“America’s Sole Heavy Icebreaker Heads South as Arctic Competition Intensifies” –gCaptain

Posted on by
Reply

The rudder of the USCGC Polar Star (WAGB 10) is being removed while in a Vallejo, Calif., dry dock, April 1, 2025. The maintenance work completed over the past five years recapitalized integral systems, including propulsion, communication, and machinery control systems. (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Seaman Nestor Molina)

gCaptain reports,

“The U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Polar Star departed its Seattle homeport Thursday for its 29th annual deployment to Antarctica, beginning a months-long mission that underscores both America’s enduring polar presence and the mounting challenges facing its aging icebreaker fleet.

“The cutter’s deployment follows its return to Seattle in September after 308 days away, which included completing the final phase of its comprehensive five-year Service Life Extension Program at Mare Island Dry Dock in Vallejo, California. The $12.7 million final phase focused on recapitalizing integral systems including propulsion, communication, and machinery control systems.”

“Pre-Award Solicitation Details Classification Description Contact Information Attachments/Links Market Research for Maritime Domain Dominance Technologies/Services for Maritime Applications” –RFI

Posted on by
Reply

The Coast Guard has issued a Request for Information,

“The Coast Guard Futures Development and Integration (FD&I) Directorate is the Coast Guard’s central force design and innovation hub guiding budget priorities by clarifying mission needs and capability requirements. Under FD&I, the Coast Guard Research and Development Center serves as the execution agent for research, modeling & simulation, technology forecasting, and field experimentation. The Coast Guard Rapid Response Rapid Prototype (RAPTOR) team is a barrier-breaking enabler that partners with Coast Guard offices to solve the biggest problems in the service by providing cutting edge capabilities and supporting the deployment of rapid solutions. This Request for Information (RFI) is part of an effort by the United States Coast Guard (USCG) to determine the availability and technical readiness of technologies and/or services that support Maritime Domain Dominance (MDD) Operational Concepts. Operational Concepts articulate unsolved challenges and propose solutions for experimentation and leadership validation before committing to force design or to create formal requirements. The Coast Guard desires unified, real-time MDD solutions that establish a “detect-to-act” pipeline connecting every cutter, small boat, aircraft, unmanned system (air and surface), and sensors (space, air, surface, and shore-based) that are networked to our operators and command centers to facilitate the decisions and actions that follow. The desired outcome of a robust MDD capability is faster, more accurate identification and warning of threats along U.S. borders and maritime approaches, enabling the Coast Guard and its partners to control, secure, and defend those areas. The Coast Guard is not looking for a singular solution to provide the MDD capability, but rather a holistic and/or collection of capabilities to achieve this desired outcome.

This is potentially a multi-use system. Tracking traffic will make SAR easier and help identify sources of pollution. Presumably it will monitor boats involved in illegal immigration from Mexico and Canada, but this also has defense implications.

While it is nice to see that the Coast Guard wants to be able to act on information received, I  wonder why this is not a joint Navy/Coast Guard project. Certainly the Navy has an interest. Really the interest should extend to the “Golden Dome.” Navy P-8 Maritime Patrol Aircraft and satellites should be a major source information.

“Navy Cancels Constellation-class Frigate Program, Considering New Small Surface Combatants” –USNI

Posted on by
29

The US Naval Institute News Service reports,

“The Navy is walking away from the Constellation-class frigate program to focus on new classes of warships the service can build faster, Secretary of the Navy John Phelan announced Tuesday on social media.

“Under the terms negotiated with shipbuilder Fincantieri Marinette Marine, the Wisconsin shipyard will continue to build Constellation (FFG-62) and Congress (FFG-63) but will cancel the next four planned warships.”

This seems an odd way to get more ships faster, but it may be an opportunity to develop a class of ships that can serve in both the Navy and Coast Guard.

I have to believe they have a design in mind to replace the Constellation class.

