The 940-page One Big Beautiful Bill Act, H.R.1, has something in it for everyone to like, and everyone to hate, making it a universal adapter of sorts.
What may be missed by others is that it also has a record $25 billion windfall for the USCG (“the largest single commitment of funding in Service history”), a welcome sight for one of the most shoestring of uniformed services. Keep in mind that the Coast Guard’s annual FY26 budget is just $14.5 billion.
As noted by the service, “this funding will allow the Coast Guard to procure an estimated 17 new icebreakers, 21 new cutters, over 40 helicopters, and six C-130J aircraft while modernizing shore infrastructure and maritime surveillance systems.”
Investment highlights include:
$4.4 billion for shore infrastructure, training facilities, and homeports
$4.3 billion for Polar Security Cutters, extending U.S. reach in the Arctic
$4.3 billion for nine new Offshore Patrol Cutters
$3.5 billion for three Arctic Security Cutters
$2.3 billion for more than 40 MH-60 helicopters
$2.2 billion for depot-level maintenance to sustain readiness
$1.1 billion for six new HC-130J aircraft and simulators
$1 billion for Fast Response Cutters
$816 million for light and medium Icebreaking Cutters
$266 million for long-range unmanned aircraft systems
$170 million for maritime domain awareness, including next-generation sensors
$162 million for three Waterways Commerce Cutters
The future 360-foot Offshore Patrol Cutter Argus in launch position. Nine sisterships are funded under the OBBB, at about $478 million a pop. Photo: Eastern Shipbuilding Group.
This week marks the 80th Anniversary of the landing at Balikpapan, Borneo. The “Ploesti of the Pacific” was finally being liberated after weeks of systematic attack by the “Jungle Air Force” of the “Fighting” 13th AAF’s bombers and fighters operating out of New Guinea and the Solomons.
Official period caption: “On July 1, 1945, Americans and Australians island-hopped right into the center of the rich, Japanese-held oil fields of Balikpapan, Borneo. Units of the Navy’s Seventh Fleet paved the way for the Australian landing. In the bombardment that preceded the landings at Balikpapan, Seventh Fleet units fired over 10,000 rockets. LCI(B) 338 opens up in the first of two rocket runs made by these craft on the beach. Rockets have proven to be very effective “persuaders” in the Navy’s amphibious landings. National Archives Identifier 153724649
Underwater demolition swimmer, SF1c John Regan gets a drink and smoke after setting charges off Balikpapan, circa early July 1945. Note his sheath knife 80-G-274698
Barring Gallipoli, this was the largest amphibious landing in Australia’s history.
USCG-manned USS LST 66 headed for a hot beach at Balikpapan. Note the oil tanks ashore. Commissioned on 12 April 1943, LST-66 was on her 12th series of landings after hitting the beach with Marines and soldiers at Cape Gloucester, Saidor, Hollandia, Toem-Wakde-Sarmi, Biak, Noemfoor, Cape Sansapor, Morotai, Leyte, Lingayen, and Mindanao, earning eight battle stars. NARA 26-G-4741
Australian landing craft reach the beach at Balikpapan to launch the invasion of Borneo’s greatest oil refining district. Beach installations and anti-aircraft positions inland still smoke from a pre-invasion pounding by bombers and fighters of the (U.S. Air Force Number 58861AC)
Original caption: This is the Balikpapan Invasion scene snapped by Coast Guard Combat Photographer James L. Lonergan as his own picture was taken by a fellow Coast Guard Photographer, Gerald C. Anker, from an adjoining LCVP. Note the identical posters in each photo of the Aussie wading ashore, the group behind the tractor, and the Coast Guardsmen bending over the bow of the vessel. A few moments later both photographers narrowly escaped death from Jap snipers when they sought a vantage point from which to “shoot” the entire invasion beach. NARA 26-G-4721
Patrols of 29 Bn, 18th Brigade (Australian) move cautiously into the village area of Penadjam, Balikpapan, Borneo, under sniper fire. 5 July, 1945. SC 374826 Photographer: Lt. Novak. U.S. National Archives. Digitized by Signal Corps Archive.
