“US Coast Guard won’t ‘close the door’ on hunting submarines again in the future” –Business Insider

Posted on December 9, 2020 by Chuck Hill

US Coast Guard crew of cutter Spencer watched as a depth charge exploded near U-175, North Atlantic, 500 nautical miles WSW of Ireland, 17 Apr 1943. Photo by Jack January

Business Insider reports on the Commandant’s response to a question posed at a Navy League event. It was hardly a ringing commitment, but the Commandant did say,

“If there was a requirement that was at the joint Coast Guard-Navy-[Department of Defense] level that said, ‘Hey, there’s an urgent need to bring that capability back in Coast Guard,’ I’m not saying we couldn’t revisit that,”

“I’m not so sure I see an immediate return to that mission space here, but again, I don’t close the door on anything since we live in an increasingly complicated world … and requirements change,” Schultz added

We have had an almost 30 year period when the Coast Guard’s Defense Readiness mission has been limited to low level requirements that had little impact on the majority of Coast Guard members. It happened because of the virtual disappearance of any significant naval threat after the collapse of the Soviet Union, but there has always been the possibility that a more active role might reemerge in the future.

If we have no defense readiness mission, there is no reason the Coast Guard should be military. There would be no reason for our ships to have sophisticated fire control systems, electronic warfare systems, or Phalanx CIWS. There would be no reason for defensive systems, because if we were irrelevant in a military conflict, why would an enemy bother wasting ammunition on us.

Many countries have no coast guard or their coast guards are limited to coastal SAR. In many nations their regular navies and air forces, that do have war time missions, also do fisheries protection, drug enforcement, migrant interdiction, coastal security, and SAR.

If our large cutters do not have a wartime defense readiness mission, it is illogical for us to build ships that are 80 to 90% of a frigate or corvette, with 80 to 90% of the crew of those types, when more numerous, much less capable ships could do the non-defense related missions much more economically.

Schultz and other officials have also said new Coast Guard ships will be able to adapt for future missions.

“We’re putting in what we call space, weight, and power to be able to plug and play for all kinds of mission support,” Shannon Jenkins, senior Arctic advisor at the Coast Guard’s Office of Arctic Policy, said at an event in August when asked about arming icebreakers. “It certainly will have the capacity and the abilities to add in whatever we need to execute our national missions, not just Coast Guard missions.”

( I think you mean Coast Guard non-defense related missions, because defense is a Coast Guard mission?)

If conditions are favorable and no conflict appears likely for a long period, then it may make sense to adopt a policy of “fitted for but not with” or a more open weight, space and power reservation approach, but at some point we are going to need leadership in the mold of Admiral Wasche to recognize the need for the Coast Guard to again step up and fill its military role.

Adding an ASW capability will take time. It has become more complex than it was in WWII and we no longer have a lot of ship building and repair facilities capable of quickly upgrading our ships. How good are we at predicting the future?

Even in WWII we began the war terribly unprepared. Cutters were assigned to escort convoys that had neither sonar nor radar. Some ships that got sonars had no trained operators. Although more U-boats were sunk by aircraft than by ships, our air assets failed to sink any submarines (although one sinking was credited, it turned out not to have been the case).

The Navy may be hesitant to ask that the Coast Guard start preparing for possible armed conflict. There are many in the US Navy who might see asking the Coast Guard to shoulder some of the responsibility for naval defense as a diversion of attention from the Navy’s needs. But the Navy has several communities that compete for dollars. If the Coast Guard can provide some surface escorts it may mean more Navy money available for submarines or aircraft, so we may also have support from within the Navy. We really need to talk about the Coast Guard’s role in a major conflict when our non-defense related missions will have a lower priority.

The international environment is starting to take on an ominous resemblance to the late 1930s. The US needs to deter aggressive action. The Coast Guard can play a part in providing a credible naval deterrent, but only if it is seen as capable in the near term. We really need to start thinking about this before the need becomes urgent.

