I don't understand why people are acting like the embarked USCG law enforcement teams aboard USN assets is new. This has been going on for over 30 years that I can account for. The news chose to spin this one up as if it was a new initiative, but it's ops normal for over a generation.
My reading is not "embarked law enforcement teams" but actual surface assets. For example, we have publicly acknowledged having had USCG cutters ( apologies for getting the name wrong) off the Horn of Africa for years. Perhaps that surface asset would be used in the Gulf of America vice a USN asset? Having the embarked law enforcement team" on a USCG vessel? Asking for a friend...
Title 10 US Code, Section 124. DOD shall be the lead organization for detection and monitoring (D&M) of illicit trafficking in international waters.
USCG LEDETs deploy aboard Navy ships to bring interdiction and apprehension (I&A) capability to the back side of D&M. This allows full mission execution of the interdiction continuum. The LEDETs are the artifice that gets us around Posse Comitatus So that a DOD resource can be involved in LE (but ONLY in international waters). USCG cutters, their crews being law enforcement themselves, do this organically. They have boarding teams. No need for a LEDET.
USN FFGs were doing this mission, with righteous success, decades before there were LCS.
The Coast Guard has six patrol craft (154 foot with a crew of 24) based in Bahrain.The Coast Guard has been there since the First Gulf War.
They have been very successful in interdicting drug shipments that in many cases finance terrorist activities. They have also intercepted missile parts bound for the Houthis.
The Coast Guard currently has about 90 dedicated patrol cutters 154 feet and longer. When all currently planned ships are completed the Coast Guard will have 105 patrol vessels. Occasionally buoy tenders are also pressed into service on law enforcement patrols. Cutters are generally underway a higher percentage of the time than Navy combatants counterparts.
The six little ships in Bahrain are about 1/10 of the total number of vessels of the class. There are 20 of the class based in Florida and Puerto Rico and these are virtually dedicated to drug and migrant interdiction. There are another 18 elsewhere on the East and Gulf Coast, that may also be involved in these operations. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentinel-class_cutter#Ships
There are 23 larger cutters (210 foot and larger) based on the East and Gulf coasts. In addition to drug and migrant interdiction they also do fisheries enforcement. There are also about 60 smaller patrol boats (87 feet loa, crew of 10) that are some times used for drug and migrant interdiction. Many of the intercepts on the West Coast are being done by these smaller cutters.
"U. S. Navy assistance to the Coast Guard’s drug enforcement program since 1982 has resulted in the following: 43 vessels seized, 962,274 pounds of marijuana interdicted, 266 arrests made; and 46.2 pounds of cocaine interdicted. Coast Guard law enforcement detachments continue to deploy on board U. S. Navy ships operating in or transiting through areas of law enforcement interest. Department of Defense support of the effort, primarily through increased Navy and Air Force aircraft surveillance, has enhanced the Coast Guard’s intelligence program used in maritime interdiction strategies.
Exactly. The Yost Guard also put Harpoons, sonar and torpedoes on 378s during FRAM refits. The CG also briefly operated E-2C Hawkeyes until a crash in Rosie Roads convinced the service to return them to the Navy.
I’m also hopeful that missions like this can help the LCS partially redeem itself. I hate to let the originators of the designs off the hook, but if these ships can add value to the fleet in mission sets like this - that’s excellent. We need more hulls in the water, and these hulls are in the water. Use them and let the DDGs be DDGs, not endurance cutters.
I went to the commissioning of the Freedom in Milwaukee. Said then "this is a ship the Coast Guard should have" and the national cutter could be the frigate we're looking for." Knew then it would be a failure.
My daughter spent 8 months as a helo O-in-C on an LCS in the Persian Gulf. When not broken down, it was on water hours. Horrible operating environment...helo blade storage that doesn't fit the blades, elevators that can't lift, undermanned crew, horrible accomidations for visiting aircrew.
Well, guess you aren't someone I'd like to know, Mr Troll. Anybody who roots for the USA to fail like you do deserves whatever live gives them. Hopefully like a bug on a windshield.
