What Does It Take to Sink a Ship–the ex-USS Rentz Sink-Ex

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Earlier I explored “What Does It take to Sink a Ship?” as a measure of what it takes to be absolutely sure you can stop one. Then the Japanese Tsunami gave us fishing vessel Ryou-Un Maru, a small vessel USCGC Anacapa attempted to sink with their 25mm gun. Anacapa ultimately resorted to coming along side and using a fire hose to fill the vessel with water, but it took over five hours.

Now the Navy provides us with information about another Sink-Ex. The former USS Rentz (FFG-46), a 4,200 ton, 453 foot long frigate, was the target. In spite of being hit by 22 missiles, she took five hours to sink. The last hit or hits were by Hellfire, and may not have been necessary, but not all the missiles were that small. The caption below appears to indicate at least two Harpoons were used.

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Photo: US Navy. Guided-missile destroyer USS Benfold (DDG 65), foreground, and USS John S. McCain (DDG 56) fire Harpoons missiles as part of a sink exercise (SINKEX) during Valiant Shield 2016.

Reports also indicate that at least one JSOW C-1, an over 1000 pound guided gliding munition with both Infra-Red and Link-16 guidance, was used.

The caption on the photo below seems to indicate multiple AGM-65F were used. These are infra-red homing, Air to Surface Missiles, weighing over 600 pounds with a 300 pound warhead.

U.S. Navy sailors with Patrol Squadron 46 load a P-3 Orion aircraft with AGM-65F MAVERICKS Air to Surface Missiles prior to a sinking exercise (SINKEX) Sept. 13, 2016, at Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, during Valiant Shield 2016. SINKEX provided service members the opportunity to gain proficiency in tactics, targeting, and live firing against a surface target at sea. Valiant Shield is a biennial, U.S. -only field-training exercise with a focus on integration of joint training among U.S. forces. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Sgt. Justin Fisher)

U.S. Navy sailors with Patrol Squadron 46 load a P-3 Orion aircraft with AGM-65F MAVERICKs, prior to a sinking exercise (SINKEX) Sept. 13, 2016, at Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, during Valiant Shield 2016.

When the video at the head of this post begins, it appears that the ship has already taken at least three major hits. I suspect these were two Harpoons and possibly the JSOW C-1. I suspect the four hits seen in the video were Mavericks launched from the P-8 that made the video.

The video below shows a Hellfire hitting what appears to be an already sinking hulk. It appears to me, the effects are clearly less than those seen in the video at the top of the post.

I would love to have a clearer idea of the sequence and effects of the individual hits, but one thing is clear. It took a lot of ordnance to put even this relatively small ship down. The Coast Guard’s 25 mm and 57 mm guns, with their five ounce and six pound projectiles, will not cut it.

OPC–Eastern Wins the Contract

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The Coast Guard’s Acquisitions Directorate (CG-9) is reporting Eastern Shipbuilding Group has been awarded the contract for detail design and construction of the first of 25 Offshore Patrol Cutters (OPC) expected to replace the Coast Guard’s overage Medium Endurance Cutter Fleet.

“The Coast Guard today selected Eastern Shipbuilding Group Inc. of Panama City, Florida, to continue to the detail design and construction phase (Phase II) of the offshore patrol cutter acquisition program. The award is worth $110.29 million.

“The full Phase II award covers detail design and production of up to nine OPCs and has a potential value of $2.38 billion if all options are exercised.

Eastern Shipbuilding Group’s notional design is 360 feet long, with a beam of 54 feet and a draft of 17 feet. The OPCs will have a sustained speed of 22.5 knots, a range of 10,200 nautical miles (at 14 knots), and an endurance of 60-days. It is expected to “conduct missions including law enforcement, drug and migrant interdiction search and rescue, and other homeland security and defense operations. Each OPC will feature a flight deck and advanced command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance equipment.” It’s hangar will accommodate one MH-60 or an MH-65 and a Unmanned Air System (UAS).

WJHG.com reports, “At a cost of around $484 million per ship, it’s the largest contract the Coast Guard has ever awarded in its 226-year history.”

I’m not sure how that works out because “production of up to nine OPCs and has a potential value of $2.38 billion if all options are exercised” equals $264.4M/ship. If that is the actual shipyard building costs and the remaining $220M is Government Furnished Equipment (GFE) and other costs the ships may be a real bargain.

