aircraft people get this, but few others seem to.
|
| [1] https://www.workboat.com/passenger-vessels/seastreak-
| ferry-a...
| jwithington wrote:
| There are probably a few thousand users of submarine navigation
| software. But the willingness to pay *should* be quite high,
| which in most other markets would translate to a quality
| product. The tool should help submarines:
|
| * Prevent groundings (loss of a $3B platform, 120+ lives in
| worst case) * Do their missions better (increase the value of
| the platform)
| tra3 wrote:
| They probably have a laundry list of requirements (like
| nuclear containment?) before they even get to software.
|
| I've been in many a design meeting where a "must have" was
| pushed out to the next version because "the user can just do
| this manually for now".
| hguant wrote:
| The UI issue is real, and is a problem, but the root cause of
| the 7th Fleet's crashes during that time period is lack of
| training and inadequate leadership, due to an operational tempo
| that's Thenot sustainable given current funding and ships.
| Instead of building new cruisers, or taking the time to dry
| dock and repair these ships, the admiralty has been ok'ing "at
| sea" repairs, leading to situations like this where primary
| systems aren't functional and back up systems are run for far
| longer than intended. The admiralty has been looking for
| technical solutions to a human problem for about a decade now,
| becaise they'd rather buy a new set of carriers and the F-35
| than build the ships they need to support the mission given to
| them by Congress. The result is burnout, and incidents like
| this.
|
| The Navy as a whole has a severe manpower shortage, and in the
| incident report for the McCain collision I believe it came out
| that the officer on duty was 17 hours into their watch, and
| didn't have a full compliment in the watch house because one of
| the crew who was supposed to be there was off in the lower
| decks for an unstated purpose (anecdotal evidence from my Navy
| friends, probably catching up on sleep, or seconded to repair
| something while they had "non-critical" time).
|
| The collision only happened because instead of being trained on
| seamanship as a whole, incoming officers are trained how to
| work the computer systems they're interfacing with. The Navy
| cut down the training periods as well - instead of training
| under a senior officer for a few months, to offset manpower
| shortages, incoming officers are put in charge immediately, and
| given a stack of CDs (wish I was kidding) to complete their
| training.
|
| The surface Navy is in an incredibly dysfunctional place right
| now, and Congress/the admiralty have been paperig over
| leadership failures by spending more money, and blaming
| technology
| gattr wrote:
| A bit off-topic, but maybe some experts could answer a question?
|
| I've recently re-read Clancy's "Red Storm Rising", the sections
| on submarine (and anti-) warfare are really interesting (I
| understand some of it may be simplified/fictional). E.g., how the
| Mark 48 torpedo can be set to and launched in "hunting mode",
| where it circles at a slow, undetectable speed, and only after
| acquiring a target it suddenly accelerates for a kill.
|
| Let's consider this excerpt from [1]:
|
| _Terminal Homing is the final stage of the torpedo attack. (...)
| Terminal homing is an active sonar ping that retransmits on
| reception becoming more rapid as the range to target closes at
| maximum speed. (...) The target is alerted to the attack, but
| there is nothing it can do to defeat the weapon at this point.
| The weapon is too close and moving too fast to allow time for a
| countermeasure to be effective._
|
| Now, I might have read too much David Weber ([2]), but wouldn't a
| small, cheap-ish counter-torpedo suffice? Put 10-20 of them in
| small automated launchers all around the hull, and let them crash
| head-on with the (now perfectly detectable) approaching boat-
| killer, still at a safe distance (which is.. I don't know,
| 100-200 m?)
|
| [1] https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/33018/modern-
| submarine...
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honorverse
| tra3 wrote:
| Like chaff [0] or flares?
|
| I wonder if you could triangulate the launch point though.
|
| [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaff_(countermeasure)
| virtue3 wrote:
| From what I've seen on naval ships you'd launch it to the
| side that is incoming so you'd be behind the wall of Chaff. I
| think that would be significantly harder to triangulate
| because you'd mostly just see the noisy stuff up front and
| your original target would be behind the wall of chaff.
|
| Chaff is also designed to reflect signals all over the place
| so that it's difficult to get accurate results back. This
| would make triangulating near impossible (if it's working as
| intended)
| greedo wrote:
| The problem is difficult due to the inability to use radar as a
| guidance mechanism for the "anti-torpedo torpedo."
