MULTI-MISSION NATIONAL SECURITY CUTTER CAN SWITCH MISSION HATS QUICKLY

BY EDWARD LUNDQUIST

The Coast Guard’s national security cutter (NSC) has quickly proven itself as the most capable cutter in the fleet based on extremely successful deployments in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, and even up into the Arctic.

Known as the “Legend class,” with the ships being named after famous Coast Guard people, the original program of record was eight NSCs to replace the 12 378-foot Hamilton-class high-endurance cutters. But Congress has funded 11, with nine of them built or ordered, and contracts with the shipyard, Huntington-Ingalls of Pascagoula, Mississippi, have been made for long lead-time materials for the 10th and 11th.

The 378s entered service between 1967 and 1972, and so were much in need of replacement. As of this writing, three remain in active service with the Coast Guard, with the remainder decommissioned and transferred to foreign navies and coast guards in Nigeria, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Vietnam, and Nigeria.

At 418 feet in length and displacing about 4,500 tons, the NSCs are larger and more capable that the 378s. The NSC has a range of 12,000 nautical miles, and an endurance of up to 90 days for independent patrols. They can be refueled at sea to extend their deployments, as well as be integrated into naval operations. The NSC has improved seakeeping and can launch and recover small boats more safely and efficiently from the stern. It also has a flight deck and hangars for helicopters and unmanned aerial vehicles.

The lead ship of the class, CGC Bertholf, was commissioned in August of 2008. The seventh NSC, Kimball, will be commissioned at her new homeport of Honolulu, Hawaii in January 2019.

According to an October 2018 report by the Congressional Research Service, the NSC has an estimated average procurement cost of about $682 million per ship.

Capt. Craig Wieschhorster, commanding officer of the CGC Stratton, said his ship has a crew of about 125 people, and can carry additional personnel, such as an aviation detachment, support personnel, contractors or representatives from partner agencies. “We’re a multimission crew ship with a multi-mission crew. We support all 11 of the Coast Guard’s statutory missions. The operational flexibility and operational efficiency of the ship is just leaps and bounds ahead of our legacy fleet. It’s a national asset.”

Wieschhorster said the most interesting thing about his ship in his nearly two years in command is the diversity of the mission sets. “We run the full gamut of Coast Guard mission support, all in one patrol. It’s been a great ride.”

“And just to give you some perspective on that, we started our last patrol in June and July up off the North Slope of Alaska, all the way up to the ice edge, doing Arctic domain awareness. Then we came down into the Bering Sea to conduct living marine resource (LMR) enforcement. Fisheries is a $6 billion industry there, so enforcement of that mission is critical to sustain our future fish stocks. And then we were diverted south all the way down to South America to do counterdrug ops,” Wieschhorster said. “Our ship is capable, and the crew is trained to a level to be able to switch mission hats quickly.”

The NSC’s weapons are furnished by the Navy. Stratton has the same 57 mm gun as the Navy’s littoral combat ship, and the Phalanx CIWS, which is also found on the Navy’s cruisers and destroyers.

Wieschhorster describes his ship as a “frigate-like” vessel. “I say that because it is partly designed to fulfill some of those Department of Defense (DOD) support missions. We have the capabilities to support DOD for low intensity conflict, should that need arise. We’re not designed for heavy combat at sea. But we can be very useful in phase zero shaping operations that we can do in advance of any potential conflict. We’re not designed to sit off the coast of California. We’re a global deployer, so we can help DOD in that realm and support national objectives, wherever that may be.

The NSC is also designed to operate in the harshest conditions. “You need a platform like this to be able to conduct long-range search and rescue and fisheries enforcement. I’m saying ‘long-range’ because when you’re operating in the Bering Sea, you’re a day, day-anda-half-steaming from anything, and the conditions in the Bering Sea are unforgiving. Routinely, you’re operating in 12 to 15 foot seas, and you’re expected to conduct mission execution in those conditions.”

In bad weather, merchant ships, fishermen and pleasure craft can get into extremis, which can result in a distress call to the Coast Guard. “If ships get into trouble in those conditions, we need to be able to launch aircraft. And this ship can launch and recover aircraft and boats in sea state 5.”

Wieschhorster said it is also important for a ship like the NSC to have range, endurance and technology to be able to conduct operations like law enforcement off South and Central America, thousands of miles from shore. The NSC has the ability to conduct highly classified operations, and can execute missions based on a very sophisticated intelligence network.

Stratton is the first Coast Guard ship to deploy with asmall unmanned aircraft system (sUAS). The Boeing Insitu ScanEagle unmanned aircraft carry sensors to help patrol large areas for long-duration flights of 12 hours or more.

