Category Archives: Weapons

“JUST IN: Marine Corps Ramps Up Production of Remote Weapon Stations” –National Defense/ Maybe Something the Coast Guard Could Use

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National Defense reports,

The Marine Corps is preparing for the transition to full-rate production of the Marine Air Defense Integrated System Remote Weapon Station, according to a July 10 press release from manufacturer Kongsberg.

The Marine Air Defense Integrated System Remote Weapon Station, otherwise known as MADIS RWS, is a critical system in the Marine Corps Ground-Based Air Defense portfolio, which provides protection from drones with increased lethality against evolving threats.

Since this is a Marine system, built to be exposed to salt air and sea spray, there is no reason it could not also be a naval mount.

Currently no Coast Guard ships seem to have an effective hard kill system to use against Unmanned Air Systems.

The Marines seem to think they have an effective system.

It looks like a version of the MADIS system could be a very useful addition to some Coast Guard Cutters. The Navy might even want a few, including perhaps for the protection of Military Sealift Command Ships.

The war in Ukraine is showing us how useful and potentially dangerous even small Unmanned Surface and Air systems can be. The threat is not limited to Ukraine or Southwest Asia.

The MADIS system and its Remote Weapon Station is light enough to be used on virtually anything the Coast Guard calls a cutter. In addition to defense against UAS, this system could provide basic air defense against other potential threats and defense against swarming small craft.

The Webber Class:

We have already seen the sensors used in the MADIS system on the Webber class WPCs in PATFORSWA, but even those cutters don’t have an effective, installed hard kill system.

The addition of the MADIS remote weapon station to PATFORSWA FRCs would not only allow the cutters to engage UAS but would also provide them with protection against various air threats.

While perhaps less urgent, mounting the system on all Webber class would allow them to offer this protection to other potential targets.

Offshore Patrol Cutter port quarter

The Offshore Patrol Cutter (OPC): 

There are two troubling issues with the OPC with regard to their armament.

  • Aside from the .50 calibers, on most bearings, there is only one weapon that can bear on a target. The lack of redundancy is a serious weakness.
  • Protection against even the most basic air threats, including UAS, is weak at best.

I have always been a bit concerned that the arc of fire for the single 25mm Mk38 Mod3 gun is severely limited. It’s mounted on top of the hangar, but what appear to be satcom antennas on either side may limit the firing arc to less than 180 degrees.

Replacing the Mk38 mount, the two .50 caliber in remote weapon stations, and the crew served .50 caliber guns with three properly sited MADIS style remote weapon stations (RWS), would ensure redundant coverage of 360 degrees, provide a more robust air defense (including against cruise missiles), and reduce the number of different weapon systems that need to be maintained.

The National Security Cutters (NSC):

The NSCs are nominally better armed than the OPCs because they have a 20mm Phalanx rather than a 25 Mk38. They would certainly be better off if a pair of the MADIS RWS replaced the .50 caliber crew served weapons. The additional visual sensors might also be useful. It might even be preferable to replace the Phalanx with a third RWS.

Polar Security Cutter and Others: 

The remote weapon system does not necessarily require the air search radar system. This system is light and compact enough to arm virtually any cutter from patrol boats to icebreakers including buoy tenders that do occasionally do law enforcement and would benefit from the electro-optics that are part of the Remote Weapon Station.

Other Considerations: 

Other Remote Weapon Station combinations might be preferable. I would like to see a more powerful gun than the M230 combined with Hellfire or APKWS in addition to Stinger, but this is in the Navy’s system now and provides a unique combination of capabilities. Training and maintenance course should become available.

The gun in the remote weapon system, the XM914E1 30mm that fires the 30x113mm does have a lower muzzle velocity (805 m/s (2,641 ft/s)) than the 25mm M242 (1,100 m/s (3,600 ft/s)) but the 30mm has a higher rate and airburst ammunition not currently available for US 25mm guns. The 25mm might be a better anti-surface weapon but not by much and the air burst ammunition and particularly the Stinger make me strongly favor the MADIS system.

