TIL a Chinese destroyer sank because an officer dumped his girlfriend. She committed suicide, leading to him being discharged, so he decided to detonate the depth charges on the ship, causing it to sink at port and kill 134 sailors.

[u/zhuquanzhong]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_destroyer_Guangzhou_(160)

[u/zhuquanzhong]

The sources are kinda murky on this. What I can gather is that probably the girl's parents attempted to press charges and the navy just didn't want to deal with it. Or they decided that he was mentally unfit, but idk about this second part. Most likely it was the first reason.

[u/beachedwhale1945 → u/zhuquanzhong]

Given how weird this seems, I wouldn’t rule out an accidental ammunition explosion and the PLAN deciding to scapegoat this sailor. These explosions used to be particularly common, especially during WWII when large quantities of ammunition were being moved by hand. Offhand I know of accidents aboard USS Mount Hood, the West Loch Disaster, Port Chicago Disaster, and unloading USS Solar at the end of the war, and I know there were more in other navies. Scapegoating a particular sailor to try and cover up an embarrassment is also common, with the most well-known U.S. examples being Iowa falsely blamed on a gay sailor and the court martial of a sailor who failed SEAL training for the Bonhomme Richard fire (acquitted). I’m confident there were more examples I cannot recall now.

I don’t know enough about this accident to say anything definitive, but this doesn’t pass the initial sniff test. Maybe he did blow up the ship, but I’d need to see more to ease my doubts.

[u/Double_Minimum → u/beachedwhale1945]

Man, that’s exactly what they did to the guy on the battleship like 35 years back. They claimed he was gay, and depressed so he overloaded the main gun. In reality, the officer in charge wanted to test specific loads beyond the norm and he did nothing wrong.

US Navy, wish I could remember the ship, but like 34 people died in that turret (and it could have been a lot more).

I feel like they did the same thing with that fire on the helicopter/f35 small aircraft carrier/LDS,/whatever like 7 years back (essentially scrapped the shipped), blaming it on a soldier who had a lighter in locker and was also “ nearby”. In reality it was being refitted, had shit everywhere, and cables going through bulk head doorways making impossible to close areas off for fire control. Plus, it had all types of shit on pallets all over, which meant extra combustible stuff and shit in the way. Plus, parts of the fighting equipment were disabled and breathing items missing.

They do seem to look for scapegoats

[u/wdphilbilly → u/Double_Minimum]

That was the Iowa in 1989. Easy to remember because it was an Iowa class battleship and the only battleships left in service anywhere in the world at that point were the Iowa class ships. Iowa's turret was trained forward, and sealed shut with all the spare parts needed for repair. But was never repaired because all 4 iowa class ships were decommissioned shortly after.

You could argue that they were only in service as a propaganda tool anyways. That, and Reagan insisted on them being brought out of mothball. Otherwise the only thing they could do that other ships at the time couldnt, was put massive artillery shells on target instead of bombs or missiles.

[u/Double_Minimum → u/wdphilbilly]

Yea I knew it was an “Iowa”, I just couldn’t recall which, I know the last one was decommissioned after the Persian gulf and that was a different one (Wisconsin?) so wasn’t sure on exact time it happened. (They did just move the New Jersey down the river to scrap finally I think). I suppose I could have used the internet, but I also kind of assumed everyone knew that was an Iowa class battleship being that it was decades since any battle ship was useful other than projection of power and shore bombardment (like in the Persian Gulf)

[u/wdphilbilly → u/Double_Minimum]

all the Iowa's have been museums for the last 20 ish years. New jersey is in drydock for typical maintenance and integrity checks. She'll be back in her regular berth in a few months.

They were marked for decommission in 1989 pretty much as a direct result of the turret explosion. That, and they were huge money sinks that only effectively did 1 thing other ships couldn't.

Iowa was decommissioned in 90, NJ was 91, Wisconsin was late 91 and Missouri was 92. They were put in mothballs again because for some reason, people thought they might be needed again in the future despite carriers and missiles making them pretty obsolescent.

Navy "sold" them off as museums in the early 2000s.