Category Archives: security and preparedness

Three low-mileage USCG 87-foot Patrol Boats Headed South, like Forever

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The Coast Guard ordered a whopping 74 87-foot Marine Protector-class patrol boats from Bollinger between 1998 and 2009– the largest buy of patrol craft since the Navy’s PCFs during Vietnam. Based on Damen’s Stan 2600 that is in use in several Latin American countries, the vessels were meant to finally phase out the USCG’s Vietnam-era 82-foot Point class patrol boats as well as a batch of 110-foot Island-class patrol boats which were ruined in a botched lengthening modification.

The USCGC Bonito (WPB-87341), a Marine Protector-class patrol boat, seen coming into Gulfport back in 2015, Photo by me.

The 87s have proved great vessels, capable of undertaking a weeklong patrol if needed (the smallest American maritime vessels with an embarked Culinary Specialist as well as onboard desalination capabilities) and have been stationed in such rough regions as Alaska and the Pacific Northwest. They were designed to operate in conditions up to Sea State 5, ranging out to 200nm offshore.

U.S. Coast Guard 87 foot Cutter Terrapin patrols frigid water while on a 37-day deployment in Southeast Alaska, July 10, 2016

Equipped with an AN/SPS-73 surface search radar, two M2 .50 cals, a small arms locker that enables a 4-6 man boarding detail drawn from their 11-man crew, and a stern launch and recovery system for the cutter’s waterjet-propelled small boat, they are some of the most advanced patrol craft for their size fielded anywhere in the world.

Heck, a fictional one even plays a prominent role in my (shameless plug) zombie book, for which I got to get underway on an 87 (Pompano) while doing research.

However, with a ton of the Coast Guard’s new and much more capable 154-foot Sentinel-class Fast Response Cutters coming on line, and the oldest 87s set to start aging out after 2028, 10 have been retired early. These gently used boats have been stacking up at the Coast Guard Yard in Baltimore, in Parking Lot 23, where they are awaiting upgrade and outfitting before transfer to Uruguay (3) and Lebanon (7).

Speaking of which, three recently decommed 87s, USCGCs Albacore (WPB-87309), Cochito (WPB-87329), and Gannet (WPB-87334) were recently set up for transfer to Montevideo, where they will replace two elderly (60 year old) 95-foot USCG Cape-class patrol boats transferred to Uruguay in 1990.

U.S. Coast Guard Vice Adm Paul F. Thomas, deputy commandant for mission support, and Andrés Durán Hareau, Uruguay ambassador to the U.S., sign for the transfer of three Coast Guard cutters to the Uruguay Navy at Coast Guard Headquarters, Washington D.C., Feb. 10, 2022. The boats being transferred are 87-foot Marine Protector class cutters. (U.S. Coast Guard photo by PA2 Ronald Hodges.)

From USCG PAO:

The Coast Guard, as a maritime partner of choice, is committed to assisting Uruguay authorities by supporting bilateral activities in the shared interest of the security and operational environment of the Southern Atlantic Ocean.

Thomas called the transfer a win-win situation, helping Uruguay to swiftly enhance their maritime security while forging an international partnership “that fosters greater global maritime security for us all.” He said he has no doubt that the Protector-class patrol boats – 64 of which are still in operation in the Coast Guard – will be an effective addition to the Uruguayan Navy.

The former cutters will undergo maintenance, upgrades, and outfitting at Coast Guard Yard in Baltimore. Members of the Uruguay Navy will also be trained in the operation and maintenance of the vessels. Once work on the vessels and training are complete, the Uruguay Navy crewmembers will sail the patrol boats to Uruguay, with arrival anticipated in July 2022.

The transfer ceremony itself:

My New Carry Gun is an FN

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There, I said it.

If you have been following me for the past few years, my primary for a long (long) time staple EDC was a 3rd Gen Glock G19 or a newer G19X with a well-used S&W Model 642 J-frame or FN 503 as a BUG. This, I switched up in 2019 after testing the S&W M & M&P M2.0 Compact, which was the same size/capacity as the G19 but felt so much better and more accurate to boot. The Smith chewed through 2,000 rounds with no issues and, as I was able to buy it cheap, was my go-to, especially when flying around the country.

Now, after three months of kicking the tires, I am putting the M&P back into the safe in favor of an FN 509 Compact.

Just slightly smaller than the G19 (or M&P Compact) it offers a 12-round chopped mag in the chopped down grip and a 15 if you want to go more full-sized. Not a huge difference, but still noticeable, and if you are good with running the 12 rounder, the FN 509 Compact is even more concealable. (Photo: Chris Eger/Guns.com)

After going northward of 1K rounds without a hiccup, I bought the gun from FN rather than sending it back and will be carrying it for keeps moving forward.