| virtue3 wrote:
| Kind of a sword vs shield thing as most things in the military.
|
| There are sonar decoys. They aren't easy.
|
| You also have to have it rigged ready to go with very little
| notice.
|
| The other aspect is that these torpedoes can still be wired to
| the ship so you can continue to use the host sub's arguably
| better passive sonar systems and let the attacking torpedo get
| VERY close.
|
| As with all things in submersible conflict the first person to
| be heard is dead.
|
| The other aspect of your decoy system that you might not be
| thinking about is that you've a) compromised the hull with
| holes b) you are going to make a LOT of noise firing those off
| c) your sonar signature might go up dramatically when the doors
| are opened etc.
|
| The hull actually has something similar to stealth coating (but
| for sonar, so easier to develop cuz it's against sound waves)
| on the hull. You really don't want to mess with it too much.
|
| Sub warfare is insane. There isn't really a strong counter to
| them in the open ocean. USN Carrier groups are especially
| vulnerable (at least from exercises I've read about).
|
| Your idea isn't bad. Just make it a towed array that pops off a
| bunch of really loud shit 1000m behind you or something.
|
| This would eventually turn into a cat/mouse game of who can
| make a better system for detecting decoys vs fooling torpedoes.
|
| If you read up on china's new hypersonic missile system you can
| get a feeling for why this shit is terrifying sometimes.
| Fractional Orbital Bombardment System is new and very scary for
| the USA missile defense systems. They effectively shrink the
| "we can see it range" down to a very small amount of time to
| respond. Combine that with MIRV warheads and decoys and it's a
| nightmare.
| nradov wrote:
| Yes several navies are working on torpedo interceptors.
|
| https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2019/04/16/navies-...
| whatrocks wrote:
| I'm working on some cool submarine software here:
| https://adventofcode.com/
| qwertyuiop_ wrote:
| "CRUD boys" at it again. I am glad this hasn't crept into
| avionics.
| northisup wrote:
| advent of code is actively working on this...
| jwithington wrote:
| is it really?? you're the second one to post this
| Jtsummers wrote:
| The story this year has you descending into the ocean in a
| submarine.
| zppln wrote:
| Although it does sound like this piece of software could use
| improvement, I would never expect a mission support system to be
| the only thing safeguarding me from going aground. I don't know
| anything about submarines, but I would expect some kind of real-
| time navigation system to alert me before hand.
| jwithington wrote:
| To clarify: this is the real-time navigation system lol
| zppln wrote:
| Oh, I was under the impression it was just a planning system.
| Mea culpa!
| jwithington wrote:
| I think I should make this more clear! It serves both
| functions.
| thuccess129 wrote:
| > I don't know anything about submarines, but I would expect
| some kind of real-time navigation system to alert me before
| hand.
|
| For docking simulation to the space station, SpaceX has a
| website for controlling the Dragon capsule's UI. That could be
| the UI ergonomy baseline for measuring the current submarine's
| software against. The Orion and Starliner capsules have their
| own different more hardware oriented UI. I would expect nextgen
| submariners to be digital first native fast twitch glass screen
| navigators, but a submarine taking damage will be a splashy
| environment as seen in the movies and touch screens won't be as
| reliable as physical toggles with redundant bypasses etc.
|
| Maybe "Fat Leonard" contributed to the contracting process that
| put this software on the suboptimal submarine without proper
| human factors consideration.
| alwayshumans wrote:
| So one of the fundamental design elements of a electronic chart
| display information system(Ecdis) or warfare Ecdis is the use of
| the safety depth contour.
|
| Anything inside the blue area would cause alarming on a
| traditional Ecdis.
|
| The bigger issue is the data that is used to navigate on, I could
| write a very boring blog detailing why th systems work so
| badly...
| jwithington wrote:
| you should! let's geek out on it
| GartzenDeHaes wrote:
| In the mid-2000's, I hired a recent college grad who was in the
| US Navy. Her job in the Navy was to administrate a MS Exchange
| server on a ship. It was kind of mind blowing to learn that each
| ship had a full MS back-end stack.
| trcarney wrote:
| Yup, and backed up with magnetic tape every night.
| tablespoon wrote:
| > The Connecticut alone carries enough torpedoes to destroy any
| other nation's entire nuclear submarine force.