I'm not amrican, I live in Australia.... so shouldn't I be hoping for the best for AUS? To be a patriotic Australian?
Given the disfunction in your politcal leaders, perhaps\s you should do a colour revolution like the ones you started in ME and Ukraine, and get some new leadership, since voting clearly gets you nowhere...
Have you *seen* the results of those Color Revolutions? We're doing *well* to only have gotten tariffs. I mean, my gods, we could have ended up like Ukraine...
Brings home the notion that American foreign policy is rudderless, that being the case, how can a military and especially a Navy supporting a sea power national policy do the job without the “peoples” guidance. The lack of clarity has led to make work and useless joint commands, Goldwater Nichols being a sham of reform, a military bloat in all the wrong places, 20 years wars with only bad results and a Navy too small for the job, and a Marine Corps denuded of critical assets (Suicide pact of the 38th and 29th Commandants of the Marine Corps, called FD2030, in which firecrackers from small islands are fired at imaginary PLAN targets and then forgotten) Forget “adults in the room” can we find some people that can do more than put fog on a mirror? Donald “Fing” Rumsfeld, where do they find these guys? Oh that’s right Geraldo Rivera let them all loose from the insane asylum’s and they now wander the streets of our major cities and the halls of the puzzle palace mumbling odd things to themselves. “You go to war with the army you have…” stands out doesn’t it? In the meantime rust on our naval assets builds and we keep losing fighter jets into the sea. What could possibly go wrong?
“Rudderless” is the nicest possible word you could have used. With few exceptions, we have tried to put out *every* brushfire and revolution on the planet - at least that’s how it has seemed. The first thing General Washington did after getting a copy of the Declaration of Independence was to have it read to the troops. He knew they needed a clear picture of their mission. Dollars to doughnuts, I’ll bet that not one soldier/sailor/airman/marine knows why we have land forces in the Middle East, or a clear understanding of why the U.S. has been wiping out its war reserves of ordnance to keep the Straits of Hormuz missile-free. On a personal note, I have to confess that the last item has me a bit confused, given the number of countries that are getting a free ride out of that deal.
That is, I will grant, worse than the crushing of the Republic of Artsakh, which is my usual go to for "conflicts most people didn't even notice". Still, it's rough to see it happening to the Armenians *again*.
It is hard to say for sure, but it is likely that Russian Federation Forces will have on their east to west axis of attack secured the eastern Donbas region to the Dneiper River by the end of summer or sooner. Even with western European "help" the sands in the hour glass are drawing to empty. It says a lot about where we are in the global state of affairs. Gonna be interesting none the less.
With the incompetents running the Russian military, I would not bet any of your predictions come to pass. We're over 1,000 days into Putin's 3 day war.
I'd submit that foreign policy wise we have not been rudderless, but rather stuck at hard left rudder for most of the last 3 decades with some time passing through or recovering to half left and even less time to midships.
Now that foreign policy choice may have mainly left the navy rudderless. And honestly, that was probably better than hard left we've seen in the last administration.
The "green economy" implies deindustrialization. Coal is not only used for electricity but also steel production. Oil is not just used for electricity but plastics and chemical precursors to support agriculture and pharmaceuticals. We are maybe a decade or two behind becoming Germany.
Further, deindustrialization implies loss of economic and military power.
Which, of course, was the goal all along. This is the festering wound from the Cold War. In theory, the West won the Cold War vanquishing the USSR. But in the process we suffered a mortal wound to our civilization, primarily through subversion of the press and academia that we are now succumbing to.
Well, yes and no. The Union of socialist republics is dead and gone. None of those former republics are rejoining without some significant threats or force.
The rump USSR, Russia, well, they had a bit of a flirtation with democracy and the oligarchs decided they didn't like it. So a glacial coup took place to remake it into an elective monarchy who's psyche and goals aren't too different than the czars or the First Secretaries.
