Category Archives: News

A Tale of Two Harbor Defense Organizations–Part One

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This is the start of a three part series, the story of two harbor defense organizations, how one, already at war, well trained and well armed, failed to stop a small force, while another, ostensibly at peace, facing a vastly stronger force, and in many ways poorly prepared, managed to stop their enemy.

I’ll put both stories in context, but what I found most interesting and most relevant to current Coast Guard missions was the means employed and the relative success of each in stopping a hostile ship from reaching its objective inside a port. The third part will talk about implications for the Coast Guard.

File:Saint Nazaire Harbour 1942.png
First, the St Nazaire raid. This is normally told from the prospective of the heroic British sailors and commandos who successfully ran a small ship (about the size of a 210) into the gates of the only dry dock on the Atlantic coast of occupied Europe where major German warships, including the Battleship Tirpitz, could be serviced. There the four and a half tons of explosive packed into the bow of the ship, exploded, wrecking the dry dock gates and disabling it for the remainder of the war. Continue reading →

Piracy Update, 2/2/11

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Three Indian vessels, two Navy and one Coast Guard sank a pirate mothership, killing some of the pirates, taking 15 prisoner, and freeing 20 hostages after a 12 hour “battle” here and here. The Indian Navy vessels were Car Nicobar class fast attack craft, about the size of the Webber class Fast Response Cutter, a bit faster, with much larger crews. Reportedly they have eleven machine guns on board. That may include the 30 mm main armament. The Coast Guard Ship, CGS Sankalp, sounds a lot like an OPC, 2,300 tons, helicopter deck and hanger, 25 knots and a crew of 106. Interestingly all three vessels were relatively new. All were delivered in the last three years. Continue reading →

Bring Back the Coast Guard ASW Mission

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With the end of the Soviet Union, it looked like there was no longer a significant threat from submarines. The Coast Guard, whose ASW assets were already largely obsolete, took the opportunity to simplify its training and maintenance requirements by eliminating what remained of the Coast Guard’s ASW capability. It made sense at the time, but times have changed.

The Emerging Threat

For the first time, with narcotics traffickers starting to use true submarines, it looks like an ASW capability is essential to do a peacetime mission. (The primary surface ship ASW sensor, the towed array, can also help us find semi-submersibles and possibly other targets as well.)

In addition, the threat of military submarines has reemerged.  There are still relatively few nuclear submarines in the hands of possible adversaries (other than possibly Russia) but their numbers are growing, and new air independent submarine technologies are making diesel electric submarines deadlier then ever.

Why the Navy will need Help

Continue reading →

Manning Ships, Navy Acknowledges Mistake, Will the Coast Guard?

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The Navy has admitted they made a mistake by attempting to minimize the manning of their ships using a concept called “Optimal Manning.” As unfortunate as the mistake may have been–and it has resulted in a lot of pain and may have weakened the service for years to come–poor morale and broken ships–at least now it has been acknowledged. There has been some soul searching about how the mistake was made. The general consensus seems to be that a new generation of leaders was absolutely positive they have evolved to be smarter than those that went before, and since their solution is so obviously superior, there is no need to test it on a small scale be for applying it service wide.

Has the Coast Guard made a similar mistake in attempting to replace twelfve 378s with only eight National Security Cutters, based on an untried concept called “Crew Rotation Concept (CRC)?” Unlike the Navy’s mistake, if we have made a mistake in adopting this concept, it cannot be quickly reversed by moving billets ashore back afloat.

Continue reading →

Interesting Hull Form from China–Missile Boat to Patrol Boat

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The Chinese have built a large number of 140 foot long, 225 ton vessels (perhaps 100) using a relatively exotic hull form, and there is a suggestion that they may start offering export derivatives of the hull for maritime policing.

You can see the type in motion here. Click on “Type 022 (Houbei Class).”  The video is 2m 11s long. (What is the device at the stern seen at  1:51 in the video? dipping sonar?)

There is more information describing the technology and the origin of the design here.

There is an interesting, but unconventional, view of how these ships may be used here.

There are some still pictures here.

For those of you who may be US Naval Institute members, there is an article on the class here. Unfortunately, it is only accessible to members.

Taiwan Coast Guard Adds Two New Ships

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The Taiwan Coast Guard, has just accepted two new major ships, the “Tainan” a 2,462 tons “frigate” and “Patrol Boat No. 7,” 1,845 tons. Both appear similar in configuration and capability to Japanese and Chinese Cutters–they appear to be made to merchant standards, and their armament is modest.

The Taiwanese President, Ma Ying-jeou, presided over the commissioning of the larger vessel. The “feel good” statements are here. A more forthright statement of their purpose is here.

The Taiwan (Republic of China) Coast Guard is a relatively recent addition, having been formed in 2000. They seems to have followed the USCG model in many respects.

The Taiwanese Coast Guard is charged with policing a total area of 540,000 square kilometers, which is 15 times larger than the island of Taiwan.

Taiwan is the third party in the dispute with China and Japan over the islands variously known as Senkaku, Diaoyu, Diaoyutai, or the Pinnacle Islands.

(This photo, found on the first link, shows a Taiwan Coast Guard ship that looks an awful lot like a 270.)

Surface Navy Association National Symposium–CG Update

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A number of presentations made at the Surface Navy Association’s National Symposium are available on line. One of these is the Commandant’s own presentation. It is about 45 minutes long.

I haven’t watched all the presentations yet, but you might also be interested in watching the “Updating the Surface Navy Vision” presentation by RADM Frank C. Pandolfe, Director, Surface Warfare, N86, OPNAV, it’s a fine bit of salesmanship, including a lot of information about the Littoral Combat Ship.

Other presentations were:

  • “CNO Speech, Annual Banquet and Awards,” ADM Gary Roughead, Chief of Naval Operations
  • “U.S. Fleet Forces Update,” ADM John C. Harvey, Jr., Commander, Fleet Forces Command
  • “Keynote Address,” ADM Jonathan W. Greenert, Vice Chief of Naval Operations
  • “The Surface Navy Today – A View from the Bridge,” VADM D.C. Curtis, Commander, Naval Surface Forces
  • “Exclusive Interview,”VADM D.C. Curtis, Commander, Naval Surface Forces
  • “Programmatic Update,” VADM John T. Blake, Deputy Chief of Naval Operations
  • “Capitol Hill Perspectives on the Navy’s Future Force,”Congressman Todd Akin, U.S. House of Representatives, Missouri
  • “Marine Corps Update,” GEN James F. Amos, Commandant, U.S. Marine Corps
  • “Expeditionary Warfare’s Role in the Hybrid War,” MGEN Timothy, C. Hanifen, USMC, Director, Expeditionary Warfare Division

The Philippine Coast Guard

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Looking a little further into the proposal for the Philippine Navy to take over one or more of our 378s, I got curious about the Philippine Coast Guard. In some ways they are in much better shape than the Philippine Navy, on average their vessels are newer. Like the Philippine Navy, their air arm is very weak, but they actually seem to have more flight decks (at least four) than their Navy.

Wikipedia has a description of the Philippine Coast Guard but was a bit short on pictures and descriptions of the vessels. I found photos here, just click on the names in blue, in most, but not all cases, they links to pictures.  There are also some additional pictures further down the thread.