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By ERNEST BLAZAR
Ernest Blazar
is a senior fellow at the Lexington Institute, a nonprofit public-policy
think tank in Arlington, Va.
In 1969, the
Coast Guard's high-endurance Hamilton-class cutter USCGC Dallas
sailed the waters of South Vietnam, executing seven combat patrols. She
provided naval gunfire support more than 150 times, firing over 7,500
rounds of five-inch ammunition. She destroyed 58 sampans and attacked 29
enemy supply routes, base camps, or rest areas.
On 22 June 1999,
the same 378-foot-long ship--which was commissioned in 1967--left her
homeport (Charleston, S.C.) for yet another overseas patrol. Assigned to
the Navy's Sixth Fleet for three months, Dallas is helping to
patrol the Adriatic Sea after NATO's successful air campaign against
Yugoslavia.
The durable
cutter's three decades of service clearly demonstrate the Coast Guard's
ability to wring the last ounce of usefulness from its aging ships--but it
also underscores the fact that the Coast Guard has been forced, primarily
for budget reasons, to carry out its military, maritime-safety,
law-enforcement, and other missions with outdated resources that are badly
in need of replacement and repair. Some Coast Guard ships were in active
service during World War II.
It is not just
ships, though. The Coast Guard's 190 fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters
also need replacement, and often need repairs to sustain acceptable
readiness and safety levels. Exacerbating the problem is the fact that
these air and surface platforms were purchased piecemeal over decades, so
they were never properly integrated with the right communication and data
links or fitted with proper sensors. (One problem afflicting today's fleet
is that the Coast Guard's HH-60J Jayhawk helicopters are too large to land
on any but the largest of the service's cutters.)
Caualties
Up, Availability Down
The overall
situation has caused numerous problems for the Coast Guard, and also has
degraded the service's "ability to manage the tactical picture,"
said Rear Adm. Ernest Riutta, assistant commandant for operations.
The end result is
a steady decline in readiness and in the availability of Coast Guard ships
and aircraft to perform their missions. Machinery and electronics
casualties have increased 45 percent in 10 years, for example, and the
nonavailability rate for HU-25 Falcon medium-range search aircraft has
doubled since 1996.
To remedy these
problems the Coast Guard has developed a plan to replace and modernize its
current ships, aircraft, and command, control, and communications (C3)
network. That plan is called "Deepwater." One of its main aims
is to ensure that the new ships, aircraft, and C3 equipment the Coast
Guard will be buying in the future are fully interoperable from the start,
instead of knitted together haphazardly, as has been the case in the past.
To ensure that
the proposed fleet recapitalization is well-planned and can be carried out
in a cost-effective manner the Coast Guard has issued contracts to three
industry teams:
Avondale
Industries--Newport News Shipbuilding--
Boeing--Raytheon.
Science
Applications International--Bath Iron Works--
Marinette Marine--Sikorsky.
Lockheed
Martin--Ingalls Shipbuilding--Litton--Bollinger Shipyards--Bell
Helicopter Textron.
Each member of
each team possesses expertise in areas of operational importance to the
Coast Guard. Lockheed Martin's Government and Electronic Systems Division
in Moores-town, N.J., for example, has long supplied the Navy with such
important systems as the highly successful Aegis SPY-1 radar system, the
Mk92 fire-control radar carried on Perry-class guided-missile
frigates, and the Mk41 vertical-launch system. The company also has a
strong reputation for successfully integrating varied naval communications
and combat systems.
Shortfalls
and Statistics
To fully
understand Deepwater, one must first examine the shortfalls in platforms
and equipment currently affecting the Coast Guard. One telling statistic:
Seven of the service's nine classes of ships and aircraft will reach the
end of their originally projected service lives within the next 15 years.
The Coast Guard
relies upon three classes of cutters for its long- and
medium-range surface missions: the 378-foot Hamilton-class high-endurance
cutters (WHECs); the 270-foot Famous-class medium-endurance cutters (WMECs);
and the 210-foot Reliance-class WMECs.
All of these
ships are aging--some were built as long ago as the late 1960s--and are
becoming increasingly difficult to maintain. They also are technologically
obsolescent. The diesel engines of the Reliance-class cutters are so old,
in fact, that they are used elsewhere only on the locomotives in South
Africa.
