Tag Archives: USCG MSST

USCG Update: Sail drones arrive, Snow Hawks New Special Missions Command

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Lots of updates to our favorite mini-Navy.

Great Lakes sail drone summer stock

A Saildrone Explorer unmanned surface vessel operates with the fast response Coast Guard cutter Robert Goldman in the Arabian Gulf during Exercise Phantom Scope, Oct. 7, 2022. During the bilateral exercise between the United States and the United Kingdom, USVs operated in conjunction with crewed ships and naval command centers in Bahrain. Credit: Navy Chief Petty Officer Roland Franklin VIRIN: 221007-N-NS602-1218

“Leveraging a contract awarded by the Coast Guard to enhance maritime domain awareness, the Great Lakes District will deploy autonomous drones to support Coast Guard missions on the Great Lakes from May to October.”

The drones will be 16 Saildrone Voyager SD-2050 USVs under a $15.5 million contract. The SD-2050 is 33 feet long, draws just over six feet under its fin keel, and has an almost 20-foot-tall wing (sail). All electric with solar panels in the wing (sail), it has a 3.5 kW peak draw, uses an electric motor for cruising at 5 knots, and is good for 100 days between service stops.

Saildrone Voyager SD-2050 deploys on Lake Erie as it begins its border security and MDA mission for the US Coast Guard in the Great Lakes.  Equipped with radar, cameras, AI collision avoidance, and sensors scanning 300 meters deep, they monitor vessel traffic, illegal activity, and support emergency response. Via Saildrone

From USCG PAO:

The drones are wind- and solar-powered vessels the Coast Guard will use to monitor the Great Lakes, gather critical weather data for emergency response planning, track illicit activity, and keep maritime borders safe.

The autonomous vessels are highly visible, equipped with radar, cameras, and collision-avoidance artificial intelligence, and monitored continuously by human operators who can take manual control if needed.

Sail drones are equipped with sensors focused solely on maritime domain awareness, providing critical information on vessel activities, including vessels in distress or engaged in illegal operations.

A sizzle reel of Saildrone operations from last year, when the company’s USVs sailed 383,674nm in 10,217 drone days on the water, and identified 2.5 million surface contacts.

The U.S. Coast Guard Great Lakes (District 9), headquartered in Cleveland, manages operations across all five Great Lakes, the Saint Lawrence Seaway, and 6,700 miles of shoreline and 1,500 miles of Canadian border with roughly 6,000 personnel

Jayhawk snow games

The MH-60T det from U.S. Coast Guard Air Station Sitka recently worked on an avalanche training exercise with the Alaska National Guard and local first responders. In doing so, some incredible shots were captured by AUX Don Kluting, PA2 John Hightower, and AST2 Grooms.

Of note, a Coast Guard helicopter crew from Air Station Kodiak flew nearly 620 miles to rescue two stranded hikers from Makushin Volcano on the remote Unalaska Island. To put that in perspective, that’s the same distance from Massachusetts to North Carolina!

The USCG has been flying the ’60 since 1989, first with the HH-60J and now as the MH-60T– which includes converted surplus USN SH-60Fs.

Moving forward, the service aims to have an all-Jayhawk heli fleet with 127 aircraft replacing the smaller MH-65 Dolphin.

Special Missions Command

The Coast Guard is standing up a new Special Missions Command to oversee its deployable specialized forces.

Slated to form at the start of FY27 (1 October 2026), the SMC will be based at Coast Guard C5I Service Center facility in Kearneysville, West Virginia, about 70 miles as the crow flies from D.C.

Members from the Coast Guard Maritime Security Response Team East (MSRT) patrol the East River during the 79th United Nations General Assembly, Sept. 26, 2024. (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Breanna Boardman)

It will fold in the current two Maritime Security Response Teams (MSRT-East, Chesapeake; MSRT-West San Diego), two Tactical Law Enforcement Teams (PACTACLET in San Diego and TACLET South in Opa Locka), seven Maritime Safety and Security Teams (MSST Seattle (91101), MSST Kings Bay (91108), MSST Miami (91114), MSST New York (91106), MSST Houston (91104), MSST New Orleans (91112), MSST Cape Cod (91110)), three Regional Dive Lockers (RDLE Portsmouth, RDLW San Diego, and RDLP Honolulu) and the National Strike Force (CBRN) team along with the eight USCGR Port Security Units.

Members from the Coast Guard Maritime Security Response Team East (MSRT) patrol the East River during the 79th United Nations General Assembly, Sept. 26, 2024. (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Breanna Boardman)

Part of the SMC’s buildout will be an $80 million investment to add more than 650 personnel to the service in addition to those being merged. When fully constituted, the SMC should have somewhere around 3,000 personnel, counting reserves and support elements.

