gCaptain is reporting that an American Burke class destroyer, USS Porter (DDG-78), was damaged in a collision with a Panamanian flagged, Japanese owned oil tanker, in the Straits of Hormuz. gCaptain has more photos. There were no reports of injury. 
I had family visiting for a few days early this week and was unable to post. While I was away a number of stories appeared concerning the Arctic. I will just reference them with short comments.
There is an article here, “On Thin Ice: U.S. Capability Lacking in the Race for the Arctic,” by a recent Annapolis graduate that provides a good primer on the state of US interest in the Arctic and why we should care. It also has some thoughtful recommendations.
AUGUST 7, 2012 — Bruce Harland, Vice President-Commercial Services of Crowley Maritime Corporation, testified this week on behalf of Crowley and the American Waterways Operators (AWO) before a Kodiak, Alaska, field hearing of the Homeland Security Subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Appropriations. The hearing, which was held at the request of Sen. Lisa Murkowski (AK-R) and led by Subcommittee chairwoman Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA), focused on the need for a robust U.S. Coast Guard presence in Alaska as the U.S. pursues expanding navigation opportunities in the Arctic region.
His recommendations included:
- Accurate charting and hydrographic information;
- Greater use of electronic charting and other aids;
- Increased AIS coverage to help identify vessels;
- A vessel traffic system for Unimak Pass and Bering Straits;
- More accurate regional weather and tide information;
- Improved Coast Guard incident response and search and rescue capabilities;
- Greater ice breaking capabilities; and
- Establishment of a Deepwater Arctic Port.
To confirm Mr. Harland’s concern about charts, NOAA is telling us the charts of the Arctic waters are terribly inadequate.
The Commandant advises that while leasing icebreakers may be helpful in the short term, leasing alone is not a long term solution.
Navy times reports the Commandant told a U.S. Senate Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee, regarding near term preparations in the Arctic. particularly in regard to Shell’s intention to drill exploratory wells,
“For right now, we are well prepared, because like we always do traditionally, we have multi-mission assets that we can deploy, that are very capable, and that are sufficient for the level of human activity that’s going on this summer and perhaps for the next three or four summers.”
The Coast Guard cutter Juniper (WLB-201) is participating in Exercise Nanook, with Canadian and Danish forces in the waters between Greenland and Canada. This is the third year of CG participation.
Meanwhile the Russians are building a huge new 568 foot long, 33,540 ton, 235,000 HP, nuclear icebreaker to add to their already large fleet, and the they also planning on investing Billions in Arctic infrastructure including bases for the Navy and Maritime Boarder Troops (Coast Guard). I don’t see this as a military threat, but it does seem like the Russians are paying a lot more attention than the US government. They are acting while we wrangle.
Fiercehomelandsecurity is reporting that Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has rejected Department auditors’ recommendation that CBP adopt the Coast Guard’s ALMIS aviation maintenance information system.
“‘CBP should promptly terminate’ its planned acquisition of a standalone IT system for aircraft, auditors say–something which James Tomsheck, CBP assistant commissioner for the office of internal affairs, said in the component’s official response to auditors that it won’t do.”
The Department had hoped to increase efficiency by integrating the both CG and CBP aircraft maintenance under a single system.
Read the full story here.
A couple of very interesting videos of clever ideas that work together and might have Coast Guard applications.
First there is this little tracked amphibious truck, which can be launched from and climb back onto the catamaran work boat in the second video. Looks like these might have application in maintaining aids to navigation in rivers, deltas, shallow water, marshes, and possibly over snow and ice.
They might also come in handy during floods and for occasional atypical SAR cases.
Thanks to Lee for bringing these to my attention; I’m pretty sure he saw them at http://www.thinkdefence.co.uk/
A Happy Coast Guard Day to all.
The President’s message is here:
http://coastguard.dodlive.mil/2012/08/coast-guard-day-message-from-president-obama/
The Congressional Budget Office, July 2012 “An Analysis of the Navy’s Fiscal Year 2013 Shipbuilding Plan” (pdf), has an interesting sidebar, that applies to the Coast Guard as well as the Navy. It confirms what we have noted before (“Comparing Apples and Oranges-Ships and Cars”) The cost of ship building in the US is going up at a faster rate than inflation in general.