My reasons why? Check out my column at Guns.com.

Little Blue Men en masse

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It appears that a huge flotilla of 220 People’s Armed Forces Maritime Militia vessels are massed at Julian Felipe Reef in the West Philippine Sea, notably inside what the Philippines sees as its EEZ.

Via the Philippines National Government:

The National Task Force for the West Philippine Sea (NTF-WPS) received a confirmed report from the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) that around two hundred twenty (220) Chinese Fishing Vessels (CFVs), believed to be manned by Chinese maritime militia personnel, were sighted moored in line formation at the Julian Felipe Reef (Whitsun Reef) on March 7, 2021.

The Reef is a large boomerang-shaped shallow coral reef at the northeast of Pagkakaisa Banks and Reefs (Union Reefs), located approximately 175 Nautical Miles west of Bataraza, Palawan. It is within the Philippine Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) and Continental Shelf (CS), over which the country enjoys the exclusive right to exploit or conserve any resources which encompass both living resources, such as fish, and non-living resources such as oil and natural gas.

Founded in the 1950s as something kind of akin to the U.S. Coast Guard Auxillary, the CMM has grown massively in size over the past 20 years and has increasingly been on the “front lines” of China’s expansion into the Pacific in the past decade or so, in short, using government-sponsored fishing ships equipped with PLAN-capable satellite communication terminals and manned by trained paramilitary crews in lieu of official naval assets. This includes the persistent 2009 interference with USNS Impeccable (T-AGOS-23), the 2011 harassment of Vietnam’s survey vessels (Viking II and Binh Minh), swarming the USNS Howard O. Lorenzen (T-AGM-25) in 2014, the ongoing Scarborough Shoal standoff (Tanmen Militia) and the Haiyang Shiyou-981 oil rig standoff.

Pretty uniform…

Peacetime training for CMM’s “little blue men” includes target identification, intelligence collection methods, and operation of communication terminals, typically running at least 15 days per year to include one of political education. During times of war, it is expected that CMM trawlers and longliners will be used for scouting and recon purposes, resupply of outposts, and minelaying.

Basically the old “Russian trawlers” of the Cold War, only in supersized numbers. 

USS ABNAKI (ATF-96) Keeping the Soviet Trawler GIDROFON under surveillance in the South China Sea, December 1967. K-43379

Sig P229, a Retrospective

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Cutting edge when introduced, the Sig Sauer P229 was foisted on me in 2005 and, after we learned to get along, has grown to become a favorite.

That was the year Hurricane Katrina sucker-punched the Gulf Coast and left my then-profession with Ma Bell somewhat on the ropes. Dusting off my firearms trainer certs, I soon took a gig with a Department of Homeland Security contractor to train guards working the myriad of FEMA sites that sprang up like mushrooms. Intending this to be a temp job until I moved back into telecom, I wound up with the company for almost a decade, running courses all over the country on a variety of different contracts. Long story short, I stood on the range and watched well over 100,000 rounds of ammo burned through four pallets of Sigs in very short order.

And I still have a couple P229s from that era around today.

More of my “16 Year Journey with the Sig Sauer P229” in my column at Guns.com

There are now 40 154-foot patrol craft in the USCG

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The new Sentinel-class Fast Response Cutter (FRC) has been termed an operational “game-changer,” according to senior Coast Guard officials. Based on the Dutch Damen Stan 4708 platform with some mods for U.S. use, Louisiana’s Bollinger Shipyards won a contract for the first unit, USCGC Bernard C. Webber (WPC-1101), in 2008 and has been plowing right along ever since.

A couple weeks ago, the yard delivered the 40th FRC to the Coast Guard, not a bad job in just 12 years.

USCGC Oliver Henry (WPC-1140), note her 25mm gun has not been installed. Photo via Bollinger. 

The newest vessel, USCGC Oliver Henry (WPC-1140), was placed in commission, special status, on 30 July and will remain in Florida while the crew completes pre-commissioning trials and maintenance. The cutter is scheduled to arrive in Santa Rita, Guam, later in 2020, and will be the second of three planned FRCs stationed in Guam, an important upgrade to sea surveillance and patrol capabilities in America’s forward-deployed territorial bastion.

“The Fast Response Cutters are a real game-changer here in the Pacific for the Coast Guard,” said LCDR Jessica Conway, the Coast Guard 14th District’s patrol boat manager. “Already the FRCs stationed here in Hawaii are conducting longer missions over greater distances than the older patrol boats they are replacing.”