From Back Left: 40mm grenade casing, 30x173mm (A-10/M44), 30x113mm (M230), 25x137mm (M242/Mk38 gun mount), 20x103mm (Phalanx), 50 BMG
300Blackout (typical rifle round), 9mmx19 (typical pistol round)

The air search radars used with the MADIS system would provide redundancy for air search and helicopter approach control. It could also be used to support UAS operations. Reportedly the radar has a range of up to 30km and an instrumented range of 50km at altitudes from 30ft to 30,000 feet.

Stinger may be an old system, but it has a proven capability. It is likely to be replaced with a new and even better system in the near future.

“Our Best Look Yet at the Marines’ New Loitering Munition Toting Drone Boat” –MSN

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HERO 120 launcher on Long Range Unmanned Surface Vessel (LRUSV)

We talked about the HERO 120 loitering munition before. I noted it might be just what the Coast Guard needs to deal with the potential threat of small, fast, highly maneuverable craft.

While man portable single round launchers are probably all Coast Guard units might need (other than perhaps Bahrain based PATFORSWA Webber class cutters), we now have photos of an eight-cell launcher mounted on a Metal Shark optionally manned 40-foot, Long Range Unmanned Surface Vessel (LRUSV).

The Hero 120 is the largest offering in UVision’s “tactical” line of loitering munitions, weighing around 27 and a half pounds, including a 10-pound warhead. It uses an electric motor to drive a propeller at the rear and has a maximum endurance of around 60 minutes.

U.S. Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Brian W. Cavanaugh, the commanding general of Fleet Marine Force, Atlantic, Marine Forces Command, Marine Forces Northern Command, and Marines with 3d Marine Littoral Regiment, 3rd Marine Division, examine the manual controls to the Long Range Unmanned Surface Vessel, Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek-Fort Story, Virginia, April 27, 2023. A LRUSV is an optionally manned vessel capable of extended travel and transporting loitering munitions that accurately track and destroy targets on sea or land. Metal Shark is designing, building, testing and implementing the LRUSV system under another transaction authority agreement with Marine Corps Systems Command to primarily serve as an intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance platform.
© Provided by The Drive

While it looks increasingly likely this system will become common in the Navy/Marine Corps inventory, it is perhaps important to remember that this eight-round launcher is not necessary to launch these. Loaded single round launchers are small enough to be man portable and would impose no heavy loads on the platform at launch. Certainly, some training would be required, but they could be stored in a group, station, or ship’s armory and be issued when needed.

Missing Anti-Ship Cruise Missiles

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Long Range Anti-Ship Missile (LRASM)

Myself and others have suggested that it might be a good idea to equip US Coast Guard cutters with anti-ship cruise missiles (ASCMs).

While I think cutters should be fitted for launchers of at least eight ASCMs, so that in wartime they might swamp the defenses of an enemy combatant with a relatively robust air defense, they don’t need to carry that many all the time. (The new FFGs will carry up to 16 ASCMs.) For defense against a possible terrorist attack using a medium to large ship, two LRASM, AGM-158C Long Range Anti-Ship Missile, with their large warhead and target selectivity, would probably suffice. For sensitive international peacetime missions, they might need or want to carry none at all.

Certainly not everyone agrees, “U.S. Coast Guard’s VADM Linda Fagan (Pacific Command) answers why the Large Coast Guard Cutters Do Not Up-Arm” by Peter Ong, but there may be another reason the idea has not been accepted.

A Defense News report has a revealing quote,

“We need about 1,000 to 1,200 [long-range anti-ship missiles] if you believe the unclassified wargames,” Gallagher adding, noting the U.S. currently has less than 250 in its inventory.

That may only refer to the Long Range Anti-Ship Missile, but there may be a shortage of anti-ship missiles. That could explain a lot, including why no ASCMs on cutters; why no ASCM armed surface combatants; why so slow to arm LCS with cruise missiles, why many Destroyers apparently have no ASCMs. DOD is going to fill their highest priority needs first.

The US Navy has about 110 surface combatants (cruisers, destroyers, and LCS). If each were armed with 8 ASCMs that would require 880. Submarines may carry a relatively small number of ASCMS, but ships are not the primary users of ASCMs. Aircraft have that role.

Each Air Force B-1Bs can carry up to 24 LRASMs. LRASM and NSM are also to be carried by Navy F/A-18s and Air Force, Navy, and Marine F-35, and by P-8 Maritime Patrol Aircraft. A fully loaded Aircraft Carrier might require well over a hundred missiles.

