Stardate 20030214.1621

(On Screen): When we speak of the US military, we nearly always talk of the four branches. Almost always left out is the fifth one, the US Coast Guard. And in fact, during peacetime it is actually part of the Department of Transportation, not part of the Department of Defense.

But DOD has the ability to call on the Coast Guard, and in a major war the Coast Guard is transferred to DOD for the duration (which has not, to my knowledge, happened yet in this war). Coast Guard crewmen have seen a lot of combat. A lot of landing craft in WWII were crewed by men from the Coast Guard, and that was not one of the safest jobs in the service.

I am not at all kidding when I say that if the Coast Guard is deployed to an area, it means we're really getting serious about it. They may show the flag with other kinds of units, but the Coast Guard arrives somewhere because it expects to be working.

Which is why it's interesting to learn that USCGC Boutwell (WHEC-719) is in the Gulf, doing what she was designed to do: intercepting and stopping smugglers. She's one of twelve Hamilton-class High Endurance Cutters, the largest and best we have. This is Boutwell's sister ship USCGC Hamilton, WHEC-715:

The news report demeans the Boutwell, however, in describing her as being "lightly armed". She's no battleship, of course, but for a ship her size, she's not to be taken lightly. Steaming at 27 knots there are very few metal-hulled ships she can't catch. The report says:

The Boutwell is lightly armed with deck-mounted machine guns, a 76-mm cannon, and a bow-mounted Gatling gun. It also has an HH65 Dolphin helicopter.

"Lightly armed" is a relative term. Her smallest weapons are two 25-mm MK-38 machine guns mounted amidship on each side. They can fire 175 rounds per minute, and folks, a 25-mm round is a big damned round, as this picture clearly demonstrates. You can very easily shred any boat with a wooden hull using this gun in just a few seconds. (That's what the pirates in that area tend to use.)

Mounted at the stern (not the bow) is her "Gatling gun". It's a MK-15 Phalanx 20-mm air defense system, designed to stop incoming missiles or aircraft.

And on her bow there is a MK-75 76 mm gun, which she uses when she wants to speak very loudly, or wants to shout at 80 rounds per minute. It has a range of 18 km and using it she can sink or disable pretty much any non-armored ship. 20 seconds of fire from this gun will reduce most ships to burning wrecks. Needless to say, she doesn't actually have to use it much. If she orders someone to stop, they stop.

And as fast as she is, what she can't outfight, she can outrun. She's not designed to take on warships and that's not her mission. She's designed to stop merchant ships suspected of smuggling, and she's more than powerful enough for that. If she encounters something in the Gulf she can't handle, she will have the ability to call the US Navy for help, which would then dispatch jets or destroyers or both.

If you are a smuggler, the sleek white shape of Boutwell is the last thing you want to see approaching you at high speed.