How Spencer Became the Coast Guard’s Top U-Boat Killer, Thank You Royal Navy

Posted on December 9, 2020 by Chuck Hill

US Coast Guard crew of cutter Spencer watched as a depth charge exploded near U-175, North Atlantic, 500 nautical miles WSW of Ireland, 17 Apr 1943. Photo by Jack January

Wanted to pass along a bit of Coast Guard history I found on Uboat.net. Below is their list of “Notable Events involving Spencer.”

It really looks like Spencer got a lot of her ASW training from the British Royal Navy, operating in company with British, Canadian, and USN escorts, against small World War I vintage British H class submarines.

23 Mar 1942
HMS H 50 (Lt. H.B. Turner, RN) conducted A/S exercises off Lough Foyle with USCGC Spencer and USS Gleaves. (1)

26 Aug 1942
HMS H 32 (Lt. J.R. Drummond, RN) conducted A/S exercises off Lough Foyle with HMS Yestor (Lt. R.C. Holt, RNVR), HMS Beverley (Lt. R.A. Price, RN), USS Babbitt, USS Spencer, HMCS Collingwood (T/A/Lt.Cdr. W. Woods, RCNR) and HMCS Trillium (T/Lt. P.C. Evans, RCNR). (2)

22 Dec 1942
HMS H 34 (Lt. G.M. Noll, RN) conducted A/S exercises off Lough Foyle with HMS Fowey (Cdr.(Retd.) L.B.A. Majendie, RN), HMS Carnation (Lt. A. Branson, RNR), HMS Black Swan (Cdr. T.A.C. Pakenham, RN), HMS Tango (T/Lt. J. Hunter, RNR), USS Spencer, USS Badger and HMCS Trillium (T/Lt. P.C. Evans, RCNR). (3)

23 Dec 1942
HMS H 34 (Lt. G.M. Noll, RN) conducted A/S exercises off Lough Foyle with USS Spencer, HMCS Dauphin (T/Lt. R.A.S. MacNeil, RCNR) and HMS Tango (T/Lt. J. Hunter, RNR) plus ships from the 37th Escort Group. (3)

9 Feb 1943
HMS H 33 (Lt. M.H. Jupp, DSC, RN) conducted A/S exercises off Lough Foyle with HMS Poppy (Lt. N.K. Boyd, RNR), HMS Dianella (T/Lt. J.F. Tognola, RNR) and USS Spencer. (4)

10 Feb 1943
HMS H 28 (Lt. K.H. Martin, RN) conducted A/S exercises off Lough Foyle with USS Spencer. (5)

10 Feb 1943
HMS H 44 (Lt. I.S. McIntosh, RN) conducted A/S exercises off Lough Foyle with HMCS Dauphin (T/Lt. M.H. Wallace, RCNR), HMCS Trillium (T/Lt. P.C. Evans, RCNR), HMS Ness (Lt.Cdr. T.G.P. Crick, DSC, RN), HMS Philante (Capt. A.J. Baker-Cresswell, DSO, RN), HMS Folkestone (Cdr.(Retd.) J.G.C. Gibson, OBE, RN), USS Spencer, USS Campbell and HMCS Rosthern (T/Lt. R.J.G. Johnson, RCNVR). (6)

8 Mar 1943
German U-boat U-633 was sunk in the North Atlantic south-west of Iceland, in position 58.21N, 31.00W, by depth charges from the US Coast Guard cutter USCGC Spencer.

23 Mar 1943
HMS H 28 (Lt. K.H. Martin, RN) conducted A/S exercises off Lough Foyle with HMS Mallow (T/A/Lt.Cdr. H.T.S. Clouston, RNVR), HMS Myosotis (T/Lt. R. Lugg, RNR), HMS La Malouine (T/Lt. V.D.H. Bidwell, RNR), HMS Dianthus (T/A/Lt.Cdr. N.F. Israel, RNR) and USS Spencer. (7)

17 Apr 1943
German U-boat U-175 was sunk in the North Atlantic south-west of Ireland, in position 47.53N, 22.04W, by depth charges and gunfire from the US Coast Guard cutter USCGC Spencer.

