The crew of USCGC Oliver Henry (WPC 1140) arrives in Pohnpei, Federated States of Micronesia, on Feb. 1, 2024, to download supplies for delivery to the outer islands of the FSM to combat the effects of a current drought. The supplies included 2,000 lbs of rice, three medical kits, 70 gallons of bottled water, and boxes of paper products. (Photo courtesy of U.S. Embassy Kolonia)

Naval News has an excellent article reviewing the additional capabilities Webber class FRCs have provided. It also highlights the vast operating area and associated challenges including necessary maintenance.

U.S Coast Guard Forces Micronesia Sector Guam’s AOR is based on Guam Search and Rescue Region. (U.S Coast Guard Navigation Center) Around 3 million square kilometers or 1.9 million square miles and includes the entirety of Palau, the Federated States of Micronesia, and Republic of the Marshall Islands.

For scale, the distance from the bottom of the area above to the top is 1020 nautical miles. According to the post, “It’s [an area] two thirds the size of the continental United States that we patrol with three ships and 300 people,” (I suspect that was in reference to the Contiguous 48, but it’s a huge area.)

ASSETS:

Something that should not be missed is that the only normally available rotary wing assets in the area are a squadron of Navy MH-60S, and there are no fixed wing SAR or law enforcement assets in the region. If an extensive search is required for any reason, it usually means flying a C-130J over 3,400 nautical miles down from Coast Guard Air Station Barbers Point, Hawaii just to get to Guam.

Major Cutters do occasionally cruise these waters, but it is rare. There is also a 225 foot buoy tender homeported in Guam.

Hopefully these waters will see USCGC Harriet Lane frequently, but on her first Western Pacific patrol, it did not appear she deployed with a helicopter (I believe Barbers Point has only three). Being one of the first four 270s that were built by Tacoma Boat, her flight deck is not strong enough to support the Navy MH-60S so they could not even us her flight deck to extend their range, much less operate from the ship.

Most of the time, there will only be one Coast Guard surface vessel underway in this vast area. Assets are still too few to provide any degree of persistence as a deterrent to Illegal, Unreported, or Unregulated (IUU) fishing. Any vessels involved in IUU fishing would likely have a good idea where our cutters are operating and with no fixed wing search aircraft, our ability to search for IUU perpetrators is extremely limited.

In addition to more cutters, we really need good maritime domain awareness, probably meaning some kind of long-range search aircraft, manned or unmanned, operating routinely in this area. We might consider basing C-27Js in Guam. It is a long way from USCG support, but the Australian Air Force also flies C-27Js, so there might be some synergy there.