|
| Nitpick, but isn't that a lot like saying "this magazine carries
| enough bullets to kill a whole platoon of soldiers"? I mean, it
| technically does, but only if they're all lined up in front of
| you and you never miss, which is almost certainly not true in
| real-world conditions.
|
| > This failure to intervene is probably the most egregious
| shortcoming of VMS. But it's notoriously awful along other
| dimensions. Here's some of what I remember, mixed in with
| conversations with folks more recently onboard:
|
| It seems like the military really ought to give the users of
| systems like this the ability to say "fuck no" and send it back
| after doing some user testing. Some of the issue identified are
| egregious and maybe the kind of thing that could get a submarine
| that's actually fighting sunk. I mean, it sounds like it's so bad
| it nearly got a submarine that was just cruising around sunk.
| jwithington wrote:
| I do think that's a fair critique of my analogy on the
| firepower of a Seawolf class submarine.
|
| I'm trying to relay that it's exceedingly deadly submarine. The
| best in the world. The envy of all other submarine classes.
|
| I don't think there are fighter aircraft that carry enough
| missiles to down an entire country's bomber force.
|
| The Seawolf was made to destroy other ships. It has all the
| stats and capabilities to do it. But the kicker is it has
| incredibly bad navigation software.
| quesera wrote:
| I read it with the opposite meaning:
|
| > The Connecticut alone carries enough torpedoes to destroy
| any other nation's entire nuclear submarine force.
|
| The Connecticut _uniquely_ carries enough torpedoes to
| destroy...
|
| vs.
|
| The Connecticut carries enough torpedoes to _single-handedly_
| destroy...
| mLuby wrote:
| That's reasonable.
|
| Sloppier would've been: "The Connecticut alone _could_
| destroy any other nation 's entire nuclear submarine force."
| jwithington wrote:
| Well, the design requirements for the Seawolf class were
| actually probably something like this!
|
| Basically the Navy wanted a monster that go deep behind
| Soviet lines and tear things up before they made it out of
| the backyard.
|
| "[Seawolf's] emphasis on fast tactical search speeds and a
| massive torpedo magazine were reflections of its design
| mission, which was to independently search for and kill
| Soviet submarines in the relatively confined and target
| rich northern waters of the Soviet Arctic littoral." [1]
|
| [1] https://digital-
| commons.usnwc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?articl...
| scottLobster wrote:
| Yeah, it sounds impressive until you realize that only 8
| nations have more than a dozen submarines, and most nations
| have zero.
| zauguin wrote:
| It's even more restrictive since the statement is only about
| nuclear subs. I don't think that there are 8 nations with
| nuclear subs at all, let alone a dozen of them.
| handrous wrote:
| Hell, if we assume one-hit-kills and no duds/misses, a mid-
| war German U-Boat probably qualifies for the same
| achievement, as far as sheer amount of ordnance carried. Not
| that WWII subs were any good at hunting other subs, but
| still. It's not really impressive or surprising that a sub
| would carry enough torpedoes to _technically_ be able to sink
| all the nuclear subs of any non-US country.
| throwmamatrain wrote:
| Torpedos are not bullets, I don't think this is a good analogy.
| KineticLensman wrote:
| > Torpedos are not bullets, I don't think this is a good
| analogy.
|
| The point of the analogy is that the enemy platoon / nuclear
| submarine force would need be to be located and behave in a
| way that allowed a single shooter to wipe them all out almost
| simultaneously. This is particularly unlikely for submarines,
| especially nuclear-armed ones.
| handrous wrote:
| > especially nuclear-armed ones.
|
| I took "nuclear sub" to mean "nuclear powered" (as opposed
| to e.g. diesel-electric, which are still fairly common),
| which _I think_ represents a somewhat larger set of
| submarines, outside the US, than just the set of all non-US
| "boomer" (nuclear-armed) subs. That is, attack subs without
| nuke-tipped missiles can still be _nuclear subs_ because
| they have a nuke plant onboard for power.
| KineticLensman wrote:
| Agree - it's not actually clear which type is meant. If
| boomers then this is a indeed very small number (e.g.
| only four for the UK, which is one of the few non-US
| countries (four?) to operate boomers).
| tablespoon wrote:
| > Torpedos are not bullets, I don't think this is a good
| analogy.
|
| They aren't, but I'm sure there are operational complications
| to using them that make the analogy work (e.g.