Until recently, ASCM procurement rates have been modest. Apparently, more missiles are coming.

The rapid consumption of high-tech munitions in Ukraine has apparently convinced many we need deeper magazines.

The Pentagon’s $170 billion procurement budget request ― touted as the largest ever ― would use a new “large lot procurement pilot” strategy to maximize production capacity for several munitions used across the services: Lockheed Martin’s Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile Extended Range (JASSM-ER) and Long-Range Anti-Ship Missile (LRASM) ― and the Raytheon Technologies-made RIM-174 Standard Missile (SM-6), AIM-120 Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missile (AAMRAM).

Though not in the pilot program, the Pentagon is also using multiyear contracting to buy roughly 103 Naval Strike Missiles at $250 million. The Marine Corps’ new, low-signature Marine Littoral Regiments and their Navy/Marine Corps Expeditionary Ship Interdiction System are slated for 90 of the ground-based missiles, which Raytheon manufactures.

Procuring 103 missiles over five years still looks like a pretty slow pace to me, considering China is apparently threatening to attack Taiwan in 2027 and we have a capacity for producing hundreds of missiles per year. If Taiwan is attacked in 2027, it will be a target rich environment and those missiles in the out years will be too late.

In 2021 Defense News reported, there is no production bottleneck delaying the rapid deployment of large numbers of Naval Strike Missiles (NSM).

“Demand is not an issue. If they suddenly come out and they say we need 200 a year, 300 a year, 500 a year, we can do that,” Schreiber added.

Lockheed is doubling their production capacity.

Perhaps when magazines are filled, the question of missiles for cutters will be reconsidered.

“In focus: the 50 cal heavy machine gun in Royal Navy service” –Navy Lookout

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British navy sailor fires burst using gun mounting system ASP (Agile, Small-deflection, Precision) armed with a .50 heavy machine gun. (Picture source British Royal Navy)

Navy Lookout has a post about .50 cal guns that goes into the history of the caliber in the Royal Navy, but the real news is that they have made the decision to completely replace the 7.62mm Mk44 (M134) mini gun, which as a rate of fire of 2,000 to 4,000 rounds per minute, with the .50 caliber effective March 2023.

The post makes reference to the 2021 tests of the “Agile, Small-deflection, Precision (ASP)” mounting on board HMS Argyll, but apparently there has been no decision regarding upgraded mounts for the gun.

China’s PLAN Surface and Sub Order of Battle

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Earlier I published “Chinese Navy Submarine and Major Surface Ship Order of Battle,” that included three infographics prepared by Dr. Sarah Kirchberger that I found on the CIMSEC Internal Discussions Facebook page. At the time I noted that they did not include Chinese aircraft carriers, amphibs, and numerous frigates, corvettes, and other small combatants.

Dr. Kirchberger recently emailed me additional and updated infographics that provide a more complete picture of the People’s Liberation Army Navy’s rapid growth. I have included them all below, including updated versions of the three previously published.

Another resource available is the “Office of Naval Intelligence’s Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy, Coast Guard, Ship Identification Guide.”

From a Coast Guard perspective, the most interesting development sighted below was the transfer of 22 Type 056 corvettes {photo above) from the Navy to the China Coast Guard. This follows the earlier transfer of four type 053H2G frigates (NATO designation Jiangwei I). In both cases heavier weapons were removed but significant gun armament remained. These added significantly to the China Coast Guard’s close in firepower. When the new China Coast Guard was formed in 2013, very few of their ships were armed with anything larger than 14.5mm machine guns.

Chinese H/PJ-17 30mm

That has changed, particularly since the China Coast Guard was absorbed into the country’s Central Military Commission (CMC), effective July 2018. The standard fit now seems to be a 76m gun and one or two 30mm H/PJ-17.

Undated photo of carrier Shandong. PLA Photo

Type 055 Destroyer (Cruiser) SeaWave.com image

PLAN Type 054A Huanggang (FFG-577), Japanese Self Defense Force photo.

Type 056 corvette, credit 樱井千一

Image: Creative Commons.

