Great story from the Washington Post about LCdr Joel Fisher’s role in the recovery of Nazi loot during the closing days of World War II, as told by his daughter. An unexpected bit of Coast Guard history.
Coast Guard Monuments Man
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New Propulsion System Suitable for Ice Environment
gCaptain has posted news of a new propulsion system developed by Caterpillar Marine in partnership with Odense Maritime Technology (OMT) and Scandinavian Marine Group (SMG) that is claimed to be more efficient, quieter, and suitable for icebreakers and other vessels operating in severe environment, while offering maintenance advantages in terms of accessibility. A more complete view of the system is here.
Australia Plans to Provide Patrol Boats to Pacific Island Nations
Photo credit: Angra at en.wikipedia: Royal Solomon Islands Police Vessel Lata in Townsville Harbour during a 2005 maintenance visit, one of the boats to be replaced
MarineLink is reporting that Australia is planning to reprise its earlier Pacific Patrol Boat Program of providing patrol boats to island nations in the Pacific. The Program will build over 20 steel hulled patrol boats.
“…the rugged Australian-made patrol boats are worth $594 million with through life sustainment and personnel costs estimated at $1.38 billion over 30 years.
“Replacement patrol boats will be offered to all current participating states including Papua New Guinea, Tonga, Solomon Islands, Fiji, Tuvalu, Kiribati, Samoa, Vanuatu, Federated States of Micronesia, Palau, Republic of Marshall Islands, Cook Islands and new member Timor-Leste.”
Of those 13 states the US has obligations to three of them, the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM), the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) and the Republic of Palau, under the Compact of Free Association.
Characteristics of existing PPB as listed in Wikipedia:
Displacement: 162 tons full load
Length: 31.5 m (103 ft)
Beam: 8.1 m (27 ft)
Draught: 1.8 m (5.9 ft)
Propulsion: 2 Caterpillar 3516TA diesels, 2820 hp (2.1 MW), 2 shafts
Speed: 20 knots (37 km/h; 23 mph)
Range: 2,500 nautical miles @ 12 knots
Endurance: 10 days
Complement: 14-18
Furuno 1011 I band surface search radar
Given the expected price of the new patrol boats, I suspect the new boats may be larger, perhaps similar to the Australian Armidale class.
At the very least we can expect that the US Coast Guard may be involved in training for the crews of some of these boats. There is also a good possibility of cooperative operations.
Underway Time–Navy
Navy Times reports that eight types of surface ships including aircraft carriers, amphibs, command ships, cruisers, destroyers, frigates, and LCSs averaged 33.1% of the time underway during the years 2011 to 2013.
Wonder how figures for the Coast Guard compare? The Navy figure is almost certainly different from “Days Away From Homeport” although the article seems to equate it when they say, “Sailors…have seen more of the sea than they have of their families in the past three years.” How are they counting yard periods away from homeport (probably a rare event for them), or in port time way from homeport? Is a day underway for only a few hours counted the same as a 24 hour day?
No matter how these are counted, my impression is that the Coast Guard’s average would be higher in spite of the numerous mechanical breakdowns we are hearing about. If so, shouldn’t more people know it?
More Info on the Eastern OPC Proposal
All photos credit Navy Recognition
Recently found a brochure for Eastern’s OPC reportedly from last year’s Sea, Air, Space Conference. Credit FCNoVA from this discussion group. We have discussed this class before and here, the comments may still be of interest.
Relative to the question does the design meet the “objective” criteria or only the minimums it looks like relatively good news, meeting or exceeding the objectives in terms of endurance, speed, aviation facilities, and accommodations. I presume since this design meets most of the objective criteria, the other two designs will also similarly exceed the minimums. I will provide some of the information provided in the brochure and then provide my comments.
You can read the brochure here: http://www.mnvdet.com/Other/Eastern%20OPC%20Scan.pdf
DIMENSIONS:
Length overall: 328ft
Length between perpendiculars: 297ft
Beam overall: 52ft
Beam waterline: 48.67ft
Depth: 24.5ft
Draft: 16.1ft
Commentary: Compared to the Treasury Class (327 ft) cutters, this is, of course only one foot longer, but the beam and draft are both substantially greater, greater in fact than the beam and draft of the 378s, so we can expect the full load displacement to be considerably greater than the 327s’ approximately 2500 tons, and close to the over 3,000 ton full load displacement of the 378s. Unless the vertical weight distribution is messed up, these are likely to be good riding, very seaworthy ships, a notable improvement on the 270s and 210s.