| countermeasures).
| FridayoLeary wrote:
| i think the author is trying more to highlight the importance
| of the submarine by mentioning it's singular capabilities.
| octorian wrote:
| I would argue that software written under government contract is
| inherently awful and unusable, because...
|
| - It is driven entirely by formal requirements and specifications
|
| - These requirements are approved by "the customer," which is a
| set of people completely independent from "the actual users."
|
| - A requirements document cannot easily capture "the UI/UX
| doesn't suck," because that sort of thing often tends to be more
| subjective or not well thought out in advance.
|
| - The developers often pat themselves on the back for meeting the
| requirements.
|
| - The customer has to accept the software and foist it on the
| users, because it meets the requirements.
|
| ...and...
|
| - The competition is entirely about who gets the contract to
| build the software, and not for which software is actually the
| best.
| nonameiguess wrote:
| The thing about this is the best software stack I've ever
| worked on was for a government system, driving geointelligence
| ground processing for the NRO. It is still light years ahead of
| anything I've ever seen in the commercial world, but it's
| driving automated systems, so there is no UI. Anything I've
| ever worked on in the IC or DoD that had a UI pretty much
| universally had a terrible UI, and I agree the root of the
| problem is the absolute firewall between development teams and
| end users. Beyond that, though, individual acquisition offices
| often seem quite hostile to their own users and don't make any
| attempt to acquire software they'll actually like using.
| lifeisstillgood wrote:
| That last part is key.
|
| I suspect some form of X-prize approach would be worth trying -
| seed out a large number of small ISVs for government software
| (from license management to submarine firing systems).
|
| Spend the money not in the requirements (which as you say are
| usually written by a non developer with minimal experience of
| the problem - after all if they were an expert they would have
| other more useful things to do) and spend the money on building
| automated test rigs.
|
| I know I sound trite, and this is not even the best way (which
| is to organically grow solutions to problems), but we have a
| small window - software is eating everything and we will need
| to write the first generation of software that covers all
| politics and I damn well want that to be open to everyone to
| read. The software that runs governments will essentially be
| law. We should be free to read our laws
| inetknght wrote:
| > _- It is driven entirely by formal requirements and
| specifications_
|
| Can you explain why this is a bad thing? I've found that formal
| requirements and specifications are almost always good unless
| they're just vague (in which case: they're not really _formal_
| )
|
| > _- These requirements are approved by "the customer," which
| is a set of people completely independent from "the actual
| users."_
|
| Well, yes. That is indeed a problem.
|
| > _- A requirements document cannot easily capture "the UI/UX
| doesn't suck," because that sort of thing often tends to be
| more subjective or not well thought out in advance._
|
| I've found that very _very_ few people actively request people
| to say "your UI sucks". Instead, they want "constructive
| criticism" and/or "describe _why_ it sucks! ". Which, is
| sort've fair. But it gets to be extremely tiring to explain why
| the UX doesn't "just suck" but is fundamentally flawed.
|
| > _- The developers often pat themselves on the back for
| meeting the requirements._
|
| Nothing wrong with that either.
|
| > _- The customer has to accept the software and foist it on
| the users, because it meets the requirements._
|
| The customer has to accept the software because that's how
| contracts are done. But they don't have to foist it on the
| users. They just want to show that they've been able to deliver
| on their promise of a software solution.
|
| > _- The competition is entirely about who gets the contract to
| build the software, and not for which software is actually the
| best._
|
| Well that's quite a problem.
| unionpivo wrote:
| > - It is driven entirely by formal requirements and
| specifications Can you explain why this is a bad thing? I've
| found that formal requirements and specifications are almost
| always good unless they're just vague (in which case: they're
| not really formal)
|
| I have been in various projects for government and
| enterprises (non military, mostly medical and banking fields)
| with formal requirements and some without. I can say that
| those without always had better GUI and people using them
| liked it better. I think that one major reason is that most
| people can't really imagine application without actually
| using it. Only once they are using it they can give you
| useful feedback (as in this is important, this isn't, make
| that action default etc.)
|
| Another reason is that people that are not using it are
| writing requirements. For instance in a lot of medical
| applications, people who will write specs and requirements
| are Business managers or doctors (or both), but not radiology
| technicians and nurses that will actually use the software.
