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Spearhead Class Expeditionary Fast Transport Vessels

Expeditionary Fast Transport (EPF) ships are built by Austal USA as part of the EPF programme initiated by the US Navy.

Military Sealift Command (MSC)

Displacement

Maximum speed.

Expeditionary Fast Transport (EPF) ships, previously known as Joint High Speed Vessels (JHSV), are being built by Austal USA as part of the EPF programme initiated by the US Navy.

Operated by the Military Sealift Command, the EPF vessels support joint or coalition force operations of the army and navy.

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The main roles of the vessels are the transportation of troops, military vehicles, cargo and equipment for a range of global missions. They will also support military logistics and humanitarian relief operations.

Development and construction of the JHSV

The preliminary design contract for the EPF programme was awarded in February 2008. The programme initially called for five EPF vessels to be delivered to the army, as well as five to the Navy and Marine Corps.

In November 2008, the US Navy placed a $185.4m contract for the detailed design and construction of an EPF, with options for up to nine additional ships. The initial critical design review (ICDR) was completed by May 2009.

The first three vessels were named Spearhead T-EPF 1 (ex-JHSV 1), Vigilant (T-EPF 2) and Fortitude (T-EPF 3) in July 2009. Construction of Vigilant and Fortitude was authorised by the US Navy in January 2010.

The keel for the first ship in the class, USNS Spearhead (T-EPF-1), was laid at Austal’s shipyard at Mobile, Alabama, in July 2010. It was launched and christened as USNS Spearhead in September 2011. The ship successfully completed acceptance trials in September 2012 and was formally handed over to the US Navy in December 2012. The US Navy concluded initial operational testing and evaluation of T-EPF 1 in October 2013.

Construction of USNS Choctaw County (T-EPF-2) (ex-Vigilant) began in September 2010. In May 2011, the US Army transferred all five of its EPFs to the Navy. The T-EPF 2 was christened as USNS Choctaw County in September 2012 and launched in October 2012. The keel for the third EPF (now, Millinocket) was laid down in May 2012, and the vessel was launched in June 2013. Deliveries of the second and third EPFs took place in June 2013 and March 2014, respectively. The USNS Millinocket (T-EPF-3) participated in the Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) Exercise 2014.

The keel-laying of the fourth EPF, Fall River, was held in May 2013, and the ship was launched in January 2014. Acceptance trials were completed in July 2014, and the vessel was delivered to the US Navy in September 2014. The keel for the fifth ship in the class, USNS Trenton (T-EPF 5) (ex-JHSV 5), was laid in March 2014, and the vessel was launched in September 2014. It was delivered to the US Navy in April 2015.

The US Navy exercised contract options for the construction of the sixth and seventh ships in July 2011. Construction of the sixth vessel, named USNS Brunswick (T-EPF 6) (ex-JHSV 6), commenced in January 2014, and the keel was laid in December 2014. The vessel was launched in May 2015 and delivered in January 2016. Construction on the seventh EPF, named Carson City, began in September 2014.

The keel of USNS Carson City (T-EPF-7) was laid in July 2015. The ship was launched in January 2016 and delivered in June of the same year.

The contract options for the construction of eighth and ninth EPFs were exercised in February 2012. The US Navy exercised the $166.9m contract option for the final vessel of the ten-ship programme in December 2012.

The eighth EPF, USNS Yuma, was launched in September 2016 and delivered in April 2017. The keel for USNS Bismarck (T-EPF-9) was laid in January 2017, and the vessel was launched in June 2017.

Austal USA was awarded a $326m contract by the US Navy to construct EPF 11 and EPF 12 in September 2016.

Joint High Speed Vessel design features

The EPF features rounded bilge and bulbous bow hull forms made of aluminium. The catamaran vessel is built to American Bureau of Shipping (ABS) standards. On-board systems comply with the commercial ABS steel vessel regulations.

The ship does not feature combat systems or the ability to support or use LCS mission modules. EPF is based on commercial technology but includes limited military features, such as aviation, C4SI and fire-fighting.

The vessel has a length of 103m, beam of 28.5m and draft of 3.8m. The displacement of the ship is 2,362t.