“ONE Apus Arrives in Kobe, Revealing Cargo Loss of Epic Proportions” –gCaptain

Posted on December 8, 2020 by Chuck Hill

ONE Apus as it arrived into view in Kobe, Japan, December 8, 2020. Photo: Twitter @mrnkA4srnrA

gCaptain reports on the largest container loss ever experienced by a Box Ship, 1816 containers. Obviously a pollution potential and, while they float, a hazard to navigation.

“Biggest Iranian flotilla yet en route to Venezuela with fuel” –Stars and Stripes

Posted on December 8, 2020 by Chuck Hill

The Iranian-flagged oil tanker Fortune is docked at the El Palito refinery after its arrival to Puerto Cabello in the northern state of Carabobo, Venezuela, on May 25, 2020.
AFP/GETTY IMAGES/TNS

Stars and Stripes reports,

“(Tribune News Service) — Iran is sending its biggest fleet yet of tankers to Venezuela in defiance of U.S. sanctions to help the isolated nation weather a crippling fuel shortage, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

Some of the flotilla of about 10 Iranian vessels will also help export Venezuelan crude after discharging fuel, the people said, asking not to be named because the transaction is not public.”

Given the US previous seizure of tankers employed in the trade, it would not be surprising to see the US move against them. Coast Guard involvement possible.

Increased Sea Pay

Posted on December 8, 2020 by Chuck Hill

The following is from MyCG. The only amount listed is $55/month but then it references a tiered system, apparently with five levels.

There was a bit of a surprise in the announcement.

“The studies found that the 270-foot medium endurance cutters had more days away from homeport than any other class of cutter for the period reviewed.”

Apparently the Bear class is still pulling its weight.

Pay increase for members assigned to cutters

By Shana Brouder, MyCG Writer

Dec. 8, 2020 —

Coast Guard members assigned to cutters received a pay increase in October 2020. For the first time in 20 years, sea pay increased by $55 per month for afloat assignments. In addition to this pay increase, the Office of Cutter Forces updated the tiered sea pay table to reflect the nature of duty aboard cutters.

“It took a full court press to make this happen,” said Lt. Cmdr. Keith Blevins, the Afloat Workforce Recruitment and Retention Manager in the Office of Cutter Forces. “We used a multitude of sources including a RAND study, a junior afloat officer survey…, and a follow-on analysis in partnership with a cohort at Boise State University…to get the quantitative data needed to make this change an organizational priority.”

This strategic, multi-year effort analyzed many factors that make up life aboard cutters to include: time underway, maintenance requirements, living quarters arrangements, and nature of missions.

Prior to this change, the sea pay budget was approximately $22 million annually for 8,900 members who are assigned to cutters. This increase provides an additional $6 million, which is more than a 25% increase to the sea duty pay account.

“We understand that an extra $55 dollars per month certainly isn’t life-changing, but the significant budgetary commitment it is a testament to how the service values its cuttermen,” said Lt. Cmdr. Paul Ledbetter with the Office of Cutter Forces.

The Coast Guard sea pay model differs from other sea-going military service branches. “Other services have a rate for sea pay that increases with sea time, but it does not vary between platforms or mission areas,” explained Blevins. “Our tiered approach takes into consideration a variety of factors designed to reward those who go to sea and incentivize them to come back.”

The analyses on sea-going missions provided insight into these three factors. The studies found that the 270-foot medium endurance cutters had more days away from homeport than any other class of cutter for the period reviewed. Further, most 270-foot cutters are over 30 years old. While the work may be similar to the National Security Cutters (NSC), the living quarters and maintenance requirements are vastly different on the 270-foot cutters.

As a result, the 270-foot medium endurance cutters were assigned to a tier five on the sea pay table which is the highest tier. This change was made to ensure those members working aboard the 270-foot medium endurance cutters are appropriately compensated.