FRCs have a flank speed of 28 knots, a state of the art C4ISR suite, a stern launch and recovery ramp for a 26-foot over-the-horizon interceptor cutter boat, and a combat suite that includes a remote-operated Mk38 25mm chain gun and four crew-served M2 .50 cals.

Note the 25mm gun forward. Unlike older models, it is the stabilized Mod 2 variant with a day/night electro-optical sight. The Mod 2 has shown to be 3x more likely to hit a target than the eyeball-trained and manually-slewed Mod 0/1 guns.  

While listed as having a range of ~2,500nm, FRCs have deployed on 4,400nm round-trip patrols to the Marshall Islands from Hawaii– completing two at-sea refuelings from a Coast Guard buoy tender– and have shown themselves particularly adept at expeditionary operations in devastated littorals in the aftermath of hurricanes. Further, the class has deployed to the coast of South America in joint Operations Tradewinds exercises for the past two years.

U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Oliver Berry staging out of San Diego headed to Oahu,  2,600-nm West on a solo trip. Not bad for a yacht-sized patrol boat

“Here in the Pacific one of our greatest challenges is distance,” said Conway. “With the FRCs boasting a larger crew size and greater endurance, they are able to complete missions both close to shore and over the horizon, aiding both the people of Guam and our partners in the region.”

In a hat tip to the fact they are so much more capable, the USCG uses the WPC hull designation, used last by the old “buck and a quarter” 125-foot cutters of the Prohibition-era with these crafts, rather than the WPB patrol boat designation of the ships they are replacing.

Most important, later in 2020, Bollinger will be delivering the first of a half-dozen FRCs to the USCG that will be home-ported in Manama, Bahrain, to replace the 1980s-vintage 110-foot Island Class Patrol Boats supporting Patrol Forces Southwest Asia, the service’s largest unit outside of the United States. PATFORSWA is almost continually engaged with Iranian asymmetric forces in the Persian Gulf region.

M1911s and Browning Hi-Powers: Outdated Carry?

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I get myself involved in firearms debates pretty frequently with people and, as a guy that has extensively carried and/or used dozens of different handgun platforms across the past 30 years, I have logged lots of time with both contemporary guns– such as Glocks, HKs, S&W M&Ps, FN 500-series, et. al– as well as more traditional classic guns like Smith J- and K-frames, Colt D- and I-frames, Walther P-38s, etc.

With that being said, I took a 2,000~ word deep dive over in my column at Guns.com into the subject of if two of John Browning’s most-admired handguns, the M1911, and the Hi-Power, are still relevant when it comes to EDC and personal protection these days.

Some things, like an M1911A1 GI, a Browning Hi-Power, a Swiss Army knife or a P-51 can opener, have been augmented by more modern offerings but that doesn’t mean they stop working as designed. (Photo: Chris Eger/Guns.com)

Your thoughts? More on the article, here, for your reference.

An 8-pound pistol

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So for the past few weeks, I have been fooling around with a T&E DB15 pistol. Featuring a 7-inch barrel, it is a fairly compact blaster and I have to admit that the KAK Flash Can and Gearhead Works Tailhook is growing on me.

While right out of the box, the 23-inch long 5.56 NATO handgun weighs just 4.53-pounds, I have added a Sig Sauer Romeo 5 red dot, a 600-lumen Streamlight and a Magpul D60 drum to it, bringing its loaded all-up weight with spare batteries (in the MOE grip) and boolits of 8.7-pounds.

Nice. For reference, the total cost as shown with all accessories is still under $1K. 

More in my column at Guns.com. 

Nipping at the heels

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Apparently taking the sidelining of the Teddy Roosevelt carrier battlegroup in Guam and the Ronald Reagan group in Japan during the current COVID-19 pandemic crisis as the blood trail of a wounded beast, Iran, China, and Russia are sniffing around and flexing a bit where the U.S. is forward-deployed.

WestPac

China’s six-ship Liaoning carrier group (Liaoning along with two type 052D guided-missile destroyers – the Xining and Guiyang – two type 054A guided-missile frigates – the Zaozhuang and Rizhao – and a type 901 combat support ship, the Hulunhu) passed through the tense Miyako Strait, between Okinawa and Taiwan, over the weekend, under the eyes of various JMSDF, U.S. and ROC assets.

Chinese carrier ‘Liaoning with escorts. Photos via Chinese Internet

Further, as reported by the South China Morning Post: “On Thursday [9 Apr], an H-6 bomber, J-11 fighter and KJ-500 reconnaissance plane from the PLA Air Force flew over southwestern Taiwan and on to the western Pacific where they followed a US RC-135U electronic reconnaissance aircraft.”

Of note, the ROC Army has sent some of their aging but still very effective M60A3 tanks out into public in recent days in what was announced a pre-planned exercise. Still, when you see an MBT being camouflaged in the vacant lot down the block, that’s a little different.