The open unobstructed mission deck has a usable cargo area of more than 1,800m² with a clear height of 4.7m and turning diameter of 26.2m.

Performance and power of the US Navy ships

EPF can be operated in shallow-draft ports and waterways, interfacing with roll-on / roll-off discharge facilities and on / off-loading. The stern loading ramp can support an M1A2 Abrams main battle tank.

The ships can transport 635t of payload for more than 1,200nm at an average speed of 35k. EPF is manned by the civilian mariners provided by the Military Sealift Command. The vessel has a crew of approximately 42 people.

Aircraft capabilities of Austal USA’s JHSV

The EPF features a Navair level 1 class 2 certified flight deck to support the operations of one helicopter, such as a  CH-53E  Super Stallion.

The ship is equipped with a centreline parking area for one helicopter, vertical replenishment area and helicopter control station.

Kongsberg Maritime was contracted to supply the EPF’s helicopter operations surveillance system (HOSS).

Operated from the control room, the HOSS system allows helicopter operations in very low light conditions.

The system integrates a MIL-S-901D shock qualified 19in SXGA LCD monitor suitable for night vision device (NVD) operations.

JHSV propulsion and crew accommodation

EPF is powered by four MTU 20V8000 M71L diesel engines driving four Wartsila WLD 1400 SR waterjets with four ZF 60000NR2H reduction gears. Each engine rated at 9.1MW provides a maximum speed of 43k without payload. The propulsion system delivers superior fuel efficiency to reduce operating costs.

The ship provides accommodation for 42 crew members in two single staterooms, six double staterooms and seven four-bed staterooms. There is airline-style seating for more than 312 embarked forces, as well as permanent berths for approximately 104 personnel and temporary berths for 46 troops.

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HSV-2 Swift – The Navy’s Proof Of Concept Catamaran

Catamarans have long held a beloved place in Naval tradition. Capable of staying mostly above the water, a catarmaran reduces friction with the water by allowing the water to pass beneath it in channels. When the Navy first came up with the idea of engineering a hybrid naval catamaran, the HSV-2 Swift, they envisioned a military ship able to work on anti-mine operations. Furthermore, the HSV-2 Swift would serve as a useful testing platform for naval technology . In 2008, Australian ship builder Incat produced the first and only modern naval hybrid catamaran. The United States Navy employed the craft for ten years before selling it to the United Arab Emirates for dredging operations.

The acronym “HSV” stands for “High Speed Vessel”. Because a hybrid catamaran would stay above the water, its aluminum hull and light weight made it an ideal platform for helicopters and unmanned aerial and naval vehicles. When it first launched from Norfolk, Virginia in October of 2003, the Navy envisioned a class of warship able to quickly manuever to the front lines and disable mines or launch a wave of UAVs and helicopters into action.

The first of this class of vessel, the HSV-1 Joint Venture, saw action in the invasion of Iraq in 2003. The HSV-1 Joint Venture acted as a forward staging platform for U.S. Special Forces and Navy SEALS in the acquisition of Umm Qasr, Iraq, a key shipping port that needed to be taken intact.

As for the HSV-2 Swift, it managed to break records for the fastest transit from the Northern Great Barrier Reef to Booby Island. The Swift averaged 39 knots across the area. It also served as a recovery ship for aircraft. Furthermore, the Swift worked to great effect in disaster relief from the 2005 tsunami in Northern Sumatra.

Despite a decent record of service, this particular style of hybrid catamaran was sold off by the U.S. Navy in favor of a new Spearhead-class expeditionary fast transport. The Spearhead-class expeditionary fast transport was a heavier catamaran craft capable of launching more airborne and sea vehicles. The USNS Spearhead (T-EPF-1) launched in 2011 just in time for the HSV-2 Swift to be decommissioned and sold off to the United Arab Emirates in 2013.

The HSV-2 Swift was never meant as a combat ship. Its armament was purely defensive with only four emplacements for manned .50 caliber machine guns. Of a crew of 35, the majority of the focus of the ship’s activities was centered on logistics and recovery of downed aircraft at sea. It could hold up to 107 people with additional berthing available for another 35, making it an ideal place for a temporary command and control center.

