laststandonzombieisland

Recently two tactically loaded Zodiac rigid-hulled inflatable boats containing nine Army Green Berets and three communications specialists made a beach landing and stormed Camp Rilea, an Oregon Army National Guard Training Center in Warrenton, Oregon.

How the ribs got to the area from over-the-horizon was via the USCG buoy tender Fir.

Soldiers from the U.S. Army 10th Special Forces Group, out of Army Base Fort Carson, Colo., prepare their Zodiac rigid-hulled inflatable boats for deployment while aboard the Coast Guard Cutter Fir, a 225-foot Sea-going Buoy Tender during transit off the northern coast of Oregon, June 22, 2016. The cutter supplied equipment storage and deployment during a joint-agency operation. U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer Class Levi Read.

Sure, it’s a training exercise involving National Guard SF guys, but it shows how such assets could be used if needed in an asymmetric maritime environment such as seizing oil rigs, conducting raids or recon on offshore islands and coastal zones, etc.

It should be noted that the Coast Guard uses the 225-foot Juniper-class seagoing buoy tenders such as Fir in conducting sovereignty and fishery patrols of outlying Pacific territories with allied shipriders and along the Alaskan Arctic coast.

If things go squirrely, say with non-nation actors, pirates or other rogues in those areas that a small group of pipehitters could fix and naval assets are not available, it’s clear that some may see NG SF ODAs or the Coast Guard’s own MSST units carried from buoy tenders as a low-tech option.

Then there is always the Persian Gulf as well…