The globalpost.com has reported the identity of the various search units looking for Malaysia Flight MH370. You can find it here.
Units Searching for Flight MH370
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Category Archives: News
New Budget Process
Fiercehomelandsecurity is reporting that the Department (DHS) is initiating a new budget process, that would make it more top down.
DHS is building a process where it will define its mission and objectives, then determine what resources it needs and look across components to avoid overlaps and inefficiencies.
“My impression is that the DHS budget process is too stovepiped,” Johnson told the House Appropriations subcommittee on homeland security, during a March 11 hearing.
Johnson, a former general counsel for the Defense Department who took over at DHS in December, said he used the DoD budget process as a model.
Perhaps this is what is needed to make the Department a bit more coherent in its approach to its missions. Perhaps it would be too much to hope for, but perhaps the Department will see that Customs’ Aviation and Marine units largely unnecessarily duplicate Coast Guard assets.
I don’t have any problem with the Department defining mission and objectives or eliminating overlaps and inefficiencies. I do think they might be out of their depth in determining what resources it needs.
The new Secretary comes from the DOD and looks to their process as a model, but DOD is not necessarily the most efficient of organizations. DOD staff over and above the armed services themselves, is grossly inflated and part of the reason is that there is a lot of second guessing of the services expertise by an ever growing civilian bureaucracy, a model DHS cannot afford to duplicate.
How to Create Enemies and Make People Hate You–China vs Indonesia
We have already talked about China’s difficulties with her neighbors Japan and the Philippines. Now we have a report of a confrontation with Indonesia. Apparently Indonesia had chosen to keep this quiet, but the Chinese have chosen to brag about it.
The Indonesian vessel involved was reportedly a Todak class, which is a German Lurssen “PB-57” design, a bit larger than the FRC at 447 tons fl, 58.1 meters long and 7.6 meters of beam, armed with a Bofors 57mm (like that on the NSC), a 40mm and two 20mm. Clearly if it had come to a fight, the Indonesian vessel would have enjoyed an advantage, at least until Chinese reinforcements arrived.
China is showing a complete disregard for the provisions of the UNCLOS treaty to which they are a party.
Making an enemy of Indonesia is a particularly bad idea for China, in that Indonesia potentially controls all the major straits through which the vast majority of Chinese trade must pass and all the alternatives are also in the hands of nations China seems intent on alienating.
Could This be Bollinger’s OPC Candidate?
Navy Recognition is showing a photo of a model of a new corvette being built by Bollinger’s partner Damen for the Vietnamese Navy. The ships is the right size, 98 meters long and 14 meters of beam (321 ft x 46 ft).
We already discussed the fact that Damen had built an OPC sized ship for the Vietnamese counterpart of the USCG.
The photo even looks a little like the ships in this earlier illustration from Bollinger. The reported dimensions of the new Vietnamese vessel also correspond to the dimensions given for Damen’s 2600 ton OPV.
An interesting feature is how well armed this Vietnamese Corvette will apparently be. This bodes well for potential upgrades to the OPC. Quoting Navy Recognition:
the new SIGMA 9814 class will be fitted with:
8x MBDA Exocet MM40 Block 3
12x MBDA MICA VL surface-to-air missiles (in VLS)
1x Oto Melara 76mm main gun
2x Oto Melara MARLIN-WS 30mm gun mounts
The corvette will acomodate one anti-submarine helicopters Ka-28. The corvettes are set to receive the latest generation of electronics and sensors from Thales including TACTICOS combat management system,SMART-S Mk 2 radar and STING EO Mk 2 electro-optical fire control system.
New Commandant Nominated
Vice Adm. Paul Zukunft. U.S. Coast Guard photo.
The Coast Guard Compass has just announced that,
“Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson announced President Obama’s intent to nominate Vice Adm. Paul F. Zukunft, currently Pacific Area commander, to be the next commandant of the United States Coast Guard in an all hands email to DHS personnel.”
You can see the full announcement here.
Here is his official bio:
Vice Admiral Zukunft previously served as the Assistant Commandant for Marine Safety, Security and Stewardship. His other Headquarters flag assignments include the Director of Response Policy and the Assistant Commandant for Capability.