“Inflation in Shipbuilding
“An important factor affecting the Navy’s and the Congressional Budget Office’s (CBO’s) estimates is assumptions about future increases in the cost of building naval ships. The Department of Defense (DoD) has an overall estimate of future inflation (known as an inflator) that it uses to project increases in the costs of its procurement programs. However, according to the Navy, DoD’s inflator is lower than the actual inflation that occurred in the naval shipbuilding industry in the past decade. The Navy provided CBO with a historical shipbuilding index for 1960 through 2011 that incorporates the growth in the costs of labor and materials that the industry has experienced in the past. To project ship inflation for 2012 through 2018, the service extrapolated from that historical experience, using a weighted composite of annual percentage changes in the costs of labor and materials specific to shipbuilding. Those data are based on information provided by the shipyards about labor costs in the past, as well as on advance pricing agreements, vendor surveys, and projections of the cost of materials from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
“From 2012 through 2018, the Navy projects, the index will grow at an average annual rate of 2.9 percent. By comparison, the gross domestic product (GDP) price index, which measures the prices of all final goods and services in the economy, will grow at an average annual rate of 1.6 percent between 2012 and 2018, in CBO’s estimation. The difference between the two rates implies that annual inflation will be 1.3 percentage points higher for shipbuilding programs during that period than for the economy as a whole.”
This suggest a number of things.
To some extent, this additional inflation, combined with low production rates, explains growth in the cost of the Coast Guard’s recapitalization over and above normal inflation rates.
We can expect additional actual cost growth in the future. Since cost will be compared to overall inflation rates the Coast Guard can expect more criticism as the project is dragged out.
Since the 10 and 20 year treasury bond rate (about 2.2%) is actually less than the inflation rate in the ship building industry (2.9%), the government would actually save money borrowing to pay for the accelerated construction. In addition construction at a higher rate and possibly multi-year procurements might save as much as an additional savings, possibly as much as 30%.
The GAO has published a new report, GAO-12-741, “Legacy Vessels’ Declining Conditions Reinforce Need for More Realistic Operational Targets”. I’ve added a link to the report on the reference page.
Hopefully I’ll be able to review it soon and provide the highlights. After a cursory glance one surprising result is that the 210s seem to be holding up better than the 270s, in spite of there age. This may be a reflection of their simplicity–fewer things to go wrong.
The naval centric blog Informationdissemination has an interesting series of charts that purportedly show what the Navy thinks will be typical fleet distributions in the years 2013, 2017, and 2020.
It included a couple of surprises that might impact the Coast Guard.
Apparently there will be some significant changes in the forces assigned to SouthCom (Fourth Fleet). This could reasonably be expected to impact drug enforcement operations in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific and Law Enforcement Detachments assigned to SouthCom Navy assets.
From five ships in 2013, typically:
In 2017, PCs and JHSVs replace the cruisers, destroyers, and frigates. The force is expected to include fourteen vessels:
By 2020 two LCS replace the amphib. The composition is expected to include fifteen vessels:
The PCs are presumably Cyclone Class, because there are no new construction PCs planned for the Navy, but there is some question as to whether the Cyclone class will last until 2017 much less 2020.
The coding in the charts tell us the two JHSVs are expected to be permanently stationed in the area. (Could that mean Puerto Rico?) The other assets rotate in and out of the area. The JHSVs are fast. They have a helo deck. I haven’t seen any indication of their boat handling arrangement yet. They are basically high speed ferries, intended for intra-theater transportation. Their range is relatively limited.
The charts don’t indicate any shift in interest into the Arctic. Hard to tell if that omission is meaningful. Presumably some of the 15 ships on the West Coast (Third Fleet) could operate in the Arctic, but there is no change in the numbers on either coast in any of the three charts.
(Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, the charts tell us nothing about the six WPCs currently assigned to Patrol Forces South West Asia (PATFORSWA)).
gCaptain is reporting China has awarded the Finnish firm Aker Arctic Technology Inc. a contract for design of an icebreaking research ship.
Dimensions are reportedly about 120 meters length overall, a maximum breadth of 22,3 m and draught of 8,5 m.
The Brits have come up with a device for launching and recovering a relatively large motor lifeboat over the beach. The boat in question is 18 ton, not much smaller than a 47 foot MLB.
Certainly the Coast Guard has a number of trailerable boats, but I don’t think I have ever seen anything like this.
Chuck Hill's CG Blog 