CPCX Common Patrol Corvette USN/USCG proposal

apparition13

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From this document: https://archive.org/details/DTIC_ADA309725/mode/2up

It's a 1995 post-grad project. It envisages a 100 ship run of 60 naval and 40 coast guard variants where the CG variants could be upgraded to USN weaponry if necessary. Interesting proposal, about 4000 tons, 121m in length. Armament is two 40mm canon, 1 RAM, 1 helicopter, 1 5" gun, 5 mk41 vls modules (37 cells with a crane), with the CG version replacing the 5" and vls with a crane and a buoy hold.
 

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I somehow suspect that the Coast Guard officers had never been assigned to a buoy tender. Those usually have round hulls so that as they crane the buoy over the side, the whole ship can roll/list over safely and get the buoy closer to the water.

While the Navy mission of the hull design wants a ship that will tend to stay upright, not take huge rolls.
 
On page 24 and 25 the general specification is being mentioned, with SPY-1D equipped 'full' version to SPS-49 equipped 'light' version, but the only possible image shows the XPAR X-band phased array radar 'mid' version, and there were some interesting features:
Navy version
- 155mm gun on full version
- ABL launcher instead of VLS for light version
- Required to engage 3 sea skimming missiles in one minute

General
- all-electric propulsion with CODAG powerplant (with 2 engine rooms), and 30-ton battery backup
- 2 CIC
- Azipod style propellers
 
I somehow suspect that the Coast Guard officers had never been assigned to a buoy tender. Those usually have round hulls so that as they crane the buoy over the side, the whole ship can roll/list over safely and get the buoy closer to the water.

While the Navy mission of the hull design wants a ship that will tend to stay upright, not take huge rolls.
It's also a 4,000-tonne class ship, much more comparable to a USCG high-endurance cutter than a buoy tender. I suspect that was a case of 'what do we do with this space and weight'.
 
It's also a 4,000-tonne class ship, much more comparable to a USCG high-endurance cutter than a buoy tender. I suspect that was a case of 'what do we do with this space and weight'.
Agreed. It's about the only USCG mission I can think of that could be done with that kind of space and weight, but it's not a very good use of the hull shape.
 
Agreed. It's about the only USCG mission I can think of that could be done with that kind of space and weight, but it's not a very good use of the hull shape.
The alternative is to put concrete slabs on the deck, fill it with exercise equipment, and mark on the plans 'Space Reserved for Mark 41 VLS'.
 
Agreed. It's about the only USCG mission I can think of that could be done with that kind of space and weight, but it's not a very good use of the hull shape.

And very few ATON tasks that happen far enough offshore to justify that kind of ship.

Also, the idea of the Coast Guard buying 40 ships equipped like this in the 1990s is vaguely amusing. A decade later, it struggled with a buy of 12 NSCs, lower specced than these ships and is still dragging out the buy of 15 OPCs.
 
Also, the idea of the Coast Guard buying 40 ships equipped like this in the 1990s is vaguely amusing. A decade later, it struggled with a buy of 12 NSCs, lower specced than these ships and is still dragging out the buy of 15 OPCs.
Just about all the TSSE design studies seemed to exist in a parallel universe without practical constraints.

Which, to be fair, is the case for most student designs. Even when the students are wearing blue suits.
 
And very few ATON tasks that happen far enough offshore to justify that kind of ship.
An old friend of mine was a Coastie up in Alaska, he was stuck on one of the old converted-fleet-tug cutters in the 1980s. 18 knots on a good day, but they could tow a carrier at 12 knots.

The HECs out of Hawaii could reach a ship in trouble at the far end of the Aleutians faster than his old dinosaur based in Kodiak could.
 
Just about all the TSSE design studies seemed to exist in a parallel universe without practical constraints.

Which, to be fair, is the case for most student designs. Even when the students are wearing blue suits.

Would be an amazing Clive Cussler novel though. Dale Brown's V-22 force based out of Gulf oil rigs and Clive Cussler's CPCX micro-frigates with Mk 48 VLS for RIM-7Rs and plasma warhead 3" guns battling giga cartels doping up cyborg sicarios with the Blue Bug Juice and laser katanas.
 
Would be an amazing Clive Cussler novel though. Dale Brown's V-22 force based out of Gulf oil rigs and Clive Cussler's CPCX micro-frigates with Mk 48 VLS for RIM-7Rs and plasma warhead 3" guns battling giga cartels doping up cyborg sicarios with the Blue Bug Juice and laser katanas.
I mean, if you want a thriller plot, the 2006 TSUNAMI project hits the bill perfectly. Forward-based high-speed interceptor parent ships to send boarding teams to trans-Pacific cargo ships and search for WMDs.

The SABR project is up there too. Railgun-armed ABM cruisers with molten salt reactors?

And that's before you add in the imagination of a fiction author!
 

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