These ships also
impose a heavy personnel burden on the Coast Guard. The Dallas, for
example, normally carries a crew of 19 officers and 152 enlisted
personnel, more than twice the number required to operate highly automated
modern cutters of similar size. The Danish Thetis-class offshore patrol
vessel is 369 feet long, displaces 3,500 tons, and has a 90-day
endurance--but operates with a crew of only 90 personnel. A larger crew
means a higher payroll of course. What this means is that the Coast Guard
has been forced, in essence, to pay a sizable surcharge simply because it
has not been provided the funds needed to buy new advanced-technology
ships.
Operational
Incompatibilities
There are several
operational factors to consider, moreover. The Reliance-class cutters are
equipped with surface-search radars, for example, but have no sonars and
no electronic countermeasures systems. They are capable of landing
helicopters, but have no hangar facilities.
Even the somewhat
less antiquated Famous-class WMECs, built in the 1980s, lack the ability
to maintain real-time voice, video, or data links with other Coast Guard
assets; they also have no Link-11 or Link-16 capability, essential for the
exchange of tactical data with other U.S. military forces.
There also are
shortfalls in speed. None of the Coast Guard's cutters can match the
so-called "go-fast" boats--drug smuggling craft that can achieve
high rates of speed. Smugglers often are also armed with night-vision
goggles, satellite phones, and digital precision-location equipment,
widely available commercial gear that Coast Guard vessels do not have.
The Coast Guard's
aviation assets suffer from similar limitations. The HH-65A Dolphin
helicopters, for example, are operationally compatible with the Reliance,
Hamilton, and Famous cutters, but the Dolphin's sensor payload is less
than it could be because of weight-handling limitations on the cutters.
The service's
HH-60J Jayhawk helicopters are capable of long-range operations, and have
significant endurance, but these helicopters are compatible only with the
Famous-class WMECs--which can give them only limited on-board maintenance
and logistics support, unfortunately.
Among the Coast
Guard's fixed-wing aviation assets are 20 HU-25 Falcon medium-range search
jets, all of which are over 14 years old and suffer from engine
supportability problems. Their APG-66 radar provides a good intercept
capability--but only eight of the HU-25s are equipped with that radar. The
remaining 12 Falcons simply lack the modern sensor packages they need to
carry out their missions. One indication of the limited utility of the
Falcon fleet is the fact that the Coast Guard put 17 other Falcons into
storage in 1998.
Deep,
Dark Deficiencies
The deficiency in
sensors puts Coast Guard ships and aircraft at a severe disadvantage
against maritime lawbreakers, according to Capt. Craig Schnappinger, the
Coast Guard's Deepwater program manager. "They can see us before we
can see them."
The Coast Guard's
23 HC-130 fixed-wing aircraft, which are used for long-range aerial-search
missions, are being fitted with new FLIR and electro-optical sensor
packages and Global Positioning System receivers. This is one of the few
bright spots in Coast Guard aviation today. Otherwise, the picture is
dark. "Scrutiny of individual platform capabilities," according
to the Coast Guard's "21st Century Hemispheric Maritime
Security" document, "reveals an unintegrated system that falls
well short of optimum tactical requirements."
One of the more
promising hardware solutions to its aviation problems that the Coast Guard
is considering is the HV-609, a commercial tiltrotor craft that can take
off and land like a helicopter but fly like a fixed-wing aircraft. Now
under development by Bell Helicopter Textron, the HV-609 will have a speed
of 275 knots and a range of 750 nautical miles, and will be able to carry
a significant payload. Because of its versatility the Coast Guard might
possibly use the '609 to replace several different types of aviation
platforms now in the inventory--thereby helping to streamline logistics
and maintenance costs in the future.
The Coast Guard
protects the nation's maritime borders and carries out numerous missions
of importance to all Americans. But continuing to operate aging platforms
that are not equipped with modern sensors guarantees a future filled with
hazard and difficulty not only for the Coast Guard itself but for all
whose lives are touched by the sea.
By recapitalizing
the force, the Coast Guard believes, it will be able to operate more
safely and efficiently--and more cost-effectively as well. "I think
we are moving in the right direction," said Riutta. Congressional
approval of the Deepwater program, he said, will "move us into the
next century and equip our people with the resources [needed] to do their
jobs properly." |