Combat Damage off Yemen:

After being acquired by the United Arab Emirates in 2013, ostensibly for non-militarized dredging operations, it was invariably struck by Houthi rebels in Yemen. Undoubtedly, it was acting as a forward naval operating base for Saudi-backed forces in the area and was thus designated a target. On October 1, 2016, multiple news sources reported that the HSV-2 Swift, while under lease to the United Arab Emirates, was struck by a missile. It was located off-shore from the port city of Mokha, Yemen.

The ship sustained heavy damage, including the loss of crew. The type of missile fired is still unknown. According to news sources from the area, the HSV-2 Swift was towed back to friendly waters to be refitted and repaired.

Powerplant:

Caterpillar 3618 marine diesel engines powered the HSV-2 Swift. Each Caterpillar 3618 engine produces up to 9,655 hp (7198.77 kw).

See HSV-2 Swift Specifications

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Speedy 'Ambulance Ships' a High Priority for Navy Medicine, Admiral Says

The Navy is investing more than $200 million to configure two of its catamarans to function as high-speed "ambulance ships" for medical emergencies on the water. And the Navy's surgeon general said Tuesday that the service is "enormously excited" to gain the new capability.

The $235 million contract modification was issued in March, allowing Austal USA to develop the Navy's next expeditionary fast transport, or EPF, ships with built-in enhanced medical capability. The 14th ship in the class, EPF-14, to be called USNS Cody after the city in Wyoming, will be the first of these ships; the yet-to-be-named EPF-15 will be the second. The ships are operated by the Navy's Military Sealift Command, just like the service's two large hospital ships.

Rear Adm. Bruce Gillingham, surgeon general of the Navy, discussed the service's plans for the ships in response to questions from Sen. Richard Shelby, an Alabama Republican.

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"The ambulance ship, as envisioned, will allow us to respond to ships in distress," Gillingham said. "Ships that may have been damaged in combat, [we'll] be able to assist in personnel recovery."

These catamarans with advanced medical capability will have space for a V-22 Osprey to land on board for patient medical evacuation, Gillingham said. The cabin will feature an operating room with two operating tables and space for 18 intensive care unit beds, he added. The ships will also be able to accommodate about 100 medical personnel. 

"We're enormously excited," he said. " ... We see this as filling a critical gap in the [distributed maritime operations] environment."

Gillingham said the concept for a high-speed medical ship had come about through a review of medical operations supporting the Marine Corps , with its concept of Expeditionary Advanced Basing Operations in distributed regions like the Pacific. The Navy realized that the two hulking medical ships now in service simply could not respond as quickly as the concept required, he said. 

"Would you fairly say this is a high priority for naval medicine?" Shelby asked Gillingham at Tuesday's hearing before the Senate Appropriations Committee.

"Yes, sir. It very much is," Gillingham responded.

The two planned EPFs with medical capabilities may be only part of the solution, though. Alan Baribeau, a spokesman for Naval Sea Systems Command, told USNI News that, despite their capabilities, the EPFs' mission would not be primarily medical.

"Flight II EPFs will be able to stabilize postsurgical cases for evacuation without the requirement to first route them through a higher facility," he said.

Officials with Austal USA say there's another ship in planning -- the Expeditionary Medical Ship. While still conceptual, this ship would also be based on the EPF and would have a primarily medical mission. It would feature a white hull with red crosses like its hospital ship counterparts.

-- Hope Hodge Seck can be reached at [email protected] . Follow her on Twitter at @HopeSeck.

Related: Marine V-22 Osprey Makes First Landing on Navy Hospital Ship

Hope Hodge Seck

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Navy Wants To Sideline Its Fast Transport Catamarans As Pacific Fight Looms

By Joseph Trevithick

Posted on Aug 4, 2023 5:48 PM EDT

Members of Congress are trying to block the Navy from putting just under half of its fleet of Spearhead class expeditionary fast transports into a state of reduced readiness with only skeleton crews assigned to them. Some of the vessels in question are very young, with one having first entered service just three years ago. This comes as the U.S. military is coming to terms with massive logistical hurdles if it were to go to war in the Pacific, which these fast, low-draft, multi-purpose vessels seem to be ideally suited for.