While deployed, for example, Stratton got a call to perform a Medevac for a mariner who was in distress on a fishing vessel. “ScanEagle was airborne, and was able to show my helicopter pilots the vessel they were going to be hoisting the patient from. We were able to have the fishing boat move some deck equipment around so we could drop the basket and get the rescue swimmer down to the deck. That gave the aircrew more time on scene so they’re not arriving and then talking to the fishing captain on the radio to move things around while the helo is burning gas. All that stuff can be done in advance. We’re able to do a lot of things with ScanEagle, and it’s really been a force multiplier for us.”

“I would never want to not deploy with it. And that’s for all mission sets,” said Wieschhorster. “We’ve really refined our tactics and procedures. It gives us a real tactical advantage when we’re out there. We can gather all sorts of information on a target without being detected. The drone allows us to stay overtop of suspects and time the interdictions to where it’s tactically advantageous to us, while also reducing a lot of risk for our crews.”

Wieschhorster said these pursuits are going at a fast pace. “They’re not coming up to a vessel that’s stopped. These guys are rolling in at 30 knots, and we’re basically on a collision course with them to get them to stop. So it reduces a lot of risk for us there. It also records everything that these guys are doing. So in case we do get spotted, and they see our boat coming over the horizon, and they start to jettison their contraband, we’ve got them on video. When they roll into court, there’s no defense. These guys are going to jail because we can prove it with video evidence. That’s what gives us a litigation advantage, as well, when the assistant U.S. attorneys prosecute these cases.”

The NSC can also conduct LMR missions far from homeport. Fisheries patrols in the Bering Sea involves looking for foreign ships fishing within the U.S. exclusive economic zone without permission, conducting illegal driftnet fishing, exceeding limits, or taking unauthorized species. U.S. fishing boats can be operating illegally, too.

Although the Bering Sea is a remote and inhospitable area, there’s always a cutter there. “We’re up there all the time for fisheries enforcement and search and rescue, along with every other Coast Guard mission,” said Wieschhorster.

With overfishing, over time those biomasses are going to dwindle, Wieschhorster said. “We’ve seen that on the east coast with the cod fishery in the North Atlantic. There are a number of domestic fisheries laws where types of fisheries are open at certain times, closed at certain times, or there are limits to the amount of tonnage that is brought in for certain types of species. All that is managed by the National Fisheries Service, and we’re the enforcement arm of that. So the better presence that we have out there, the more eyes we can have on those fisheries to protect the resource.”

The NSC has a flight deck and hangars to carry two helicopters, like the MH-60 Jayhawk or MH-65 Dolphin, or a helicopter and unmanned aircraft like ScanEagle. Boardings – either for inspection or interdiction, are conducted by boat. The NSC can carry three boats, including a 36-foot long-range interceptor and two 26-foot overthe-horizon cutter boats. Two can be carried in the stern notch, and one of the OTH boats is carried in the starboard boat davit.

The LRI launches from the stern, and has a cabin to protect the crew on longer missions. There is a pool of LRIs for the Alameda based cutters, and they’ll take one with them when they deploy.

“We’ll have two pursuit teams – primary and secondary – ready to go, and a third team available as backup,” said Lt. Nick Mandozzi, Stratton’s gunnery officer and a boarding team officer. “A lot of times we’ll start with one – just a primary team – we’ll watch them with the SUAS. The secondary team might be sitting on the mess deck completely gunned up, ready to go.”

“We can deploy with HITRON,” said Mandozzi, referring to the MH-65s of Helicopter Interdiction Tactical Squadron (HITRON) in Jacksonville, Florida, with aircraft armed with an M240 machine gun and an M107 .50-caliber precision fire weapon that can disable the engines of a boat, even at high speed. “They’re different than search and rescue aircraft. The have a gunner on board instead of a rescue swimmer.”

“We always brief the mission, stress safety, and make sure we’re all on the same page,” said Mandozzi. “But when the alarm rings, the gunner’s mates open up the small arms locker and the teams draw their weapons; we’re putting on our body armor and grabbing our life jackets; and the deck crew is getting ready to launch the boats. Realistically, we can be in the water in a couple of minutes.”

The embarked ScanEagle SUAS enhances the pre-mission briefs for boarding parties and interdiction teams, and well as providing real-time imagery while an interdiction is taking place. “The captain is seeing what his boarding team is seeing,” said Mandozzi. “With the communications we have, you’ve got the captain right there with you.”