| So they have no idea of day to day workflow - just desired
| outcome. So software will suck 100% if based only on their
| requirements (in my personal experience).
| atribecalledqst wrote:
| I definitely agree that not being able to capture "UI/UX
| shouldn't suck" in a formal requirement is a problem.
| Developers have to be vigilant, or get a lot of help from QA
| (typically the latter).
|
| In my experience, though, there is a bit of a feedback loop
| during government test events since those are often staffed by
| real end users. If the end user doesn't like the software they
| can just say it failed the test, even if it did meet the
| requirements as written. So at least there's a bit of an upside
| there.
|
| It would be nice if that feedback with the end user could occur
| earlier in the process though.
| trcarney wrote:
| The biggest issue with software written under government
| contract, firm fixed price contracts. The way these are handled
| is not a good way to handle software. The winning contractor
| has a set of requirements for the software they have to
| deliver. If the customer wants to change anything, there has to
| be a bidding process and either a new contract or an add-on
| contract is awarded. This makes the customer very hesitant the
| make changes to the requirements even in the face of user
| feedback.
|
| There is also no way to get user feedback until after the final
| software is delivered. It would have made life so much easier
| when I was a contractor if we could have had a group of users
| come in and see the software and make recommendations for the
| UI.
| londons_explore wrote:
| Special purpose software built for use by just a few people tends
| to be the worst software.
|
| Many people have tried to fix that problem, few succeed.
| jopsen wrote:
| Yeah, this goes pretty much everywhere.
|
| I guess our industry is still ripe for disruption. Should
| someone figure out how make quality software cheap :)
| mLuby wrote:
| > It's unacceptable work from our vendors and procurement
| processes... It's as if our procurement process and the vendor
| collaborated to absolve themselves from any responsibility by
| serving us such an aggressively unhelpul[sic] tool.
|
| If subs were companies, competition would solve this problem.
| Some enterprising engineer says to herself "I can build a better
| VMS" and does. Since it's 10x better than the existing VMS, some
| submarine crews adopt it, and pretty soon it's in widespread use
| across the fleet. Engineer profits, sub crews are more effective
| and probably it's cheaper too.
|
| But it's the government, even worse it's defense. So regulations
| and secrecy (some reasonable, some not) muddy the waters until
| everyone's blind, including apparently the VMS.
| trasz wrote:
| If subs were companies, they would all be sold long ago to
| China and India.
| mLuby wrote:
| That does happen. :)
| willis936 wrote:
| It is surprising that there isn't constant passive bathymetrics.
| The models exist, the hydrophones are already there, and the
| entire hardware/software stack needed to implement it is there.
| What's the hold up?
| intpx wrote:
| Just a guess, but stealth is one of the primary design
| requirements even passive coils are RF devices.
| willis936 wrote:
| No way. RF doesn't go anywhere in water. Besides, an entire
| hydrophone array is at least 60 dB quieter than propulsion
| systems in terms of EM emissions and will be on par with life
| support systems, which I assume do not ever get voluntarily
| shut down underwater.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| > the navigational software on the $3B warship is far less
| capable any maps app on your phone. The software, called "Voyage
| Management System" (VMS), is the hub of all the ship's planning.
| But it can't even do basic safety-of-ship alerting.
|
| My phone can do "safety-of-ship" alerting? I'm the first to shit
| on defense software, it's my background, but map software for a
| submarine is safety-critical. While submerged it's basically
| their eyes. It has to be more reliable and trustworthy than
| possibly any other map software. Not only this but navigation
| information would have to be fused together from GPS as well as
| INS (inertial nav).
|
| My 2 cents. Background in defense but not submarines.
| aaron695 wrote:
| > My phone can do "safety-of-ship" alerting?
|
| Yes. Never controlled a drone from your phone?
|
| The fact you've worked defence and can't see how consumer
| devices do things submarines can't is the issue.
|
| We all know a submarine is worth x billion, a drone much less.
| We understand about critical failure on each.
|
| You job is to work out how to merge the two, but instead
| defence hides behind ideas like verifying software. Software
| verification should be a tool, not a wall for bureaucrats to
| hide behind.
| roywiggins wrote:
| Navy software (among, to be fair, other things) killed 10
| sailors in a preventable collision:
|
| https://features.propublica.org/navy-uss-mccain-crash/navy-i...