Because of this glaring disconnect, lawmakers are also pushing for a legal requirement for the service to develop and implement a formal concept of operations for utilizing these catamaran transport vessels in the Pacific.

Provisions relating to the Spearhead class ships are contained in the version of the annual defense policy bill, or National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), for Fiscal Year 2024 that the House of Representatives passed in July . The Fiscal Year 2024 NDAA that the Senate passed last month does not include any such language relating to these vessels, and the two chambers are now in the process of trying to reconcile their bills.

If the language found in the House bill makes it into the final NDAA for Fiscal Year 2024, and is then signed into law by President Joe Biden, the Navy would be prevented from using any funds to place Spearheads on so-called Reduced Operating Status (ROS). The service would also be required to “develop and implement a strategy and concept of operations for the use of expeditionary fast transport vessels in support of operational plans in the area of operations of United States Indo-Pacific Command” within 180 days of the law’s passage. The Chief of Naval Operations would have 30 days to “submit to the congressional defense committees a report describing such [a] strategy and concept of operations.”

In its budget proposal for Fiscal Year 2024 , the Navy outlined plans to transition five Spearheads – USNS Choctaw County , USNS Trenton , USNS Carson City , USNS Yuma , and USNS Newport – to ROS. The service says doing so would save it just under $17.6 million, which it could then redirect to other priorities. The oldest of these ships, USNS Choctaw County , entered service in 2013. The youngest of them, USNS Newport , was commissioned in 2020.

The Navy has already placed two Spearhead class ships, the USNS Spearhead and USNS Fall River , on ROS. The service has different tiers of ROS, but they all involve truncating a ship’s assigned crew and reducing its readiness state. Officially, the Navy categorizes any ship on ROS that is capable of being reactivated within 45 days or less as inactive, but still on the rolls. Spearhead and Fall River are both reportedly being kept on so-called “ROS 45” status, the lowest level of ‘inactive’ readiness.

So, at least on paper, the Navy currently has 13 Spearhead class ships, also known by the abbreviation EPF. The first of these were commissioned in 2012. The latest of these ships, the USNS Apalachicola , just entered service in February of this year.

Leveraging its experience with commercial high-speed ferry designs, Australian shipbuilder Austal’s U.S. subsidiary developed and built the Spearhead class ships , which typically have a crew of around 42 people. These aluminum-hulled vessels displace around 2,362 tons, can cruise at around 35 knots, have a top speed of some 43 knots, and are designed to be readily reconfigurable to the mission at hand. Each one has a multi-purpose 20,000 square-foot mission bay, as well as a rear flight deck able to accommodate various helicopters and a stern ramp for loading and unloading vehicles, personnel, and cargo.

Austal USA is in the process of building two additional Flight II Spearheads for the Navy and the service has a third one on order now. These Spearhead subvariants will have expanded medical capabilities and strengthened flight decks able to allow Osprey tilt-rotors to take off and land. The Navy is also looking to acquire a trio of Bethesda class expeditionary medical ships , a dedicated medical vessel variant derived from the Flight II Spearhead .

With all this in mind, it might seem odd that the Navy is now looking to significantly scale back its use of the Spearheads , which are currently assigned to its Military Sealift Command and are crewed by civilian mariners. However, the service’s current plans for ships very much speak to their somewhat obtuse history and long-building uncertainty about their role and mission.

Officially, the current mission of the Spearhead class ships is to “provide high-speed, agile lift capability to deliver operationally ready units to small, austere ports and flexibly support a wide range of missions including humanitarian assistance/disaster relief, theater security cooperation, maritime domain awareness, and noncombatant evacuations,” according to the Navy . “They enable the rapid transit and deployment of conventional and special forces, equipment, and supplies in support of maneuver and sustainment operations.”

