THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, August 19, 1996 TAG: 9608190030
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JACK DORSEY, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 85 lines
The Coast Guard, looking to add muscle to its fleet, is eyeing two or three Navy guided-missile frigates that would be used to expand drug surveillance in the Caribbean.
If approved, the frigates, which face retirement from naval service in the next several years, would become the largest ships in the Coast Guard inventory, more than 75 feet longer and 1,000 tons bigger than its current class of high endurance cutters.
The size is needed to house the Coast Guard's long-range search-and-rescue HH-60 Jayhawk helicopters. Two helicopters would be on each of the frigates. Current cutters can house only one.
``They extend our range, particularly in the Caribbean, where (drug) air drops to high-speed boats require quick response,'' said Capt. Timothy Terriberry, director of operations capabilities at Coast Guard headquarters in Washington.
``We have a lot of area to cover in a hurry and a lot of area to search,'' he said.
Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Robert Kramek first announced the proposal earlier this month, saying he has been discussing the possibility with the Navy since last fall.
The ships would serve as centerpieces of his new drug interdiction operation in the Caribbean.
However, finding the money to equip and operate the ships is the biggest hurdle, Terriberry said.
``It is far from a reality,'' he said of the acquisition.
While the ships most likely would be cost the Coast Guard nothing, their operation would add significantly to the Coast Guard's share of the Department of Transportation budget.
As a part of the Transportation Department, the Coast Guard competes for funding with airport, railroad and highway projects.
Yet Terriberry said the Coast Guard sees great value in the ships - late model Perry-class frigates the Navy once depended on for anti-submarine warfare. The 51-ship class was commissioned between 1977 and 1989.
Many of the earlier models already have been sold overseas, to Egypt and Thailand. Three of them recently were to have been transferred to Turkey, before Congress delayed the transaction.
It is only the later models, those commissioned since 1983, that the Coast Guard wants. They were built about 11 feet longer to provide two side-by-side hangars for helicopters.
The Coast Guard is accustomed to hand-me-downs and is counting on the Navy ships to augment its aging fleet.
``We have a problem similar to the Navy's in that we face fleet obsolescence in some of our major classes of cutters,'' Terriberry said. Deciding on how to replace those ships led to the discussions about the frigates, he said.
``Do you build new ones, or borrow from somebody else the ships they no longer need?'' he said.
The Coast Guard routinely has done the latter. After World War II it picked up several former Navy ships - mainly salvage ships, fleet tugs, seaplane tenders and ocean escorts. They are called ``mature class'' ships today, Terriberry said.
The oldest in service today is the medium endurance cutter Storis, commissioned in 1942 and specially built for offshore icebreaking and patrol in Greenland. Since 1949 it has served in Alaskan waters.
The Coast Guard currently has 25 ships that can handle the HH-60, a 140-knot aircraft designed with extra fuel tanks that can take its four-member crew on a 300-mile mission, with 45 minutes of on-station time. There are 40 HH-60 models in the Coast Guard's inventory.
With two helicopters aboard, Terriberry said, drug enforcement teams would double their chances of apprehending drug traffickers.
``It allows us to take a concept we used successfully in the Bahamas and put it at sea,'' he said. ``We can put a multitude of law enforcement agencies aboard from several foreign nations, then operate off the coast.
``That is the real advantage of a large platform.''
Even though the Navy uses more than 200 people to man the frigates, Terriberry said, the Coast Guard would have to use less.
``We'd have to find a way to operate them with significantly less,'' he said. ``But we don't need their sonar or Standard missiles for the bulk of our missions. We could remove or mothball some of the systems we don't use.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo by JOE HENDRICKS/U.S. NAVY
The guided-missile frigate Doyle, front, would house two HH-60
long-range search-and-rescue helicopters. Current cutters can hold
only one.
KEYWORDS: U.S COAST GUARD GUIDED MISSLE FRIGATE by CNB