Reportedly the Navy has found “significant structural damage” in several of their Cyclone Class patrol boats. This includes the five boats operating with CG 110ft WPBs that protect Iraqi oil terminals. Sounds as if the WPBs may have to take up the slack. In addition the Coast Guard operates three boats of this class which will also require inspection and likely repairs.
The Acquisition Directorate is reporting “The Coast Guard awarded a $166.1 million contract option to Bollinger Shipyards of Lockport, La., on September 14 to begin production of four Sentinel-class Fast Response Cutters (FRCs). ”
This is the third contract and means that eight vessels have been contracted for. Options have already been negotiated to bring the total to 34. Ultimately we plan to have 58.
I have high hopes for these vessels. They are much more capable than the ships they replace. In some respects they may be able to fill in for the ship-day deficits we will see in HEC/MEC days. At the same time, it has to be recognized that they will cost more to run than the 110s, just as the 110s cost more to run than the 95s.
This is a continuation of a look at a report the Department of Homeland Security presented to Congress regarding Coast Guard mission performance begun in part one.
The report divides the Coast Guard’s 11 missions into Department of Homeland Security Missions and Non-Homeland Security missions as follows (percent of hours associated with each mission is in parenthesis):
Homeland security missions include:
Non-Homeland Security Missions include:
The first thing you may notice is that the “Homeland Security Missions” were Coast Guard missions long before the creation of DHS.
This distinction is artificial. DHS seems fixated on terrorism. Once the DHS is reconciled to the fact that they are the department responsible for disaster prevention, response, and mitigation regardless of whether that disaster is natural, accidental, or a terrorist attack, then they will see that the remaining Coast Guard missions are also to some extent DHS missions. (Notably the previous year when GAO testified before the Senate Subcommittee on Oceans, Atmosphere, Fisheries, and Coast Guard, Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, “Drug Interdiction” and “Other Law Enforcement” were listed as non-homeland security missions.)
Marine Safety and AtoN help prevent accidental disasters. Living Marine Resources and MEP help prevent environmental disasters. Any SAR case is at least a small scale disaster for those involved. SAR can be a major part of disaster mitigation as in the case of Katrina or Haiti. The SAR organization is the frequently the basis for post disaster communications. Even Ice Operations can mitigate the possibility of flooding by preventing the accumulation of water behind Ice dams that may release catastrophically–all good DHS missions.
As noted in part 1, the report seems to miss a signifiant part of the Coast Guard’s operation, but for now lets look at what it does show. We will look at Measures of effectiveness later.
General:
The report actually covers the entire period from 2001 to the present and compares current operations with a baseline established on the basis of eight quarters prior to 9/11. One important item is that although total resource hours declined since 2005, hours are still up considerably compared to pre-9/11 levels, up from a little less than 500,000 hours to 717,992 hours, so a decline in percentage doesn’t necessarily reflect a decline in activity.
Homeland Security Resource Hours:
Hours increased significantly as might be expected, 115%, from a baseline of a bit less than 200,000 to 400,742.
Ports, Waterways, and Coastal Security: By far the greatest percentage of hours (181,264 hours/25.25%) was taken by ports, waterways and coastal security missions. Resource utilization is up ten fold from the baseline after peaking in 2003/4/5.
So maybe we ought to add another 25.25% to MEP, another 25.25% to SAR, and another 25.25% to Drug interdiction. Still do we patrol enough? The vessel and aircraft related measures of effectiveness targets are being exceeded. But the targets are abominably low, considering we are dealing with events with potentially catastrophic consequences.
Drug Interdiction: Hours are down 34% from the pre-9/11 baseline from a little over 120,000 down to 80,564. Here we are getting substantial help from DOD but that doesn’t show up in the hours, and the efforts of our LEDETS, like those of the small boats, are also not reflected by the resource hour measure.
Undocumented Migrant Interdiction: Up more than 150% to 76,100 hours. Reportedly we are achieving record high interdiction rates.
Defense Readiness: Hours are up considerably, to 56,128 hours or 7.82% but the baseline was ridiculously low at what looks like less than 7,000 hours or less than 300 unit days. The results have been poor with little improvement expected until the National Security Cutters and Fast Response Cutters replace the 378s and 110s.
Other Law Enforcement: (6,686 hours 0.93%) The number of hours has bounced around quite a bit by percentage (now 19.2% below the baseline). The entire effort is less than 280 unit days, but the service is exceeding its performance goal by a wide margin.