The 25-ton Matilda II carried a 40 mm QF 2-pounder main gun, a hull-mounted GPMG, and, while slow at 15 mph on its twin Leylan engines, may have been dead meat on a European battlefield in 1945 but was aces in the Pacific.
Balikpapan, Borneo, 30 July 1945. Matilda tanks of A squadron, 1st Armoured Regiment AIF (RNSWL), being overhauled in the unit’s open-air workshop. AWM 112525
Australian 1st Armoured Regt AIF (RNSW Lancers) Matilda II in action at Balikpapan, July 1945, shown clearing a former Japanese-held Royal Dutch Shell oil refinery complex.
Oil Refinery Balikpapan OBOE 2 Australian Matilda tank ‘B Sqn 1st Armoured Regiment AWM 110916
The Museum will be holding a display on Sunday, 6th July, in Lancer Barracks to commemorate the Balikpapan anniversary. All are welcome. If you are in the area…
How about this great recent set of image of the 87-foot Marine Protector-class patrol boat, USCGC Bonito (WPB-87341), as she leads a formation of Coast Guard units from Station Kings Point, Station Sandy Hook, and Station New York on a transverse of the the Hudson River with New York City in the background.
As for Bonito, commissioned in 2002, she was formerly stationed in Pensacola until she had her mid-life overhaul at the Coast Guard Yard. She was then moved first to Montauk and then, last year, to Sandy Hook.
She was one of the first assets on scene during the high-profile loss of a tourist helicopter in the Hudson River near the Holland Tunnel in New York City.
For better or worse, the third-hand 360-foot oilfield support vessel M/V Aiviq, acquired in December 2024 from an Edison Chouest Offshore subsidiary, was renamed the future USCGC Storis (WAGB 21) and has spent the past six months in a series of shipyard availabilities along the Gulf Coast.
This week, “following modifications to enhance communications and self-defense capabilities,” the country’s newest “polar icebreaker” departed Bollinger’s yard in Escatawpa (formerly VT Halter) on its “maiden voyage to safeguard U.S. sovereign interests in the Arctic and conduct Coast Guard missions.”
Photos courtesy of Edison Chouest Offshore.
While scheduled to be commissioned in Juneau this August, where she will eventually be based once the service has built the necessary infrastructure for her, in the meantime, Storis will be homeported in Seattle with the agency’s other icebreakers. The cutter’s new skipper is the former captain of the USCGC Polar Star (WAGB 10), so at least he is used to working with a mixed bill of goods.
To be clear, Storis will be used as a bridging strategy to “expand U.S. operational presence in the Arctic and support Coast Guard missions.”
At the same time, the service awaits the delivery of the delayed, and much more capable (potentially to include anti-ship missiles) 460-foot, 19,000-ton (launch weight) icebreaking multi-mission Polar Security Cutter class.
Lots of interesting stories from the USCG that have likely slipped through under the radar for most in the past couple of weeks.
M4 profile, just the essentials
The U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Calhoun (WMSL 759)recently offloaded more than 19,055 pounds of cocaine and marijuana valued at approximately $140.9 million in Port Everglades, Florida, the result of five interdictions in the Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean Sea by interagency partners under JIATF-S.
Check out this GM2’s carbine (and holstered Glock), from Calhoun.
Petty Officer 2nd Class David Hopkins, a gunner’s mate aboard U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Calhoun (WMSL 759), watches illegal narcotics in Port Everglades, May 16, 2025. (Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Jessica Walker)
The no-frills setup runs an Aimpoint Patrol Rifle Optic (PRO) red dot reflex sight on a QRP2 mount rather than an ACOG or Elcan. His short quad rail has an inexpensive ($125 if you shop around) Streamlight TLR RM2 1,000 lumen white light. Note the KAC 300M flip-up rear sight in case the Aimpoint takes a nap. Magpul PMAG and Mechanix gloves for the win.
USCG Hero remembered on DDG
The keel for the future USS Quentin Walsh (DDG 132), an Arleigh Burke-class Flight III guided missile destroyer, was laid down during a ceremony on 20 May at General Dynamics Bath Iron Works in Maine.
The ship’s sponsor is Madison Ann Zolper, great-granddaughter of the ship’s namesake, Coast Guard Capt. Quentin R. Walsh (USCGA 1933), who earned the Navy Cross for his heroic actions during the liberation of the strategic French port of Cherbourg in World War II.