The entire apparat went underground. The appearance that it is gone is intentional, but the Siloviki still own the country and have since Andropov became General Secretary back in the 80s.
They don't call it the USSR anymore, but they have the same regime.
I’m just a civilian so this question may seem ignorant… we have a decent amount of LCS’s, they are pretty new, and don’t have much to do. Why could t they deploy??
Follow on; how did Goldwater-Nichols hurt acquisition?
Structural issues with the hulls on Independence Class, reduction gears on the power plant for the Freedom Class. For the Navy, the inability to complete the specialty modules and lack of surface strike/defense capabilities. Now, some of that could be solved with NSMs and probably the newer UAVs with dipping sonar (for ASW - several to each ship). The engine problems could be fixed. But the structural issues kind of rule out the existing Independence Class ships.
If you look close you can see where they have added material to the hulls to remedy that earlier issue. All I have not seen is the degree to which the fix actually fixed it.
Goldwater-Nichols is a vast and complex subject. There were those who wanted a single defense unit engaged in political battle with the traditionalists. The compromise was our existing system.
It seems overwhelming to look at from the outside, but from a very simplistic view I was interested in the Navy starting as a kid in ‘83 and watching the Naval build up. It was exciting to see them keep some ‘older’ hulls in the water like the Knox class as well as develop some cool new ones like the Spruance/Tico, Perry’s, LA class sivs, and later the ‘Burkes. All while getting the F-14D and Hornet into the fleet.
If you would have told me then that today we would still be running Tico’s and Burkes and had several failed attempts at new shops I’d never believe it.
Yeah, this is the best assessment I have seen of the current administration. Its goid its coming from someone who thought bringing Trump back would get it done. Good to see him poking at mayor Pete as that has been needed.
After six weeks of inaction by the Senate where they would not even assign the nomination to a committee, the Administration pulled Mr. Sadler's nomination and has since replaced it with one for Stephen Carmel...
“Why not the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG)? The USCG clearly did not have the ships to respond to the requirement that was clearly in their remit. The USCG is too small…”
The USCG tasking has grown exponentially since the “Fall of the Berlin Wall”. Force composition assessment for the Integrated Deepwater System Program (IDS Program or Deepwater).was to equip the USCG for the future . . . and the future changed. That equation was defined when PEACE had been declared around the planet, and 12 Hamilton Class High Endurance Cutters were to be replaced with eight (8) Legend Class High Endurance Cutters. Congress recognized reality and the fallacy, and saw the need to add to the force. Eleven have been built and pre-production funds for the 12th National Security Cutter have been made, and this is while the tasking is continuing to grow.
Technology is much better today, but we still lack the ability to have assets be in two places at once. A minimum of one-for-one replacement of Hamilton (WHEC) Class cutters is required AT A MINIMUM. This is just common sense. This WHEC force would best grow a bit because of the reality of two-element peer-to-peer contests around the planet.
IIRC, the CG was shutting down ships and installations due to lack of people last year. It doesn't matter how many ships they have if they can't man them.
Yeah so . . . with recruiting on the rise and budget coming . . . to hell with the future, and only be concerned about yesterday? Come on people . . . we have to think/plan better than that. If it is beyond your capacity, then you should not be involved in the equation. No Excuses Accepted!!!
What short memories we have. When the Surface Navy couldn’t get enough Commander Commands to stay viable against the other warfare communities at the O-6 selection board, they decided to make the BL 1 CGs Commander Commands, assign them to the Western Hemisphere Group, embark Coast Guard LEO detachments, and relegate them to counter-narcotic operations forevermore or until their early decommissioning. That was not due to a lack of stewardship on the part of “Program Management” but a self-inflicted wound by the Surface Warfare community.
Well, hidden within this is that USS MINNEAPOLIS SAINT PAUL LCS 21 is in the Caribbean on a six month deployment supporting the 4th Fleet with a Coastie detachment on board.