Non-homeland security
Non-Homeland Security hours (317,250 hours or 44.18%) dropped below the baseline in 2002/2003/2004 but are currently slightly above the baseline.
Search and Rescue: SAR Hours are down more than a quarter, from over 80,000 to 58,607 hours or 8.16%. Even so, we are meeting our performance objectives. SAR hours are demand driven. In 2005, hours were still below baseline, but bumped up 14.8% from 2004 as a result of Katrina. Hopefully we will be able to do more rescuing and less searching as a result of innovations like Rescue 21. The depressed economy may have a role here too. If we were a SAR only organization we would have to fly or get underway just to train and maintain proficiency. As it is, much of the proficiency training is done working on other missions, so perhaps we should credit a few more percentage points to the hours we spend on SAR.
Marine Safety (52,579 hours 7.2%): The Coast Guard did not even report commitment of resource hours to Marine Safety before 2005. I’m still not sure what we are doing with this much cutter and aircraft time that effects the number of commercial mariner and commercials passenger deaths or injuries (two of the three measures of effectiveness) Most of these hours must go to Recreational Boating Safety (the third measure of effectiveness). This may be another way to count patrol hours.
Aids to Navigation: AtoN hours show a drop from the baseline of about 10% to 1000,904 hours, but it is still 14.05% of the current total. Improved reliability of aids appears to have made this possible without a drop in service.
Ice Ops (8,033 hours/1.12%): This category is primarily a reflection of ice conditions on the Great Lakes and navigable waterways that can fluctuate substantially year to year. It says very little about our Arctic capabilities, long in decline.
Living Marine Resources (94,178 hours/13.12%): Hours declined after 9/11 but now slightly exceed pre-9/11 baseline.
Marine Environmental Protection (MEP) (2,949 hours/0.41%): Like Marine Safety, MEP recorded no resource hours committed before 2005. Hours are down over 40% since 2005, but in FY2009 we exceeded our goals for prevention of chemicals and oil discharges per units shipped. There were no performance measures specifically related to safety of or pollution from offshore wells. I suspect most MEP work is not done by the cutters and aircraft included in this report, but that we will see a big increase in MEP hours when figures come out for FY2010. In the minds of most people, fisheries enforcement, both “Living Marine Resources” (domestic fisheries) and “Other Law Enforcement” (foreign fisheries) is a form of “Marine Environmental Protection.” Perhaps we need to group them with regulation of the chemical and petroleum industries and pollution clean-up under an expanded Marine Environmental Protection Program, so that there will be a better appreciation of what the service does.
Conclusion:
Traditional Coast Guard missions continue within the Department of Homeland Security. They have not been neglected.
For the Coast Guard to have gone from less than 500,000 resource hours to consistently over 700,000 hours, a more than 40% increase, when there has been no substantial increase in assets and as the average age of the assets increased has got to be a strain.
Coming in Part 3: Performance Measures and Where the Problems are.
The Inspector General of the Department of Homeland Security recently completed his “Annual Review of the United States Coast Guard’s Mission Performance (FY 2009)”. The final report is available in Acrobat PDF format from DHS.
I’ve seen some dismay expressed over the results, particularly with regard to the allocation of resources, while Appendices C and D which discuss how the Coast Guard is meeting its measures of effectiveness have been largely ignored. These are the types of comments I have seen:
The utility of the resource allocation information provided is questionable at best. Frankly, I think it is a fraud perpetrated on the Congress at their own behest. That they accept it in this form doesn’t reflect well on Congress, and that it is offered in this way suggests that the Department of Homeland Security and the US Coast Guard have a low opinion of Congress’ attention span.
This report claims to address the annual review of the United States Coast Guard’ s mission performance required by the Homeland Security Act of 2002. When the Department of Homeland Security was created, there was a concern that traditional missions would get short shrift, so an annual report was required to make sure non-Homeland Security missions were not being neglected. A laudable goal, but is the percentage of resource hours as provided a meaningful measure?
Here is how the report defines “Resource Hours”:
“Resource Hours. The Coast Guard uses resource hours— generally, the number of flight hours (for aircraft) and underway hours (for boats and cutters) used to carry out a specific mission— to determine the amount of time expended on each of its non-homeland security and homeland security missions. During our review, we obtained data on the total number of resource hours reported by the Coast Guard from a baseline of pre-September 11, 2001 data, through Fiscal Year (FY) 2009. The Coast Guard– calculated baseline is an annual average of resource hours based on eight FY quarters preceding September 11, 2001. We did not verify the resource hour data reported by the Coast Guard, nor did we validate whether the Coast Guard accurately classified resource hours used for each mission. We assessed total resource hours for the 11 individual missions in order to identify the changes in each.”