| 0xfeba wrote:
| I've worked in defense as well. Older software seemed to be
| tested more, or otherwise more reliable. Sure, it could be
| outdated, but generally it was usable.
|
| As they moved away from embedded to more networked and newer
| tech stacks things got terrible. The software world of today is
| not compatible with the needs of the defense industry.
|
| Plus all the red tape and misdirection. The software need comes
| from an organizational budget that has to use money to justify
| receiving money. Then it funnels down into political buckets,
| who use the dollar amount given to determine needs/wants. Then
| it goes back up the chain to the government. Then to a
| contractor, then a flurry of subcontractors. Then finally a
| developer. Rarely is the warfighter who will actually use the
| system consulted. Even then, rarely will the programmer meet
| that person using the software.
|
| Yet they all call themselves "agile" now.
| dn3500 wrote:
| I was a developer at a large contracter doing work for the
| Navy in the 1970s. Compared to today, there was almost zero
| code review, but an insane amount of testing, from the lowest
| module level to the highest integration level, both against
| the requirements and in simulation. We did not subcontract
| software. I often wished I could talk to the warfighter who
| was going to use my stuff but it never happened. Worse I
| never got any feedback on whether my stuff was even used. We
| did have quite a few ex-Navy people in our dev group and that
| did help.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| How efficient was that? How fast could you develop
| solutions?
| virtue3 wrote:
| https://news.usni.org/2019/08/09/navy-reverting-ddgs-
| back-to...
|
| Fucking bad from what I've read. It's a really bad
| problem still and the USN needs to correct it by having a
| tighter integration with the HW/SW people and the actual
| soldiers/sailors.
| zentiggr wrote:
| Twenty years ago, when VMS just got introduced, it behaved
| like this...
|
| I can't believe that after all this time, it's still
| completely borked, in all the same ways.
|
| Somebody at NAVSEA needs to be dragged by their nostrils out
| on a deployment, take notes, and go back to their office with
| their pride in a garbage bag.
|
| Proud as hell to have served, and angry as hell that our
| current crews are still dealing with the same
| ---procurement--- failures.
| Jtsummers wrote:
| That's from the time when everything was still (and
| everything still being planned for the replacements were
| also) big-bang releases. 5-10 year projects to replace the
| broken system that still lack the necessary capabilities.
| I've never worked on a Navy project, but I've seen several
| spectacular USAF failures of similar magnitude. The most
| hilarious (in an absurdist sense) was having 3 generations
| of a system running concurrently because none of them had
| all the necessary features, when I left they were working
| on number 4.
| jcadam wrote:
| The only time I had contact with the end user as a defense
| contractor was when I was working on-site in an R&D shop,
| where we were creating software for users that were all in
| the same "integrated" team with us. That was the only job
| I've had in the industry I could describe as "fast-paced."
| jwithington wrote:
| I don't think all of those problems are unique to government
| software. Some (a lot?) enterprise software is atrocious and
| disliked by end users. That's because the people making the
| purchasing decisions != end users.
|
| But it's flabbergasting just how bad VMS is considering it's
| the navigation system for these national assets. It's not
| like an HR system with poor UX--navigation is essential to
| the safety and effectiveness of the whole platform!
| wolverine876 wrote:
| > Some (a lot?) enterprise software is atrocious and
| disliked by end users. That's because the people making the
| purchasing decisions != end users.
|
| It's because the people making decisions care about putting
| money where it earns the most return and have more on their
| plate than they can address. Making software more pleasant
| for internal users rarely makes it to the top of the list.
|
| > navigation is essential to the safety and effectiveness
| of the whole platform!
|
| Subs crash very rarely, so the software seems to be
| sufficient.
| VBprogrammer wrote:
| I suspect any kind of sustained warfare in the modern era
| would result in the immediate obsolescence of much of the
| equipment designed in peacetime.
| noja wrote:
| Warfare would not even be required
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrington_Event
| LeifCarrotson wrote:
| Your phone has Google Maps or Apple Maps, which will alert you
| when there are road closures or hazards ahead, yes. It even has
| a list of places where there are roads, and places where there
| are not roads, and will not (typically) direct you to go off-
| roading. The behavior of VMS is like punching in a street
| address and having Maps tell you to go straight there as the
| crow flies.