Three seizures - that's like one normal week on a PHM back in the late 80's. I remember that blimp mounted radar system that was tethered down in the Florida Keys.
By Zombie missions you mean "the mission of PATFORSWA to equip, deploy, and support mission-ready Coast Guard forces to conduct maritime operations across the Middle East for U.S. Naval Forces Central Command (CENTCOM), VBSS etc." Zombie because it's boring?? Agree the USCGs priority should be our border, coastal area. I would think the Navy and ARG/MEU can do VBSS (contested and uncontested) in the ME Persian Gulf/Gulf of Bahrain. My opinion only. M2
I said a long time ago, give ALL the little crappy ships to the USCG, put a training team on a few, as they work up, then turn them loose to do useful things.
LOL, well, failure to provide assistance when my sailboat was pooped in the Straights of Juan DeFuca for starters... Seriously though, those things would do at least halfway decent in a USCG mission, better than some of the fifty year old POS that they're running.
I take your point. The word that keeps coming to my mind over the history of the LCS is "brittle." That is not a word I would want attached to anything that's provided to members serving in the USCG.
LCS is a bit of a sunshine soldier. Range, endurance and seakeeping are all portions that would not must in the USCG for a hull this large and expensive.
The LCS ships are unreliable and short-legged and expensive to operate. The USCG needs reliable ships with good seakeeping qualities, not fragile speedboats that can barely get underway,
The CG had four surface effect ships based out of Key West, but they were decommissioned because they were far too expensive to operate. The LCS is no better in this regard.
I don't understand why people are acting like the embarked USCG law enforcement teams aboard USN assets is new. This has been going on for over 30 years that I can account for. The news chose to spin this one up as if it was a new initiative, but it's ops normal for over a generation.
My reading is not "embarked law enforcement teams" but actual surface assets. For example, we have publicly acknowledged having had USCG cutters ( apologies for getting the name wrong) off the Horn of Africa for years. Perhaps that surface asset would be used in the Gulf of America vice a USN asset? Having the embarked law enforcement team" on a USCG vessel? Asking for a friend...
Title 10 US Code, Section 124. DOD shall be the lead organization for detection and monitoring (D&M) of illicit trafficking in international waters.
USCG LEDETs deploy aboard Navy ships to bring interdiction and apprehension (I&A) capability to the back side of D&M. This allows full mission execution of the interdiction continuum. The LEDETs are the artifice that gets us around Posse Comitatus So that a DOD resource can be involved in LE (but ONLY in international waters). USCG cutters, their crews being law enforcement themselves, do this organically. They have boarding teams. No need for a LEDET.
USN FFGs were doing this mission, with righteous success, decades before there were LCS.
The Coast Guard has six patrol craft (154 foot with a crew of 24) based in Bahrain.The Coast Guard has been there since the First Gulf War.
They have been very successful in interdicting drug shipments that in many cases finance terrorist activities. They have also intercepted missile parts bound for the Houthis.
The Coast Guard currently has about 90 dedicated patrol cutters 154 feet and longer. When all currently planned ships are completed the Coast Guard will have 105 patrol vessels. Occasionally buoy tenders are also pressed into service on law enforcement patrols. Cutters are generally underway a higher percentage of the time than Navy combatants counterparts.
The six little ships in Bahrain are about 1/10 of the total number of vessels of the class. There are 20 of the class based in Florida and Puerto Rico and these are virtually dedicated to drug and migrant interdiction. There are another 18 elsewhere on the East and Gulf Coast, that may also be involved in these operations. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentinel-class_cutter#Ships
There are 23 larger cutters (210 foot and larger) based on the East and Gulf coasts. In addition to drug and migrant interdiction they also do fisheries enforcement. There are also about 60 smaller patrol boats (87 feet loa, crew of 10) that are some times used for drug and migrant interdiction. Many of the intercepts on the West Coast are being done by these smaller cutters.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine_Protector-class_patrol_boat
Large cutters spend very little time doing SAR, that is done primarily by aircraft and boats under 100 feet in length.
