A very interesting proposal from a very interesting young man.
There are no guarantees with this sort of proposal, but the cost is low, and the potential payoffs are huge.
Note the information on the author that was included in the US Naval Institute Proceedings Article I have included below.
The US Naval Institute Proceedings has an article advocating a restructuring of the ME rating, written by Commander Doug Daniels, and Master Chiefs Ed Briganti and Todd Walters, U.S. Coast Guard. Worth a look.
Below is an ALCOAST discussing Coast Guard participation in the “Sea-Air-Space (SAS) Global Maritime Exposition” March 6-8. This is an activity under the auspices of the Navy League. More event information can be found here. This is a big event and we can expect to see news of some new developments presented at the show. The exhibitor list runs to ten pages.
R 051034 MAR 19
FM COMDT COGARD WASHINGTON DC//CG-092//
TO ALCOAST
UNCLAS //N05700//
ALCOAST 071/19
COMDTNOTE 5700
SUBJ: 2019 SEA-AIR-SPACE (SAS) GLOBAL MARITIME EXPOSITION
A: Military Assignments and Authorized Absences, COMDTINST M1000.8 (series)
1. The annual Sea-Air-Space (SAS) Global Maritime Exposition will be held 6-8 May 2019 at the Gaylord National Resort and Conference Center, located in National Harbor, MD. SAS was founded in 1965 as a means to bring the U.S. defense industrial base, private-sector U.S. companies and key military decision makers together for an annual innovative, educational, professional, and maritime-based event located in the heart of Washington, D.C. Sea-Air-Space is now the largest maritime exposition in the U.S. and continues as an invaluable extension of the Navy League’s mission of maritime policy, education, and sea service support.
2. In accordance with REF (A) subject to command approval, attendance is allowed for local participants at no cost to the government. Supervisors should ensure attendance aligns with an employee’s primary duties. Employees who wish to attend for personal interests may use annual leave, accrued compensatory time off or earned credit hours (if available), or leave without pay. Commands outside the National Capital Region may submit no-cost permissive orders for military members who attend.
3. A shuttle will run from Coast Guard Headquarters to the SAS and back on a regular basis throughout the three-day exposition. The shuttle schedule is available at the SAS website: www.seaairspace.org.
4. Registration information is available on the SAS website. There is no charge to attend the SAS for U.S. Coast Guard military members and civilian employees.
5. Uniform is Tropical Blue for attendees. Uniform is Service Dress Bravo for panelists,
moderators, and other presenters.
6. In conjunction with Sea-Air-Space 2019, the annual STEM Expo will be held at the Gaylord on Sunday, May 5. Anyone attending SAS is also welcome to the STEM Expo with the same caveats listed above for the main convention.
7. The COMDT (CG-0923) POC is CAPT Sean Carroll, 202-372-4562, Sean.M.Carroll@uscg.mil.
8. RDML Melissa Bert, Director, Governmental and Public Affairs, sends.
9. Internet release is authorized.
Some photos of progress on the future USCGC Argus. They are building sections inverted. The 54 foot beam (same as the National Security Cutter), seen best in the last photo, is pretty impressive compared to the WMECs they will be replacing (38 feet for the 270s and 34 for the 210s)..
The Coast Guard Cutter Robert Ward (WPC-1130) is shown shortly after mooring for the first time at its homeport at Coast Guard Base Los Angeles-Long Beach, Oct. 31, 2018. The Robert Ward is the second of four new Fast Response Cutters to be stationed in San Pedro, which will help to protect the people, ports and waterways of the region and maintain security for the global supply chain and critical infrastructure within California. (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Chief Petty Officer Brandyn Hill)
Attended the commissioning of the 30th Webber class cutter, USCGC Robert Ward (WPC-1130) today, March 2.. Eleventh District Commander and Commander Pacific Area were there, and their remarks made it clear that they will try to get the most out of these little ships.
They noted that one of the class was off Central America in the Eastern Pacific drug transit zone and another was in Kwajalein (about 2125 nautical miles from Oahu). As noted earlier these vessels are performing missions that previously would have required a medium endurance cutter.
I asked crew members about what seems to be a relatively limited notional endurance of five days. I was told that they had gone six or seven days between replenishment, but once again the limited capacity of the washer/dryer was mentioned as I had heard in a comment on an earlier post. Might be worthwhile to look into a higher capacity washer/dryer and finding a bit more food storage.
In any case, these vessels are doing things that no Coast Guard patrol boats have done before.
USCGC Mellon seen here launching a Harpoon anti-ship cruise missile in 1990.
The US Naval Institute Blog has a post by Cdr. Shawn Lansing, USCG, that addresses the question of the Coast Guard’s proper place in the Federal government, specifically countering arguments proposing moving the Coast Guard to the DOD. The author also spoke against increasing the military readiness of Coast Guard assets, so let me address the two issues separately.
Should the Coast Guard be part of the DOD?
