What is wrong with this picture? Not the artist’s concept, the word picture painted by the description found at the acquisition directorate web site, that may be the first thing, perhaps the only thing, that a person learns about the OPC?
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Offshore Patrol Cutter
(Disclaimer: The conceptual renderings posted on this website are for artistic display purposes only and do not convey any particular design, Coast Guard design preferences, or other requirements for the OPC.)
The Offshore Patrol Cutter (OPC) will complement the Coast Guard’s in-service fleet and next-generation cutters to extend operational capabilities across the mission spectrum. Learn more
Features
- increased range and endurance
- more powerful weapons
- larger flight decks
- improved Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (C4ISR) equipment
- will accommodate aircraft and small boat operations in higher sea states
- will use “green” technologies and concepts to reduce environmental impact while underway
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These ships are not nice to have. They are not gravy or icing on the cake. They don’t complement or extend the “fleet and next-generation cutters.” They are the next-generation cutters and in a very real sense they will be the fleet. That they are equipped, as ships are equipped in the 21st century, should be taken for granted, that is not the reason we are building these ships.
Where is the urgency? These ships will replace ships now long overage. We are 20 years behind in the procurement process, and without them, we will have almost no offshore capability.
Why aren’t we pleading our case, and not just on the web site? Where are the articles in the US Naval Institute Proceedings and the Navy Leagues’ Seapower?
We know the nations needs these ships. If we don’t make them understand why we need them, and need them yesterday, we are failing in our duties.
Chuck Hill's CG Blog 
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You are right. They won’t complement the fleet, they’ll be the fleet. By the time they are built there will be nothing left.
For the last 50-60 years we have had over 40 major cutters. If we don’t get the OPCs we will be down to the NSCs and nothing else. Even with the current plan we will go down to only 33.
It’s time for hard choices. The rank and file have all heard this “gee whiz, we got no funding cry baby” stuff from the top before. In the mid 80’s the topic around the scuttlebutt was lack of funding for new patrol boats and a need to replace the aging 95 footers. Any one remember the 140′ patrol boat concept? The Navy junped in and funded the Bic lighters of patrol boats (110’s =shelf life 20 years) until the “new” patrol boat took the field.
When a vessel runs aground the first thing is to “lighten” the vessel by throwing non-essential items of overboard, if the vessel is worth saving. With all the financial hand wringing and puzzle palace weeping, it’s time to start throwing ill conceived concepts over the gunnels. Start with the NSC’s, cancel the program, give(or sell) the completed white elephants to the Navy and start buiding(or acquiring off the shelf) a proven platform that comes close to the needs of the Service. These folk that make decisions need to get out of their cozy offices and see what the hell is going on in the fleet as time is critical. I’ve sailed on a few broken down museum pieces and it’s a strain on the command, crew’s morale and the safety and well being of those aboard. What’s going to blast this log jam loose is when one of our overage cutters breaks up and a goes down with high loss of sons and daughters while performing what mission they were assigned. Then we’ll see how HQ handles (what the late General Billy Mitchell called “almost treasonable administration”) the preventable loss of an obsolete Coast Guard asset.
Will the brass hats make the tough call? Only if they understand the Service is in dire straits and believe the Coast Guard is worth saving.
The Coast Guard is falling way behind even and isn’t coming close to meeting the RAND 10 and 15 year challenges it set out in the report the CG commissioned after 9/11. All of the 123s, a couple FRCs and most NSCs should have been in the fleet by now with OPCs under construction. I think what is happening now is that the senior leadership is caught in a catch-22. If they explain this to everyone and ask for help someone would then look in to the matter and make comparisons to the RAND report and the current state of affairs and ask who made the leadership blunders. So the current leadership can’t be entirely honest and can’t ask for help too loudly without bringing scrutiny on themselves and the good ole boys who came before them. The same good ole boys who got them the jobs they have now.
Any leadership that would refuse to help a relator progress in a lawsuit that could mean $96-$180M to them in these trying times, just because the relator gets a small portion of that and has criticized them along the way, more than shows you the mindset of the the leadership in place. We asked for 3 one page declarations the legal staff admitted were factual, and one was from a volunteer, and they would not provide them to help our case. It’s petty, unprofessional, counter productive and cowardly.
The only way to fix this is to bring in a good leader who doesn’t have this baggage. Break the pattern.
The particular piece of copy, I credit to something less sinister. But it does sound more like an attempt to sell a BMW to a Chevy buyer, than an argument for the survival of a major capability, to an over-taxed, skeptical public who want to make sure we are not “gold plating.”
From this article
http://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/archive/2011/January/Pages/CommandantCoastGuardSufferingUnderStrainofTightBudgets.aspx
“Why should the American people, through their Congress, invest in the Coast Guard? I think it’s because it’s very important that we provide safety, security and stewardship for our nation’s waters,” said Papp, who was promoted to the helm after Adm. Thad Allen’s retirement in May.