Two DDGs are certainly welcomed but will make very little difference in the final results.
Over 40 years.
USCG on USN ships is at least as old as the 80s.
At least in the Caribbean AO, maybe didn't get there till later in the Pacific.
The USCG was playing a similar role in Vietnam as early as 1965. But with their own ships. https://www.mycg.uscg.mil/News/Article/2551753/the-long-blue-line-the-coast-guard-in-vietnam-a-remembrance/
https://www.history.uscg.mil/Portals/1/Our%20Collections/commemorations%20old/WHEC_Vietnam.jpg?ver=2017-11-08-134939-450
It started in the 1980s under Commandant Paul Yost.
Grizz,
Can you expound on that a bit? Was the LEDET idea because there weren't enough USCG cutters available or was something else driving it?
FWIW, when I saw USCG cutters in GITMO for R&R in the early 80s I realized as bad as it sucked for me, I was happy I wasn't a Coastie.
Reagan's "war on drugs" putting LEDET on Navy ships. From 1985 Proceedings. So.... politics.
https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/1986/may/u-s-coast-guard-1985
"U. S. Navy assistance to the Coast Guard’s drug enforcement program since 1982 has resulted in the following: 43 vessels seized, 962,274 pounds of marijuana interdicted, 266 arrests made; and 46.2 pounds of cocaine interdicted. Coast Guard law enforcement detachments continue to deploy on board U. S. Navy ships operating in or transiting through areas of law enforcement interest. Department of Defense support of the effort, primarily through increased Navy and Air Force aircraft surveillance, has enhanced the Coast Guard’s intelligence program used in maritime interdiction strategies.
Exactly. The Yost Guard also put Harpoons, sonar and torpedoes on 378s during FRAM refits. The CG also briefly operated E-2C Hawkeyes until a crash in Rosie Roads convinced the service to return them to the Navy.
The initial picture of the LCS made me gag. What an eyesore...20 different shades of grey and a huge sky blue streak of something on the port side?
The blue streak is from the sealant for the Starlink antenna for the Chiefs. ;)
I see what you did there ha ha
She's bare aluminum. What do you expect?
I’m also hopeful that missions like this can help the LCS partially redeem itself. I hate to let the originators of the designs off the hook, but if these ships can add value to the fleet in mission sets like this - that’s excellent. We need more hulls in the water, and these hulls are in the water. Use them and let the DDGs be DDGs, not endurance cutters.
What were the design principles: speed over capability?
Dude. I’ve been writing about this for 21 years. Follow the link to the original blog, go back to 2004, and start reading.
Actually there weren’t any real design principles followed. The acquisition strategy was simply to farm it out and throw money at it.
"speed over capability"
Of course not! That would generate a "Divide by Zero" error.
Agreed. Also, why aren’t they using EPFs? Those could certainly get the job done.
EPFs are worse if that can be believed. I eagerly await indictments for those who foisted both LCS and EPF on the Navy and the taxpayer.
One of those would absolutely have to be John Lehman.
Transferring them to the CG was bandied about somewhere. Apparently they, wisely, didn't want them.
I went to the commissioning of the Freedom in Milwaukee. Said then "this is a ship the Coast Guard should have" and the national cutter could be the frigate we're looking for." Knew then it would be a failure.
My daughter spent 8 months as a helo O-in-C on an LCS in the Persian Gulf. When not broken down, it was on water hours. Horrible operating environment...helo blade storage that doesn't fit the blades, elevators that can't lift, undermanned crew, horrible accomidations for visiting aircrew.
love to see the disfunction.... if this was rthe USSR people would be predicting the downfall soon.
Well, guess you aren't someone I'd like to know, Mr Troll. Anybody who roots for the USA to fail like you do deserves whatever live gives them. Hopefully like a bug on a windshield.
I'm not amrican, I live in Australia.... so shouldn't I be hoping for the best for AUS? To be a patriotic Australian?