Notice there is no definition of which units are included, yet it leaves the impression that all boats are included. The report, however, indicates that the Coast Guard expended approximately 700,000 resource hours in FY2009. That sounds like a lot, but if you divide by the number of hours in a year you get only about 80 resource years. We have over 200 vessels 87 feet and larger, and over 200 aircraft. They alone should easily account for 80 resource years. This means that our approximately 2,000 boats and cutters smaller than 87 feet are unaccounted for and were not considered. That leaves a lot of the Coast Guard’s work uncredited.
I will be revisiting this subject to discuss the resource allocation indicated by the report and the measures of effectiveness.
Looks like the US is taking a tougher stand against pirates:
At approximately 5 a.m. local time, Sept. 9, 24 U.S. Marines from the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit’s Maritime Raid Force (MRF) aboard USS Dubuque (LPD 8) operating under Combined Task Force 151 (CTF-151), boarded and seized control of Antigua-Barbuda-flagged, German–owned vessel M/V Magellan Star from pirates who attacked and boarded the vessel early Sept 8. See the Navy’s news release here.
Looks like 15th MEU had trained for a year specifically for a situation like this.
56 years ago, on 4 September 1954, the icebreakers USCGC Northwind and USS Burton Island completed the first transit of the Northwest passage through McClure Strait.
There has been a lot more activity in the North lately (more here and here), with the promise that if the melting continues, passages from Northern Europe to Asia may be cut by up to half (link includes a nice comparisons of the routes). The Russians expect to make some money on fees for passage and the use of their icebreakers.
There is even talk that it may substantially hurt business at the Suez Canal and allow ships to avoid pirates off Somalia. Looks like that is still a few years off since the season is very limited and only ice strengthened vessels can use the route now.
Still other people are planning ahead. China is building their second polar icebreaker and positioning itself to exploit the Arctic. Maybe a little healthy competition is the wake up call we need.
The Navy’s Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) has taken a lot of criticism, including editorials by Phil Ewing at Navy Times Scoop Deck (some of the most recent here and here). Ridicule of the program has become a regular feature of at least one Naval blog.
Perhaps most telling, in answer to Congressional inquiry, the GAO has completed an evaluation of the program and it isn’t complementary, finding that many of the decisions have been questionable, including the decision to deploy the ship on a law enforcement patrol, and that there is still substantial risk that these vessels will not fulfill their promise. Hopefully the Coast guard can learn from the Navy’s mistakes. You can read the entire GAO report it is here:
It is fairly long at 55 pages, but in addition to the criticism, its the best overview of the program I’ve seen.
How can something like this (or Deepwater) happen? One commentator has an explanation. Are loss of accountability, personnel assignment policies, and careerism at the root of the problem? Are these problems for the Coast Guard as well?
We shouldn’t let the day pass without recognizing that WWII ended 65 years ago today with the formal surrender of Japan on the deck of the battleship Missouri. Acceptance of terms of surrender had been announced on August 15. The boys and girls who entered the services to defeat the enemies of mankind are old or dead today, but we salute them.
Thank you, for all you did.
Sorry I’m late pointing to this, but if you don’t regularly look into the US Naval Institute Blog this entry is worth a look. It is really a Coast Guard question.
The Coast Guard investigation of this mid-air collision found that ” No single factor or individual act or omission caused this mishap. It was the product of a tragic confluence of events, missed opportunities, and procedure/policy issues in an airspace where most aircraft fly under a “see-and-avoid” regime (i.e. where individual aircraft de-conflict themselves).”
The Coast Guard investigation does, however, contain considerable criticism of the action or in-action of FACSFAC San Diego, the agency that oversees this area, as does the Navy’s own investigation.
Mentioned, but receiving far less attention, under action, page 10, para 2.c., of the CG investigation, is a recommendation that the FAA consider review of regulations to more precisely define formation flight… such as requiring, “all formation aircraft squawk a discrete code unless otherwise directed.”
I would like to point out why this is critically important, why there is no reason this should not have been standard procedure, and why this single action might have made all the difference, even if FACSFAC SD had done nothing differently.
This collision involved a CG C-130 actively engaged in a SAR case that required it to repeatedly enter an airspace Warning Area, W-291, and a Marine AH-1W, Cobra gunship, call sign Vengence (V) 38, that was one of a flight of four helicopters that were “flying in formation.”
When the collision occurred, the C-130, CG 1705, was maintaining an established altitude, 1000 feet, all it’s collision avoidance lighting was on, and its transponder was activated.
