CIMSEC brings us a report on the new MkVI patrol boat. This one written by a former Coastie, Lawrence A. Hajek, reportedly previously he “served active duty with the US Coast Guard’s Deployable Specialized Forces as a Tactical Law Enforcement Team South LEDET Boarding Officer & later as a Sector Boarding Officer.”
We have talked about these boats before. In fact it has been one of the blog’s mot popular posts.
He gives us some indication of the possible concept of they will operations for the class, stating they will operate in pairs and suggesting they may be teamed with LCS. Perhaps not surprisingly Mr. Hajek see great advantage in teaming these boat with Coast Guard deployable boarding teams.
The post has a video (very gung ho) and a particularly good interior shot. There are several workstations with monitors and everyone has a shock mitigating seat.
It appears the crew served weapons mounts on top of the deck house have a panel outboard of the mounts. I suspect they are to provide ballistic protection. This seems like a reasonable precaution, if you are going to put gun crews out in the open. We did talk about protection alternatives three years ago.
Teaming is a good idea and this combination seems reasonable from mission viewpoint… But logistically, the LCS cannot sustain their own deployment much less those of two Mk VI PBs in company. LCS does not have the refueling and provisoning capacity to replenish the stated Mk VI 24 hours or 600nm in a stretch endurance. There are no offboarding equipment, no space for additional crews (which is THE limitation to small warboat on-station time), and I wait to see a Mk Vi alongside an LCS?
A NSC or OPC teamed with MkVI might make more sense.