Future USS Quentin Walsh’s (DDG 132) sponsor, Madison Ann Zolper, welded her initials into the ship’s keel plate for authentication during a keel laying ceremony at Bath Iron Works, Maine. (NAVSEA photos)
Cmdr. Quentin R. Walsh in his dress blues bearing his recently awarded Navy Cross Medal. U.S. Coast Guard photo.
Armed with bazookas, hand grenades, rifles, and submachine guns, he and his party overcame sniper fire and blew open steel doors of underground bunkers. About 400 of the Germans in the arsenal area surrendered. Walsh’s command went on to capture Fort Du Homet and its garrison of 350 men. In all, his 53-man special force was credited with taking about 750 German prisoners and liberating 52 captured American paratroopers.
For his actions in and around Cherbourg beginning June 9, he received the Navy Cross. The citation for the award noted:
“Heroism as Commanding Officer of a U.S. Naval party reconnoitering the naval facilities and naval arsenal at Cherbourg June 26 and 27, 1944. While in command of a reconnaissance party, Commander Walsh entered the port of Cherbourg and penetrated the eastern half of the city, engaging in street fighting with the enemy. He accepted the surrender and disarmed 400 of the enemy force at the naval arsenal and later received the unconditional surrender of 350 enemy troops and, at the same time, released 52 captured U.S. Army paratroopers. His determination and devotion to duty were instrumental in the surrender of the last inner fortress of the Arsenal.”
First visit to Nuku Hiva in over 150 years
The Bear-class 270-foot cutter USCG Cutter Harriet Lane (WMEC 903), the first of her class to be moved to the Pacific, has been roaming around recently. Last week, she called on Nuku Hiva in the Marquesas Islands of French Polynesia. In doing so, she is the first American warship to dock there since the sloop-of-war USS Vandalia in 1858.
USCG Harriet Lane (WMEC 903) at Nuku Hiva, CWO2 Michael Deaton & BM3 Joseph Curran
The windswept island has hosted Herman Melville and Robert Louis Stevenson in the past, along with the famed 46-gun frigate USS Essex in 1813, putting Harriet Lane in good company.
CG SF in the PI
While the USCGC Stratton was in the Philippines, forward deployed as part of DESRON 15, a det from the Coast Guard’s San Diego-based Maritime Security Response Team (MSRT) West has been working with the Philippine Coast Guard Special Operations Force in a dynamic training exercise in Puerto Princesa, leaving the question of what is better camo for sea ops, the green-based Scorpion OCP or the grey-based Camopat.
Photos by Petty Officer 3rd Class William Kirk:
Last Islands sent to Colombia
We’ve recently covered the recent decommissioning of the final three 110-foot Island class cutters on the beat in the U.S.– USCGC Liberty (WPB-1334),Mustang (WPB-1310), and Naushon (WPB-1311)-– long-serving in Alaska for the past 30 years. It seems they are headed south for continued service alongside each other, sisters to the end.
The decommissioned and disarmed USCGCs Naushon (WPB 1311), Mustang (WPB 1310), and Liberty (WPB 1334) transit through Seymour Narrows in British Columbia, Canada, in May 2025, heading from their longtime home in Alaska to San Diego and warmer climes. (U.S. Coast Guard photo courtesy of USCGC Mustang)
On 19 May, representatives from the Colombian Navy received the trio in a ceremony held at the port of San Diego through the Excess Defense Articles program. They will receive a refit in the States before the official handover.
Other members of the 49-member class have been transferred to Costa Rica, Georgia, Greece, Pakistan, Tunisia, and Ukraine. Only 14 have been scrapped. Not a bad run considering the last unit was delivered from Bollinger in 1992, and they had a 15-year planned lifespan.
While patrolling international waters off the Pacific coasts of Mexico, Central, and South America, Kimball’s crew interdicted five suspected drug smuggling vessels, seizing $191 million worth of cocaine and apprehending 18 suspected drug smugglers.
