You would think that if the goal is to confront Russia, confront them where they live, you should have an icebreaker or ten. but no, this farce has been going on for over a decade.
Here are a few prior posts:
The U.S. Has NO Icebreakers It Can Deploy To The Arctic This Year
What the actual hell.
Congress and the Obama administration should have ordered six heavies ten years ago.
This is dereliction of their single most important function, national defense, and borderline suicidal.
An Account of The Voyage Of The Icebreaker USCG Polar Star (It's bad)
FIRE IN ANTARCTIC OCEAN Aboard U.S.Coast Guard’s Last Heavy Icebreaker
The introductions to our two most recent posts on the Polar Star began with "This is just sad".
It is now beyond sad and is stupidly dangerous to use this ship any longer.
The Only U.S. Heavy Icebreaker Suffers MULTIPLE Mechanical Problems On Voyage To Antarctica
This is just sad."US Coast Guard Turns Down Arctic Exercise Because 40-year-old Icebreaker Might Break Down And Would Require Russian Help"
The Polar Star has a sister ship, the Polar Sea, but that has been deactivated and is being cannibalized for parts. The only other major American icebreaker is the USCGC Healy, a big boat but only a medium icebreaker.
"U.S. Watchdog Warns The Coast Guard To Get Real About Its Plans To Field Critical New Icebreakers"
And the headline story, from National Defense, April 21:
The pandemic and design-related work will push the Coast Guard’s new icebreakers to an expected 2025 delivery date, according to service leaders.
Icebreakers are difficult to build and are an important national asset, Rear Adm. Douglas Schofield, assistant commandant for acquisition and chief acquisition officer for the Coast Guard, said at the Navy League’s annual Sea-Air-Space conference in National Harbor, Maryland. The Coast Guard is working with the Navy to collaborate on the design.
“We’re excited to get her out, start building this year, and then deliver her in [2025],” Schofield added.
Commandant of the Coast Guard Adm. Karl Schultz announced last fall that the delivery date of the new icebreakers would be delayed one year due in part to COVID-19 as well as a complex design of the new cutters. The fiscal year 2022 budget requested $80 million for the procurement of three Polar Security Cutters.
The new Polar Security Cutters will have a “multi-mission construct,” given that the ship will sail through extreme temperatures and conditions around the world and breakthrough ice as thick as six feet. Currently, the Coast Guard has one heavy-duty icebreaker and a medium-duty icebreaker, which is primarily used for research purposes.
The Coast Guard is working on a more effective, versatile design than that of previous icebreakers, Schofield said.
“There’s a lot of great design aspects that we’re working in here with more maneuverable, up-to-date hull form that actually takes less maintenance and less horsepower to break the same amount of ice,” Schofield continued. The multi-mission aspect, which includes boat launching, helicopter recovery, as well as tailoring to crewmembers’ needs, is crucial, he added.....
....MUCH MORE
Give me an 'effin break.
We've been chronicling the failures of the executive branch and the Pentagon for 12 years.
If interested see January's "As Russia's New Icebreaking Monster Completes Maiden Voyage, The U.S. Contracts For A New Heavy, Scheduled For 2025"
Or December's "China to build its third icebreaker":Oh good grief. China isn't even an Arctic nation, yet they are going to have more operating icebreakers than the United States....
