“As The U.S. Navy Sheds Small Boats, Junior Officers Are Losing Chances To Take Command. The Coast Guard Could Offer A Solution.” –Forbes

COLONIA, Yap (July 4, 2019) The U.S. Coast Guard Island-class patrol boat USCGC Kiska and Mark VI patrol boats assigned to Coastal Riverine Squadron (CRS) 2, Coastal Riverine Group 1, Detachment Guam, moored in the Micronesia port of Yap. CRG 1, Det. Guam’s visit to Yap, and engagement with the People of Federated States of Micronesia underscores the U.S. Navy’s commitment to partners in the region. The Mark VI patrol boat is an integral part of the expeditionary forces support to 7th Fleet, capability of supporting myriad of missions throughout the Indo-Pacific. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Jasen Moreno-Garcia/Released)

Craig Hooper suggests that the Navy could benefit from a cooperative effort with the Coast Guard in this Forbes article.

“Even as the Navy embraces robotic craft, early at-sea experience counts. Independence matters. To help maintain a small population of early career officers with experience in early command at sea, the Navy may be wise to procure a set of “navalized” patrol boats based upon the Fast Response Cutter platform, and use them to advance unmanned technology while working with the Coast Guard on certain tasks.

“Adding marine-ized sensors from the F-35, anti-drone technology, a bare-bones combat system and unmanned command-and-control capabilities onto a proven Fast Response Cutter hull offers the Navy a useful asset that the Navy and early-career naval officers can employ alongside Coast Guard units. By leveraging the Coast Guard’s existing small boat doctrine, operational concepts and logistical support network, the integration and leadership challenges facing the Navy’s struggling small craft commands can be reduced.

“By building capabilities to work together, both Services can advance their priorities while offering early-career officers relevant opportunities to command at a sea.

2 thoughts on ““As The U.S. Navy Sheds Small Boats, Junior Officers Are Losing Chances To Take Command. The Coast Guard Could Offer A Solution.” –Forbes

  1. I would be opposed to this as our officers would suffer at the expense of the Navy. Why create a problem with our officer corps to solve theirs? Also, if you’ve ever done any joint ops, there is a huge cultural difference between USCG and USN in how we approach things.

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s