Tag Archives: U.S. Naval Forces Southern Command

Unmanned Surface Vessels Double in 4th Fleet

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230913-N-N3764-1004 NAVAL STATION KEY WEST, Fl. – (Sept. 13, 2023) — Commercial operators deploy Saildrone Voyager Unmanned Surface Vessels (USVs) out to sea in the initial steps of U.S. 4th Fleet’s Operation Windward Stack during a launch from Naval Air Station Key West’s Mole Pier and Truman Harbor, Sept. 13, 2023. Operation Windward Stack is part of 4th Fleet’s unmanned integration campaign, which provides the Navy a region to experiment with and operate unmanned systems in a permissive environment, develop Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures (TTPs) against near-peer competitors, and refine manned and unmanned Command and Control (C2) infrastructure, all designed to move the Navy to the hybrid fleet. (U.S. Navy photo by Danette Baso Silvers/Released)

U.S. Naval Forces Southern Command/U.S. 4th Fleet doesn’t have a lot of afloat assets.

Typically, they just get to task Coast Guard cutters/craft via the Key West-based Joint Interagency Task Force South, Freedom-variant littoral combat ships out of Mayport’s LCSRON2, small MSC-operated auxiliaries on hearts-and-minds missions, and the occasional passing phib group being sent down for an exercise or destroyer pulling an interdiction mission with an embarked USCG LEDET.

That’s what makes USVs such a game changer for the command.

They are cheap to acquire and deploy, ideal for ISR– making other assets much more effective– and have a small footprint.

Plus, using them in our “front yard” allows the Navy to iron out tactics and techniques in permissive environments before they are needed in higher-stakes operations in, say, the South China Sea or the Persian Gulf. 

Operation Southern Spear, which is filling my local skies with F-35s and HH-60s of all sorts, will see more Robotic and Autonomous Systems (RAS) assets incorporated.

From 4th Fleet PAO:

Specifically, Operation Southern Spear will deploy long-dwell robotic surface vessels, small robotic interceptor boats, and vertical take-off and landing robotic air vessels to the USSOUTHCOM AOR. 4th Fleet will operationalize these unmanned systems through integration with U.S. Coast Guard cutters at sea and operations centers at 4th Fleet and Joint Interagency Task Force South. Southern Spear’s results will help determine combinations of unmanned vehicles and manned forces needed to provide coordinated maritime domain awareness and conduct counternarcotics operations.

Ten 33-foot Saildrone Voyager USVs are used by the 4th Fleet and the company says that figure is set to rise to 20 such drones, tasked in support of Operation Southern Spear “to detect and stem the flow of illegal drugs traveling through known maritime corridors into the United States.”

The 33-foot Saildrone Voyager is designed for near-shore bathymetry and maritime security missions.

10 Voyager uncrewed surface vehicles (USVs) from Naval Air Station (NAS) Key West’s Mole Pier, Sept. 2023.

In recent 2023-24 operations (Windward Stack), Saildrone disclosed that the 10 4th Fleet Voyagers sailed more than 130,000 nautical miles over 2,700 cumulative mission days. They detected 116,000 unique contacts, an average of 43 contacts per USV per day. Of the total contacts, 98,000 were not broadcasting AIS. Saildrones covered an area of 12,500 sq nm for $4.25 per nm per day, as calculated by the Center for Naval Analysis. This included shadowing three Russian ships as they approached Cuba in 2024.

Those figures should roughly double now with 20 Voyagers on hand.

Via the company this week:

A record number of 20 high-endurance Saildrone Voyager USVs equipped with a newly upgraded sensor suite will monitor illegal activity along the United States’ southern maritime approaches, operating in support of Joint Interagency Task Force South (JIATF-S) and US Naval Forces Southern Command/US Navy Fourth Fleet (NAVSOUTH/FOURTHFLT).

“It’s an honor to support the US Navy and Joint Interagency Task Force South in this critical border security mission,” said Richard Jenkins, Saildrone Founder and CEO. “As we increase the security on our southern land border, criminal activity will naturally get pushed to our maritime borders. Saildrone is proud to serve, providing a persistent, unblinking eye in maritime areas too vast and remote to previously monitor.”

Navy Drops the Ax on Bonnie Dick, 2 LCS, and 3 PCs

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As the fiscal year plays out the Navy has released tentative inactivation dates for eight vessels. One is the battered and economically unsavable USS Bon Homme Richard (LHD-6), which blazed away last year to the point of no return. Perhaps a mothballed LHA can be retrieved from Pearl Harbor’s loch and returned to service for a few years to make up for the shortcoming.