Here we agree with a resounding NO. Most of the Coast Guard’s missions are outside the DOD’s sphere of interest. (I do think it might be better if the Coast Guard’s budget were considered outside the DHS budget since half of the Coast Guard’s missions are outside the DHS sphere)
Most of the arguments in favor have as their underlying assumption, the DOD is awash in money so the Coast Guard will be well funded. Since Sequestration began in 2013, short term, the Navy seems to have done better in the budget battles than the Coast Guard, but taking the long view I see it otherwise.
I can remember when the Navy was, in terms of personnel, 22 times larger than the Coast Guard. Now it is only about eight times larger. I could not find figures to support the 22 times figure. It was about 50 years ago. It was during the height of the Cold War and the Vietnam War; the Navy had about 900 ships, but looking back at some of my older books, I found personnel figures for 1982, 1999, and 2013. (Numbers of Navy ships by year and type are available here.)
In 1982 the Navy had 555 ships and a total of 548,475 active duty uniformed personnel, the Coast Guard 33, 799, meaning the Coast Guard was 6.15% the size of the Navy, or the Navy was 16.3 times as large as the Coast Guard.
In 1999 the Navy had 336 ships and a total of 372,696 active duty uniformed personnel, the Coast Guard 35,511, meaning the Coast Guard was 9.53% the size of the Navy, or the Navy was 10.5 times as large as the Coast Guard.
In 2013 the Navy had 285 ships and a total of 317,464 active duty uniformed personnel, the Coast Guard 42,190, meaning the Coast Guard was 13.3% the size of the Navy, or the Navy was 7.5 times as large as the Coast Guard.
The Navy has been in a long and steady decline, while the Coast Guard had enjoyed moderate growth. Over the 31 years from 1982 to 2013 the number of personnel in Navy fell 42% while the comparable number for the Coast Guard went up 25%.paralleling a US population growth of 36.5% for the same period.
Somehow I cannot imagine that if the Coast Guard had been part of the DOD during that period, that they would have grown the Coast Guard while the Navy and Marine Corps shrank.
Should the Coast Guard increase its Naval Mission Capabilities?
The author quotes the Coast Guard’s first Commandant, Commodore Ellsworth Bertholf,, “the Coast Guard does not exist solely for the purpose of preparing for war. If it did there would be, of course, two navies—a large one and a small one, and that condition, I am sure you will agree, could not long exist.”
For some reason the author seems to think that this idea rules out a more combat ready Coast Guard. Combat readiness is not the Coast Guard’s reason for being, but it is one of our missions.
Naval tasks are not the reason the Coast Guard exist, but the Coast Guard will do them because it is a ready asset that can be diverted from its normal missions when an urgent need exists, just as the Navy sometimes does humanitarian missions because it is a ready asset that exists for other reasons. To do them when required, with any expectation of success requires planning and preparation.
It is true that combat readiness has a cost. It may require additional personnel and additional training, but the cost of adding a combat capability to a Coast Guard asset that would exist for other reasons, is far less than providing the same capability in an additional Navy asset in addition to a Coast Guard asset without that capability.
It is logical that the degree of effort the Coast Guard puts into readiness will vary with the apparent threat. That is why I find the decision to remove the Harpoon anti-ship missiles and ASW capabilities from the 378s after the collapse of the Soviet Union was logical. Now the situation is changing. The situation in the Pacific is starting to bare an uncanny resemblance to the situation in the late 1930s, except that China is potentially a much more dangerous adversary than Japan ever was. Unlike Japan prior to 1945, China has an industrial capability that approaches and in some respects, particularly ship building, exceeds that of the US. Russia is not the Soviet Union. It is now China’s junior partner, but if its weight is added to that of China, the balance looks even more challenging, and the trend line looking to the future does not look good.
So far the Navy and Coast Guard have not done much about planning the Coast Guard’s role in a near peer conflict. Creative use of Navy owned equipment on cutters and augmentation by Navy Reserves could lessen the impact on the Coast Guard budget. We could see a lot more synergy between the Coast Guard and the Navy Reserve. Planning the use of Navy Reserve ASW helicopters and crew augmentation by Navy Reserve sonar techs and ASW trained officers seem appropriate. They could also augment Coast Guard assets during more routine operations to exploit Navy capabilities such as towed array sonars for law enforcement operations.
There is also the side benefit that the sensors required for Naval roles may make the cutters more capable in low enforcement, migrant interdiction, and SAR.
The Coast Guard proudly claim to be a military service at all times, once again it is time to act like one.
Bertholf’s argument, quoted above, did not mean he did not send cutters to escort convoys in WWI.
“You can get the money, but you can never get the time,” The New York Times reports on the continuing ill effects of the 35 day partial government shutdown.
“The government shutdown that ended last month has taken a lasting hit on the Coast Guard, which has grounded aircraft, stopped major ship repairs and will leave parts of an air station in Puerto Rico without emergency generators for the start of hurricane season because of a backlog that will take months to process.
“Internal documents obtained by The New York Times show that the Coast Guard’s ship maintenance command lost at least 7,456 productive workdays — or 28.5 years’ worth of workdays — as a direct result of the partial shutdown, which furloughed 6,400 civilian employees.”
