Put quad fifties fore and aft. That will make anyone pucker up no matter what they are in.

you think ?............................

Something to think about is that the drug smuggler and the terrorist infiltrating a port visit...USS Cole...would be better off taken out by a nice sized gun instead of a missile. My choice would be plenty of .50 cal's and the 57mm gun.

I retract myprior ideals, lets just mount a Rail Gun Fore and aft, Quad 50 cals duel and side by side on the starboard and port decks
Stinger Launchers, Proximity mines with a remote magnetic glow rod so if there happens to be a sub floating by the magnet latches and goes BOOM! Oh and Depth Charges. and Countermeasures.

The biggest thing the coast guard might have to intercept is, (ISPS lover's favorite scenario) a hijacked ULCC. The best way to do that is with a spec ops team, and maybe some intimidation - A shot accross the bow works nicely for me. When the drug runners start using submarines (For real! Come ON!), they'll worry about that, there and then.

It'd be simply ridiculous to outfit the USCG with harpoon, torpedoes, towed array sonar, and you name it... I'd say that dinghy launch bay stern is probably the best thing ever put on a coast guard cutter since the helicopter.

And if I was huggin' the EPIRB in the wet stuff, I'd be just as pleased to see an UAV as an aircraft. The UAV, much like the C-130, means help is coming.

Do they still drop rafts at all? I'd been told they didn't anymore... Or they didn't drop comm gears anymore... I don't frankly know about US SAR procedure (You'd think such things would be standardised, but no.)

Thats more like it. :yep:

Coast Guard ain't the Navy.

If America ever closes (I say "close" rather than "secure", because the best job America can do is a half-arsed job of "closing" it, which would actually make it "secure", rather than just a half-arsed job of "securing" it :roll: ) that southern border, the narcs will go open-ocean. Probably some up to Canada and down through ND and MN, but a lot will be the usual fast runners. They'll eventually get some subs going, beyond any doubt. They will purchase that stuff from the Russians and Chinese.

Eventually, the Coast Guard will have to form a few battle groups of large, fast-attack vessels. We will probably have to re-start the hydrofoil projects, and load them with AS missiles and UAV's. Subrocs, sonabuoys, listening posts. It's going to get crazy if we ever get the border "secured". The spice MUST flow!

They don't belong off the damn coast, that's for sure. They have plenty to do in the backyard. I certainly don't "oppose" them heading over to Iraq, but they stay busy just down in the Gulf, between oil rigs. If they feel like playing over seas, go play overseas. They can have a full blown wog day, and dive the engine cannisters, and measure the flight deck with a weiner, and tabasco sauce, and all the other fun games.


The Navy is the Navy for a reason. The Coast Guard is the Coast Guard for a reason. Cross train a little bit, but do the job you're supposed to be doing.



[edit: Whoops! Guess I should've read through the thread before posting...]

Re: Should the USCG be getting more bang for it's buck?
 

They don't need a CIWS, torpedos, missles and such toys when their primary mission is Search and Rescue. Secondaries are drug interdiction, alien migration interdiction and other enforcement of domestic and international laws treaties.

.50 cals come in handy when you just got done removing 600 Haitians from a 50 foot Haitian freighter and don't feel like towing it back to base. Scares the crap outta them too, makes'em think twice about trying it again. (:))

I disagree with you Rockstar about the CIWS. That is the one navy grade weapon they must have in addition to a heavy gun.

I think a gun like the CIWS would come in handy. So would a few 50 cals.

But torpedoes and other heavy weaponry seem a bit over and beyond the duties of the US Coast Guard. If something should need to be destroyed, maybe they should call in the Navy or the Air Force.

The Coast Guard does not just face down drug boats and hijacked merchies, during WWII and the Cold War they played an important ASW role as well. Today, with the shrinking Navy fleet of FFG's, as well as the Navy's disintrest in building any new primarily ASW surface combatants, the Bertholf with a 4,112 ton displacement (larger than the Perry class' 4,000 tons) makes an excellent fill in for the ASW patrol/escort mission. At least 8 Bertholf's will be built (although studies have shown a need for more than 30, which may be ordered if funding is there) so the USCG could pick up a sizeable amount of the Navy's slack, while still fulfilling other missions and presenting a more formidable threat to those that threaten US waters.

The Russian Border Guard Forces (ex-KGB) operate far more heavily armed vessels that the USCG, including 6 Krivak III's that are almost as heavily armed as their Navy brethren. I think they may be on to something-keeping foreign subs and anything else unwanted out of our waters would be easier with an ASW armed Coast Guard. The stern ramp is a great idea, I just think that it should be removable so it could be replaced by a modular towed array.

Its true, only diffrence is the russian boarder gaurds are there to stop immagrents in boats chechen rebels and also georgian naval combat vessels so the need for a krivack is well a must.

georgian navy's largest ship is around 1/2 the size of a krivack but can still pull the cat out of the bag, it is missile armed and does mount a gun no border gaurd patrol vessel could combat this effectvly so they did decide on a few krivaks as the navy wouldnt be able to respon in time to any real time threat.

The main problems with having more guns is more maintanance. The coastguard does not need missiles of any sort, as the ship in any cases would need to be inspected before sinking it.

The Norwegian cost guard does have the opurtunity to mount penguin misslies on their cutters, but this is never used, and the new vessels will not have that option.

But then again the police in Norway is unarmed...

Who poses a signifigant ASW threat to US waters? Nobody. Picking up the Navy's slack would be better served by MORE USN vessels, not the CG playing Navy. It simply takes resources and training away from the CG's mission: saving people's lives and providing homeland security through maritime interdiction. Just because they have played navy before doesn't mean they should be doing it now, no matter how good real military hardware looks on their cutters.

The reason that Russia has a relatively heavily armed Coast Guard is because they have to deal with potentially hostile naval forces that happen to be belong to their neighbors. We have to deal with Canada, Mexico, and Latin America. Al-Qaeda will NOT be sailing ex-Russian DDGs out to US waters to do a little commerce raiding anytime soon. Neither will drug runners.

PD

I agree with PD, and I'll just add that the difference between the Russian Coast Guard and the USCG is that they have a wholly different mission and philosophy.

The RCG is a national defense force.

The USCG is a security and economic defense force, an immigration control service and a marine safety service.

Take a look at the Canadian Coast Guard. They're civillian, and entirely unarmed. Yet they manage to do the job (Minus boarding party and intercepting drug runners - it's not a problem here). So in the US's case, I'd say some light weaponry, but torpedoes and advanced weapon systems? Come. On.

The Cold War is O-V-E-R. And the war on terrorism is going to be entirely different.