CSR Report RL33153 China Naval Modernization: Implications for U.S. Navy Capabilities—Background and Issues for Congress by Ronald O’Rourke dated February 28, 2014. Page 8 – Figure 1. Jin (Type 094) Class Ballistic Missile Submarine Source: Photograph provided to CRS by Navy Office of Legislative Affairs, December 2010.

“Turkish “MIR” USV Test-Fires Torpedo For The First Time” –Naval News

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MIR USV firing torpedo (Screenshot from SSB video)

Naval News reports,

On April 18, 2023, the Turkish armed unmanned surface vessel (USV) “MIR” fired a light torpedo from a double torpedo tube at the stern of the ship. The test firing was the first torpedo launch from a Turkish USV.

This is offered as an ASW system, but if you are a regular reader here, you know I had to show the photo to illustrate how even a very small vessel can launch light weight torpedoes. (Of course, we have had previous examples, see photos at the end of the post.)

This is important because the Coast Guard has an unaddressed Required Operational Capability implicit in its Ports, Waterways, and Coastal Security Mission, that the Coast Guard needs to be able to forcibly stop any vessel regardless of size. A lightweight torpedo that targets a ship’s propeller(s) seems to be the best solution for stopping larger vessels (hopefully without sinking it and causing a major pollution incident).

Existing lightweight ASW torpedoes, like those launched from the USV illustrated above, might do the job if they also have an anti-surface capability. Distribution to Coast Guard units might be thought of as a storage option for a war reserve, in that, while the Coast Guard would need to have them widely distributed, even in the worst case the Coast Guard would actually use very few.

The author notes,

“…submarines are unlikely to engage these small units because of the limited minimum depth of some torpedoes or the limited amount of torpedoes the submarines have loaded.”

But if USVs become a threat to submarines, it will not be long before there is a counter. In fact, the already existing 6.75″ diameter (171.45mm), 220 pound (100 kilos), Very Light Weight Torpedo that would not displace any existing submarine weapons might anticipate this need. This weapon system might meet the Coast Guard’s needs.

A Navy briefing slide showing the internal components and describing the various features of the PSU_ARL Common Very Light Weight Torpedo (CVLWT) design

Camera drone’s-eye view of IRGC boats on display, March 2023. A) The air defense boat. B) Light missile boat with Bladerunner hull. C) light missile boats on Interceptor hull. D) light missile boats on Interceptor hull (alternative design). E) Missile boat, with type of missile unclear. F) RIB, possibly explosive boat or uncrewed. G) RIB with lightweight anti-ship torpedoes, can be carried aboard a Shahid Soleimani-class missile corvette. H) Interceptor boat. I) Interceptor boat with new type of missile.

Elbit Systems’ Seagull unmanned surface vessel launching a lightweight torpedo. 

Chinese Navy Submarine and Major Surface Ship Order of Battle

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Image: Creative Commons.

Below are some info-graphics provided by Sarah Kirchberger on the CIMSEC Internal Discussions Facebook page. I wanted to share them with you. (Not included in the listings are Chinese aircraft carriers, amphibs, and numerous frigates, corvettes, and other small combatants.) I have also provided her notes included with the three Facebook posts, but first some observations.

Geographic Boundaries of the First and Second Island Chains. Image:China Report 2006.pdf. DOD.

What does this have to do with the Coast Guard?

My expectation is that, if there is a major prolonged conflict with the Chinese, that the primary theater of operations will be inside and around the “First Island Chain” with Taiwan the critical center (Think Malta in the Mediterranean during WWII). The Chinese surface fleet is not likely to make significant operations outside this area. Chinese conventional submarines will also concentrate in this area but will also operate in the Straits that access the South and East China Seas.

The Chinese will make air and missile attack out to at least the “Second Island Chain,” including Guam.

The Chinese will want to attack US logistics and underway replenishment ships outside the Second Island Chain, both for the direct effect of reducing logistics available and for the secondary effect of drawing off units from the primary theater of action.

In the initial phase, the Chinese merchant and fishing fleets might be used to lay mines or even directly attack unarmed logistics and underway replenishment ships using containerized weapon systems supported by satellite targeting. (They might also launch cruise missiles into US ports as an opening salvo.) The Coast Guard Maritime Domain Awareness systems and cargo tracking programs will have a role in neutralizing the Chinese Merchant and distant fishing fleets.