Marinenette is contracted to build ships for Saudi Arabia based on the Freedom Class LCS called the multi-mission surface combatant. These could be what would be built for the Navy instead of the larger Constellation class.

The only other likely design I am aware of is a Gibbs and Cox design being built in Taiwan.

Drawing of Taiwan’s light frigate project. This image shows the AAW configuration, with VLS. (Official Photo by Simon Liu / Office of the President).

“Hearing to Consider the Nomination of Admiral Kevin E. Lunday, U.S. Coast Guard, 11.19.2025”

Posted on by
3

The video above is wide ranging. It’s a bit long, but I think it is useful in understanding concerns.

One thing that surprised me was that the Commandant pledged to pursue construction of a second Great Lakes icebreaker. I would have thought since the Arctic Security Cutters will be able to access the Great Lakes that they would provide seasonal icebreaking in the Great Lakes.

It surprises me that we don’t yet seem to know what the additional 15,000 Coast Guard personnel that are expected to be added to the Coast Guard under Force Design 2028 will be doing, so how did we come up with this figure? There is apparently a study underway.

“Availability and Use of Aircraft in the Coast Guard” –Congressional Budget Office

Posted on by
2

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) prepared a report “at the request of the Chairman and Ranking Member of the Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation Subcommittee of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure” on the use and availability of Coast Guard aircraft. Below the break is CBO’s “At a Glance” summary. I added some additional detail and observations below.

“CBO found that Coast Guard helicopters tend to have availability rates that are lower than the rates for Army helicopters, higher than the rates for Department of the Navy (DoN) helicopters, and similar to those of Air Force helicopters.

“On average, Coast Guard helicopters flew significantly more hours than DoD’s helicopters. (About twice as much–Chuck) (CBO also compared Coast Guard H-60s with DoD’s H-60s and found a similar result.)”

There is also a Graphic showing the total flight hours during 2024 for each air station that I included above.

At a Glance

In this report, the Congressional Budget Office analyzes patterns in the availability and use of aircraft by the U.S. Coast Guard, the agency responsible for protecting the nation’s waterways, from 2006 to 2024. CBO looks at availability—a measure of the percentage of time aircraft can be flown for training or missions—and flying hours, both in total and per aircraft.

Here are CBO’s findings about the fleet’s size, availability, and use:

  • Size. As of 2024, the Coast Guard had about 200 manned aircraft. About three-fourths of those are rotary-wing aircraft (H-65 and H-60 helicopters), and the rest are fixed-wing aircraft. Since the early 2010s, the number of Coast Guard aircraft has declined.
  • Availability. From 2006 to 2024, the availability of Coast Guard aircraft decreased slightly. Availability of fixed-wing aircraft has been generally lower than that of helicopters, although their respective availability rates have converged in recent years. In 2024, the Coast Guard’s average availability rate for its aircraft was 49 percent.
  • Use. Total flying hours for Coast Guard aircraft have decreased since 2006. Use of the H-65 fleet has declined the most, especially since 2019. The fixed-wing C-144 fleet has logged the most flying hours per aircraft.
  • Comparison With Availability and Use of Other Aircraft. In general, Coast Guard aircraft fly much more than similar Department of Defense (DoD) aircraft, but their availability rates are about the same as those of DoD’s aircraft.
  • Comparison With Availability and Use When Operated by the Navy. CBO analyzed 10 Coast Guard H-60s that were formerly operated by the Department of the Navy. During service in the Navy, those H-60s flew fewer hours, on average, than other H-60s operated by the Navy. After those H-60s were refurbished in a depot to perform different missions, the Coast Guard began to operate them. Availability rates and flying hours per year for those helicopters were markedly greater than when they were operated by the Navy.
  • Availability and Use During the Pandemic. Even though the availability rate of Coast Guard aircraft did not change markedly during the coronavirus pandemic, their flying hours dropped in March 2020 and reached their lowest point in April 2020.

Lost Comments

Posted on by
Reply

Recently it seems some comments got accidentally deleted. I approved them but they never showed up on the blog.