The move is a return to the Deployable Operations Group, or DOG, concept that existed from 2007 to 2013, with operational control returning to regional commands once it was disestablished and replaced with the more loosely formed Deployable Specialized Forces (DSF) moniker. From what I gather, DOG wasn’t stood down because it didn’t work, but rather as a money-saving measure and so that local area commanders could keep more control over their shiny local counter-T/high-risk/high-profile units.

In other words, you can look at this as more of a USCG version of NSWC, which is probably a good thing.

A Coast Guard Maritime Security Response Team (MSRT) East patch is shown August 7, 2025, aboard the USCGC Richard Synder (WPC 1127) in Portsmouth, Virginia. The MSRT is a deployable specialized forces unit that conducts counterterrorism and direct-action missions, such as high-risk law enforcement boarding procedures and CBRNE (chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, and explosive) threats. (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Christine Bills)

More background surfaces on 11 January Dhow incident

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There is much more color that has been added to the tragic 11 January boarding, search, and seizure of the stateless dhow of the Somali coast, reportedly packed with Iranian rocket and missile components headed for the Houthi. The boarding resulted in the deaths at sea of two SEALs, Special Warfare Operator 1st Class Christopher J. Chambers, 37, and Special Warfare Operator 2nd Class Nathan Gage Ingram, 27.

Chambers and Ingram were declared lost at sea on 22 January after being missing for 11 days

The information comes from an odd source, the DOJ, which indicted four foreign nationals this week who were members of the crew of the dhow– Muhammad Pahlawan, Mohammad Mazhar, Ghufran Ullah, and Izhar Muhammad– who made their initial appearance via teleconference before a U.S. Magistrate Judge in Richmond, Virginia. Ten other crewmembers are being held as material witnesses but are not charged.

The 31-page complaint makes some interesting reading. 

The boarding was accomplished by members of a West Coast-based Navy SEAL team and USCG MSST elements operating from the 100,000-ton sea base, USS Lewis B. Puller, supported by helicopters and unmanned aerial vehicles. Once the VBSS team was aboard (sadly, after losing Chambers and Ingram in the process) they confirmed it was a stateless vessel and proceeded with the search. Although the crew at first said that they had been fishing for the past six days, there were no fish aboard and no fishing equipment in use. The crew said they were unaware of any cargo on the dhow.

What the VBSS team turned up were a series of warhead, and propulsion and guidance components for MRBMs and anti-ship cruise missiles, all “packaged without markings, labels, or identification in compartments near the front of the dhow.”

“The military’s belief that the weapons are Iranian is based in part on labels on various components, the recovery of similar exploded or destroyed missiles and destructive devices from other Houthi attacks in the region around the time of the seizure, and comparison of seized weapons to known information about Iranian manufactured missiles and rockets.”

The rocket and missile parts were found hidden in culvert piping and net float buoys and the 14-member crew transferred to the Puller, which then became a floating brig. The dhow was sunk by the Navy afterward as it was deemed “no longer safe or seaworthy.”

Several of the crew had Pakistani identification cards and in interviews, some said the dhow came from Pakistan and they didn’t know what the cargo was, while others said it came directly from Iran. One, Pahlawan, who told the rest of the crew to only refer to him as a refrigeration mechanic, was in charge. Pahlawan said he had been in Iran for two years and that he began working on the dhow 10-15 days before it left Konarak, Iran, where it had been inspected by the Iranian Navy an hour before it departed. Once they left Konarak, they took on diesel at night at Chah Bahar, a known base of the Islamic Republic of Iran Navy.

Pahlawan said he was instructed by the owner and captain of the vessel– neither of which embarked– on what heading to take toward the Somali coast and was given a sat phone to communicate with an individual through a series of calls that the FBI traced back to an individual known to be affiliated with the IRGC.

Of note, Pahlawan also had a personal cell phone and was active on Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, and TikTok. You gotta stay on top of things, after all.

As noted by the DOJ:

Pahlawan faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison if convicted of unlawfully transporting a warhead, and all four defendants face a maximum penalty of five years in prison if convicted of the false statements offense. A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.

USCG VDEL Training

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HOUSTON – Members of Marine Safety Unit Port Arthur and Air Station Houston perform vertical delivery training at the Naval Reserve Fleet in Houston on the motor vessel Cape Taylor, Jan. 24, 2012.

This is the first time MSU Port Arthur has conducted VDEL training in almost seven years. VDEL training allows Coast Guard law enforcement teams to board commercial vessels underway from a helicopter. VDEL is not the only option for boarding teams to get aboard underway vessels, but it does provide another avenue should sea conditions present a problem to the safety of the Coast Guard boarding team.

–Coast Guard video by Petty Officer 3rd Class Richard Brahm.