The Chinese will operate at least some of their nuclear submarines (SSNs) (which would have difficulty dealing with USN SSNs) outside the Second Island Chain, perhaps as far East as the US West Coast. While MSC has been told not to expect escorts, the benefits of cutters with embarked Navy (probably Navy Reserve) ASW helicopters (and ultimately towed array systems) within effective helicopter range of a dispersed group of logistics ships to provide at least minimal ASW protection and rescue for the crews of the ships that are inevitably sunk, will quickly become evident. The cutters would hopefully be aided by Navy P-8 maritime patrol aircraft and any combatants making the transit trans-Pacific.

(None of the above reflects anything official, it is just the logic of the geography and the capability of the participants.)

Incidentally the format use below would be a good way for the Coast Guard to present its plans for major cutters.

Now to the Kirchberger posts:

After a long pause in making these info graphics, here is an overview of the *approximate* type and age structure of Chinese nuclear-powered submarines. I am decidedly less confident than with the surface fleet graphs about the accuracy of the information, which is why it took so long. Basically, I have decided to just visualize the data given in Manfred Meyer’s book ‘Modern Chinese Maritime Forces’ (March 2023 update) with some minor adjustments based on cross-checking with own research in Chinese newspaper reports. Despite the caveat, the graph might be useful to some, therefore posting it. I will periodically update as more information becomes available.

Blue arrow means boat is (most likely) in service as of April 2023, white means not yet or not any more in service, but may already be launched. Striped means: status unknown.

Feel free to use and republish (unaltered) with attribution. In case you find mistakes, I’d appreciate a note so I can make corrections during the next round!

Here is now also a visual overview of the PLA Navy’s conventionally powered submarine fleet. Blue arrow means boat is most likely in service as of April 2023, white arrow means not yet, or not any more, but may already be launched. The teal color indicates boats equipped with a (Stirling) AIP. Does not include test submarines (such as the Type 032), the unknown type sailless submarine, nor midget submarines.

Feel free to use and republish (unaltered) with attribution. In case you find mistakes, I’d appreciate a note so I can make corrections during the next round!

The speed of naval shipbuilding in China is such that it is easy to overlook that China has earlier this year commissioned the eighth and last of Flight 1 of its new cruiser, the Type 055 (never mind that the PLAN refers to it as a destroyer – at >12,000t full load, 180m length, and given its armament, it looks like a cruiser more than a destroyer).

Since the lead ship entered service in early 2020, China has commissioned altogether 8 of these Type 055 cruisers within a timespan of just 3 years! Further, 8 more are apparently already in the works, for a class of at least 16.
Here is an updated graphic overview of the type and age structure of China’s large surface combatants. Arrows indicate maximum time in service from commissioning until decommissioning – program start and build start is therefore not shown. 40 years per hull may be a bit long (30 years is common practice in most advanced navies), but in practice some navies have operated their surface combatants that long, so I choose to give the maximum conceivable length.
It is interesting to see how the arms embargo since 1989 initially disrupted naval shipbuilding, leading to multiple classes of just one or two hulls being built next to a Russian import, and how mass production finally took off from the Type 052D onward.
The Chinese official newspaper Global Times commented on the completion of the Type 055 class here: https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202304/1289571.shtml
Feel free to use and reproduce this graph for non-commercial purposes (with attribution) and please let me know in case of mistakes so I can make corrections during the next iteration!

“US Navy Promises To Strengthen Merchant Marine And Coast Guard Partnerships” –gCaptain

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The U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Waesche (WMSL 751) conducts a replenishment-at-sea with the fleet replenishment oiler USNS Laramie (T-AO 203) while patrolling the Eastern Pacific Ocean, April 20, 2020. Waesche was deployed to the U.S. Southern Command area of responsibility to support Joint Interagency Task Force South’s mission, which included counter illicit drug trafficking in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific. U.S. Coast Guard photo by Chief Petty Officer Dave Horning.

gCaptain reports,

“U.S. Navy Undersecretary Erik Raven spoke today at the opening ceremony of the US Navy League’s Sea Air Space conference in Maryland, emphasizing the importance of the United States Coast Guard (USCG) and the United States Maritime Administration (MARAD) in naval planning and strategy.”

