I believe it was the USNS Supply that was doing the UNREP here.

Collisions during UNREPs are rare, but not unheard of. You're steaming 150-180 feet apart making turns for 13 knots so if things go sideways, they go sideways fast.

Oddly, I also saw some reports that another Marine fell off the USS Iwo Jima and died in a separate incident.

Two U.S. Navy sailors were injured after the destroyer USS Truxtun collided with a supply ship in the Caribbean, according to military officials.

The cause of the collision remains under investigation, a spokesperson said. pic.twitter.com/wSnLvWXS0G

— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) February 12, 2026

didn't you used to do (or perhaps still do) underway replenishments?

I'm not Navy, but that looks kinda terrifying.

Yes prior to my current job I was the captain of a fleet replenishment oiler for MSC.

If it happened in the Caribbean, there is no doubt voodoo was involved.

Seriously though, thoughts and repairs to any killed or injured in the incident. Structures can be repaired.

Seems like a dangerous maneuver. Why keep moving at 13 knots? Why not just heave-to and deploy Yokohama fenders?

Because then the ships would have to carry massive yokos? They are huge. Additionally when you're making turns for 13 knots you have a lot of flow over the rudder and the ships are very maneuverable and respond quickly. Tens of thousands of UNREPs have been done without incident. They aren't usually dangerous but occasionally mistakes are made. Also if you do a job where you tie up alongside it takes a whole lot longer. A lot of UNREPs are done in just a few hours, depending on several factors.

I have a tough time getting my 25' bay boat into a slip with a slight cross breeze on the first shot. I can't imagine having to try to parallel a 500-600' destroyer while they take on fuel and supplies moving 15 mph in the wind and waves at sea.

Burrus86 said:

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If it happened in the Caribbean, there is no doubt voodoo was involved.

Seriously though, thoughts and repairs to any killed or injured in the incident. Structures can be repaired.

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Not to be one of those people, but you may want to go back and check your word usage. Although it kind of works.

Burrus86 said:

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If it happened in the Caribbean, there is no doubt voodoo was involved.

Seriously though, thoughts and prayers to any killed or injured in the incident. Structures can be repaired.

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Thanks!

I learned something new today, gracias.

TRIDENT said:

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I learned something new today, gracias.

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They use yokohamas when doing offshore mooring for lightering. The ships are a lot bigger but ships are only going 5 knots when they bring them together.

Almost hit a free floating Yokohama one time running in the dark offshore Galveston in a Contender during a king mackerel tournament. Pucker factor was high.

I'm gonna make a WAG.

Ok squids, what's the difference between a Cruiser and a Destroyer? I always thought destroyers were smaller than Cruisers but the Ticonderoga and Arleigh Burke classes have similar displacements and lengths.

The captain, who absolutely had the conn during the UNREP, is a black CMDR who went to Annapolis via the prep academy. Helmsman may have messed up sure, or there could have been equipment failure. We will find out down the line. Unfortunately I don't think I know anyone on the supply I could ask.

lb3 said:

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Ok squids, what's the difference between a Cruiser and a Destroyer? I always thought destroyers were smaller than Cruisers but the Ticonderoga and Arleigh Burke classes have similar displacements and lengths.

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At one time cruisers were much larger, especially when going back to the era when guns were the main weapons. Originally the Ticonderoga class was going to be DDG-47 and be rated as guided missile destroyers.

Some of the differences are:

The Ticonderoga class has two 5 inch guns, one forward and one aft. The Arleigh Burke class has just one forward.

The Ticonderoga class has more vertical launch cells than the Arleigh Burke, and carries more weapons overall.

Lastly, Ticonderogas have flagship capability. When this was added during design, they were changed from DDG-47 to CG-47.

Now, I don't know the stats on the Arleigh Burke Flight III and I would guess they are somewhat different than the previous versions, so they likely have more weapons as they are going to fill the role of the Ticonderogas until the next generation cruiser enters service, assuming we are even capable of building it.

This is just off the top of my head.

Not a squid but it's just dumb name classification. In WWII destroyers were maybe 2000 tons and cruisers were 10,000, and a little more by the end of the war. The cruisers we currently still have came into being when we had frigates to do much of what WWII destroyers would have done, but a cruiser was big enough to carry a lot of missiles. Then they designed the Arleigh Burke class destroyer which is still in production and latest examples are about 10,000 tons. Ticonderoga class cruisers are all either gone or soon to be gone and are very similar to current destroyers in size and capability.

We toyed with new destroyers with the 15,000 ton Zumwalt and frigates (Constellation) but cancelled both after only a couple hulls. Still building Arleigh Burkes, without a real replacement determined.

Something I found astonishing after the USS John S. McCain collision in the Strait of Malacca is that modern U.S. warships basically don't have a big helm wheel? They've got some dinky heading-select buttons on a touch screen and unintuitive controls whether the bridge or the engine room is actually steering the ship. Seems like a bad idea!

Higher quality video showing the collision between USS Truxtun and USNS Supply (no audio) pic.twitter.com/7JqbpBfQx7

— Sal Mercogliano (WGOW Shipping) 🚢⚓🐪🚒🏴‍☠️ (@mercoglianos) February 13, 2026

Video of collision apparently.