Given the disfunction in your politcal leaders, perhaps\s you should do a colour revolution like the ones you started in ME and Ukraine, and get some new leadership, since voting clearly gets you nowhere...
We did. You'll notice the Neocons aren't in power any longer.
And tariffs will help the average american how?
Tariffs also = corruption.
To be fair you only bombed Yemen for one month, so thats better than 20yrs in ME.
Have you *seen* the results of those Color Revolutions? We're doing *well* to only have gotten tariffs. I mean, my gods, we could have ended up like Ukraine...
Neocons are still around.
And lining up for the crosshairs nicely.
Brings home the notion that American foreign policy is rudderless, that being the case, how can a military and especially a Navy supporting a sea power national policy do the job without the “peoples” guidance. The lack of clarity has led to make work and useless joint commands, Goldwater Nichols being a sham of reform, a military bloat in all the wrong places, 20 years wars with only bad results and a Navy too small for the job, and a Marine Corps denuded of critical assets (Suicide pact of the 38th and 29th Commandants of the Marine Corps, called FD2030, in which firecrackers from small islands are fired at imaginary PLAN targets and then forgotten) Forget “adults in the room” can we find some people that can do more than put fog on a mirror? Donald “Fing” Rumsfeld, where do they find these guys? Oh that’s right Geraldo Rivera let them all loose from the insane asylum’s and they now wander the streets of our major cities and the halls of the puzzle palace mumbling odd things to themselves. “You go to war with the army you have…” stands out doesn’t it? In the meantime rust on our naval assets builds and we keep losing fighter jets into the sea. What could possibly go wrong?
FD2030 seems like a beehive tactic: swarm the intruder with self-sacrificing units (NMESIS launchers on sandbars), provided they work…
I think we have seen hunting mobile launchers is hard in the desert. Now try finding a passenger vehicle on a not so desert island.
“Rudderless” is the nicest possible word you could have used. With few exceptions, we have tried to put out *every* brushfire and revolution on the planet - at least that’s how it has seemed. The first thing General Washington did after getting a copy of the Declaration of Independence was to have it read to the troops. He knew they needed a clear picture of their mission. Dollars to doughnuts, I’ll bet that not one soldier/sailor/airman/marine knows why we have land forces in the Middle East, or a clear understanding of why the U.S. has been wiping out its war reserves of ordnance to keep the Straits of Hormuz missile-free. On a personal note, I have to confess that the last item has me a bit confused, given the number of countries that are getting a free ride out of that deal.
That is, I will grant, worse than the crushing of the Republic of Artsakh, which is my usual go to for "conflicts most people didn't even notice". Still, it's rough to see it happening to the Armenians *again*.
It is hard to say for sure, but it is likely that Russian Federation Forces will have on their east to west axis of attack secured the eastern Donbas region to the Dneiper River by the end of summer or sooner. Even with western European "help" the sands in the hour glass are drawing to empty. It says a lot about where we are in the global state of affairs. Gonna be interesting none the less.
With the incompetents running the Russian military, I would not bet any of your predictions come to pass. We're over 1,000 days into Putin's 3 day war.
I'd submit that foreign policy wise we have not been rudderless, but rather stuck at hard left rudder for most of the last 3 decades with some time passing through or recovering to half left and even less time to midships.
Now that foreign policy choice may have mainly left the navy rudderless. And honestly, that was probably better than hard left we've seen in the last administration.
The "green economy" implies deindustrialization. Coal is not only used for electricity but also steel production. Oil is not just used for electricity but plastics and chemical precursors to support agriculture and pharmaceuticals. We are maybe a decade or two behind becoming Germany.
Further, deindustrialization implies loss of economic and military power.
Which, of course, was the goal all along. This is the festering wound from the Cold War. In theory, the West won the Cold War vanquishing the USSR. But in the process we suffered a mortal wound to our civilization, primarily through subversion of the press and academia that we are now succumbing to.
The USSR never vanished. It simply went underground. Putin, as one example, is unreconstructed Soviet.
