Talk:General Discussion/@comment-24903916-20140906180613/@comment-25139231-20140906191210

To be sure about the cause one should see the complete report on the collision, but usually is due to lack of communication, miscalculation, the fleet formation, absence of radar and elctronic system (WWII ships bridge allow the crew and the helmsman to only see forward and to rely on crew outside bridge for the eventually close obstacle or friendly ship and usually especially if behind) and the worst of all overconfidence of the captain. Imagine ships in a line ahead formation, suddendly the first ship captain order to stop the ship, a DD, the right behind CA's captain notice the reducing distance with the DD but don't know that it's going to stop, when the DD Cpt. communicate the halt with the CA the CA stop the engine, but the inertia of the ship still make her collide with the DD. During battle it could be that a ship change route maybe to avoid an enemy volley of fire or to shoot the enemy with all it's guns so it suddendly turn the ship, the captain is focused on the enemy don't seeing the other ship on it's left and so they crosss their route (or even they it her in the manouvering) causing a collision or even a overconfident Cpt. guide his ship in a manouver between the formation, maybe to exit the formation or engage an enemy, and doing so he bring his ship near other moving ship wich maybe don't know about the manouver or start evasive manouver to avoid fire thus crossing the route of the ship exiting the formation and causing a collison. In short you have to imagine fat people on ice tring to move in formation with one of them who suddendly decide to exit it if it does not use the right route or advise those who can croos it or if the other suddendly change their route too ten a collison could happen. Think about the film titanic the high speed (and so high inertia) of the ship made impossible to turn the ship enoguh to avoid a collision with the iceberg.