Maritime enforcement specialists from Tactical Law Enforcement Team South and U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Kimball (WMSL 756) crewmembers interdict a suspected drug smuggling vessel while patrolling the Eastern Pacific Ocean, March 4, 2025. The U.S. Coast Guard is increasing its presence in key areas to secure the U.S. maritime border against the flow of cocaine, fentanyl, and other illegal drugs. (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Max Hanfland)
Note her embarked crew included at least two NWU III camo-wearing USN enlisted (left) balanced against the ship’s crew in blue, the TACLET team in OCP, and the HITRON guys in Nomex flight suits. (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Austin Wiley)
A video of one of the intercepts showing TACLET at work. Note the Gen 5 G19s. The USCG notably uses them rather than the M17/M18.
Kimball also released a very well-done 90-second moto video of the patrol, leaning into not only the seizure operations but also showing some rare footage of the cutter’s CIWS and Mk 110 in live-fire action along with small arms and HITRON clips.
The crew of the Coast Guard Cutter Liberty prepares to moor at their homeport of Juneau, Alaska, March 13, 2018. The crew of the Cutter Liberty, a 110-foot patrol boat homeported in Juneau, Alaska, was completing tailored ship’s training availability, a biennial readiness assessment of the cutter and crew. Coast Guard photo by Lt. Brian Dykens.
The 110-foot U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Liberty (WPB 1334) was decommissioned during a ceremony in Valdez, Tuesday.
Commissioned on 19 December 1989, Liberty was the 34th Island-Class cutter to join the fleet and the final member of her 49-strong class in USCG service.
Assigned to Auke Bay (Juneau) as her homeport, she has served in Alaska her entire career and, besides hundreds of unsung LE patrols– she made several surprisingly large drug busts in Alaskan waters– she also repeatedly came to the rescue of those at peril on the sea.
She was notably involved in at least three different missions involving stranded passenger liners (Spirit of Columbia, Empress of the North, and Spirit of Glacier Bay).
05.11.2008. Juneau, Alaska – USCGC Liberty (WPB-1334), responded to a call from a disabled 143-foot cruise ship, Spirit of Columbia, with 89 passengers onboard that reportedly lost power to both generators and was operating on one of two propellor engine’s two miles from Warm Springs Bay at 8 p.m. Saturday (USCG photo by Petty Officer Karl Schickle)
Built at Bollinger to a modified Thorneycraft design, class leader USCG Farallon (WPB-1301) commissioned on 21 February 1986 and, with the last of the series, USCGC Galveston Island (WPB-1349), delivered 17 January 1992, Liberty’s exit brings to a close the 39 year run of the class in U.S. service.
In typical Coast Guard acquisition lore, the vessels in the class were intended to have a 15-year life span.
Circa 1980s 110-foot island class cutter spec sheet via Bollinger
Commissioned with a 20mm Mk 16 gun (as seen above) as the main gun (augmented by two .50 cals), they later ditched the 20mm for a Mk 38 25mm Bushmaster, one of the first classes to use the chain gun. There was also a Bolt On Weapons System (BOWS) program that, in place of stern towing equipment, would add a second Mk 38 cannon with ammo storage, and a launcher for FIM-92 Stinger MANPADS anti-aircraft missiles.
The class was everywhere since then, with six of the cutters even spending two decades in the Persian Gulf, having almost daily interactions with the Iranian Republican Guard. These boats were typically up-armed with several additional .50 cals.
180201-N-TB177-0211 U.S. 5TH FLEET AREA OF OPERATIONS (Feb. 1, 2018) Island-class patrol boats USCGC Wrangell left, USCGC Aquidneck (WPB 1309), middle, and coastal patrol ship USS Firebolt (PC 10) patrol the open seas. Wrangell, Aquidneck, and Firebolt are forward deployed to the U.S. 5th Fleet area of operations in support of maritime security operations to reassure allies and partners and preserve the freedom of navigation and the free flow of commerce in the region. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Kevin J. Steinberg/Released)
As with many of her class, Liberty will likely see continued service under a new flag. Her sisters are already serving in Georgia, Costa Rica, Greece, Pakistan, Ukraine, and Tunisia– with the latter just picking up two of the surplus 110s earlier this month to mark “220 years of maritime cooperation.”