Well, yes and no. The Union of socialist republics is dead and gone. None of those former republics are rejoining without some significant threats or force.
The rump USSR, Russia, well, they had a bit of a flirtation with democracy and the oligarchs decided they didn't like it. So a glacial coup took place to remake it into an elective monarchy who's psyche and goals aren't too different than the czars or the First Secretaries.
The entire apparat went underground. The appearance that it is gone is intentional, but the Siloviki still own the country and have since Andropov became General Secretary back in the 80s.
They don't call it the USSR anymore, but they have the same regime.
Many places get coke from petroleum.
Things are no better under Trump.
The PRC is watching—and laughing.
I’m just a civilian so this question may seem ignorant… we have a decent amount of LCS’s, they are pretty new, and don’t have much to do. Why could t they deploy??
Follow on; how did Goldwater-Nichols hurt acquisition?
Structural issues with the hulls on Independence Class, reduction gears on the power plant for the Freedom Class. For the Navy, the inability to complete the specialty modules and lack of surface strike/defense capabilities. Now, some of that could be solved with NSMs and probably the newer UAVs with dipping sonar (for ASW - several to each ship). The engine problems could be fixed. But the structural issues kind of rule out the existing Independence Class ships.
If you look close you can see where they have added material to the hulls to remedy that earlier issue. All I have not seen is the degree to which the fix actually fixed it.
Shorter TrustButVerify: "The LCS are *astonishing* garbage." 🤣🤣🤣
Goldwater-Nichols is a vast and complex subject. There were those who wanted a single defense unit engaged in political battle with the traditionalists. The compromise was our existing system.
It seems overwhelming to look at from the outside, but from a very simplistic view I was interested in the Navy starting as a kid in ‘83 and watching the Naval build up. It was exciting to see them keep some ‘older’ hulls in the water like the Knox class as well as develop some cool new ones like the Spruance/Tico, Perry’s, LA class sivs, and later the ‘Burkes. All while getting the F-14D and Hornet into the fleet.
If you would have told me then that today we would still be running Tico’s and Burkes and had several failed attempts at new shops I’d never believe it.
As a side note to the lack of USN, USCG ships.
Just saw this on X: https://x.com/johnkonrad/status/1924886325540364600?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1924886325540364600%7Ctwgr%5E5d296899d168c3c827c9b7a3dfea5fb09e7ee2ca%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Finstapundit.com%2F720776%2F
Yeah, this is the best assessment I have seen of the current administration. Its goid its coming from someone who thought bringing Trump back would get it done. Good to see him poking at mayor Pete as that has been needed.
Enough blame to go around. That executive order was issued on April 9.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/04/restoring-americas-maritime-dominance/
... which was sixteen days after the Senate had received Brent Sadler's nomination to lead MARAD.
https://www.congress.gov/nomination/119th-congress/55/39
After six weeks of inaction by the Senate where they would not even assign the nomination to a committee, the Administration pulled Mr. Sadler's nomination and has since replaced it with one for Stephen Carmel...
https://www.congress.gov/nomination/119th-congress/141/10
... who is also languishing in the swamp process.
In the meantime on Monday, Mr. Sadler dropped his commentary on the state of American ship building.
https://www.heritage.org/defense/commentary/rebuilding-americas-maritime-muscle-the-ships-america-act
"You can always count on the Navy to do the right thing - after they've tried everything else." (Apologies to Mr. Churchill.)
“Why not the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG)? The USCG clearly did not have the ships to respond to the requirement that was clearly in their remit. The USCG is too small…”
The USCG tasking has grown exponentially since the “Fall of the Berlin Wall”. Force composition assessment for the Integrated Deepwater System Program (IDS Program or Deepwater).was to equip the USCG for the future . . . and the future changed. That equation was defined when PEACE had been declared around the planet, and 12 Hamilton Class High Endurance Cutters were to be replaced with eight (8) Legend Class High Endurance Cutters. Congress recognized reality and the fallacy, and saw the need to add to the force. Eleven have been built and pre-production funds for the 12th National Security Cutter have been made, and this is while the tasking is continuing to grow.
