The Obama administration came to power calling for a less confrontational and more collaborative approach to international relations. President Barack Obama repeatedly underscores the importance of working with allies and shaping a new global engagement policy for the United States. He emphasizes the need to enhance global collaboration to better deal with terrorism and other irregular threats and challenges to U.S. interests, citizens, and friends, clearly articulating the objective of crafting a new role for the United States in an evolving multipolar world.
No military service is more important to this vision than the U.S. Coast Guard, which is at the nexus of commercial, law enforcement, security, defense, and military activities. As the only U.S. agency with simultaneous military, law enforcement, and regulatory authorities, it is a multi-mission service charged with a broad array of military and maritime roles, operations, and missions critical to national security.1
The future is uncertain, however, as increasingly constrained funding and aging equipment are challenging the Coast Guard. The service’s Fiscal Year 2012 budget request, for example, declined (after inflation) to $10.3 billion, compared with FY 11, which was in turn a reduction from FY 10. Providing for a sustained high level of responsiveness and flexibility with stagnant—let alone decreasing—resources is an impossible task. Accomplishing Coast Guard missions requires a right-sized fleet of capable multi-mission assets. For example, the ability to cover maritime regions with fixed- and rotary-wing aircraft that can work hand-in-glove with other joint military and interagency assets is necessary to maintain the nation’s maritime security and safety, for which the Coast Guard is the lead federal agency.
Land-based maritime patrol aircraft (MPA) provide the critical long-range reconnaissance, surveillance, search, airlift, and direct-intervention/response capabilities that extend the operational reach of the Coast Guard and dramatically increase the effectiveness of the service’s cutters and boats, Navy ships, and other agencies’ assets. With the new aviation platforms that have been and continue to be slowly introduced into the Coast Guard––the C-130J Super Hercules long-range and HC-144A Ocean Sentry medium-range surveillance, reconnaissance, and transport MPAs––the capability to work with joint and interagency teams has been significantly enhanced. And in an era of fiscal stringencies, collaborative use of joint assets––U.S. Navy and Air Force for the Coast Guard, and vice versa––is essential. That was clear from Coast Guard MPA operations in responses to Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and to the Haiti earthquake and the BP/Deepwater Horizon disaster in 2010.
The new MPA assets and the Legend-class National Security Cutters (NSCs) make joint operations a reality. Despite a long-standing MPA flight-hour gap, because of enhanced connectivity Coast Guard plans call for a smaller MPA fleet (fewer HC-130s than before and fewer HC-144As than HU-25A Falcons). However, no matter how connected an aircraft or cutter is, it cannot be in two places at once. Hence, anticipated efficiencies and mission-effectiveness increases will not be realized if the Coast Guard does not have sufficient numbers of MPA and surface platforms. In short, fiscal constraints look to increase an MPA gap that, unless addressed soon, promises to hamstring the Coast Guard’s ability to accomplish its missions.
The Fulcrum of the Coast Guard
Coast Guard aircraft––MPA and helicopters––are in essence extensions of surface fleet capabilities. Indeed, for the 21st-century Coast Guard, much like for the 21st-century Navy, air assets extend the reach, range, and capability of the surface assets. For the former this means a simple truth: A cutter without the long, strategic reach of an MPA or the tactical reach of helicopters and (perhaps someday) unmanned aerial vehicles, cannot see very far, and therefore is not very efficient or effective. By extending the sight and reach of a cutter, the ability to act and protect U.S. equities and interests is significantly expanded.
With the addition of multi-mission systems to the MPA, and with the ability to integrate the information gained by those systems into shipboard operations and decision-making, notably the new National Security Cutters, the MPA become especially significant extenders of cutter capabilities. Without them, more drugs and illegal immigrants will enter the United States, and illegal shipping—with whatever consequence—may enter U.S. waterways. Inadequate funding leads to the inability to acquire modern assets and reduced ability to acquire and then act on information to protect the U.S. homeland or forces operating abroad. The MPA are essential elements of U.S. maritime domain awareness.
The new HC-144A’s concept of operations (conops) is essential to the functioning of the 21st-century Coast Guard. The Ocean Sentry’s conops typically depends on the mission and is essentially the same as the HC-130, which is a more capable aircraft. However, when the longer range and heavy-lift capability of an HC-130 is not required, the HC-144A provides equivalent capabilities at a much lower cost. The acquisition cost of an HC-144 is less than half that of a C-130J, and the fuel-burn rate of the HC-144 is about 20 percent that of a Hercules.