The four Marine helicopters, two CH-53Es and two AH-1Ws, were practicing night combat conditions using Night Vision Devices. Only one, a AH-1 call sign V-39, in trail and to one side, was displaying full anti-collision lighting. The others were generally displaying only their position lights and they were dimmed. Their anti-collision strobe lights were not activated. Only one helo, CH-53E call sign Warhourse (WH) 53, not involved in the collision, had an active transponder, and it was never keyed to its assigned unique code. At the time of the collision it was still set to 1200, the default for aircraft in operating under visual flight rules, VFR.
Three aircraft in the flight of four were flying without their anti-collision lighting and three were flying without active transponders because they were “flying in formation” which would allow the aircraft to be treated as a single aircraft by air traffic control, for purposes of navigation and position reporting. While all four helos were supposed to be operating in close proximity, and moving as a single aircraft, in fact they were not. They was substantial separation laterally, longitudinally, and in altitude. Even as planned this flight of four was not a standard formation, and no attempt was made to clarify that the formation was non-standard. This point seems to have been missed or glossed over by the investigations.
“A standard formation is one in which a proximity of no more than 1 mile laterally or longitudinally and within 100 feet vertically from the flight leader is maintained by each wingman.” (“formation flight,” Aeronautical Information Manual–Pilot/Controller Glossary) As planned the CH-53s and the AH-1s were to have maintained a 300 ft vertical separation, meaning that this was not a standard formation, even if executed as planned, and should not have been reported as a single unit unless Air Traffic Controller had acknowledged and agreed. The planned lateral and longitudinal separation was to have been 500 feet between aircraft. I fact it was much more.
At the time of impact, the flight of four was heading 276 at 109 knots with WH53 at 900′ and V38 at 1000′. CG 1705 was heading 226 at 184 knots and 1000′. WH53 was 0.766 nautical miles directly in front of CG 1705. V39 was 1.005 nautical miles at approximately the 9 o’clock position from CG 1705. With approximately 1.3 miles separating WH53 and V38 the flight of four no longer met the definition for a standard formation in terms of proximity either.
Converging on a bearing of approximately 190 from CG1705 to the Cobra, the two aircraft covered the 5.5 miles in less than four minutes with CG1705 overtaking the darkened Cobra, with it’s low visibility paint scheme, from its starboard quarter as it climbed into the flight path of the C-130. The closing rate was approximately 82.5 knots.
The most commonly understood function of the transponder is to provide information to air traffic controllers. It is capable of enhancing the radar presentation, providing a unique code used to identify the aircraft, and in all but the least sophisticated versions, providing altitude information. But it can also provide information directly to other aircraft, if they are equipped with a Traffic Collision Avoidance System (TCAS). This system can alert other aircraft in the area of their relative bearing, proximity, relative altitude, and can recognize and provide alerts when there is a risk of collision and in some cases even provide recommendations for evasive action. The C-130 was equipped with a TCAS and it was functioning. Just seconds before the collision, the TCAS detected a danger of collision and issued a warning, apparently with regard to the only Marine helo with an active transponder, CH-53 WH53, still more than three quarter of a mile a head. CG1705’s pilot initiated a climb, apparently based on this warning, just before impact. I saw no indication if the Marine helicopters were equipped with TCAS, although if it were civilian aircraft, Their maximum takeoff weight would have required installation of one. If the mishap AH-1 had had a TCAS and it was in operation, presumably it would have alerted the pilot of the impending collision.
I understand the need to secure lights and transponders in combat. I can understand the need to practice night flying in darkened condition with lights dimmed or even off, since bright lights would adversely effect night vision devices, but I cannot understand the need to secure transponders for this exercise since presumably, it would have no impact on the execution of the mission. In prep for the mission, turn the transponder off to get in the habit, because that is what you would do “going into combat,” but then make a conscious decision to turn it back on, because you are in a training environment.
The see-and-avoid concept works on the presumption that aircraft will want to be seen and will have lights on at night. Helicopters without lights and with paint schemes intended to minimize visual detection work against the basic presumptions. Recognizing this, the Marine helos should have made every effort, that would not have interfered with their training, to enhance detection of their aircraft. There is already provision for this, “If necessary for separation between a nonstandard formation and other aircraft assign an appropriate beacon code to each aircraft in the formation or to the first and last aircraft in trail.” (FAA JO 7110.65S)
This tragedy, as COMPACFLT noted, was entirely preventable.
Chuck Hill's CG Blog 