Originally known as Joint High-Speed Vessels (JHSV), the Spearhead class was a product of U.S. Army and U.S. Marine Corps requirements dating back to the early 2000s. Initially, there was an expectation that some of these ships would be operated by the Army itself as part of its obscure, but actually quite capable watercraft fleet, which you can read more about here .

In the 2000s, the Navy also chartered a number of commercial catamaran ferries to explore the potential utility of vessels like this in various combat and non-combat contexts, largely in support of the JHSV program. In 2012, the service also received two other Austal-designed ferries from the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Maritime Administration (MARAD). Both of those ships, referred to as High-Speed Transports (HST), remain in inventory, though one has been on loan to a commercial ferry operator in Canada since 2016.

Over the past two decades or so, the Spearheads and their immediate predecessors have certainly demonstrated the ability to perform a wide array of missions. For instance, two of the earlier chartered catamaran ferries, known during their time in Navy service as the Joint Venture and Swift , were used in particularly novel roles, including as small special operations seabase ships and at sea-based launch platforms for tethered surveillance blimps.

The Spearhead class ships have also been explored as special operations support platforms, as well as floating forward-deployed repair facilities for smaller warships like Littoral Combat Ships (LCS). There has been talk in the past about potentially fitting these ships with more robust weapons. The Navy at one time planned to at least use one of the ships to test its now-defunct electromagnetic railgun . Austal has previously shown concept art of an uncrewed Spearhead derivative with arrays of vertical launch system cells for firing various kinds of missiles, too.

However, the Spearheads have still not seen significant integration into routine day-to-day Navy operations in the past decade and they have generally been used just as transports. The use of the USNS Millinocket recently to bring materiel to Australia in support of the Talisman Sabre 23 exercise reflects how these ships are generally employed at present.

As a prime example of apparent Navy disinterest in more novel applications of these ships, the recently delivered USNS Apalachicola has a full suite of systems to enable crew-optional operations, but the service has no current plans to make use of those capabilities. You can read more about this particular ship and its unique features here .

“I think one step at a time. In terms of that ship, it has the capability but we will integrate into fleet in a very deliberate manner,” Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Gilday told reporters at the WEST 2023 conference in February, according to USNI News . “We won’t have a deployment and unmanned and an unmanned deployment right off the bat.”

There are certainly questions about the value of a commercial ferry-derived design in a future high-end conflict, such as one in the Pacific against China. Scenarios like this are dominating planning discussions across the U.S. military at present.

The potential vulnerability of ships like the Spearhead class was highlighted in 2016, one of the catamaran ferries the Navy had previously chartered, the ex- Swift , was destroyed by an anti-ship missile off the coast of Yemen. The vessel was in service with the armed forces of the United Arab Emirates at the time and was supporting operations against Yemen’s Houthi rebels. What was left of the ship was subsequently towed to a port in Greece, where the hulk remains.

The former HSV-2 Swift, laid up at Ampelakia, Salamina, Greece. In July 2015, the ship was leased by the #UAE National Marine Dredging Company & was used to carry aid through Bab Al Mandab strait. On 1 Oct 2016, the ship was attacked and damaged off the coast of Yemen by Houthis. pic.twitter.com/s5UVeg4bUF — Naval Analyses (@D__Mitch) April 26, 2021

At the same time, even in the broader context of a larger-scale conflict, Spearhead class ships could still provide valuable intratheater sealift capacity in lower-threat environments or under a protective umbrella provided by other assets. This could also then help free up more robust sealift ships for use elsewhere.

In addition, the ability of the Spearhead class ships to be relatively rapidly reconfigured for different mission sets gives them additional flexibility. This could potentially include providing additional ‘magazine depth’ for kinetic strikes missions through the installation of modular weapon systems or the positioning of existing mobile launch systems on its stern flight deck, with targeting data fed in from offboard sources.

The video below shows a U.S. Marine Corps M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) launcher being fired from the flight deck of a San Antonio class amphibious warfare ship.

Furthermore, the Navy itself has clearly identified the core Spearhead class design as a useful way of augmenting critical expeditionary medical capabilities.