17 April 2025, two retired 110-foot USCG cutters transfer to Tunisia. 250417-N-N0901-1003
The future museum’s physical footprint is taking shape. Elevator shafts are now in place, and electrical and utility work is actively underway. These milestones represent real progress toward opening day.
When finished, the 80,000 sq. ft. museum in New London, built in the shadow of the USGCA and its training barque, “America’s Tall Ship,” USCGC Eagle, will host more than 200 galleries covering the service going back to 1790.
I think they have enough room to host the USCGC Reliance, which is set to strike in a couple of years, and has an amazing history. At 210 feet oal, she is almost pocket-sized compared to other museum ships that are out there. Plus, rather than most potential museum ships that have been in mothballs gathering rust for decades, she is still in active service and looks great, even with 61 years on her hull.
The crew of U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Reliance (WMEC 615) interdicts a low-profile vessel carrying more than $5 million in illicit narcotics in the Eastern Pacific Ocean, Feb. 15, 2024. Patrolling in support of Joint Interagency Task Force-South, the Reliance crew stopped two drug trafficking ventures, detaining six suspected traffickers and preventing nearly 4,000 pounds of cocaine and 5,400 pounds of marijuana, worth more than $57 million, from entering the United States. (U.S. Coast Guard photo courtesy of Reliance)
The location has a lot of potential, being just a half-mile from I-95, inside Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor route, which brings 11 million passengers a year through the city, and near the ferry to Orient Point, New York that has some 1.3 million passengers annually.
An early “A-series” 110-foot Island-class patrol boat, USCGC Mustang (WPB 1310), was the 10th of her class to join the service and had a 15-year design lifespan.
Commissioned in September 1986, she was named after Mustang Island off the coast of Corpus Christi, Texas but, in typical Government logic, was immediately sent to the Pacific and was the first of her class stationed on the West Coast. Stationed at Seward, Alaska ever since, she is one of the few cutters to have remained at the same homeport their entire career.
Seward, Alaska (Feb. 15, 1996)–The Coast Guard Cutter Mustang (WPB 1310) is moored at a Seward, Alaska, pier. USCG photo by SS2 Mike Brasch
She even went to the call of other cutters.
Juneau, AK (Apr.4, 2000)–The 110-foot Coast Guard Cutter Mustang (WPB 1310) tows the Homer-based Island Class patrol boat Roanoke Island (WPB 1346) to Juneau after the Roanoke Island’s engines were shut down in the Gulf of Alaska, resulting from pumps that overheated. (U.S. Coast Guard photo courtesy Cutter Roanoke Island)
After nearly 40 years patrolling the Gulf of Alaska and Prince William Sound and responding to an average of 200 SAR calls and 2,000 LE sorties, the USCG is finished with the cutter. She was decommissioned at Seward on Tuesday.
Her fellow A-series sistership, USCGC Naushon (WPB-1311), was retired in Homer last month. Between just 2016 when she was moved there and her decommissioning, Naushon chalked up 50 SAR cases and 900 LE sorties out of Homer.
Coast Guard Cutter Naushon (WPB 1311) moored at a pier during the cutter’s decommissioning ceremony in Homer, Alaska, March 21, 2025. Naushon has been stationed in Homer since 2016 and has since responded to over 50 search-and-rescue cases and completed nearly 900 law enforcement sorties. U.S. Coast Guard photo by Seaman Sydney Sharpe
The last of the 110s in Alaska is USCGC Liberty (WPB-1334), which has spent her 33-year career at Juneau and Valdez.
It is expected that both Mustang and Naushon will be sent to the Coast Guard Yard in Baltimore and refitted for further service, heading down to South America as military aid for a second career.
It seems, after decades of polar service, a stint in warmer waters for these old cutters is overdue.
The 270-foot Famous (Bear) class medium endurance cutter USCGC Spencer (WMEC-905) commissioned 28 June 1986. A fighting little cutter designed and built in the final stretch of the Cold War, she was fundamentally designed to serve as a patrol frigate of sorts on convoy work should WWIII break out.
The class was built with an OTO Melara Mk 75 76mm/62cal mount installed forward as well as six positions for M2 .50 cals. The sensors were decent for the mid-1980s, including a receive-only AN/SLQ-32A(V)2 EW system, a pair of Mark 36 SRBOC launchers, an Mk 92 (Mod 1) FCS, an SPS-64 surface search radar (later updated to SPS-78), URN-25 Tacan, WSC-3 UHF Satcom, etc.
