DefenseNews has a short interview with outgoing Commandant, Admiral Papp. Generally nothing too surprising except perhaps the statement that he wrote fitness reports for all the CG flag officers every year and followed it up with counseling, certainly an onerous if extremely important task.
Overall an interesting and relatively short read.
I think I’m going to miss Admiral Papp.
Thought I had posted about this ship earlier, but could not find it, if I did. At any rate our friend at Think Defence has done a nice write up. This class (90 meters), may be the evolutionary immediate predecessor of Eastern’s OPC proposal, being a development of the New Zealand Protector class OPV (85 meters), which was in turn a development of the Irish Róisín Class (80 meters). The Samuel Beckett class is notable for their low cost, hybrid propulsion, and small crew size.
NavyRecognition is reporting the launch of the first for a class of ships being built for the Maritime Border Guards of the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation (FSB, successor of the KGB). The ship is similar in many respect to the projected Offshore Patrol Cutter.
Named “Ocean,” she is reportedly ice strengthened with a displacement of 2,700 tons, a speed of 20 knots, a range of 12,000 miles, and a 60 day endurance. She has a hangar and flight deck, at least two RHIBs, and a 76mm gun. Unlike previous classes used by the Maritime Boarder Guards this is not an adaptation of a Navy design.
gCaptain has a report of an interesting exercise that took place in the San Francisco Bay area involving towing a 1200 foot long container ship.
Interesting summary of an accident that resulted in the loss of a helicopter and two crewmen. Looks to be the result on fixation on accomplishing a routine mission to the detriment of safety considerations, something of a common problem for the military,
Versions of the following quotation are frequently mis-attributed to Petronius.
We trained hard … but it seemed that every time we were beginning to form up into teams we would be reorganized. I was to learn later in life that we tend to meet any new situation by reorganizing; and a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while producing confusion, inefficiency, and demoralization.
In fact it is from the magazine article “Merrill’s Marauders” (Harper’s Magazine, 1957) that earned Ogburn (Charlton Ogburn) his book contract. In full, it reads thus:
We trained hard, but it seemed that every time we were beginning to form up into teams we would be reorganised. Presumably the plans for our employment were being changed. I was to learn later in life that, perhaps because we are so good at organising, we tend as a nation to meet any new situation by reorganising; and a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while producing confusion, inefficiency and demoralization. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlton_Ogburn
After the sinking of the ferry Sewol with the loss of over 300, South Korea’s President Park Geun-hye is vowing to dismember the South Korean Coast Guard.
South Korea’s EEZ is only about three percent that of the US’s but their Coast Guard is relatively large with about 4,500 personnel (according to my Combat Fleets of the World). Wikipedia indicates they have six fixed wing and 18 helicopters (not a lot, but proportionately more than the USCG). Most surprisingly, they have 33 ships of over 1000 tons with a total displacement greater than that of all USCG WMECs, WHECs, and WMSLs combined. They also have 39 WPCs of 250 to 500 tons. I don’t see any evidence that they have any responsibility for Aids to Navigation, Alien Migrant Interdiction (although that might be a subset of another mission} or ice operations, otherwise their mission set seems to parallel that of the USCG, but their priorities are shaped by the proximity of North Korea, China, and Japan.
The New York Times reports their President sees the problem as a cozy relationship between regulators and the regulated, something all regulatory organizations must guard against.
With that, she declared a war against what she called her country’s deeply entrenched culture of “kkiri kkiri,” or collusive ties between businesses and government regulators that she said had spawned lax regulatory enforcement and an easy acceptance of poor safety standards throughout the society.
The BBC reports,
Ms Park added that in its current form, the coastguard would be unable to prevent another large-scale disaster.
“The coastguard continued to get bigger in size but did not have enough personnel and budget allocated for maritime safety, and training for rescue was very much insufficient,” she said, according to Reuters.
Stars and Stripes has some very revealing statistics regarding the experience of South Korean Coast Guard Personnel.
Eleven out of the 13 coast guard chiefs named since 1996 have been land-based police officers, not coast guard officers; the top 14 current coast guard officers have no experience working as captains for 1,000-ton-class ships or bigger vessels; and about 25 percent of its top 67 officers have had less than one month of experience working on patrol ships, the coast guard said, confirming reports published by lawmakers.
It really appears that the problem is not the fact that they have a Coast Guard, but that it has been mismanaged and unprofessional. Clearly their Coast Guard is big enough, but it suffers from a leadership that does not understand the Marine environment and that will not be helped by the proposed reorganization. I am afraid the proposed reorganization will only provide the appearance of action while failing to address the very real problems.
They might benefit from more time spent with the US Coast Guard.
I am not going to be in a position to monitor the blog closely for the next week. My apologies in advance to anyone whose comments get stuck in the spam filter.
Please continue the conversation.
FierceHomelandSecurity is reporting on testimony of both the Commandant and the Commander of SouthCom, Marine Corps Gen. John Kelly, before a joint hearing of the House Transportation and Infrastructure and Foreign Affairs subcommittees.
“Joint Interagency Task Force South, which is part of Southcom and includes the Coast Guard, (other–Chuck) military services and other agencies, seizes the majority of the cocaine bound for the United States, said Marine Corps Gen. John Kelly, the Southcom commander. Yet it receives only 1.5 percent of the federal government’s total counternarcotics budget, he said.”
Commandant Adm. Robert Papp, who appeared alongside Kelly, said that in the past five years, the Coast Guard seized more than twice the amount of cocaine as all domestic law enforcement agencies – federal, state and local – combined.
Over the last five years, Coast Guard ships and law enforcement detachments operating in the offshore regions have removed more than a million pounds of cocaine with a wholesale value of nearly $17 billion. This is more than two times the amount of cocaine seized by all other U.S. federal, state and local law enforcement agencies combined.
While I have my own reservations about the effectiveness of efforts to restrict supply, if you are going to attempt to cut supply, it sure looks like funding Coast Guard efforts should be the first place to put your money.
Bellona.org is reporting the expected award of a contract for three new generation Nuclear Powered Icebreakers that would be the most powerful in the world. The first of class is expected to enter service in 2017 followed by two more in 2019 and 2020.
Interesting news article here. A native group is displeased with the performance of Canadian Fisheries authorities and has taken matters into their own hands:
“Until further notice, Stz’uminus First Nation will prohibit access to its core territory in the Salish Sea by all vessels, including but not limited to, commercial fishing vessels, Fisheries and Oceans Canada vessels, and any non-Native civilians and government officials,” John Elliott, chief of the Ladysmith-area band said in a statement released Friday.
Chuck Hill's CG Blog 