During patrols in the eastern pacific, cutters are conducting law enforcement missions, drug seizures, and migrant interdiction on a variety of vessels. The increase in sea pay is important because all members assigned to cutters receive the increase. The updated considerations ensure that all members aboard ships receive additional compensation.

“Cutter Forces will continue to advocate for future increases to adjust for inflation,” said Blevins. “However, we are pleased to see this $55 increase and hope the members feel their time at sea is valued.”

White Alder Sinking, 52 Years Later

Posted on December 7, 2020 by Chuck Hill

The caption above is two years out of date. Below is a news release from D8.

News Release

U.S. Coast Guard 8th District Heartland
Contact: 8th District Public Affairs
Office: 504-671-2020
After Hours: 618-225-9008
Eighth District online newsroom

PHOTOS: Coast Guard holds 52nd annual White Alder ceremony

Editors’ Note: Click on images to download high-resolution version.

NEW ORLEANS – Members of Marine Safety Unit Baton Rouge held a memorial and wreath laying ceremony Monday for the 52^nd anniversary of the sinking of the Coast Guard Cutter White Alder at USS Kidd Veterans Museum in Baton Rouge.

The White Alder and the Motor Vessel Helena, a 455-foot Taiwanese flagged freighter, collided in the Mississippi River near Bayou Goula Bend Dec. 7, 1968. The cutter sank in 75 feet of water. Three of its 20-person crew were rescued, while the other 17 perished. The remaining crew members are entombed in the sunken cutter at the bottom of the Mississippi to this day.

White Alder was homeported in New Orleans from 1947 until 1968. The cutter’s primary responsibility was to tend river aids to navigation and to conduct search and rescue and law enforcement duties, when required.

A special aids to navigation structure was built in honor of the crew and marks the location of the sunken vessel near White Castle, Louisiana. December 7 every year, Coast Guardsmen and surviving family members gather at the site in remembrance of those who lost their lives.

For more information follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

“RDC concludes Low Cost Maritime Domain Awareness Pilot Study” –CG-9

Posted on December 7, 2020 by Chuck Hill

The 29RDC autonomous vessel underway during the Coast Guard’s unmanned surface vehicle demonstration Oct. 7 through Nov. 5 off the coast of Oahu, Hawaii.

Below is a story from the CG-9 website. It provides more specifics on the results than did my earlier post.

“…proved their capability to detect vessels in excess of a mile and in certain situations in excess of 4 miles.” That sounds a little disappointing, I would have expected more range, at least against larger targets.
“…the 29RDC was operated by RDC watchstanders in New London, Connecticut, demonstrating the vessel’s ability to be controlled from 5,000 miles away utilizing cellular service.” That would tend to indicate they were operated relatively close to shore.

Sounds like they learned a lot. The potential is there. It seems the Coast Guard spends very little on R&D. We probably ought to do more.

The Coast Guard Research and Development Center (RDC) Nov. 5 concluded a month-long evaluation of unmanned surface vehicles (USVs) to determine their ability to provide persistent maritime domain awareness (MDA) in remote areas of the ocean.

The focus of the evaluation was to explore how current and emerging technologies might support the Coast Guard’s many missions around the globe. The project showed that USVs with assorted sensor capabilities may be useful to complement organic Coast Guard aviation and surface assets in performing key operations in these regions, ranging from combatting illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing to conducting search and rescue and a full range of law enforcement missions.

Initial results revealed that commercially available USVs are capable of delivering some level of daytime MDA and can conduct 30-day endurance missions. Two USVs used for this evaluation – the wind-propulsion Saildrone and Watcher, a diesel/solar-powered cutter boat from Spatial Integration Systems – proved their capability to detect vessels in excess of a mile and in certain situations in excess of 4 miles.