All of this also comes amidst concerns that have been building for years now about the Navy’s overall sealift capacity and its ability to surge additional assets , including ones held in various states of reduced readiness, in the event of a major conflict or contingency. Beyond that, the U.S. Marine Corps, as well as the Army , continue to have their specific requirements for lower-tier intratheater sealift support for combat and non-combat missions, particularly in the Pacific .

Just in the past few years, the U.S. Marine Corps has identified an all-new requirement for dozens of additional middle-tier transport vessels specifically to support its new expeditionary and distributed concepts of operation. The Expeditionary Advance Base Operations (EABO) concept centers heavily on the ability of Marine contingents to rapidly deploy to remote or austere locations , including in maritime and littoral environments , and then just as quickly redeploy elsewhere as required to reduce their vulnerability and otherwise make it difficult to opponents to respond effectively.

Spearhead class ships have been used to support counter-narcotics operations and to help shuttle U.S. military units around for various types of training exercises and other regional engagement activities in Latin America. They could provide a similarly useful ‘presence’ in the Pacific region.

Altogether, it is very hard to see the Spearheads as being anything else but well-suited to meeting a host of needs the U.S. military has when it comes to the Pacific region, both in peacetime and in war. The ships are, on average, relatively young, and have limited crew requirements to begin with, too.

The potential cost savings from putting a significant number of Spearheads on ROS look to be small in the context of the overall U.S. defense budget. As of 2021, the Pentagon pegged the annual operating cost of a single one of these ships at around $20.3 million , which is relatively cheap by naval vessel standards . Beyond that, as already noted, the Navy says it stands to free up less than $20 million in Fiscal Year 2024 by putting five of these ships into a state of reduced readiness.

This all helps explain why the House, in its version of the Fiscal Year 2024 NDAA, wants to compel the Navy to look deeply into the Spearhead class’s roles and missions, with a particular eye toward future operations in the Pacific, in addition to preventing the service from placing any more of those ships on ROS. Whether that language makes it into the final reconciled NDAA, and if that bill is then signed into law by President Biden, remains to be seen.

Whatever ultimately happens on the legislative front could have significant ramifications for the future of the Navy’s Spearhead class ships.

Contact the author: [email protected]

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Taiwan Launched a 600 Tons Coast Guard Cataraman That Can Fire 16 ASM

Taiwanese shipyard jong shyn shipbuilding launched a new 600 tons patrol vessel for the coast guard on 27 april 2020. based on the roc navy catamaran corvette, the new patrol vessel can be fitted with up to 16x anti-ship missiles..

Tso-Juei Hsu 25 May 2020

Taiwanese media reported that Vice Premier Chen Chi-mai, Minister of the Ocean Affairs Council (OCA) Lee Chung-wei, National Security Council (NSC) Deputy Secretary-General York Chen, Jong Shyn Shipbuilding Company (JSSC) chairman Han Pi-hsiang and coast guard officials attended the ceremony.

However, because of the pandemic of coronavirus, the ceremony was scaled-down. No other government officials, local government officials, politicians or media were invited to attend the ceremony.

According to a cabinet press release, vice premier Chen Chi-mai said “the government is committed to providing the best patrol ships and the best weapons” to the coast guard. The Tsai Ing-wen administration has been working hard on the “Indigenous National Defense Policy” (國防自主國艦國造, which means having an independent defense, build ships locally) since it took office in 2016.

The ceremony also marked the start of work on a third 600-tonne patrol vessel, as well as a third 35-tonne vessel for the Coast Guard Administration (CGA).

About Anping-class Coast Guard Catamaran Patrol Vessel

The new vessel Anping (CG-601) is the first  of 12 locally designed and built 600-ton class catamaran patrol vessel. It is fitted with high-pressure water cannon, and there is space (fitted for but not with) for converting the patrol vessel into a full fledged missile corvette armed with Hsiung Feng II and/or Hsiung Feng III anti-ship missiles. The conversion could be made rapidly, if needed, during wartime. Hsiung Feng II (HF-2) (雄風二型, “Brave Wind II”) is a subsonic anti-ship missile with a range of 160 km (250 km for the block II variant). Hsiung Feng III (HF-3; 雄風三型, “Brave Wind III”) is a supersonic anti-ship missile (with some land attack capability) with a range of 200 km (400 km for a future enhanced variant).

