HRO4 Greyhound Not So Standard Helm Commands

I enjoyed the Tom Hanks rendition of Greyhound. This post isn’t a review of the plot, acting, cinematography, special effects, or windshield wipers. With all its rich detail, I just can’t understand why the filmmakers couldn't get two important technical details right: standard helm commands (including responses from the Helmsman) and courses to station (navigating from one location to another with respect to vessels that are moving).

Use of standard helm commands, which are explained here, is very important. Standard helm commands and their replies are essential for high reliability on the Bridge. Many organizations practicing HRO place a great deal of importance on accuracy and clear understanding in verbal communications, that is, standard orders for control and their responses. This is true in aviation for the communications between the cockpit (like the bridge of a Navy ship) and air traffic controllers and personnel in the control tower coordinating the movement of planes on the ground. U.S. Navy ships conduct many operations very close to each other, like escorting convoys and attacking submarines in the movie Greyhound. You don’t want the helmsman turning the rudder to port (left) when you want the ship to go starboard (right) to avoid a torpedo. Nobody gives helm orders (Conning Officers) or acts on helm orders (Helmsmen) until they demonstrate they know the standard helm commands and responses. NOBODY. A few of the most obvious errors I noted:

Frequently using “Meet her” when the correct order would have been “Steady as she goes.” “Meet her” tells the Helmsman to use opposite rudder to check the swing of the ship (i.e., stop turning). “Steady as she goes” means stopping the turn and steering the compass heading noted by the Helmsman at moment the order was given. The Helmsman’s response to “Meet her” is just “Meet her, aye” because he has no course to steer. The response to “Steady as she goes” is “Steady as she goes, aye, steering course XXX.” After issuing either order, it is appropriate for the Conning Officer to order the Helmsman to steer a specific course, if circumstances warrant. “Meet her” is used when the Conning Officer is steering in a general direction based on a visual reference (like another ship or a surfaced U-boat) or for such a brief period that stating a course is not particularly useful. In this case, ordering a course to steer is optional.

The Captain ordered “left hard rudder” several times. Good grief! All rudder orders except “hard rudder” are preceded by the direction left or right and an experienced greyhound sailor knows this. “Hard rudder” is an emergency order that risks jamming the rudder against the stops because the Helmsman is supposed to turn the wheel as fast as possible to slew the rudder to the angle defined as “hard” (different for each ship class). It is possible that the command is structured differently than other rudder commands such as “Left full rudder” to specifically call attention to the urgency, but I don’t know for sure. I do know that “Left hard rudder” is just wrong.

Helmsmen not reporting the course every ten degrees following a rudder order without a course. When the Conning Officer gives a rudder command like “Right standard rudder” without stating a course, the Helmsman is supposed to report the compass bearings as the ship continues to turn such as “Passing 290 degrees, no new course given; passing 300 degrees, no new course given.” This is to remind the Conning Officer that Helmsman is not steering a course, only turning. The Conning Officer can “switch off” these reports with the command “Belay your headings.” I could make an argument for deleting most of the required reports from the Helmsman to enhance the focus on dramatic action (like torpedo wakes and U-boats exploding under gunfire), but not every time.

Transferring the Conn (responsibility for giving maneuvering orders to the Helm and Lee Helm) many times without announcing the transfer. It is very important for high reliability. Everyone on the Bridge of a Ship, especially the Helmsman and Lee Helmsman (the person giving engine orders to Engineering), needs to know who is responsible for giving orders to the helm. For this reason, every time the Conn is transferred, it is announced loudly (and repeated by the Helmsman and Lee Helmsman) on the bridge. In the movie, Tom Hanks always announces when he takes the Conn, but I don’t remember a single time when he transferred it to the Conning Officer before the latter started giving helm commands. That was also wrong.

Many of the maneuvering courses were badly chosen. In many sequences in the movie, the Captain would ask for a bearing to a moving contact and then order the Helmsman to steer the bearing to the contact to intercept it. This only works for objects that aren’t moving like buoys and piers. When the contact is moving, like a ship in a convoy or a U-boat, the bearing to the contact is changing constantly unless you are already on a collision course. To intercept a moving contact, steering a bearing taken at one point in time is just wrong. Just like you shoot ahead of a moving target to hit it, you have to lead a moving contact to intercept it. If you steer straight for the last known bearing of a moving contact moving away from you, you will pass astern of it. You won’t intercept it.

For those inclined to comment, “It’s just a movie. Lighten up!”, I get it. Possibly no one cares about this tiny technical point. I think this is an interesting topic for a blog post just because it is a detail that most non-mariners will completely miss. If you want to leave me a comment about me being a pedant, go ahead. I’ll read it and that you read my post, but you won’t be adding anything to the discussion.

I noted these two problems in the dialogue of the movie Greyhound that 99% of the viewers won’t notice (or care about even after they read this post) for two reasons. First, the errors ignore the important contribution that standard commands make to highly reliable ship control. Second, for all the money spent to make the movie as realistic as possible, why not spend an additional $2.47 to get the helm commands correct? Come on, man!