This demonstration also highlighted the importance of developing and incorporating artificial intelligence and machine learning into future USVs. The sensors used in this demonstration captured significant amounts of data. To speed processing and limit expensive bandwidth consumption, it is invaluable for the USV to conduct onboard processing to the greatest possible extent, limiting transmitted data to only that which is actionable to operators, according to Cmdr. Blair Sweigart, the RDC researcher who served as the demonstration director. He said this ability is critical to USVs’ success in long endurance and MDA missions.

“This evaluation showed that using autonomous USVs for future persistent MDA efforts will likely require a layered solution. USVs like Saildrone are capable of performing MDA missions for up to a year without maintenance, but their low transit speed does not allow them to pursue a target of opportunity to collect more information,” said RDC researcher Scot Tripp, who served as project manager. “In contrast, the Watcher is only capable of 30 days endurance but has the capability of traveling at speeds over 30 knots. It can also be instructed to pursue a target upon detection for better imagery. A system where these USVs worked together could prove to be a valuable tool for future MDA capabilities,” Tripp explained.

The Watcher (left) and Saildrone in the operation area. U.S. Coast Guard photos.

Two of the USVs used in this demonstration were contractor-owned/contractor-operated, which is only one of the potential procurement models available for these types of vessels. The type of vessel and how it is being used may best dictate which acquisition mode is most efficient, Tripp said. The Saildrone routinely operates on a service-provider model, for example, but government-owned/government-operated USVs might also be used effectively.

The RDC pursued the efficacy of a government-owned/government-operated USV with the 29RDC, a 29-foot autonomous vessel based on the Coast Guard response boat-small II. With the 29RDC, service operators from junior enlisted boat drivers to senior officers were able to interactively plan and execute their own missions in real time. Additionally, the 29RDC was operated by RDC watchstanders in New London, Connecticut, demonstrating the vessel’s ability to be controlled from 5,000 miles away utilizing cellular service. These demonstrations provided exceptional feedback regarding potential operations using USVs: in concert with cutters and other boats as a force multiplier; performance of reconnaissance missions; search and rescue augmentation through autonomously executed search patterns; and screening recreational and commercial vessel traffic.

This demonstration also reaffirmed a whole-of-government interest in enhancing MDA. Participants included U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Navy Research Laboratory, Office of Naval Research, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Scientific Advisors for the U.S. Navy, The President’s Intelligence Advisory Board and Congressional staffers.

The Coast Guard is also interested in USV testing to help better inform policy decisions as these vehicles become more numerous in the marine environment.

This demonstration was part of the Coast Guard’s pilot study of low-cost commercially available technologies that can enhance maritime domain awareness in Pacific regions, with the primary focus of monitoring (IUU) fishing. A quick look report summarizing preliminary results from the demonstration can be found here. A full report is scheduled for completion mid-2021.

For more information: Research, Development, Test and Evaluation program page and Research and Development Center page.

EU’s Maritime Domain Awareness Information Exchange

Posted on December 6, 2020 by Chuck Hill

Below is a post by a friend I have never actually met, Przemyslaw Krajewski. We worked on a CIMSEC project in 2013. As you might have guest he is Polish and in fact lives in Poland. He is an avid skier. We had a short discussion about MARSUR after I published this very short post about its existence. I told him I felt we needed to know more about the system and asked if he could help. He very quickly came back with the post below.

Actually I see a need for international exchange of Maritime Domain Awareness data in several parts of the world. Europe is well along in developing the protocols and mechanisms for such a system. It is badly needed in West Africa, in Central and South America. the South China Sea, and probably numerous other locations. If the US Coast Guard could join this effort, an international standard might result.

Przemyslaw apologized for his English, but I think he did a fine job.

This post intention is to elaborate a bit more on what MARSUR is and how it works. Maritime Surveillance project is initiative of European Defense Agency, established in 2006 and aiming at

“Technical solution that allows dialog between European maritime information systems. Containing 19 Member States plus Norway, the project aims to improve the common “Recognized Maritime Picture” by facilitating exchange of operational maritime information and services such as ship positions, tracks, identification data, chat or images.” [1]

Beyond member states actually participate also EDA itself and EU Satellite Centre (EU SATCEN).