The MPA can do more than just pass target-position information or provide vectors. They can also take photos and download them so the ship can have information on the number of people on board the target craft—good to know if they are “bad guys”—and perhaps even weapons. Finally, fixed-wing aircraft are often required to loiter over targets or follow them until a surface vessel can intercept. Endurance is critical here, and it is a major shortcoming of the legacy HU-25, which has about four hours of endurance, regardless of altitude. The HC-144 has a nine-hour endurance, and an HC-130 even more.
The role of the MPA as a force enhancer can also be seen in a July 2009 cocaine seizure. The crew of the lead NSC Bertholf (WMSL-750) conducted the cutter’s first drug bust and disrupted a major smuggling operation in international waters. Two suspected drug-smuggling boats and four suspected smugglers were detained, and a bale of cocaine was seized as evidence some 80 miles off the coast of Guatemala. The incident began when a group of four suspicious “pangas” was spotted by an MPA that alerted the Bertholf. A helicopter launched from the cutter, and a marksman on board was able to shoot out the engines of two speedboats and fire warning shots at the other two during the pursuit, as bales were being thrown overboard from all four boats. Shortly thereafter, the Bertholf’s interceptor boats apprehended two of the pangas and detained the four people on board. Obviously, the MPA as spotter and tracker provided the key to such success.
And for disaster-response efforts such as those in Haiti in January-February 2010 and BP/Deepwater Horizon in April-July 2010, the Coast Guard’s lift and logistical capabilities are central to initial and sustained operations. In Haiti, HC-130s and HC-144s provided overhead command and control, surveillance of the coastal areas, damage assessments, more than 250 medical evacuations of some 1,200 injured people, and strategic airlift of more than a half-million pounds of cargo. Beginning in April, Coast Guard MPA responded immediately (on-alert aircraft and crews can be airborne in less than a half hour) to reports of a massive explosion on the Deepwater Horizon rig.
Operating out of a joint/interagency aviation-coordination center at Tyndall Air Force Base, Florida, for the next four months Coast Guard MPA provided airborne surveillance, reconnaissance, and command-and-control operations that tracked the spill and reported plume trajectories (“blob” information assessment and analysis). They also vectored surface skimmers to areas needing priority cleanup, with a special focus on protecting bays, bayous, barrier islands, and marshes.
MPA Connectivity Advantage
The Coast Guard’s operational success is critically dependent on modern command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (C4ISR) systems. The new C-130J and HC-144 aircraft are the keys for the future “networked Coast Guard” that ties together fixed- and rotary-wing aviation, cutters and boats, shore stations, and sector/districts, as well as linking with interagency assets and those from other services and nations.
The HC-130J mission equipment and sensor packages are designed to deliver enhanced search, detection, and tracking capabilities. The CASPER (C-130 Airborne Sensor with Palletized Electronic Reconnaissance) system, essentially an airborne version of the Navy’s Aegis weapon system, is focused on surface search, detection, and identification, but has some limited capability for air-to-air surveillance. The aircraft modifications include installation of belly-mounted surface-search radar, a nose-mounted electro-optical infrared sensor, a flight-deck mission-operator station, and a mission-integrated communication system.
The mission system installed on the HC-130J is derived from the same software series developed for the mission system pallet on board the HC-144A MPA. The HC-144A’s roll-on, roll-off suite of electronic equipment enables the aircrew to compile data from the aircraft’s multiple integrated sensors and transmit and receive both classified and unclassified information to and from other assets, including surface vessels, other aircraft, local law enforcement, and shore facilities. The 12th mission pallet for the Ocean Sentry was delivered in December 2010.
At the heart of all these platforms is a common command-and-control system that provides system interoperability as well as commonality for savings in maintenance and training. The reuse of C4ISR system software across platforms is significant. The same 100-percent common software between air platforms is also 41 percent common with the software on the National Security Cutter. The suite on the NSC uses nearly 75 percent of the code from the Navy’s latest Aegis baseline, while the air suite is 80 percent common with Navy’s P-3 Aviation Improvement Program. The command-and-control system is compatible across the Coast Guard’s land, air, and sea assets and is also interoperable with the Navy and 117 federal agencies––a critical element in assuring maritime domain awareness.