|
| It's hard to redundantly guarantee correctness, if you wanted
| to rely on VMS to avoid hitting the seafloor that would indeed
| be difficult. But come on, how hard is it to offer a highlight
| for the shallowest points near your course, or a warning that
| says "you added an extra zero here"?
| jjk166 wrote:
| > Your phone has Google Maps or Apple Maps, which will alert
| you when there are road closures or hazards ahead, yes. It
| even has a list of places where there are roads, and places
| where there are not roads, and will not (typically) direct
| you to go off-roading.
|
| Google's servers have this information, compiled in real time
| from countless sources including direct satellite cartography
| and all beamed to a phone acting as little more than a user
| interface. Take your phone a few hundred feet below the water
| where it is cut off from the outside world and even the best
| maps in the world aren't accurate and you're going to run
| into a lot of things.
| gravypod wrote:
| (Opinions are my own)
|
| You can actually operate Google maps with no internet
| connection: https://support.google.com/maps/answer/6291838?
| hl=en&co=GENI...
|
| This will not have the same feature set but the UI will let
| you know that this is operating with reduced data. Route
| planning is still very good offline. I had to use this
| feature because for some time part of my route home had no
| cell signal.
| rch wrote:
| I use this hiking sometimes. Not as good as GPS
| obviously, but better than AllTrails.
| tekno45 wrote:
| doesn't that still allow GPS communication?
| Eelongate wrote:
| It certainly does. Pure inertial guidance with smartphone
| sensors is garbage. I must say I'm a bit startled by how
| many people evidently think that GPS is an internet
| service...
| trcarney wrote:
| You could have a local copy onboard. There should be enough
| rack space on the boat to keep a copy that gets updated
| when the boat gets connected to shore data. Also for sea
| data, the data set would be much smaller because it hardly
| changes, and you don't have as many variables(i.e. live
| traffic, construction, etc), especially under the sea.
| semireg wrote:
| Early in the Apple Maps days I took a road trip from
| Minneapolis to the west coast and back. Somewhere in southern
| Wyoming we were headed to the front range in Summit County
| (west of Denver) and maps took us on what I can only describe
| as a dirt road up a mountain complete with wildlife of goats
| or whatever terrestrial creatures stirred.
|
| But the best part? Seeing all the other users of maps along
| the route! Barely enough room for two cars to pass. But we
| had each other. Everyone would hold up their iPhone and mouth
| "WTF?" with wide eyes.
| lostlogin wrote:
| It would be fascinating to see what it took for people to
| stop and turn back.
| nradov wrote:
| Some of those roads are too narrow to turn around.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| Exactly how I feel when someone shows up to the GIS domain with
| Google Maps and is like "why can't you old timers be more like
| this?!"
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| Whoa... I had no idea that submarine software was this bad. Not
| just the lack of warnings but also "Waits for VMS to load the
| next screen, which can take minutes.". Why do you have to wait
| minutes to load a map?? And why is this running Windows XP?
|
| I'm also surprised there's no contour lines between the depths
| (although perhaps this is done to not infer a knowledge of depths
| in the intermediate points where perhaps there is no such
| knowledge).
| gaetgu wrote:
| IIRC the military actually got a private extension to XP's EOL
| from Microsoft just so that they don't have to change all that
| tech.
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| Oh really but even still up to now?? I mean the EOL was in
| 2014. How long do they keep that up? :)
|
| I suppose they do what we do in our factories at work.
| Airgapping and extremely strict firewalling where any access
| is needed.
| chiph wrote:
| > I'm also surprised there's no contour lines between the
| depths (although perhaps this is done to not infer a knowledge
| of depths in the intermediate points where perhaps there is no
| such knowledge).
|
| Yes, contour lines would imply accuracy that isn't there. The
| depth numbers indicate positions where the depth was actually
| measured. Any other location that doesn't have a number was not
| measured. Bear in mind that even if you have a depth number on
| your chart, it might be old and out of date. Safe navigation is
| never guaranteed. And subs never run depth-finder sonar when on
| patrol.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| How do depth numbers get out of date?
|
| Sedimentation?
|
| Underwater volcano eruption?
|
| Continental drift?
| zentiggr wrote:
| The broken assumption thee is that the ocean floor doesn't
| change. Things are changing all the time. Faster and faster
| as you get shallower and shallower.
|
| Shipping channels and shallows need to be resurveyed
| constantly or you have no idea what you might encounter.
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