MyCG has a great first-person Vietnam war story. There is another telling of the same story with more background here. Check it out.
I note, we don’t have a Webber class cutter named after either of these two silver star recipients, EN2 Larry D. Villarreal and GM1 Willis J. Goff.
We need to honor these men.
New torpedo on the Gidropribor booth at Army 2023. (Picture source: Zvezda)
Navy Recognition reports, a Russian firm has developed a compact torpedo,
“It can target submarines, unmanned underwater vehicles, which is very relevant today, and surface ships…220mm in caliber, varies in length from 2.1 to 2.4 meters and weighs between 100 and 140 kg.”
I suspect the Russians saw what the US was doing with the Common Very Light Weight Torpedo (CVLWT) and figured we had a good idea.
The CVLWT is reportedly 6.75″ (171mm) in diameter, about 85″ (2.16 meters) in length, and weighs about 220 pounds (100 kilos).
I contend the Coast Guard could use the CVLWT to forcibly stop even large merchant ships that might be used by terrorists or for other nefarious purposes, probably without sinking it, which might lead to serious unintended consequence.
An Army MK 70 missile launcher on the flight deck of Littoral Combat Ship USS Savannah (LCS-28) in San Diego, Calif. Photo obtained by USNI News
The USNI News Service reports,
A portable missile launcher capable of firing a combination of long-range anti-ship and anti-air weapons was spotted this week undergoing testing aboard a Littoral Combat Ship in San Diego, Calif., according to photos provided to USNI News.
Based on a series of photos reviewed by USNI News, the launcher is a Lockheed Martin MK 70 containerized vertical launching system that is capable of firing both a Raytheon Standard Missile 6 and a Tomahawk Land Attack Missile. It was spotted on the flight deck of Independence-class LCS USS Savannah (LCS-28), which was pier-side in San Diego, according to a USNI News review of the images.
If you can operate Army missile launchers from an LCS you can also operate them from a Coast Guard cutter.
This could be particularly useful in Alaska where there are no Navy ships and limited road infrastructure. Launchers could be flown to meet cutters already in Alaskan waters long before Navy ships could reach the area.
SYPAQ company officials host Australian Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles and the Ukrainian ambassador to Australia, Vasyl Myroshnychenko, during a March 2023 event following Australia’s donation of 600 Corvo Precision Payload Delivery System drones to Ukraine. (SYPAQ photo)
Ukrainian soldiers have received hundreds of drones, gifted to them by Australia, to capture surveillance video crucial for preparing missions to retake ground from Russian forces.
The data comes from GoPro cameras strung from holes punched into disposable cardboard drones.
This shows just how simple it can be to get an Unmanned Air System ISR capability, or perhaps a weapons delivery capability.
Plus, cardboard is stealthy.
Two V-200 “Sea Falcon” VTOL UAV on the helideck of German Navy’s corvette Braunschweig. Note, this is a relatively small ship, about the size of a 270, with a beam of 13.28 m (43 ft 7 in), about the same as a Hamilton class 378′. Picture by Commander of the German Naval Aviation.
UMS SKELDAR and Ultra Maritime unveiled their jointly developed anti-submarine warfare (ASW) solution at DSEI 2023…The solution, a Rotary Wing UAS providing an ASW sonobuoy dispensing capability, is based on the SKELDAR V-200 Uncrewed Aircraft System (UAS) and was developed as part of a contract under the Canadian Department of National Defence’s (DND) Innovation for Defence Excellence and Security (IDEaS) program.
This is an interesting idea. By itself, without any weapon, it may not be very useful, but it might prove a useful addition to a mix that includes ASW helicopters on standby for prosecution and ships with gear for monitoring and interpreting sonobuoy transmissions.
The Skeldar doesn’t have the endurance of the Scan Eagle, used by the Coast Guard, but it does have a much higher payload weight, 40 kg (88 pounds) compared to Scan Eagle’s 5 kg (11 pounds) and Skeldar doesn’t require separate launch and recovery equipment. (As it seems in all aircraft, there is a tradeoff between payload and fuel.)
The extra payload weight may not make much difference if you can pack everything you want into that 5 kg on the Scan Eagle, but it does open up options, larger sensors, light logistics cargo runs, and the ability to drop things.
Other than sonobuoys and weapons there are a number of things we might want to be able to drop from a UAS: buoys to measure drift for a SAR case, radios or pumps to a vessel in distress, lifejackets, or inflatable rafts.
Wikipedia reports, UMS Skeldar V-200 UAS is used by the militaries of six nations. It is used by the German Navy on their K130 Braunschweig class corvettes (pictured above), and will be used by the Belgian and Netherlands Navies on their City class mine countermeasures vessels.
This is a Canadian program. The Canadian Navy uses Skeldar, CU-176 Gargoyle in Canadian service, on their DeWolf class Arctic Offshore Patrol Ships (AOPS). If the Canadian Navy chooses to continue development of this sonobuoy drop capability, presumably they will also use the UAS on some of their frigates, or perhaps they are working toward an ASW role for their AOPS.
“Creating Cutters for the Next Generation of Heroes,” This banner hangs over a passageway in one of the shops at Bollinger’s Lockport shipyard.
The Navy and Coast Guard have had a lot of bad news from the ship building industry lately. Delays and cost overruns seem to the norm. Both the Polar Security Cutter and the Offshore Patrol Cutter programs are running well behind schedule. The Fast Response Cutter program has been a notable success story, delivering on time and on budget in spite of Covid, category 4 Hurricane Ida in 2021, and the recent supply chain problems. It looks like the program will soon start to wind down.