Another hit, laying up the old MSC-controlled fleet tug USNS Sioux (T-ATF 171) is a natural course of action as the Navy is building a new and more capable class of tugs to replace the older vessels.

In a gut punch, the two initial class leaders for the Little Crappy Ships, USS Freedom (LCS-1) and USS Independence (LCS-2), will be taken out of commission this summer, their apparent beta tests concluded after just 12 years. USS Fort Worth and USS Coronado, ships with even fewer miles, are certain to follow.

USS Fort McHenry (LSD-43) will be laid up in April. The 33-year-old Whidbey Island-class dock landing ship will not be needed anymore in a gator fleet that is gaining big hulled 25,000-ton LPDs at the same time that the Marines are shedding all of their tanks and most of their artillery. Notably, she is the first of her class on the block.

Finally, three of the much-maligned 170-foot Cyclone-class patrol craft, USS Zephry (PC-8), USS Shamal (PC-13), and USS Tornado (PC-14) will be deactivated by 2 March 2021, with the first two set to be scrapped and the Tornado placed up for Foreign Military Sales. As class leader Cyclone was given to the Philippines in 2004, you can guess where Tornado will likely wind up.

NAVAL STATION MAYPORT, Fla. (Feb. 16, 2021) Sailors conduct a decommissioning ceremony aboard the Cyclone-class patrol ship USS Shamal (PC 13) at Naval Station Mayport, Fla. Shamal is one of three Cyclone-class patrol ships being decommissioned at Naval Station Mayport. (US Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Austin G. Collins)

In short, Big Navy never liked the PCs and have repeatedly tried to kill them off over the years, shopping them overseas and to the Coast Guard. However, they have proved very useful in the Persian Gulf– where most are forward deployed– and as the sole assets for the 4th Fleet in the Gulf of Mexico/Caribbean. With the Coast Guard’s new and more effective 158-foot Sentinel-class Fast Response Cutters reaching 50~ hulls, six of which are set to be deployed to Bahrain, it seems like the Navy is electing to go more Coasty in the Iranian small-boat Cold War.

I happen to know the resting place of Tornado’s sideboard from ger USCG days based at NAVSTA Pascagoula!

As well as Shamals

In related news, it looks like the Navy is also set to scrap their dozen 82-foot Mark IV patrol boats. An ambitious program originally intended to field 48 units in 2012, the wargamers say they will be live bait in a conflict with China. Duh.

And so closes another chapter in the book of how the Navy hates brown water and wants you to hate it to.

It’s official, first four LCSs headed to “Red Lead Row.” Why not Blow Row?

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As we have talked about previously, the first flight littoral combat ships (Freedom, Independence, Fort Worth, and Coronado) have been deemed too beta to be upgraded enough for regular fleet use. In a  burst from the CNO last month, the word is now official: all four will be shifted to OCIR status (Out of Commission, In Reserve) on 31 March 2021, with the youngest, Coronado, being just six years old.

Oof.

In a case of bad timing, the Navy’s PAO just released this very well done “A Day in the Life of an LCS” video, filmed on the new Freedom-class USS Indianapolis (LCS 17).

Notably, the three Cyclone-class 170-foot patrol craft not up to their neck in the Persian Gulf (USS Zephyr PC-8, USS Shamal PC-13, and USS Tornado PC-14) are also to be disposed of on the same date.

MAYPORT, Fla. (Aug. 02, 2016) – The Cyclone-class Patrol Coastal USS Shamal (PC 13) returns to homeport U.S. Naval Station Mayport after a 62-day deployment to the 4th Fleet area of responsibility where they conducted counter illicit trafficking operations in support of Operation Martillo. Operation Martillo is a joint international law enforcement and military operation involving U.S., European and Western Hemisphere partner nations, targeting illicit trafficking routes in the waters off Central America. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Michael Hendricks/Released)

The other 10 craft has been at Bahrain for most of the past decade while Zephyr, Shamal, and Tornado– two of which were formerly Coast Guard-manned out of Pascagoula’s old NAVSTA– have been based in Mayport under 4th Fleet’s control– just about the only Navy vessels that are regularly outside of ships transiting through or on training evolutions.

This of course begs the question of, why not give the “old” LCSs to U.S. Naval Forces Southern Command (USNAVSO/FOURTHFLT)? Call em PCs? Get some tax dollars out of them.

Is this where I point out that the lastest 4th Fleet deployments have surged DDGs? Wait, wasn’t the LCS program designed to prevent billion-dollar Aegis ships from being used in constabulary work?

Whomp Whomp.