A ‘Graying’ Fleet
In mid-2011, the Coast Guard’s in-service MPA fleet is in extremis, and the need to acquire new aircraft, which have lower operating and maintenance costs and better capabilities, is clear. In particular, the service needs replacements for the obsolete HU-25 Falcon and aging C-130H aircraft. It has phased out most of the HU-25s, all of which will be out of service by 2014, and has initiated modernization, upgrade, and rehabilitation programs for the HC-130H.
The Coast Guard initially bought 41 HU-25A aircraft, with the last delivered in 1983. Those aircraft provide mid-range surveillance but have no real cargo-carrying capability. The operational fleet size was reduced in the mid-1990s––another victim of arbitrary budget reductions. The very high cost of maintaining the HU-25s, especially the engines, has been a significant burden. Anticipating HU-25 replacement by the HC-144A, the service has made minimal investment in the HU-25s during the past several years to save scarce resources. While that decision was fiscally sound, it further reduced the capability of the already limited MPA. For example, despite a service ceiling of 42,000 feet, the aircraft is not permitted to fly above 28,000 feet because the Coast Guard several years ago elected not to invest in a required upgrade of its IFF (identification friend-or-foe) system. For those and other reasons, the HU-25 fleet is shrinking faster than HC-144 replacements are being brought on line.
The service has 23 C-130H aircraft acquired between 1973 and 1988. Two were lost in recent years, and there is no funding to replace them with C-130Js or HC-144s. The remaining aircraft are fitted largely with 1960s technologies, and avionics shortcomings and constraints preclude them from operating in European air space. The Coast Guard intends to reduce the 130H fleet to 16 aircraft by 2016, maintain or rehabilitate only mission-essential systems, and acquire HC-144s. According to the service’s website, in-service HC-130Hs are being upgraded with the proven state-of-the-market SELEX Seaspray 7500E active electronically scanned array (AESA) surface-search radar, replacing the outdated APS-137 multi-mission surveillance radar, which is unreliable and costly to sustain. In addition to the radar, the cockpit instrumentation and the center wing box also will be replaced to extend the service life of the aircraft.2
The Coast Guard has six newer HC-130Js as well. Those, along with HC-144As, supported humanitarian assistance and disaster response in the wake of the January 2010 Haiti earthquake. The HC-130Js are fitted with advanced C4ISR systems, allowing all remaining internal volume for transport. Each aircraft can carry 48,000 pounds of cargo, six standard pallets, 75 passengers, or combinations thereof. (The HC-144s can carry 40 passengers or three pallets, or combinations thereof.) With notional 5,000-mile and 19-hour patrol ranges, the 130Js are well suited for the broad expanse of Pacific operational areas and Homeland Security heavy-lift missions. The Coast Guard accepted its sixth, and presumably last, Super Hercules on 18 May 2011.
Whether to buy additional C-130Js or rehabilitate the 130Hs had been an issue. In 2008, an independent study conducted by the Navy’s Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) analyzed the cost and benefits of alternative force structures of upgraded C-130Hs and new C-130Js.3 The 130Js have 40 percent greater endurance/lift, greater time on station, greater cruise speed, greater operational availability, and significant C4ISR advances compared with 130Hs. Three alternatives were assessed:
• Alternative A: 16 HC-130Hs and 6 HC-130Js / Upgrade 16 Hs
• Alternative B: 22 HC-130Js / Buy 16 Js
• Alternative C: 11 HC-130Hs and 11HC-130Js / Upgrade 11 Hs and buy 5 Js
NAVAIR concluded that Alternative B had the lowest life-cycle cost estimate and highest mission-effectiveness rating––a 37 percent improvement compared with Alternative A and a 22 percent effectiveness margin over Alternative C––and did so at the lowest life-cycle cost: $9.63 billion for Alternative B compared with $12.86 billion for Alternative A and $11.95 billion for C. Little surprise, then, that the NAVAIR study concluded that the best course was to acquire more 130Js instead of working at the margins with the in-service 130Hs. Nevertheless, the Coast Guard’s program calls for a variant of Alternative A, but with a significantly constrained rehabilitation effort just to keep the old C-130Hs flying.
New Capabilities
The new HC-144A Ocean Sentry MPA are the lead aviation acquisition in the Coast Guard’s program of record. In the original Deepwater schema, the service was to acquire 36 new MPA, as well as six high-altitude long-endurance organic unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). The UAVs were canceled, although the Coast Guard and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) are looking at ways to supplement or replace the cancellation. With that cancellation, organic airborne ISR capability was reduced. So logically, the number of MPA should increase by an appropriate amount to replace the six canceled fixed-wing UAVs; the right number might now be at least 40 multi-mission MPA. That is not the case, however, and the program of record still calls for only 36 HC-144s.
