As originally planned, before the 2001 attacks on the World Trade
Center and the Pentagon, the Coast Guard had intended to renovate
or replace its oldest cutters, boats and aircraft over a period
of more than 20 years. Integrated Coast Guard Systems—a joint
venture between Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman—won the
contract for the job, worth an estimated $17 billion, in 2002.
Since 9/11, however, “much has changed for all of us,”
said Rear Adm. Patrick M. Stillman, program executive officer for
the service’s Integrated Deepwater System. “The global
war on terrorism is a challenge that each of us in this room must
wrestle,” he told the Navy-Industry International Dialogue,
sponsored recently by the National Defense Industrial Association
in Arlington, Va.
Just one part of that struggle is the war in Iraq, which has required
the Coast Guard’s largest overseas deployment since the Vietnam
conflict, including 11 cutters, two shore-side support units and
more than 1,200 personnel. In addition, in 2003 (the most recent
year with compiled figures), the service:
Performing all of these tasks with a force of 44,500 military and
civilian personnel—slightly larger than the New York Police
Department—is taking a heavy toll, according to Stephen E.
Flynn, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and a
retired Coast Guard commander.
The Coast Guard’s current force—which includes 93 cutters
and 206 aircraft—is “being pushed to the breaking point
and beyond,” Flynn told a congressional hearing. “It
is inexplicable to me that, despite the war on terrorism, the White
House and Congress have been reluctant to accelerate the pre-9/11
schedule to modernize the Coast Guard’s obsolete fleet.”
Rep. Frank LoBiondo, R-N.J., chairman of the House Subcommittee
on Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation, agreed, noting that
the Deepwater program is an estimated two to seven years behind
schedule. “This is simply unacceptable,” he said. “We
should be accelerating, not decelerating.”
To help kick start the process, the House of Representatives authorized
$1.1 billion for Deepwater in 2005—almost double the 2004
appropriation of $668 million. However, the 2005 appropriation for
the Department of Homeland Security, which President George W. Bush
signed in October, contained only $724 million for the project.
Still, Stillman noted, that amount represented a $46 million increase
over the president’s request and $56 million more than Deepwater
got in 2004. He thanked the administration and Congress for their
“strong support … in advancing Deepwater’s urgently
needed recapitalization.”
Meanwhile, Stillman and ICGS representatives told the conference
that Deepwater was making significant progress.
In October, noted ICGS President Dale Bennett, the Coast Guard
received its first remodeled HH-65 Dolphin helicopter, featuring
an upgraded power system. The service has been flying the twin-engine
Dolphins—made by American Eurocopter, a division of EADS North
America—since the 1980s. It plans to re-engine all 96 of them
with the Turbomeca Arriel 2C2 engine.
In 2003, the Coast Guard received six HC-130J Super Hercules transport
aircraft from the Lockheed Martin facility in Marietta, Ga. The
130Js, which are replacing 30-year-old HC-130Hs, have an enhanced
cargo-handling system and large windows on both sides of the fuselage
to allow crewmembers to scan the sea surface.
Also in 2003, the service awarded ICGS a $130 million contract
for the design and delivery of two maritime patrol aircraft. The
platform selected for the MPA is the CN235-300M maritime surveillance
aircraft, made by EADS CASA, the Spanish subsidiary of the European
Aeronautic and Space Company. Delivery is set for 2006.
This year, the Coast Guard intends to buy two HV-911 Eagle Eye
tilt-rotor, vertical-takeoff-and-landing unmanned air vehicles from
Bell Helicopter, of Fort Worth, Texas, Bennett said.
The Eagle Eye, a smaller, unmanned version of the V-22 tilt-rotor,
is still being tested. It successfully completed its preliminary
design review in March 2004, and is scheduled to reach initial operational
capability in the spring of 2008. The Coast Guard plans to deploy
as many as four of them on some of its new cutters.
Northrop Grumman Ship Systems, in Pascagoula, Miss., in September
2004, began construction of the first maritime security cutter,
large, formerly known as the National Security Cutter, said Bob
Conrad, ICGS vice president of operations.
This cutter will be a 421-foot vessel powered by a twin-screw,
combined diesel-and-gas turbine-propulsion plant designed to travel
at a maximum of 28 knots. It will be armed with the Mk 3 57 mm gun,
the Mk Phalanx 20 mm close-in weapon system and the Mk 53 Nulka
decoy-launching anti-missile system. It will include an aft launch-and-recovery
area for two rigid-hull inflatable boats, a flight deck to accommodate
a range of rotary-wing manned and unmanned aircraft, and the latest
command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance
and reconnaissance electronics. The first ship is scheduled for
delivery in spring 2007.
A maritime security cutter, medium is in the early stages of preliminary
design, Conrad said. This cutter will be shorter than the larger
cutter—only 341 feel in length—but it will feature the
same propulsion system and similar command-and-control technology.
“There will be a lot of advantages for the Coast Guard in
the commonality of these ships,” Conrad said.
In July, the service awarded ICGS a contract to begin the preliminary
design for its new maritime patrol coastal ship. Vessels of this
class will be 147 feet long, made largely of composites and powered
by three diesel engines capable of 30 knots, Conrad told the conference.
They will be armed with the Mk46/Mk44 30 mm gun system, and will
carry pursuit boats for rescues, raids and high-speed chases.
The vessel will be built at the NGSS Composite Center of Excellence,
in Gulfport, Miss. Delivery is planned for early 2007, Conrad said.
“This is an extremely aggressive schedule,” he said.
“We’re talking about going from design to delivery in
less than two years.”
In March, ICGS delivered to the Coast Guard its first refurbished
Island class patrol boat. The Coast Guard Cutter Matagorda was extended
in length from 110 to 123 feet. It features an 11-ton, 13-foot stern
ramp, a RHIB and an enlarged pilothouse. In addition, a modern and
robust command-and-control system was installed.
The work was done at Bollinger Shipyard, in Lockport, La., where
seven additional conversions are in progress, Conrad said.
A critical element of the Deepwater program, Stillman said, is
the modernization of the Coast Guard’s command-and-control
systems. Plans call for “a network-centric system designed
to ensure seamless interoperability between the service’s
cutters, aircraft and shore facilities,” Stillman said. Common
software, systems and components in Coast Guard assets will improve
its maritime domain awareness, Stillman said. Maritime domain awareness,
he said, is the ability to monitor all global ocean-related activity
that could impact the security, safety, economy or environment of
the United States. “That network will be our number one-force
multiplier,” Stillman said.