TriAg2010 said:

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Something I found astonishing after the USS John S. McCain collision in the Strait of Malacca is that modern U.S. warships basically don't have a big helm wheel? They've got some dinky heading-select buttons on a touch screen and unintuitive controls whether the bridge or the engine room is actually steering the ship. Seems like a bad idea!

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Better put a big ole wheel in each new ship then!

Unrep helmsman here, going back 42 years in time as a 20 year old E-5 on a 210 ft Coast Guard cutter doing unrep with a Navy tanker off Guantanamo Bay, Cuba during REFTRA drills. I was a Petty Officer navigator at the time and long past the duty of helmsman, but during unrep they wanted more senior people in all the roles because the margins for error were thin.

We steered that ship with a little joystick (hydraulic) and a gyro compass to stay locked in on a compass bearing. You have to anticipate the impact of waves on the ship and give it rudder one direction or the other to keep the ship balanced and moving on a straight line. For a drill that lasted an hour or more, it's a very intense locked-in kind of focus thing. No time for daydreaming. We kept it straight and aced the exercises.

When I joined that ship 1.5 yrs prior as the junior navigator, I got the junior duty, which meant when we were leaving and entering port in very restricted navigation fairways, I was in the aft compartment below deck (120 degrees) with headphones listening to the bridge and ready to take over the hydraulic steering if there was a hydraulic breakage between me and the bridge. I had a compass overhead to keep steering the course if needed. There were also manual options if all hydraulics failed that would have involved the bigger guys on the ship attaching block and tackle to manually pull the rudders one direction or the other. Never needed it, but we were ready.

Are you still chasing a local egg that's insanely hard to crack?

Breakdown of the collision

I think it's most probably they throttled back one turbine and not the other

TriAg2010 said:

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Something I found astonishing after the USS John S. McCain collision in the Strait of Malacca is that modern U.S. warships basically don't have a big helm wheel? They've got some dinky heading-select buttons on a touch screen and unintuitive controls whether the bridge or the engine room is actually steering the ship. Seems like a bad idea!

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That's not exactly the case. Yes, they had some unintuitive touchscreen controls, but that was only a minor contributing factor. The steering and propulsion can be operated from multiple stations, and the controls were passed between stations several times in the 2 minutes leading up to the collision. In that shuffle, the fact that the propulsion configuration that was set had the two propeller shafts unlocked (operating on independent throttles) was lost. That was a bigger issue because in trying to slow down and correct their turn, they actually made it worse by only slowing one shaft, which increased the turn rate. It's like a pilot forgetting what control mode his autopilot is in and giving it the right inputs for the wrong mode.

The controls were changed after that incident, but that doesn't mean similar mistakes can't happen.

GAC06 said:

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TriAg2010 said:

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Something I found astonishing after the USS John S. McCain collision in the Strait of Malacca is that modern U.S. warships basically don't have a big helm wheel? They've got some dinky heading-select buttons on a touch screen and unintuitive controls whether the bridge or the engine room is actually steering the ship. Seems like a bad idea!

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Better put a big ole wheel in each new ship then!

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I have spent a few hours on the JM. I thought it had a wheel. Down in the Blue Room I remember a big computer flat screen with buttons that they could travel point to point in vast oceans Along with tracking adversaries in those far away locations.

I do have some pictures of us up in the control room somewhere. I am not sayn your wrong. I am more sayn I remember a wheel, but may remember something that wasn't there.

Anyway….

I was watching a YouTube video about destroyers tonight because my good friend that was a diesel mechanic on a destroyer died Monday.

The destroyer on Smarter Everyday had a small wheel that the helmsman used. Probably smaller than a fishing boat's wheel.

ThunderCougarFalconBird said:

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Are you still chasing a local egg that's insanely hard to crack?

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Yes but the location of that egg has moved to different places because the Texas egg just isn't going to crack.

jabberwalkie09 said:

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Higher quality video showing the collision between USS Truxtun and USNS Supply (no audio) pic.twitter.com/7JqbpBfQx7

— Sal Mercogliano (WGOW Shipping) 🚢⚓🐪🚒🏴‍☠️ (@mercoglianos) February 13, 2026

Video of collision apparently.

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that couldve been a lot worse

If you click the tweet by sal with the video on it he goes in to detail about what you can tell from the video.

To me it looks like the truxtun was making their approach and had a casualty of some sort, whether steering or engines, and because supply already had another ship on their starboard side there was nowhere they could go.

Would be interested in finding out if supply finished up with the Gettysburg or not.

Visible damage to USNS Supply from the collision with USS Truxtun on Feb 11, 2026. The ship is pierside in Ponce, Puerto Rico. https://t.co/UdwPBd9iPR pic.twitter.com/Gmvyb5tF4Z

— Sal Mercogliano (WGOW Shipping) 🚢⚓🐪🚒🏴‍☠️ (@mercoglianos) February 13, 2026

Better video. Seeing it like this I would assume the truxtun had a failure of some sort because no corrective actions appears to be taken to stop her swing to starboard.

Navy Times is reporting that Truxton was delayed earlier in February due to "an emergent equipment repair". This required returning to Norfork to fix what ever.

They need to stop eating so many goober peas.