Hopefully additional details of the design will surface in the near future.

Thanks to Luke for bring this to my attention. 

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Coast Guard Museum

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The team putting together the National Coast Guard Museum in New London is asking for help and they have a new “Plank Owner” program that they hope will provide some extra incentive. If you need more information, they have it available in a couple of forms, a 20 page annual report for 2015 that includes a financial statement or you can take a look at their newsletter.

Perhaps most convincing, they point out that the Coast Guard is the only military service without a National Museum. The Army has 56, the Air Force 13, the Navy 11, and the Marine Corp 5. They also have a web site: www.CoastGuardMuseum.org.

 

Air Force More Into the Drug War

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U.S. Air Force E-3 Sentry AWACS, an RC-135, and KC-135s sit at the CURACAO/ARUBA Cooperative Security Location. Photo via SOUTHCOM.

Photo: U.S. Air Force E-3 Sentry AWACS, an RC-135, and KC-135s sit at the CURACAO/ARUBA Cooperative Security Location. Photo via SOUTHCOM.

While the Navy may be providing less support for the Drug War, since all the Frigates have been decommissioned, DODBUZZ reports increased participation by the Air Force. Seems they see detecting and chasing Drug Smugglers as a training opportunity, with a side benefit.

“The large-scale air operation in the Caribbean included a number of U.S. aircraft, including HC-130s, DH-8s, B-1Bs, B-52s, AWACS, JSTARS, Global Hawks, KC-135s and KC-10s, James said. Space and cyber assets “were also brought into the mix,” she said, but didn’t elaborate.”

Somthing I would have loved to have seen:

“In March, a B-1B Lancer flew a low pass over a drug smuggling boat in the Caribbean Sea, prompting those onboard to dump 500 kilos of cocaine into the deep blue.”

Navy Rethinks the LCS–Manning, Crew Rotation, Homeporting

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Photo: USS Freedom (LCS-1)

The US Naval Institute news service reports “Results of New LCS Review is Departure from Original Vision.”

Why should we care?:

For one thing the LCS were planned to be multi-crewed. Their plan was a bit different from our Crew Rotation Concept, but the idea was the same, multiple crews rotating among multiple ships to provide more deployed time. The Coast Guard had planned to apply the Crew Rotation Concept to the National Security Cutters, but I have also seen it referred to with regard to the Offshore Patrol Cutters.

Earlier I called the Offshore Patrol Cutter, the other LCS, and it does look like they will continue to share some systems and training. If the OPCs emerge with space for modular systems, we may see even more cross talk between the programs. The two types (LCS and OPCs) are similar in size, so comparisons are inevitable.

Hopefully we can learn from their experience.

The results: 

The Navy is abandoning their planned rotation of three crews among two ships in favor of a plan that would assign two crews to a single ship, much like the way SSBNs are manned by blue and gold crews. The significant difference is that the crews “own” the ships, they don’t expect to walk away to a different hull and never see it again.

The size of the crews is to be increased. Originally there was to have been a core crew of 40. That was increased to 50, and it is now planned to increase the core crew to 70 plus a 23 person air detachment. Maximum berthing is reportedly 98. Adding a CG LE team should max out the berthing. This pushes the crew much closer to what the Coast Guard was planning for the OPC, (pdf) a crew of 104. That means a full crew for each LCS is really 163, two core crews of 70 and 23 in the air detachment.

Instead of basing a mix of both types of LCS on each coast, the new plan would put the trimaran Independence class, with its longer range, on the West Coast (San Diego) while the shorter legged, monohull Freedom class will be based on the East Coast (Mayport, FL). That makes a lot of sense.

The ships will be organized into six four ship divisions with each division assigned a single mission (mine countermeasures, anti-surface, or antisubmarine). The four oldest ships will be single crewed, will not be assigned to a division and will instead be used for training and testing. Again this makes sense since subsequent ships are somewhat different, having incorporated lessons learned on the first ships.

That doesn’t necessarily mean there will be one division of each class assigned each of the three missions although that may the result. To me the Independence class appears better suited for ASW and the Freedom class by default better used as minecountermeasures ship.

uss_independence_lcs_2

Photo: USS Independence (LCS-2), U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Justan Williams 

Lessons: 

When the Coast Guard finally decides to abandon the Crew Rotation Concept, as currently envisioned–four crews for three ships. They can point to the LCS experience as justification.