If this happened to you, my apologies, please try again. I am very proud that we have an open and active discussion here. If I intentionally delete a comment I will send the author a note and explain why.

Request for Information (RFI) – USCG Acquisition Superhighway

Posted on by
Reply

The Coast Guard has issued a Request for Information for systems that can improve its acquisitions process. You can see it here. 

Below is the description provided.

Description

The United States Coast Guard (USCG) is issuing this Request For Information (RFI) to gain a better understanding of the current marketplace and obtain information regarding commercial solutions with integrated Artificial Intelligence (AI) capability that will enhance the efficiency and quality of the USCG procurement and acquisition program management process. This is NOT a solicitation and is intended for information and planning purposes only. The USCG is seeking information on commercially available and emerging technologies that can address specific challenges within our current end-to-end procurement workflow.

A faster, more adaptable, and highly effective Coast Guard is required to successfully deliver the full scope of planned reconciliation services and capabilities.  A critical element of that is implementing an agile and responsive contracting and acquisitions (C&A) solution capable of supporting the rapid delivery of cutting-edge technologies and operational capabilities to the field at the speed of need. We will make significant changes across the C&A organization to implement a solution to provide the capabilities necessary to execute the Coast Guard’s increasingly complex missions. This high velocity solution will eliminate unnecessary and time-intensive requirements wherever possible, strengthen oversight and visibility, and leverage innovative procurement solutions to improve cost and schedule outcomes.

A major initiative required to reach that target objective is the successful adoption and use of advanced technology, human-machine teaming, and data to conduct operational, support, and enterprise functions. We will maximize the use of Commercial off-the-shelf software (COTS) and Artificial Intelligence in accordance with FD28 Executive Plan to obtain and integrate new enterprise capabilities that streamlines, automates and improves overall quality and efficiency of current contracting and acquisition workflows and delivers significant value to the enterprise.

This system should meet the gaps of current enterprise business processes by: (1) Interfacing directly with existing DHS & commercial procurement systems of record; (2) Providing a single point of entry for both procurement and acquisition documentation development and approval workflow; (3) enabling the addition of advanced artificial intelligence and business intelligence to supplement documentation development and decision support capabilities; and (4) Provide a community knowledge management capability.

This enterprise capability is intended to significantly improve data quality issues with current disparate and redundant business process workflows, while automating and standardizing workflows to greatly enhance enterprise efficiency and expand scope of current status tracking visibility and planning capabilities.

Interested parties are requested to submit a response to this RFI using the attached documents. All responses and questions must be submitted electronically via email no later than 03:00 PM Eastern Time (ET) on November 25, 2025 to the Contracting Officer, Ryan Shaughnessy at Ryan.W.Shaughnessy@uscg.mil.

“Coast Guard continues to break records, offloading over $362 million in illicit drugs interdicted in Eastern Pacific Ocean” –District Southeast

Posted on by
1

251118-G-G0107-1008 Coast Guard Cutter Stone’s crew poses for a group photo on the flight deck of the ship, Nov. 18, 2025, Port Everglades, Florida. Coast Guard Cutter Stone’s crew offloaded approximately 49,010 pounds of illicit narcotics worth more than $362 million. (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Cutter Stone’s crew)

Below is a news release from District Southeast.

This offload is particularly noteworthy in that it is the most “cocaine seized by a single cutter in one patrol in Coast Guard history,” almost 25 tons. It may also be the largest number of interdictions (15) by a single cutter in one patrol but I can’t confirm that.

This particular success was not a fluke. USCGC Stone was very nearly as successful on her previous patrol making 12 interdictions and seizing 44,955 pounds of cocaine.

Check out the news release, lots of good photos and video. I chose the photo above because it includes the V-Bat UAS.

Nov. 19, 2025

Coast Guard continues to break records, offloading over $362 million in illicit drugs interdicted in Eastern Pacific Ocean

Coast Guard Southeast District – 305-202-3735

MIAMI – U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Stone’s crew offloaded approximately 49,010 pounds of illicit narcotics worth more than $362 million at Port Everglades, Wednesday.

