Author Archives: Chuck Hill

Offshore Patrol Cutter (OPC) Update, 6 May 2011

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Conceptual Rendering of the OPCThe Acquisitions Directorate released their draft specifications for the Offshore Patrol cutter (OPC) Monday, May 2. This is certainly a welcome step, but in some ways it seems the plan ahead has gotten murkier rather than clearer. The description of the ship available to the public has, over time, become more general rather than more specific, and the timing of critical events is now more uncertain.

This release comes five to six months after the previously announced planned release date, as had been published on their website until it was changed this week. Currently the only milestone with a projected date on the Acquisitions Directorate website is “May – June 20, 2011 – Draft Specification Review” everything else is TBD (to be determined). This was the near term plan as it had been previously published: Continue reading →

Another Sovereignty Dispute Stand-Off

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File:Patrullero "Centinela" (2).JPGAdd another to the list of places where national interests clash over claims to offshore areas. Spain and Britain have had a long running dispute over Gibraltar and the surrounding waters. Despite progress toward “European Unity,” they don’t  seem to be getting along very well. File:HMS Sabre - P285.jpg

May 3, a Spanish patrol vessel, the Atalaya (just a bit larger than a 210, photo of a sistership top left), entered waters claimed by Britain and ordered all anchored merchant shipping to leave. The authorities in Gibraltar sent out HMS Scimitar (illustrated to the right by her sister ship) to enforce their position.

None of the merchant ships weighed anchor and after about an hour and a half the Atalaya left. “Strongly worded note to follow.”

Rather sad to see “HMS Scimitar” as a 52 foot boat when in a previous generation it was one of a class of 67 destroyers.

Indicating the Importance of Container Security

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EagleSpeak has found an interesting article in the Journal of Commerce that seems to confirm the importance of Container Security. It is an old story but Wikileaks makes public, information about Saifullah Paracha, a one time travel agent, business man, and al Qaeda operative who offered to help smuggle in explosives and biological or radiological material. He was arrested in 2003 after his son, now serving 30 years on terrorism related charges turned him.

Russian FRC–Compare and Contrast

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We already looked at a comparison of the Russian Security Service’s counterpart of the National Security Cutter with the Coast Guard version. Thought some of you might be interested to see what their version of a Fast Response Cutter looks like.

The first of the class Svetlyak class were delivered in 1988 and they are still in production. The little ships comes in three versions. The most numerous is a patrol version for the Security Service (Project 10410–photo), there is a cruise missile equipped version for the Navy (Project 10411), and an export version (Project 10412) apparently with MTU engines in lieu of the Russian diesels. The Russians have 26 of these, the Slovenians one lightly armed version (more here), and the Vietnamese have two with at least two, possibly four, more on order, armed like the Russian Security Service vessels.

 

Comparing the two classes, the Webber Class, with it’s high bow, certainly looks more sea worthy, and it’s boat appears much more ready to launch quickly in heavy weather.

The Russian design is slightly larger (375 tons vice 353), slightly faster (30 vs 28), and slightly longer (163 ft vs 154). They have three engines and three shafts instead of two and about 88% more power. They also have a bit larger crew with accommodations for 28 (vs 22-24). Again the USCG vessel has the advantage in range (2,500 nmi vs 2,200–some sources say as little as 1,300). Continue reading →

Voting Opens for 2011 “Milbloggie” Awards

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Voting has opened for the fifth annual “MilBloggie” awards, recognizing military related blogs in ten categories. You can cast your votes here.

The U. S. Coast Guard nominees are:

CGBlog
http://cgblog.org/

ryanerickson.com
http://ryanerickson.com/

Coast Guard Compass
http://coastguard.dodlive.mil/

Cadet Journal – United States Coast Guard Academy
http://www.cga.edu/display.aspx?id=13193

Those of us at CGBlog would appreciate your vote. Winners will be announced on Friday, April 29.

Fleet Mix–Where are the Trade-Offs?

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A recent GAO report offers some insight into how the AC&I budget will work for the next few years. The report is accessible here: Coast Guard: Observations on Acquisition Management and Efforts to Reassess the Deepwater Program
GAO-11-535T, Apr 13, 2011
Quick View Quick view toggle Summary (HTML)   Highlights Page (PDF)   Full Report (PDF, 18 pages)   Accessible Text

The thrust of the report seems to be that while the coast Guard has made some progress in managing its own programs since terminating Deepwater there are still a lot of problems and many of them stem from being unrealistic about budget expectations. There also seems to be an underlying frustration because the Coast Guard is not offering real alternatives to the fleet mix proposed by the discredited “Deepwater” program.

“We reported in 2009 that the administration’s budget projections indicated that the DHS annual budget was expected to remain constant or decrease over the next decade. When the Coast Guard submitted its fiscal year 2012 budget request, it also released its fiscal years 2012-2016 acquisition capital investment plan. In reviewing this plan, we found that the Coast Guard’s projected funding levels for fiscal years 2013 through 2016 are significantly higher than budgets previously appropriated or requested and therefore may be unrealistic. This unrealistic acquisition budget planning exacerbates the challenges Coast Guard acquisition programs face. As seen in figure 2, the average annual budget plan from fiscal year 2012-through fiscal year 2016 is about $520 million, or approximately 37 percent, higher than the average Coast Guard acquisition budgets previously appropriated or requested during the past 6 years.”

Continue reading →

Acquisition Directorate April Newsletter Published

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The Acquisition Directorate has published the April edition of their “Delivering the Goods” newsletter. The main story is about the upgrade of the H-65 helicopters to “D” models and future plans for additional improvements. It also talks about the R&D Centers research into keeping out invasive species; there is a short update of the Mission Effectiveness Program; and Master Chief Ayer talks about the choices that resulted in the Response Boat-Medium and why it is not ice capable.

You can get a pdf copy here.