The first of the new U.S. Coast Guard Sentinel-class cutters was delivered in February. Up to 58 of the new ships, also known as Fast Response Cutters, are planned. The Bernard C. Webber (WPC-1101), is homeported in Miami, Florida, which is expected to receive the rest of the first batch of new vessels along with Key West, Florida, and San Juan, Puerto Rico. Based on the Stan Patrol 4708 design from Damen Schelde Naval Shipbuilding in the Netherlands, the cutters are being named in honor of heroic U.S. Coast Guard enlisted personnel. The Bernard C. Webber was ordered in 2008 and built at Bollinger Shipyards in Lockport, Louisiana. Displacing 353 tons when fully loaded, the 154-foot cutter carries a crew of 24, can travel in excess of 28 knots, and is armed with a 25-mm gun and four .50-caliber machine guns. The cutters are intended to replace the long-serving Island class in Coast Guard service.
Germany recently announced plans to retire two Type 143A guided-missile patrol boats and two Type 333 coastal minehunters. The Type 143As, the Nerz (pictured here) and the Dachs, joined the fleet in 1983 and 1984 respectively. They are part of a class of ten 350-ton missile boats that were based on the earlier Type 143 class. The Type 143As, sometimes known as the Gepard class, are armed with Exocet antiship missiles, a rolling-airframe point-defense surface-to-air missile system, and a 76-mm gun. The Type 333 minehunters being retired, the Laboe and Kulmback, are part of a five-ship, 620-ton class of mine-countermeasures vessels that began entering service in 1989. They were built by Germany’s Abeking & Rasmussen shipyard in Lemwerder, and at Krögerwerft shipyard in Rendsburg. The Type 333s were constructed using antimagnetic steel; they are equipped with hull-mounted variable-depth minehunting sonar and remotely operated minehunting submersibles.
In December 2011 Indonesia signed a deal to acquire three newly built German-designed Type 209 submarines. These new 1,400-ton boats likely will be an enhanced version of South Korea’s Type 209 submarines (pictured here), sometimes known as the Jang Bogo class. Current plans call for the first two Indonesian subs to be constructed at Daewoo shipyard in Okpo, South Korea, with the final unit to be built locally at the PT PAL shipyard in Surabaya. Delivery of the first new South Korean–built submarine is scheduled to take place around 2015 with all three units planned for service by 2018. Presently, Indonesia operates two 31-year-old Type 209/1300 submarines, built in Germany and recently overhauled with new equipment. In October 2006, Indonesia announced the tentative acquisition of six submarines from Russia in a deal that included 4 Kilo-class boats. With this latest order from South Korea, however, that Russian submarine deal appears to have been abandoned.