Accommodations:
126 total
20 commissioned officers
12 CPOs
94 E-6 and below
Also included are a 466 sq ft physical fitness area, a 20 seat training room, and a 48 seat crew’s lounge.
Commentary: Note these are the accommodations, not the expected crew which will be 15 officers, 89 enlisted, and detachments totalling 12 for a total of 116. The Coast Guard is avoiding the mistake made on the Littoral Combat Ship of assuming a small crew, limiting accommodations, and then finding they need a larger crew than the ship was designed for.
Performance:
Range 9,500 nmi @ 14 knots
Sustained speed: 24 knots
Sprint speed: 26 knots.
Commentary: This is an area I was afraid we would see the design compromised. For similar speeds, this range is comparable to the that of the 378s. At speeds above 18 knots, its all diesel power plant will give it greater range than the 378s.
Main Propulsion/Auxiliary Prop and thruster/Electrical:
Main Prop: Two 12,204 HP MAN geared diesels
Ship Service Generators: 4,1044 kW
Auxiliary Prop/thruster: 750 kW, 1005 HP
Commentary: I interpret this to mean four generators of 1044 kW or 4,176kW total. That is a lot of power generation potential. By comparison a 378’s total capacity is 1500 kW, the 270s have 1425 kW. This suggest that the ship will have a hybrid power plant with the generators used for driving electric cruise motors. Running only three generators, one could probably supply routine electrical requirements and the other two could propel the ship. Two generators would supply the equivalent of approximately 2800 HP, this might be enough to drive the ship at 14 knots. Certainly three generators supplying 4200 HP would be more than enough. This will allow the ship to cruise with the Main Diesel Engines shut down.
The combined horsepower of the main diesels, 24,408 HP is more power than the diesel engines of the National Security Cutters which we know provide a high cruising speed, and it is about three and a half times the power of those on the 378s or the 270s.
The thruster is apparently of the drop down trainable type, allowing it to be used as an emergency or loiter propulsion system. The available power is relatively high meaning the ship could probably make seven or eight knots on the thruster alone.
I expect what we will see is two main engine spaces, each with one main diesel and one or two generators. Hopefully the main spaces will be separated by more than a single bulkhead, perhaps by the engineering control room, so that damage at a single point cannot effect both engine rooms. Hopefully also, at least one generator will be outside the two main machinery spaces. If so, these ships will have extraordinary main propulsion redundancy with at least three different spaces and five different systems capable of moving the ship–two MDE, two motors on the main shafts, and the bow thruster.
Construction: Steel Hull with an Aluminum Superstructure. Commentary: No surprise, although I would have liked to see steel superstructure, but it is a reasonable compromise.
Aviation Facilities:
Hangar: H-65/H-60R+UAS/UAV
Flight Deck: 3725 square feet
Commentary: Good news that the hangar will be large enough to accommodate both a Navy MH-60R and a UAS although I am a bit concerned that since the Navy has moved to a larger airframe for their Firescout, there is a chance that the UAS may not include the latest version of what is likely to become a standard system.
Apparently the Flight Deck is at least as large and probably larger than that of the 378s.
Weapons:
57mm Mk110 mod X
Electro-Optic Sensor System
25mm Mk38 mod2
two .50 cal. ROSAM (stabilized mount) plus two .50 cal. in soft mounts
ESM system
Mk53 mod X ASCM decoy system
Commentary: No surprise in what was mentioned. The radar fire control system that was included in previous specifications was not mentioned. This may have been simply an omission, but the Electro-Optic System might also serve as a firecontrol system, although it would be decidedly inferior to a radar system against surface targets in low visibility and against air targets in all situations. Consequently I am a bit concerned that this system has been compromised in the interest of simplifying the design.
The excess generator capacity may make these ships suitable for use of energy intensive weapons that may be developed in the future.
Warship Tour–Frigate Normandie
NavyRecognition has a video tour of the newly constructed French Frigate European Multi-Mission (FREMM) NORMANDIE. This is a relatively large frigate, a third again larger than the BERTHOLF class. It uses a single LM2500 gas turbine for high speed and electric motors for cruise up to 15 knots.