As a means to allow increased time underway, permanently augmenting the NSCs’ crews to allow generous leave and TAD assignments is probably a better solution. After all, if we have a crew of 160 or so assigned to each NSC or OPC, we could probably keep them underway at least as much as the LCS are.

Applying a division staff organization to the NSCs and perhaps the OPCs is probably a good idea. In addition to a post command captain, that could, among other things, provide initial advice to newly arrived COs and possibly a relief CO function; it could provide personnel augmentation for those specialists positions that have little or no redundancy in the typical ship’s organization, allowing them some leave and/or TAD while the ship is underway, with the objective of keeping the crew members underway time at 185 days or less, while the ship is away from homeport for a considerably longer time.

Canada’s Coast Guard, Same Song, Different Accent

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CBC reports that the Canadian Coast Guard is in bad shape.

  • Their ships are old.
  • Increased maintenance is eating into their budget and restricting asset availablity.
  • Their new Polar Icebreaker is still a decade away.
  • They have been under funded for decades.

Sounds familiar doesn’t it. In fact, as if to excuse the problems they say, look the USCG has the same problems.

Fatal Incident in Eastern Pacific Drug Interdiction

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The Eleventh District has provided a news release which I will quote in full.

A crewmember of a vessel suspected of illicit trafficking activity in the Eastern Pacific Ocean died Tuesday night during the U.S. Coast Guard’s pursuit and interdiction of the boat some 200 miles off the west coast of Isla de Coco, Costa Rica.  The exact cause of death is not known and is under investigation.

A U.S. Coast Guard helicopter, operating from a Coast Guard cutter patrolling the area, pursued the suspicious vessel.  The helicopter signaled the vessel to stop but it failed to do so.  Pursuant to Coast Guard procedures, a precision marksman aboard the helicopter then fired warning shots in front of the vessel, which were ignored by the vessel’s crew.  The marksman then fired rounds into the vessel’s outboard engines, disabling the vessel and bringing the pursuit to a halt.

Once the suspect vessel stopped, a Coast Guard law enforcement team from the cutter boarded the vessel and discovered an injured suspect, who later died.

“Our efforts to stem the flow of illegal drugs are inherently dangerous.  We go to extraordinary lengths to minimize the chance of injury during these operations,” said Rear Adm. Todd Sokalzuk, Commander of the 11th Coast Guard District. “It is regrettable that in this case the crewmembers did not heed multiple orders and warnings to stop their vessel, causing us to employ tactics necessary to disable their engines.  Unfortunately, one of the crewmembers was fatally injured during this interdiction,”  he said.

An investigation is underway to review the details of Tuesday’s interdiction and determine what caused the suspected smuggler’s fatal injuries.

In 2015, a record 109 metric tons of cocaine and 316 suspects were interdicted in the Eastern Pacific by the U.S. Coast Guard and partner agencies.  In fiscal year 2016, the record pace of interdictions continues, with over 132 tons seized, and 410 suspects taken into custody.

Fisheries Regulation Coming to Waters Beyond the EEZ?

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Photo: The John B a fishing trawler with drum winches at Howth, Dublin, by William Murphy

Bryant’s Maritime Consulting points us to an announcement. 

In its resolution 69/292 of 19 June 2015, the General Assembly decided to develop an international legally binding instrument under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) on the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity of areas beyond national jurisdiction.

To that end, it decided to establish, prior to holding an intergovernmental conference, a Preparatory Committee, to make substantive recommendations to the General Assembly on the elements of a draft text of an international legally binding instrument under UNCLOS, taking into account the various reports of the Co-Chairs on the work of the Ad Hoc Open-ended Informal Working Group to study issues relating to the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity beyond areas of national jurisdiction.

This raises a number of questions. Who establishes the rules? Who is going to enforce this? How will the enforcer (whoever it may be) deal with uncooperative flag states? If a perpetrator is caught, where will they be jailed? Who will try the crewmembers? The owners? Where wil they serve their sentence?

Considering the lack of success with enforcement of the ban on drift nets and China’s refusal to follow the decision of the Permanent Court of Arbitration’s decision regarding the South China Sea, is this just political theater? Or will someone step up and give, what I presume will be an agreement, some teeth?

UN mandates have authorized the use of force in the past. Could maritime law enforcement wear a blue beret?