Photo via Taiwan’s Military News Agency (MNA)

Note the old KMT cog emblem. Taiwan’s Military News Agency (MNA)

Very discrete. Taiwan’s Military News Agency (MNA)

Meanwhile, in the Arabian Gulf

A series of 11 Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy (IRGCN) vessels on Wednesday (15 April 15) buzzed the expeditionary platform USS Lewis B. Puller (ESB 3), and her escorts, the destroyer USS Paul Hamilton (DDG 60), the 170-foot Cyclone-class patrol craft USS Firebolt (PC 10) and USS Sirocco (PC 6), and two 110-foot Island-class Coast Guard cutters, USCGC Wrangell (WPB 1332) and USCGC Maui (WPB 1304), while the U.S. vessels were conducting operations with U.S. Army AH-64E Apache attack helicopters.

The below footage seems to be from the running bridge of one of the Coast Guard 110s, likely Maui from reports, and you can see what the Navy terms a Fast Inshore Attack Craft (FIAC), armed with a heavy machine gun with a deck guy’s hands on the spades.

The IRGCN fields hundreds of such 30- to 50-foot fast boats, armed with a variety of rockets, machine guns, and small mines, and have been the organization’s bread and butter since the early 1980s.

For reference

As noted by the 5th Fleet:

The IRGCN vessels repeatedly crossed the bows and sterns of the U.S. vessels at extremely close range and high speeds, including multiple crossings of the Puller with a 50 yard closest point of approach (CPA) and within 10 yards of Maui’s bow.

The U.S. crews issued multiple warnings via bridge-to-bridge radio, five short blasts from the ships’ horns and long-range acoustic noise maker devices, but received no response from the IRGCN.

After approximately one hour, the IRGCN vessels responded to the bridge-to-bridge radio queries, then maneuvered away from the U.S. ships and opened the distance between them.

ARABIAN GULF (April 15, 2020) Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy (IRGCN) vessels conducted unsafe and unprofessional actions against U.S. military ships by crossing the ships’ bows and sterns at close range while operating in international waters of the north Arabian Gulf. U.S. forces are conducting joint interoperability operations in support of maritime security in the U.S. 5th Fleet area of operations. (U.S. Navy photo/Released)

Potomu chto ya byl perevernut

Not to feel left out, 6th Fleet reports (emphasis mine) that a Syrian-based Russian Flanker-E came out over the Med to buzz a P-8:

On April 15, 2020, a U.S. P-8A Poseidon aircraft flying in international airspace over the Mediterranean Sea was intercepted by a Russian SU-35. The interaction was determined to be unsafe due to the SU-35 conducting a high-speed, inverted maneuver, 25 ft. directly in front of the mission aircraft, which put our pilots and crew at risk. The crew of the P-8A reported wake turbulence following the interaction. The duration of the intercept was approximately 42 minutes.

While the Russian aircraft was operating in international airspace, this interaction was irresponsible. We expect them to behave within international standards set to ensure safety and to prevent incidents, including the 1972 Agreement for the Prevention of Incidents On and Over the High Seas (INCSEA). Unsafe actions‎ increase the risk of miscalculation and the potential for midair collisions.

The U.S. aircraft was operating consistent with international law and did not provoke this Russian activity.

Soup Sandwich

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With so many Joes being ordered to cough up their own facemasks (no pun intended), there is an official line that said ersatz booger shields should be as uniform as possible.

Thus:

U.S. Army Forces Command (FORSCOM) guidance on masks

However, to get the point across to the cammie-clad masses and single out the E4 Mafia, other bases have gotten a little more specific to include a “don’t be this guy” section.

Fort Stewart Hunter Army Airfield, Re: masks

U.S. Army Garrison Stuttgart, Re: mask

Of course, since I have been using my own bandana-derived mask, I rather look more like an Old West desperado.

Or perhaps the Avenging Shadow!

The Masked Rider (May 1934) Western Pulp: The Avenging Shadow

 

Proven handguns for tough times

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While your best and most effective bet in the majority of hairy self-defense scenarios (barring something laser-guided or belt-fed) is a rifle– preferably a few different ones in a range of calibers– in a pinch a handgun is better than verbal judo, a pointy stick, or the lid off a can of sardines. With that in mind, I made a list centered on pistols and revolvers that are 1) modern, 2) accept common ammunition, 3) have spare parts that are readily available, 4) proven, 5) are simple to manipulate, and 6) easy to maintain.

Sure, each of these has their haters, but most importantly each type has a huge crowd of fans and users that have kept them in regular production for decades.

More in my column at Guns.com

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