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Early in the video you can see that the foc’sle deck looks very clear, no ground tackle or bollards, and no handrails. Frankly, it looks dangerous to walk around up there except in the most favorable conditions. At time 3:26 you see the foc’sle below the deck where these the fittings are located.
At time 5:06 you see the Combined Active and Passive Towed Array Sonar (CAPTAS)4. This system is being evaluated for the ASW module for the Littoral Combat Ship, and if we revived an ASW capability in the Coast Guard, it is likely this would be the sensor system used. There is a similar but smaller CAPTAS 2 by the same manufacturer.
At minute 5:55 you will see the MU-90 torpedo in the hangar and at minute 6:00 the surface vessel torpedo tubes that also launch the same torpedo. the MU-90 unlike US light weight ASW torpedoes (at least last I knew) has an anti-surface capability. I think is desirable.
At minute 6:58 you see the NATO frigate helicopter, NFH-90, a helicopter in the same class as the H-60 but with the advantages, relative to the existing shipboard versions of the H-60, of a cargo ramp in the rear and a shorter overall length without the complication of a folding tail.
Let’s Give the OPC a Class Name–USCGC Newcomb (WMSM-915)
The procurement process for the Offshore Patrol Cutters is well underway. Three conceptual designs have been selected for further development. Challenges to the selection process have been rejected. There should be decision on the final design and contractor about the end of next year.
Perhaps the ships might feel closer to reality if there were a class name. I like the fact that we have been naming ships for notable figures in the history of the Coast Guard and its predecessor services as was done for the Bertholf and Webber Class cutters. Lets continue that with the Offshore Patrol Cutters.
Frank H. Newcomb
Our friend Bill Wells tells the story of First Lieutenant, Frank H. Newcomb (Captain Commandant upon retirement), CO of the Hudson when it towed the Navy torpedo boat Winslow to safety from under Spanish guns in the port of Cardenas, Cuba during the Spanish American War.
Revenue Cutter Hudson towing USS Winslow while underfire from Spanish guns.
Newcomb was honored by the Navy as namesake for a Fletcher class destroyer, DD-586, USS Newcomb. She had a short but eventful history. In spite of not being commissioned until November 1943. She and another ship sank the Japanese submarine, I-185. She provided naval gun fire support at Saipan, Leyte, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa. As flagship of destroyer squadron 56, she lead a night torpedo attack on a Japanese Fleet during the Battle of Surigao Strait. She scored at least one torpedo hit on the Battleship Yamashiro, which was sunk in the battle, and like her namesake, while under fire, she towed a damaged ship, USS Albert W. Grant (DD-649), to safety. Off Okinawa she survived five (or six) Kamikaze hits.
USS Newcomb, DD-586, after taking at least four and possibly as many as six kamikaze strikes
Newcomb’s career was not limited to his time on the Hudson. This short biography (pdf) by Atlantic Area Historian William H. Thiesen also talks about his peacetime leadership, and how Admiral Waesche personal chose Newcomb as namesake for a destroyer as the best representative of the Coast Guard.
http://www.uscg.mil/lantarea/ExternalAffairs/humanstories/FrankNewcomb.pdf
“While Newcomb distinguished himself commanding a cutter in battle, he spent much of his career working as a field officer and inspector for the United States Life-Saving Service. Throughout his career, Newcomb championed the rights of those whose efforts merited recognition and promotion. For example, when he had received the medal for his wartime exploits, he insisted that Hudson’s crew receive specially struck medals as well, and the cook and stewards mate became the first African Americans to receive such recognition.
“Many in the Coast Guard as well as the general public have heard the story of the service’s only African American Live-Saving Service crew, which manned North Carolina’s Pea Island Life-Saving Station beginning in 1880. Few may realize that it was locally assigned U.S. Life-Saving Service inspector, Lieutenant Frank Newcomb, who worked diligently behind the scenes to institute an African American crew at that station. In fact, the local community opposed the establishment of an African American manned lifesaving station and arsonists burned down the original station. Newcomb had to camp out at the remote site of the burned out Pea Island station during construction of a new building to prevent sabotage a second time. While no one should diminish the accomplishments of the Pea Island Station’s courageous African American crew, it was Newcomb who risked his career and reputation to institute Pea Island’s African American crew in the racially-charged South following the Civil War.”