The Diplomat has an excellent report entitled “Predicting the Chinese Navy of 2030.” It is apparent the Chinese are now building at a rate that exceeds that of the US. They started behind. Already they are the largest navy in the world in terms of numbers of ships. In terms of personnel, it is about 80% the size of the USN. Every year the US margin in both quantity and quality for each type of ship narrows. Plus the US Navy is scattered all over the world while their fleet is concentrated in the Western Pacific, although it appears they will be creating Carrier Strike Groups and Amphibious Ready Groups which will mirror the US Navy’s ability to project power anywhere in the world.
The bottom line projections in the Diplomat article are:
At least some of the approximately 83 Type 022 catamaran missile boats built 2004 to 2011, are likely to be around as well.
For comparison, the current US Navy fleet can be found here. Despite the proclaimed intent of having 355 ships in the US “battle force” actual number (currently about 288 including 60 logistics and support ships) will change only slowly, with most of the changes being in number of small surface combatants (Littoral Combat Ships and Frigates). The number of submarines will actually decline.
Based on the Navy’s “Report to Congress on the Annual Long-Range Plan for Construction of Naval Vessels for Fiscal Year 2019” page 12, table A3-4, the Navy’s 2030 inventory of comparable combatants will be:
To make this clearer I will aggregate the results as fractions with the Chinese numbers on top as the numerator and the USN numbers on the bottom as denominator (Chinese/USN). A + sign is to indicate there may be more.
The size of the Chinese submarine fleet may not increase, it is already more numerous than the US fleet, but the increasing quality, including more SSNs is troubling.
Unless the US increases its warship construction rate, the comparison for 2040 will look much worse. Equipping modern Coast Guard vessels for naval missions as part of the “National Fleet” could make a huge difference in any future conflict.
Photo: Offshore Patrol Vessel L’Adroit built by Naval Group as a private venture
MarineLink is reporting the French Shipbuilder Naval Group will provide four Offshore Patrol Vessels to Argentina including the L’Adroit completed in 2012 and three similar new construction vessels
L’Adroit had been constructed as a private venture demonstrator which was operated by the French Navy for several years.
Specs for L’Adroit, using various sources, are:
“The three new OPVs will also be adapted to navigation in the cold waters of the southern seas thanks to structural reinforcement. All four ships will be equipped with a remotely-operated 30 mm cannon.”
A Schiebel S-100 conducts trials aboard the L’Adroit. A four-person detachment for the S-100 can be embarked on L’Adroit when the UAV is aboard. Schiebel photo
Presumably these will replace the 80 meter Fassmer designed OPVs Argentina had planned but never built.
L’Adroit was one of the vessels I pointed to as a possible basis for Cutter X.
Photo: L’Adroit’s hangar doors looking forward from the flight deck
USCGC Polar Star at McMurdo Station, 2019
Homeland Security Today is reporting the newly passed Coast Guard budget contains some very good news, including $655M for the new Polar Security Cutter.
The total budget is approximately $12,016M. This is about $92M less than last year, but that budget was remarkable in funding two National Security Cutters (#10 and #11). Presumably it contains funding for the second Offshore Patrol Cutter and long lead time items for the third. These were included in the original request, but were not mentioned in the report.
The Coast Guard gets $15 million for an additional 250 military personnel in the legislative agreement, $12.9 million for the 2019 pay raise, and $2 million to increase child care benefits and cost of living increases.
The bill is reported to include a couple of reporting requirements that may indicate where the Congress thinks the Coast Guard should be heading.
The bill directs the USCG to submit a plan within 120 days for a one-year pilot program to address illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing, which “leads to billions in losses for the global fishing industry and is a source of financing for illicit activity such as piracy, drug trafficking, human trafficking, and slavery.”
Within 180 days, the USCG is required to give relevant committees “an assessment of the Coast Guard’s ability to conduct maritime law enforcement activities in the high seas in support of international partners.” (emphasis applied–Chuck)
The illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing could just be in reference to helping Micronesia. The law enforcement activities with partners could be about drug enforcement, but that is already pretty well understood. Could this mean we might be helping the Vietnam or the Philippines with their Chinese fisheries problems?
There is “$5,000,000 for survey and design work to support the acquisition of a Great Lakes icebreaker.” Based on earlier discussions, this ship would be at least as capable as the current USCGC Mackinaw.
The budget includes six additional Webber class “Fast Response Cutters,” four toward the 58 in the program of record and a second pair toward the replacement of the six 110s in South West Asia.
Aviation did reasonably well. “…$105,000,000 for the HC-130J aircraft program; $95,000,000 to recapitalize MH-60T aircraft; $8,000,000 to fund both the planned avionics upgrades and the costs associated with the service life extension project for HH-65 aircraft.”
It is gratifying to see that our “Unfunded Priorities List (UPL)” made a difference since frequently in the past we had no UPL. $119M was allocated for UPL items.
Chuck Hill's CG Blog 