Technology is much better today, but we still lack the ability to have assets be in two places at once. A minimum of one-for-one replacement of Hamilton (WHEC) Class cutters is required AT A MINIMUM. This is just common sense. This WHEC force would best grow a bit because of the reality of two-element peer-to-peer contests around the planet.
Just my 2ȼ…TORCH OUT
IIRC, the CG was shutting down ships and installations due to lack of people last year. It doesn't matter how many ships they have if they can't man them.
Yeah so . . . with recruiting on the rise and budget coming . . . to hell with the future, and only be concerned about yesterday? Come on people . . . we have to think/plan better than that. If it is beyond your capacity, then you should not be involved in the equation. No Excuses Accepted!!!
What short memories we have. When the Surface Navy couldn’t get enough Commander Commands to stay viable against the other warfare communities at the O-6 selection board, they decided to make the BL 1 CGs Commander Commands, assign them to the Western Hemisphere Group, embark Coast Guard LEO detachments, and relegate them to counter-narcotic operations forevermore or until their early decommissioning. That was not due to a lack of stewardship on the part of “Program Management” but a self-inflicted wound by the Surface Warfare community.
"Let's get rid of and not replace the PCs" is looking really dumb right now....
It was obviously dumb at the time too. Not getting any prettier in hindsight.
Well, hidden within this is that USS MINNEAPOLIS SAINT PAUL LCS 21 is in the Caribbean on a six month deployment supporting the 4th Fleet with a Coastie detachment on board.
3 drug seizures in less than two months.
Three seizures - that's like one normal week on a PHM back in the late 80's. I remember that blimp mounted radar system that was tethered down in the Florida Keys.
The aerostats on Cudjoe Key. Remember them well.
By Zombie missions you mean "the mission of PATFORSWA to equip, deploy, and support mission-ready Coast Guard forces to conduct maritime operations across the Middle East for U.S. Naval Forces Central Command (CENTCOM), VBSS etc." Zombie because it's boring?? Agree the USCGs priority should be our border, coastal area. I would think the Navy and ARG/MEU can do VBSS (contested and uncontested) in the ME Persian Gulf/Gulf of Bahrain. My opinion only. M2
Patrol Forces Southwest Asia (PATFORSWA)
https://www.atlanticarea.uscg.mil/Our-Organization/Area-Units/PATFORSWA/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
Was the USS Zumwalt busy?
Nah, but there was concern they might need to shoot something, and, well, no ammo.
🤣🤣🤣
Does Zumwalt not have 70 year old M-14s in her armory? Or do they only have phasers?
Next you will be telling me the Zumwalt Chief’s Mess does not have at least one M1917 Cutlass squirreled away somewhere on board.
They can borrow my cutlass.
Let's just say I wouldn't be shocked if the answer was "no"?
I said a long time ago, give ALL the little crappy ships to the USCG, put a training team on a few, as they work up, then turn them loose to do useful things.
What did the USCG ever do to deserve that kind of punishment?
LOL, well, failure to provide assistance when my sailboat was pooped in the Straights of Juan DeFuca for starters... Seriously though, those things would do at least halfway decent in a USCG mission, better than some of the fifty year old POS that they're running.
I take your point. The word that keeps coming to my mind over the history of the LCS is "brittle." That is not a word I would want attached to anything that's provided to members serving in the USCG.
LCS is a bit of a sunshine soldier. Range, endurance and seakeeping are all portions that would not must in the USCG for a hull this large and expensive.
The LCS ships are unreliable and short-legged and expensive to operate. The USCG needs reliable ships with good seakeeping qualities, not fragile speedboats that can barely get underway,
The CG had four surface effect ships based out of Key West, but they were decommissioned because they were far too expensive to operate. The LCS is no better in this regard.
Maybe the coast guard has some spare tugs that can drag the LCS ships around…..