In 2010, Vice Admiral Zukunft served as the Federal On-Scene Coordinator for the Deepwater Horizon Spill of National Significance where he directed more than 47,000 responders, 6,500 vessels and 120 aircraft during the largest oil spill in U.S. history.
Vice Admiral Zukunft was promoted to flag rank in 2006 and his previous flag assignments include Commander, Eleventh Coast Guard District and Director, Joint Interagency Task Force West.
His senior staff assignments included Chief of Operations, Coast Guard Pacific Area and Chief of Operations Oversight, Coast Guard Atlantic Area where he directly supervised all major cutter oin the Atlantic and Pacific theaters. He also served as Chief of Staff, at the Fourteenth Coast Guard Districin Honolulu.
Vice Admiral Zukunft has commanded six units and served extensively in the cutter fleet where he commanded the cutters CAPE UPRIGHT, HARRIET LANE, and RUSH.
Vice Admiral Zukunft graduated from the U.S. Coast Guard Academy in 1977 with a Bachelor of Scdegree in Government; from Webster University in 1988 with a Master of Arts degree in Managemand from the U.S. Naval War College in 1997 with a Master of Arts degree in National Security and Strategic Studies. He is a graduate of the Asia Pacific Center for Strategic Studies Executive Seminar and Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government National Preparedness Leadership Initiative Course.
Vice Admiral Zukunft is a native of North Branford, Connecticut. He wears the permanent Cutterman pin and is a certified NIMS ICS Type I Area Commander. His personal awards include the Department of Homeland Security Distinguished Service Medal, Defense Superior Service Medal, three Legions of Merit and five Meritorious Service medals with “O” device among others.
Progress on Canada’s Arctic Offshore Patrol Ship
MarineLog is reporting a new contract has been awarded for Canada’s Arctic Offshore Patrol Ship (AOPS).
FEBRUARY 21, 2014 — OSI Maritime Systems Ltd. (OSI), Burnaby, BC, has been selected by Lockheed Martin Canada to support the design activity of the bridge and navigation capabilities for the Royal Canadian Navy’s (RCN) new class of Arctic/Offshore Patrol Ships (AOPS).
But mostly I wanted to share the illustration. To review, this is a Canadian Navy project, not Coast Guard. It is based on the Norwegian Coat Guard’s Swalbard icebreaker but the design is smaller and simplified somewhat. They plan to build “six to eight” and they will be used both in the Arctic and for more conventional patrol duties.
What we see is a relatively large OPV/light icebreaker, with what appears to be excellent facilities for boats and a single helicopter up fairly large size with facilities to handle at least a small number of containers. Compared to the USCG’s Offshore Patrol Cutters they will probably be about twice the size, oriented much more toward the Arctic, their capability as a conventional patrol vessel is likely to be compromised by low max speed, the icebreaker hull shape, and an almost total lack of weapons.
Multi-Year Contract for the Offshore Patrol Cutter?
FierceHomelandSecurity is reporting a bill, H.R. 4005, out of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee (the Coast Guard’s traditional authorizers) that would set authorization levels for the Coast Guard in FY2015 and 2016. “No large spending increases under proposed Coast Guard reauthorization”
Their write up contained an unexpected and pleasant surprise,
“Among its provisions would be one authorizing the service to enter into a multiyear contract for procurement of Offshore Patrol Cutter ships. The Coast Guard and its advocates have a long-standing argument with the Office of Management and Budget over whether it should have multiyear funding for ship procurement. The Coast Guard contends it keeps the per-unit cost of new ships down; OMB prefers to have ships fully funded before the service lets a new acquisition contract.”
Congressional Researcher Ronald O’Rourke has been pointing out the advantages of multi-year contracts for years, “Multiyear Procurement (MYP) and Block Buy Contracting in Defense Acquisition: Background and Issues for Congress” (pdf), Congressional Research Service, Ronald O’Rourke and Moshe Swartz, June 27, 2012.
Frankly, I had little hope it would be applied to the OPC, and only hoped it might be applied to the Fast Response Cutters, “Six More FRCs and Approval of Full Rate Production, Time for a Multi-Year Contract.”
It is hugely advantageous, in saving money for the American Tax Payer, and it eliminates uncertainty for both the contractor and for the Coast Guard. All the most successful Navy shipbuilding contracts are multiyear including those for both SSNs and Burke Class destroyers.