“If not us, who else is going to do it?”
Unbelievable. Yes there is a budget shortfall. And yes the Coast Guard needs a lot of money to get back on track. However – if the Commandant was so concerned about the budget he would help us secure $96-$180M for the 123s. All we asked for was 3 one page declarations all of which the legal office said were accurate and at least one of the declarations would be coming from a volunteer.
This cry for help on the Commandant’s part is disingenuous and hypocritical. If he truly wanted to help the Coast Guard secure every nickel it could to improve he would be doing everything within his authority to get that money. But apparently a couple of more hours work to help us get the 123 refund back is over some kind of BS line? Admiral Papp put the politics, BS and your own pride, ego and frustrations with me aside. Let’s get that money back, hold those contractors accountable and put that money to good use. Admiral the hell up.
Before anyone gets on me for being disrespectful in my last post understand that this comes after weeks of more than respectful working behind the scenes then various blogs. (Not counting 4 years on this case, 7 years trying to do the right thing for the Coast Guard, several moves of my family and millions of $ spent by my attorneys to win this case for the Coast Guard) Given where the Coast Guard is right now and how desperately the fleet needs upgraded I find it unconscionable that senior leadership would beg for money, by telling everyone how deplorable things are, with one hand and withdraw the other hand to avoid helping us win the case and get the refund money back X2. If the current leadership can’t find a way to put their own feelings about me (and the desire to avoid taking responsibility for their share of the Deepwater problems especially the fraudulent guarantees) to the side for the good of the Coast Guard then what does that say about their leadership in general? Not only now but in the past during this debacle and going forward. The Commandant should direct the legal team to help us in every way possible. He should lead by example. Doing otherwise should not be tolerated, minimized, accepted, white washed or pushed under the rug by me or anyone else.
I have never been one to shy away from a Coast Guard historical parallel. The entire Deepwater program is a retread of the attempt to bring steam cutters to the Service with all the attending reasons we here today. Public safety and security. Better revenue protection, protection against piracy and faster SAR response. Some Navy folks chimed in with it would help them with providing a coast-guard element to blue water protection.
As some may have read on this topic and know the Hunter Wheel and Ericsson Screw designs were untested designs that, in fairness, came from an era when there were no standards. The same excuse cannot be used today. The Navy also bought into the design with the steamship Union. It was a failure and the shipping community tried to warn the Revenue Marine (a name made up to hang on the new Treasury bureau). Although the Navy was sucked into the program too, it had the sense to hire a Chief Engineer who was responsible to oversee the design and construction. Later these were known as Chief Constructors in both services.
The first Chief Engineer used some of the RMS tests to get free check ride and make his assessment of the system. Even the RMS’ own captain in charge had serious doubts after being initially wowed by the Hunter Design. Eventually, the RMS changed some to the Loper Screw Propeller and side-wheel steamers but in the end they all failed. One steamer had a right-angle wooden gear mechanism between the engine and prop shaft. (It is funny but this same sort of gearing is used on the folding rotor section of a MH-53 helicopter.)
The Navy’s Chief Engineer also knew the Congress was pouring money into research and design of steam equipment for the merchant marine. It was assumed that the merchant service could be pressed into service if needed but no historical documentation shows where this idea has proved out from privateers, to arming merchant vessels, to the Brits in the Falklands War. Anyway, he convinced the Congress to authorize the building of a working steam engine at the Washington Navy Yard to serve as a test bed. Sound familiar anyone? Rickover did the same thing for the first sub reactor. Both he and his 1840s counterpart used it to train and test. The RMS simply went out and hired some folk who had been working on steamships and paid them a whooping $20 a month until 1845 with the Congress authorized them to be in existence.
The debacles of the 1840s stalled the development of “revenue steamers” until the Harriet Lane about a decade later. The Coast Guard does not have a decade to play with this. It has had two decades already and not much to show for it. In 1847, J. Fenimore Cooper wrote a story later re-titled “Jack Tier” (it is on line in Google Books) in with he takes some shots at the cutter service. He made the comment about the problems with the revenue steamers that is just as appropriate to current ship design problems and decisions, “Who would have believed they could have screwed themselves up to doing such a thing in that bloody service?” He also used the vertical stripes of the Service ensign to describe the Revenue Service officers as the “up and down gentry”.
Just as today, the Congress of 1845 was to partial blame. It yielded to the pressure of merchants, ship owners, insurance companies and brokers and overrode the President’s veto and passed the forcing construction of the steamers of unproven technology. BTW, this was the first successful override of a Presidential veto–and the Coast Guard made history with it.
There are many parallels with the difficulties of past. Perhaps if officers today actually knew they would be dismissed and commissions revoked for such larges failure as happened 150 years ago; there may be more concern.