Further, space and weight were reserved for a single Mk 15 20mm CIWS and two quadruple Harpoon missile-launch canisters, giving the Bears some real teeth and at least a modicum of counter-air/missile capability.
The plan at the time of order/construction, would be for the 270s to carry van-mounted towed passive sonar array on fantail but that stalled and by 1988, $20 million had been allotted for a test on WMEC-907 to carry SQR-18A TASS, a SQR-17A sonobuoy analyzer, an APR-78 sonobuoy receiver, and a SKR-4 helicopter data-link receiver which would have made the ship LAMPS III (SH-60) compatible– making them not a bad little ASW platform.
But, with the end of he Cold War, and the Coast Guard told they wouldn’t have to fight any naval wars for at least the time being, all the cool stuff never materialized.
And even the stuff the cutters had keeps disappearing.
Spencer just wrapped up a 20-month service life extension program (SLEP) at the USCGY in Baltimore that “includes updates and replacements of electrical power generation and distribution systems, main diesel propulsion engines, and gun weapon systems.”
It was the first major work effort since all of the 270s went through a 12-month Mission Effectiveness Project (MEP) in two stages between 2007 and 2014, at which point they were all in their 20s.
While two sister ships, Harriet Lane (WMEC-903) and Seneca (WMEC-906), previously served as prototypes for the electrical and structural work, they did not get new engines, but Lane did get the weapons downgrade, which dumped the old familiar MK 75 OTO for a MK 38 Mod 3 25mm gun.
U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Harriet Lane (WMEC 903) crew renders honors to the Battleship Missouri Memorial as the Harriet Lane and crew return to home port in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on April 9, 2024. Note the 25mm in the place of the old 75. (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Senior Chief Petty Officer Charly Tautfest)
The Slick 32 and Mk 92 remains, while the radar has been stepped down.
As detailed by the CG Acquisition Directorate (CG-9), “Spencer is the first of six medium endurance cutters scheduled to receive all major system overhauls including new main propulsion engines.” The rest of those half-dozen upgraded by 2030 will be Escanaba (WMEC-907), Tahoma (WMEC-908), Campbell (WMEC-909), Forward (WMEC-911), and Legare (WMEC-912).
The SLEP will allow the upgraded 270s to go back to work for another decade until replaced by the building Offshore Patrol Cutter, which will at least have a Mk 110 57mm gun forward with a MK 38 Mod 3 25mm gun over the stern HH60-sized hangar, and four M2 .50 cal mounts.
I say replace the Mk38 with a C-RAM, shoehorn a towed sonar, ASW tubes, an 8-pack Mk41 VLS crammed with Sea Sparrows, and eight NSSMs aboard, and call it a day.
The downright elderly (60 years in commission) 210-foot Reliance-class USCGC Valiant (WMEC 621) recently offloaded approximately 12,470 pounds of cocaine, worth an estimated $141.4 million, at Coast Guard Base Miami Beach after wrapping up a patrol of the Florida Straits and Caribbean.
Valiant’s crew secured the illegal drugs after six interdictions in international waters, including one incident on 17 February some 50 miles northeast of the Dominican Republic, that included the crew of her 26-foot RHIB zapping a go-fast with M4s.
Now, being the Coast Guard, they aimed for the outboards, not the crew, and brought said coke boat to a halt.
Law enforcement crew members from USCGC Valiant (WMEC 621) stand in front of interdicted narcotics and engine covers at Base Miami Beach, Florida, Mar. 6, 2025. (U.S. Coast Guard photo 250306-G-FL647-1055 by Petty Officer 3rd Class Nicholas Strasburg)
A USCGC Valiant (WMEC 621) law enforcement team is underway with interdicted narcotics approximately 50 miles northeast of the Dominican Republic, Feb. 17, 2025. U.S. Customs and Border Protection Air and Marine Operations aircrew detected the suspicious vessel and vectored in the Valiant crew who apprehended five suspected smugglers and seized approximately 1,280 pounds of cocaine. (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Seaman Reese Fishbaugh)