The HC-144A is a derivative of the EADS Airbus Military CN-235-300 twin-turboprop medium cargo/transport aircraft. It is fitted to carry sensors, search radar, and an advanced communications suite. Forming the Ocean Sentry’s nerve center is the mission systems pallet (MSP) that integrates all the aircraft’s systems with a two-place operators’ station inside the cargo compartment. The equivalent of that in the 130Js, the MSP is a roll-on/roll-off suite of electronic equipment that allows the aircrew to compile data from the aircraft’s multiple sensors and transmit that data to other assets in the operational area. The new MPA represents a blend of several mature technologies and systems, with no problems anticipated in either continued or ramped-up production.
The HC-144s will replace all of the HU-25s and some 130Hs. Each aircraft can carry 40 people or 10,000 pounds of cargo at cruise speeds of 236 knots, but there is some degradation of transport capabilities when the missionsystems pallet is deployed. The HC-144As are characterized as “everyday” MPA. Capable of flying in support of all Coast Guard missions with 2,040-mile range and nine-hour patrols, they are focused on the U.S. East and Gulf coasts. While HC-130 total ownership costs are substantially higher, they are required for longer-range missions, primarily on the West Coast, including operations in Alaska and Hawaii.
Since the initial delivery in 2003, 11 new MPA have been delivered through June 2011, and in late July 2010 the Coast Guard awarded a $117.2 million contract for three additional aircraft. The contract includes options for six more aircraft to be delivered by 2014 to support the MPA baseline-fielding plan for a total of 36 Ocean Sentries.
In 2009, senior DHS acquisition officials predicted a delay in the program.4 Planned procurement of only a single aircraft per year from 2011 through 2014 would have resulted in annual production breaks and uneconomic buys of airframes and palletized MSP/C4ISR capabilities, increasing unit costs by more than $1 million per aircraft and delaying the delivery of urgently needed capabilities. From the manufacturers’ perspectives, for example, there would be few incentives to keep production lines warm. They would assign the production slot and key people to other projects, and the Coast Guard and the nation will suffer as a result of fiscal myopia. Uneconomic funding will drive up costs. Any interruption in production is thus penny-wise and pound-foolish.
In contrast, a multi-year acquisition program could save the Coast Guard funding compared with a business-as-usual approach. In 2009, the service sought and got approval for an extended low-rate initial production buy of Ocean Sentries while the aircraft completes operational test and evaluation. But multiyear funding has not materialized. This may still prove unaffordable, particularly in light of ever-tightening budgets. The service might simply have to do less with fewer MPA.
The Uncertain Course Ahead
The Coast Guard embraces a culture of response with a bias for action, with all of its personnel trained to anticipate and react to “all threats, all hazards.” In most cases, frontline operators are encouraged to take action commensurate with the risk scenarios they face, without waiting for detailed direction from senior leadership. This allows for swift and effective response to a wide variety of situations. The result of smaller fleets will be an even greater shortfall in the ability of the Coast Guard to accomplish its missions. Failure to fully recapitalize the service is not a funding game; it is pulling apart the safety net carefully crafted to protect the United States.
It is impossible to consistently provide swift and effective response with insufficient numbers of assets. And the absence of capabilities increases the probability that threats will not be detected and interdicted in time. The Coast Guard’s MPA provide vital capabilities for the nation’s toolbox to meet the growing threats and challenges to America’s maritime security and safety. If that toolbox does not have enough of the right tools, the Coast Guard’s ability to carry out its missions will be in doubt. An MPA gap is here and looks only to get worse.
1. United States Coast Guard 2011 Posture Statement (Washington: Department of Homeland Security/USCG, February 2011), pp. 4ff.
2. Long-Range Surveillance Project Description, www.uscg.mil/hq/cg9/LRS/projectdescription.asp.
3. “USCG Long Range Surveillance Aircraft Life Cycle Cost Estimating & Mission Effectiveness Analysis” briefing (Naval Air Systems Command AIR4.2 and AIR4.10, December 2008).
4. “Coast Guard Seeks to Avoid HC-144 Production Break,” Defense Daily, 4 September 2009.
Dr. Truver directs National Security Programs at Gryphon Technologies LC and has supported the Coast Guard in special-focus research and analysis since 1979.