This offload marks the most amount of cocaine seized by a single cutter in one patrol in Coast Guard history.

The seized contraband was the result of 15 interdictions in international waters of the Eastern Pacific Ocean.

“I am extremely proud of the crew’s incredible performance during this deployment,” said Capt. Anne O’Connell, commanding officer, Coast Guard Cutter Stone. “This offload demonstrates our increased posture and continued success in the fight against narco-terrorism and transnational criminal organizations. The Coast Guard, in conjunction with our inter-agency and international partners, continues to patrol areas commonly associated with drug trafficking in the Eastern Pacific, denying smugglers access to maritime routes by which they move illicit drugs to our U.S. land and sea borders.”

The following assets and crews were involved in the interdiction operations:

80% of interdictions of U.S.-bound drugs occur at sea. This underscores the importance of maritime interdiction in combatting the flow of illegal narcotics and protecting American communities from this deadly threat. U.S. Southern Command’s Joint Interagency Task Force -South based in Key West, conducts the detection and monitoring of aerial and maritime transit of illegal drugs. Once interdiction becomes imminent, the law enforcement phase of the operation begins, and control of the operation shifts to the U.S. Coast Guard throughout the interdiction and apprehension. Interdictions in the Eastern Pacific Ocean are performed by members of the U.S. Coast Guard under the authority and control of the Coast Guard’s Southwest District, headquartered in Alameda, California.

To protect the Homeland from ongoing trafficking of illicit narcotics from South America to the United States, the Coast Guard is accelerating our counter-drug operations in the Eastern Pacific Ocean in support of Operation Pacific Viper.

The Coast Guard continues increased operations to interdict, seize and disrupt transshipments of cocaine and other bulk illicit drugs by sea. These drugs fuel and enable cartels and transnational criminal organizations to produce and traffic illegal fentanyl, threatening the United States.

These interdictions deny criminal organizations more than half a billion dollars in illicit revenue. They provide critical testimonial and drug evidence as well as key intelligence for their total elimination. These interdictions relate to Panama Express, an initiative of HSTF Tampa, investigations in support of Operation Take Back America. PANEX identifies, disrupts, and dismantles the highest-level criminal organizations that threaten the United States using a prosecutor-led, intelligence-driven, multi-agency approach.

USCGC Stone is one of four 418-foot Legend-class national security cutters homeported in Charleston, South Carolina, under U.S. Coast Guard Atlantic Area Command.

“Colombia’s Multinational Orion Strategy: Inception, Evolution, and Future Prospects” –USNI

Posted on by
1

Colombian Navy patrol vessel ARC 20 de Julio carries out an ocean patrol.
(PHOTO COURTESY OF COLOMBIAN NAVY). A post on this class now used by Chile and Colombia and slightly larger class used by Germany and soon Singapore.  

The November 2025 issue of US Naval Institute Proceedings includes an article by the head of the Colombian Navy, Admiral Juan Ricardo Rozo Obregón, that talks about their drug interdiction efforts and the international alliance they have formed to combat international drug smuggling, “which is now a year-round operation that integrates the efforts of 130 institutions from 64 countries and 10 multilateral organizations.”

“The Colombian Navy has achieved significant successes in facing down these threats. For instance, in 2024, the Navy seized 572 metric tons of cocaine—65 percent of the total amount confiscated by Colombian authorities.

“Through efforts aligned by the MOS (Multinational Orion Strategy-Chuck), partner nations have seized 3,830 metric tons of illicit drugs—including cocaine, marijuana, coca base, hashish, and methamphetamines—along with 1,130 vessels, including 81 self-propelled semisubmersibles. These joint efforts have led to 7,456  arrests. To date, these results have cost criminal networks more than $105 billion, prevented 21,966 overdose deaths, and saved $1.427 billion in healthcare costs.”