Now lets hope the bill becomes law and that a multiyear contract is awarded.
Bath Iron Works Offshore Patrol Cutter Concept
Our Friend at Navy Recognition was good enough to provide a copy of an artist’s concept of the BIW proposal he had found. We talked about the other two contenders for the OPC contract here.
The proposal is a variation of the the Navantia BAM (Buque de Acción Marítima) (more here).
The BAM has provision for carrying up to six containers. Hopefully this feature has been retained. It looks like all of the proposals may have this feature to some degree.
Presumably the ship will include the BAM’s hybrid propulsion system, with electric motors (two motors of approximately 1,000 HP) run off the ship’s service generators for slow to moderate cruising. The BAM’s main propulsion engines (12,240 HP total providing 21 knots) would probably need to be upgraded to meet the Coast Guard’s speed requirement (22 to 25 knots), but that should be fairly easy. Using the same diesels that are used in the Bertholf Class National Security Cutters (19,310 HP total) would supply the necessary power and simplify training and logistics. Alternately a four engine power plant similar to that used in the closely related Navantia built Venezuelan Guaiqueri class (approx 24,000 HP for 24 knots) would provide the necessary additional power and additional flexibility and redundancy.
In some respects the Bath proposal looks more like the Guaiqueri class with its larger central funnel, although the Bath proposal has a smaller funnel and a small additional stack presumably for the main generators to starboard.
The BAM’s length, beam, and draft are 93.9×14.2×4.2 meters (308×46.6×13.8 feet) their displacement is 2,900 tons, the Venezuelan Guaiqueri class are 98.9×13.6×3.75 (324.4×44.6×12.3 feet) and just over 2,400 tons.
It may only be that the conceptual drawing is slightly distorted, but I am a little concerned that it appears the hangar may not be long enough to take an H-60 sized helicopter. Even if we don’t need that now, we may in the future. The ship is as beamy as an FFG, so it could certainly accommodate a large double hangar.
Like the Eastern design, it looks like the Mk38mod2 on the top of the hangar is going to have a limited field of fire on one side. It does look like there is room for a second mount on top of the bridge. The 57mm, on the other hand, is up out of the green water that will inevitably washs over the bow, and has excellent fields of fire, including the ability to engage contacts close aboard, even when the ship rolls away from the target.
Both the BAM and Guaiqueri class have fewer accommodations than are expected to be provided in the OPC. So some changes were necessary there.
It appears the step-down from the flight deck to the fantail is less than a full deck. If so, then the ship is almost flush decked. e.g. the foc’sle is on the main deck. If that is the case, then the bridge would be on the O-3 deck just as it is on the 210s, 270s, 378s, and NSCs and the ship is really not as tall as it appears in the illustration. On the other hand if the step-down is a full deck (and it is on the BAM), the ship is going to feel unusually tall (but it will give a greater visible horizon).
Chinese Coast Guard Tactics
The Diplomat reports on a documentary providing new incite into the aggressive tactics being employed by the Chinese Coast Guard in their disputes with their neighbors. Scary stuff, but apparently the aggressiveness starts at the top.
Preliminary and Contract Design Contract Winners for OPC Announced
The Acquisitions Directorate has announced the three winners of contracts to develop preliminary and design contracts for the Offshore Patrol Cutter (OPC) intended to replace all existing medium endurance cutters.
“The U.S. Coast Guard today awarded three firm fixed-price contracts for preliminary and contract design (P&CD) for the Offshore Patrol Cutter (OPC) acquisition project. The contracts were awarded to Bollinger Shipyards Lockport LLC (Lockport, La.), Eastern Shipbuilding Group Inc. (Panama City, Fla.), and General Dynamics, Bath Iron Works (Bath, Maine). The total value of the award is approximately $65 million.”
We talked about what we knew about the concepts earlier. I still have not seen any information on Bath Iron Works’ proposal, but they do have an excellent reputation for building destroyer types, and it is gratifying to see them among the selectees.
Presumably Bollinger will be modifying a Damen design, possibly related to the Vietnamese OPV we discussed here.
As noted earlier, it appears Eastern’s concept may be a modification of an STX design, the New Zealand Protector Class, that we recently saw in operation off Antarctica.
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