I recently had the opportunity to tour Bollinger’s Lockport, Louisiana shipyard where the Coast Guard Webber class cutters are being built. A retired Coast Guard mustang, Mark Matta, Director Program Management at the yard, explained the operation of the yard and showed me around.
Before we start looking at the yard itself, I will mention a few things I learned in the course of our conversations.
(Construction Zone–Photos of the yard will return shortly.)
China Maritime Safety Administration’s Haixun-09
This came out in 2021. I missed it at the time, but it is still interesting. Have not heard any reports of the utilization of this massive ship since it was completed.
There is plenty of speculation within the post as to how the ship will be used. Note this is not China Coast Guard. The China Maritime Safety Administration was the only one of China’s five agencies with Coast Guard like missions that was not consolidated into the China Coast Guard.
A couple of videos from a The Drive post, “Gepard’s 35mm Cannons Blast Russian Drones Out Of The Sky In First-Person Video.”
TheFlakpanzer Gepard was not designed specifically for UAS. It was designed in the ’60s and fielded in the ’70s to protect against low flying aircraft like attack helicopters and the Soviet counterpart of the A-10 attack aircraft, the SU-25 Frogfoot.
The twin 35 mm guns are much more powerful weapons than the 25 and 30 mm weapons mounted on the Mk38 gun systems. Presumably in the counter UAS role they are using the “AHEAD” anti-missile rounds, rounds that might have been designed specifically to take out UAS, that fire 152, 3.3 gram tungsten metal sub-projectiles. The guns have a very high muzzle velocity (3,400 ft/sec for the AHEAD round) and a much higher rate of fire (550 rounds per minute per gun).
With the AHEAD round, the projectile weight is 1.65 lbs. (0.750 kg) compared with 0.406 lbs. (0.184 kg) for the 25mm HEI and HEI-T rounds, and 0.79 lbs. (0.362 kg) 30mm HEI-T round so the potential radius of destruction is substantially greater.
Still the 30mm with airburst ammunition should be effective, but it will probably require more rounds to get the job done and will have shorter effective range. Unless the 25mm has an airburst round it is unlikely to be effective.
It might be worth considering that while the Gepard’s firecontrol is radar, the Mk38 firecontrol is electrooptic. I can’t say unequivocally that that is a disadvantage, but it might be. Surely the drone builders will attempt to include countermeasures against both types of firecontrol.
Over the Horizon Boat V. Arnie Hammerman photo.
WorkBoat tests one of four pre-production Over the Horizon Cutter Boat Vs. It is extremely well done and extremely complementary.
A report of the contract award is here. There is a report of delivery of the first boat here.
Given the selection process, and the fact that this is the fifth iteration of the Over the Horizon Cutter Boat, we should expect that it should be a good boat, but this additional feature shows that the Coast Guard has recognized a hazard and is concerned about the health of the crews.
“This is the first Coast Guard boat to include a shock-monitoring system that provides the crew with real-time information about wave impacts on the vessel.”
Thanks to MikeB for bringing this to my attention.
A Coast Guard C-27J Spartan crew, assigned to Coast Guard Air Station Sacramento, flies over San Francisco, California, during area of responsibility familiarization training, Monday, Feb. 6, 2018. Coast Guard photo by Lt. Scott Handlin
Below is a news release from the Acquisitions Directorate (CG-9):
Looking at the Coast Guard’s fixed wing fleet, this is the first of the 14 C-27Js to be equipped with Minotaur, but 14 of the 18 HC-144s are so equipped as are 15 C-130Js. A contract has been awarded for conversion of C-130J numbers 17 and 18 with options for conversion of numbers 19 to 22.
The Coast Guard successfully performed the first flight of the newly missionized HC-27J prototype aircraft, CGNR 2712, today at Naval Air Station (NAS) Patuxent River, Maryland. The milestone flight is part of the Coast Guard’s effort to enhance its fixed-wing surveillance aircraft fleet with improved capabilities to gather, process and transmit information during maritime patrol aircraft joint operations.
The flight was a culmination of efforts by the Coast Guard’s Aviation Projects Acquisition Center and Medium Range Surveillance Aircraft program office along with Naval Air Systems Command’s Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division AIRWorks Team and the original equipment manufacturer, Leonardo Aircraft Division (LAD). The first flight of the HC-27J was a modified functional check flight and was tailored to exercise the program’s Safety of Flight and Safety of Test systems prior to fully proceeding into the flight test phase. The initial flight tests will be performed by the Naval Air Systems Command Test and Evaluation Squadron (VX-20) HC-27J test team with support from the Coast Guard and LAD at NAS Patuxent River.
The Coast Guard is in the process of missionizing 14 C-27J aircraft that were transferred from the U.S. Air Force under the National Defense Authorization Act of 2014. As originally delivered, the C-27Js were outfitted with weather radar and communications equipment. Missionization refers to the process of integrating specialized equipment, such as radar, sensors and processors, that enhance the aircraft’s effectiveness in carrying out Coast Guard missions. The Coast Guard is using Minotaur mission system architecture developed by the Navy across its fixed wing fleet to integrate the specialized components such as surface search radar and electro-optical/infrared sensors because it offers significant increases in speed and memory capability.
For more information: Medium Range Surveillance Program page and Minotaur Program page
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