Northrop Grumman tells us that they have received an $89M contract for long lead items for the fifth National Security Cutter (NSC), WMSL 754 James. They also say work should start on #4, Hamilton, the middle of this year.
Let’s see. #3, Stratton, delivers this year. It will probably be three years until Hamilton delivers, 2014. Four more NSCs to build. One a year, last one won’t come on line until 2018, probably not fully operational before 2019. By then the newest 378 will be 47 years old, and the oldest 210, still to be replaced, will be 55 years old–this is so wrong.
Chuck Hill's CG Blog 
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I think the CG has been fortunate to not have had any major incidents with the 210/378 fleet. Every time I go to Astoria I’m surprised to see Steadfast and Alert trucking along still, even with a second overhaul. Sad that it is taking this long to replace the fleets.
To bad it takes size and numbers to get noticed by congress. That was the reason Deep Water was formed to put together a large enough package to get noticed.
We used to say, “In our obscurity is our security.” We did a lot better when we were just a footnote in the Treasury Department budget. Maybe it was because they could print money.
I think you will find we have no shortage of oversight in Congress.
Chuck,
I agree that Treasury seemed to be a better place. In Transportation we were out of place and just the bastard son to major transportation projects. So far my opinion of HLS has been low. In my life I have now met all of the HLS Secretary’s. The task and lack of power they have is a major wrecking ball.
For those who take a deeper look into the Coast Guard’s history under the Treasury Department, it is enough to make one cry.
The Treasury Department had one mission. To keep the national coffers filled. The primary job of the early RCS was to put money in those vessels and not take it out. “With all due consideration for costs,” should be the Coast Guard’ s official motto-not Semper Paratus. Costs were viewed early on under the Fifth Auditor of the Treasury Department and later by an Assistant Treasury Secretary who was the real head of the Service.
One congressman who claimed that he supported the move to the Transportation Department because he thought the Coast Guard would do better. It might have, but what he did not know was the cabal of officers who saw an opportunity to enhance their careers and their post careers. The move to Transportation also gave rise to the Specialist officer over the Generalist and even made the word generalist a dirty word. Today, the officer corps claims that the Coast Guard could not operate with an generalist core (and corps). However, the generalist officer tended to be more far sighted and mindful of the Coast Guard as a whole.
Of course, this transition did not begin overnight. It has its origins with the merger of the Line and Engineers corps in the last century. This occurred because the Coast Guard could not attract enough trained engineers to run its ships. So, the solution was to begin breeding their own. Some felt it was better to do it this way because having home grown engineers put them in the party line without the corrupting influences of civilian colleges such as MIT and Cornell where many of the engineers were schooled and graduated before they took a RCS commission. One requirement to be an engineer in the RCS was to have a degree from an accepted engineering school. The Line officers just had to take a test.
The problem is not in the Congress. It has provided funding in the past. The problem lies in the Coast Guard’s leadership to project its needs in a way the Congress will bite on. That is about all they need. They’ve said so numerous times as has been recorded in the Congressional Record and Annals of Congress. Just yesterday I read a early 20th century comment about the Navy that could apply to the Coast Guard. The author, speaking of full dress uniforms, remarked that the Navy was not a “social organization” but one with a job and purpose to the nation. Perhaps the Coast Guard is a social organization and cannot express its requirements beyond a full dress uniform.
Knew you would have a comment, you’ve been away too long, Bill.
I agree the service during my time was to comfortable with the phrase do more with less. How do you get the leadership to take action, how do you get the service in general do what is right for the country. Its easy to say they need to sell themselves better but how? I say this with honesty and concern. I have worked on writing letters on behalf of the Coast Guard and asked family to do the same.
“Perhaps the Coast Guard is a social organization and cannot express its requirements beyond a full dress uniform.”
Bender’s shift of the uniform right around the time of the shift from Treasury to Transportation probably didn’t help things much either.
“Deep Water” was just one manifestation of a push in the late 80s/early 90s to “outsource” because “private industry was more efficient than government.” This also stripped the Navy of much of its in-house naval engineering expertise and gave us tax incentives to outsource American jobs to India.
It was not totally the fault of the Coast Guard leadership at the time, they were following directives from on high. I do blame them for not protesting that hiring defense contractors to tell us what we needed was asking the fox to guard the hen house.