There has never been a Coast Guard vessel named for Newcomb. I think it is about time.
If you have any other suggestions for namesakes for the class, please add them in the comments section.
“We Need More Coast Guard” says 7th Fleet
NationalDefenseMagazine.org has a piece that reports the Seventh Fleet advocating for the Coast Guard.
There is an apparent error in that Capt. David Adams is identified as “Commander of the Navy’s 7th Fleet.” I assume they mean he is a spokesman for ComSeventhFleet. Nevertheless, the good news is that someone in 7th Fleet is advocating for the Coast Guard. The bad news is that the Coast Guard may not be, being recognized for what it is already doing.
The implied desire in the article that the Coast Guard send ships to the South China Sea to confront the Chinese Coast Guard,
“We have no white hulls in the Pacific, hardly,” Adams said. “We are going to have to fund the Coast Guard, not to do their conventional missions, but to come and help with the white-hull problem out in the Pacific.”
is probably a non-starter, both because of a shortage of Coast Guard assets and because the Coast Guard has no authority in the waters in question, but that may not have been what the Captain was really saying, although taking Philippine and Vietnamese fisheries enforcement officers aboard a National Security Cutter and using it for fisheries enforcement under their authority in the South China Sea could be interesting.
Dean Cheng, senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation’s Asian studies center suggested,
“‘The Coast Guard is a civilian entity, and there is little reason to my mind that [it] should not exercise in conjunction with the coast guards and civilian law enforcement entities of American allies’ in the Asia-Pacific region, he said”
Mr. Cheng, must have missed USCGC Waesche’s participation in CARAT 2012, the transfer of two 378s to the Philippines and boats to Vietnam and really for the 1000th time, the Coast Guard is a military service.
(Actually very few of the China Coast Guard ships are repainted navy ships and most of their cutters are not as well armed as their USCG counterparts.)
What more can the Coast Guard do? We could certainly sell (or the State Department could give) cutters, boats, and aircraft to SE Asian countries and help train their coast guards. Foreign Military Sales of Offshore Patrol Cutters, Webber class WPCs, and HC-144s with subsequent training might be an instrument of foreign policy. There used to be a something called “seconding” whereby officers of one country filled billets in the armed services of another, but the USCG is not going to be enforcing their laws.
If the nations of Southeast Asia do as Bob Marley sang and “Stand-up, stand-up for your right,” and the Chinese gray hulls “over the horizon” are indeed tempted to intercede, I hope some haze gray 7th Fleet ships are near by to dissuade them from doing anything foolish. Coast Guard cutters will not.
Note, I changed this post after realizing I had misread parts of the referenced post.
Another Deepwater Horizon in Our Future
According to a report by the U.S Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board as reported by gCaptain, the problems that caused the Deepwater Horizon disaster have gone unresolved.
“Industry practice and federal safety rules currently in place in the Gulf may not prevent another catastrophic spill, according to the report. U.S. regulations fall short of standards used for drilling off the coasts of Norway, Australia and the U.K., which require more rigorous, regular and independent safety-equipment checks, the agency said.”
The copyrighted Bloomberg story also reports government and industry reaction.
The CSB draft report can be found here.
Russia’s “coast guard” in the Arctic
Interesting short report from Russian Media about how they expect to handle emergencies in the Arctic, including the use of nuclear powered icebreakers.
Somehow this also got inserted into the article, “In April, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a unified system of deployment for navy surface ships and new generation submarines.” so their kind of emergency may not be the kind of emergency that would first come to the USCG mind.
While this may not reflect only maritime experience, there was also an interesting admission, “According to the Russian Emergency Ministry there are more than 100 emergency situations in the Russian Arctic annually, both natural and man-made. There has been a steady increase in the number of incidents caused by humans, especially transport accidents (30%), and explosions and fires related to technical equipment (24%).”
Given the extent of Russia’s Arctic coast line they have invested heavily in icebreakers.
“Currently, Russia’s nuclear icebreaker fleet consists of four icebreakers, with two reactors each and 75,000 total horsepower (Rossiya, Sovetskiy Soyuz, Yamal and 50 Let Pobedy)(about the same power as the Polar class-Chuck), and two icebreakers, with one reactor each and 40,000 total horsepower (Taymyr and Vaygach).” (a bit less powerful than Healy-Chuck)
Chuck Hill's CG Blog 