It’s always nice to be appreciated.

There is more of course. The Navy sees the Coast Guard as doing much of the peacetime housekeeping that Royal Navy gunboats did prior to WWI. If you want a rules-based international order, you have to have someone enforce the rules.

I get the feeling the Navy is glad they don’t have to do much IUU fisheries or Alien Migrant Interdiction. They only do enough drug interdiction to say they are doing something.

I am a bit perplexed by the degree of naval warfare equipment provided for the NSCs and OPCs by the Navy. They have spent a great deal of money equipping Coast Guard ships with sensors, communications and electronic warfare equipment, and defensive systems like Phalanx and the 57mm Mk 110. They take us 80 to 90% of the way to being useful warships. Cutters are adequately equipped to do something like the Market Time operation the Coast Guard participated in during the Vietnam war, but other than perhaps boarding merchant ships to help enforce a blockade, I don’t see that we have a mission in the most likely near peer conflict, a fight with China. We have defensive equipment, but the Chinese really would not have any reason to shoot at us, because we are not a threat.

Is there a classified plan to up arm Coast Guard cutters to turn them into viable and useful warships? The fact that NSCs have hosted Navy helicopters during the last two RIMPACs, an MH-60S in 2020 and an MH-60R in 2022, suggest they may be thinking about the question, but I don’t see any evidence there is such a plan.

From the end of WWII until the breakup of the Soviet Union, the most capable Coast Guard cutters had a recognized wartime role. They would escort the reinforcement convoys that would provide logistics support for US and Allied forces resisting a Soviet invasion. They were not the only escort vessels or the best equipped, but they had role.

That role was practiced and exercised.

There is a lot we could do to improve coordination with the Navy Reserve to provide a mobilization potential.

Perhaps equally importantly, the weapons the Coast Guard does have, do not allow our cutters to fully execute their peacetime duties.

Where are the weapons to quickly and reliably stop small fast highly maneuverable craft? The big cutters are not likely to be around. A 7.62mm machine gun on a Response Boat Medium or a .50 cal. on a WPB are inadequate. We might even be out-gunned. Even a 25mm on a FRC doesn’t provide much reassurance because it is a short-range weapon with limited penetrating power on a platform that can be outrun by many potential threats. Using any of the three weapons inside a US port presents a danger of collateral damage.

How is the Coast Guard supposed to forcibly stop a medium to large ship, with a crew that refuses to be stopped? Even the 57mm and 76mm guns are inadequate in the unlikely event a large cutter is in the area. In the more likely event only a WPB or WPC is in the area we are essentially helpless.

 

Hero 120 Loitering Munition

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The Navy/Marine Corps has a new weapon in their inventory, and it may be just what the Coast Guard needs to deal with the potential threat of small, fast, highly maneuverable craft. It is a loitering munition, a drone with a warhead, making it a kind of slow cruise missile with an ability to abort.

Hero 120 will be going on the Marine Corps Long Range Unmanned Surface Vessel (LRUSV) as well as Marine manned ground vehicles.

Weight (with canister): 18 kg (40 pounds)
Warhead: 4.5 kg (10 pounds)
Range: 60+ km (32.4 nautical miles)
Endurance: 60 min
Engine: Electrical
Launch method: Single/Multi-Canister

Range is to some extent apparently limited by line of sight, but this could be used from land or from virtually any patrol boat.

Take a look.

“Iran Reveals World’s First Air Defense Small Boat” –Covert Shores

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Camera drone’s-eye view of IRGC boats on display, March 2023. A) The air defense boat. B) Light missile boat with Bladerunner hull. C) light missile boats on Interceptor hull. D) light missile boats on Interceptor hull (alternative design). E) Missile boat, with type of missile unclear. F) RIB, possibly explosive boat or uncrewed. G) RIB with lightweight anti-ship torpedoes, can be carried aboard a Shahid Soleimani-class missile corvette. H) Interceptor boat. I) Interceptor boat with new type of missile.

Covert Shore has a post about a new Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Navy boat armed with vertical launch anti-aircraft missile, believed to be the first such craft in the world, but I found the photo above and the accompanying caption particularly interesting.

These are far different from the familiar, prototypical IRGC boats armed with a single machine gun and a few unguided rockets.