Twenty members sounds scary and indeed it intuitively shows level of complexity. Just to give broader picture or background. Europe consists of 46 states plus 2 de facto independent but as eastern border of geographical Europe are a bit fuzzy, some sources counts 50 countries. 26 of them are members of European Union (as 27th by some is counted in Asia) and 27 are NATO members…but these are not the same countries.

If we quote Carl von Clausewitz the most famous statement that war is the continuation of politics by other means, so how EU could have one army without common political goal?

As a consequence most of military cooperation in European Union focuses on procurement efficiency. Obvious obstacles to overcome are differing political objectives, technical standards, organizational solutions within national security establishemnts, legal issues individual to participating states, semantics and many others. All of this is nicely and elegantly hidden in two words „facilitating exchange”. On the other hand there is comparatively little controversies around the project as overwhelming need to act upon reliable information is common for all states and institution involved.

Using more technical language MARSUR is decentralized network linking national systems via VPN using common semantics applied in software called Marsure Exchange System or MEXS. MEXS represents local national hub fed with information voluntarily shared by governments or more specifically by governmental agencies. In theory it could fuse data from military and civilian institutions/agencies and make it public or limit to specific user community like naval, border control, fisheries and so on. As infromation provides ranges in sensitivity from public to secret, both distribution and level of commitment could differ from country to country. Common mechanism would be multilateral or bilateral agreement on government level.

System entered demonstration phase in October 2011 followed by MARSUR Live Phase using prototype software. While Basic Level obligatory for all participant relied on manual exchange of information, Advanced Level is automated and set in 2016 as a goal to pursue as fast as possible.

MARSUR doesn’t exist in vacuum and represent military layer for broader initiative called EU Common Information Sharing Environment (CISE) integrating member states systems related to customs, fisheries control, marine pollution, border control, law enforcement, maritime safety & security and finally defense. MEXS 3.0 which represent the latest upgrade aims exactly at linking as much as possible of security and defense related systems to general framework of CISE. In parallel exist also geographically focused and similar systems – SUCBAS [3] and SUCFIS, effect of cooperation of Baltic Sea states (except Russia) and between Finland and Sweden.

MARSUR begins to show some practical results. In May 2017 was used in support of Italian Navy and EUNAVFOR operation Sophia in Mediterranean.[2] System has been installed both in Rome headquarter as well as a mobile component afloat. This year it was used in live demonstration of Ocean 2020 consortium of european technology businesses nad navies conducted in Mediterranean Sea with next exercise planned in Baltic Sea [4].

[1] https://www.eda.europa.eu/what-we-do/activities/activities-search/maritime-surveillance-(marsur)

[2] https://www.eda.europa.eu/docs/default-source/eda-factsheets/2020-09-11-factsheet-support-to-csdp-operations.pdf

[3] https://sucbas.now.sh

[4] https://ocean2020.eu/sea-trials/

“Schultz: Upcoming Coast Guard Budget Has ‘Dollars For People’ Focus” –USNI

Posted on December 5, 2020 by Chuck Hill

The US Naval Institute’s news service has an excellent article about the Commandant’s recent remarks on the budget.

It is wide ranging. I will not try to outline it, but there was one particularly interesting discussion on the coming icebreaker fleet that suggest we may ultimately see more than six icebreakers.

“There’s been conversation” in the administration and with Congress about expanding upon his plan for to have six icebreakers in the fleet to meet missions in the polar regions.”

Take a look, its well worth the read.

“Europe’s Maritime Surveillance Project Enters Third Phase” –Naval News

Posted on December 4, 2020 by Chuck Hill

Naval News reports on the EU’s Maritime Domain Awareness (MDA) effort, MARSUR, for maritime surveillance. While it is in phase three, there is not a lot of information about how it is structured and how it works. About all I really got out of it is that there is such an effort.