The design of the new patrol vessel is based on the Taiwanese Navy (ROC Navy)’s Tuo-chiang class missile corvettes. Anping will be delivered to the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) in October, two months ahead of schedule. It will join the CGA Southern Sector Flotilla.

Future CGA Fleet

CGA has a programme to build 141 coast guard ships from 2018 to 2027. The programme includes four 4000-ton class patrol vessels, six 1000-ton class patrol vessels, twelve 600-ton class patrol vessels, seventeen 100-ton class patrol boats, fifty-two 35-ton class patrol boats and fifty littoral utility boats. Taiwanese media also  reported that the CGA is considering to establish aviation units, and have sent a report on this issue to the parliament in April.

Ocean Affairs Council (OAC) officials said that the shipbuilding programme will bring prosperity to local shipbuilding companies and related industries, and is considered to create at least 8000 jobs and make the industry have 100 billion NTD value. However, there are still challenges for Taiwan to develop its defense economics.

OAC and CGA

The early coastal and maritime law enforcement agencies of Taiwan (ROC) were the Coast Guard Command (formerly under the Ministry of National Defense), the Marine Police Bureau (formerly under the National Police Agency, Ministry of Interior), and ships from the Customs Administration, Ministry of Finance.  Coast Guard Administration (CGA) was established under Executive Yuan (cabinet) on 1 February 2000, and unified these agencies.

CGA currently has a 156 ship fleet. Its coastal patrol units stationed in Pratas and Spratly Islands are heavily armed, Personnel of these units are trained by the marine corps and army artillery training command.

On 28 April 2018, Ocean Affairs Council (OCA) was founded under Executive Yuan, and CGA became a part of the OCA organization. The OCA is in charge of the planning, coordination and implementation of marine-related policies of Taiwan.

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Iran Is Quietly Building a Fleet of Missile-Slinging Catamarans

Armed with anti-ship and anti-air missiles, the cats would be formidable adversaries.

• Iranian shipyards are churning out twin-hull fast-attack ships , according to new satellite imagery.
• The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy (Iran's paramilitary) would crew the ships.
• They're similar in concept and appearance to China's Type 022 fast-attack missile boats.

Iran's paramilitary navy is constructing the first of what will likely be a whole new fleet of fast-attack craft—a type of small, nimble warship that operates on the offensive in close proximity to the coast. The boat is a twin-hulled catamaran that will one day carry both anti-ship and anti-air missiles.

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The new vessel is currently under construction at the Shahid Mahallati Shipyard in Bushehr, Iran. Naval News first spotted it last week in commercial satellites images. From above, you can see the boat's two narrow hulls are placed side by side, supporting a wide bridge deck.

The bridge deck itself is angled and appears to be built for speed. Catamarans are typically faster than average vessels owing to their use of two small hulls instead of one large one, lessening hydrodynamic resistance and increasing speed.

The Shahid Mahallati Shipyard has built warships for the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) in the past. IRGC is Iran's second armed force—a land, air, and sea paramilitary force that serves the country's theocratic government. At sea, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps Navy (IRGC-N) is responsible for protecting and advancing the regime's interests in the Persian Gulf .

The IRGC-N has relied on a ragtag assemblage of armed speedboats for decades. Typically, these are cigarette boat crafts armed with heavy machine guns, 107-millimeter rocket launchers, rocket-propelled grenade launchers, and sometimes anti-tank missiles. The IRGC, as naval analyst H.I. Sutton points out in U.S. Naval Institute (USNI) News , seems to be shifting toward the construction of larger, more conventionally oriented ships.

The new warship, according to an IRGC general speaking in May 2020, would be 213 feet long, equipped with a helipad, and armed with anti-ship and anti-aircraft missiles. The incorporation of a helipad on such a small ship suggests that engineers might be burying the missile launchers inside the hull, pointing upward.

While USNI News doesn't speculate on the exact types of armament that IRGC-N will carry on the new vessel, we can make some informed guesses. The warship—tentatively named the Soleimani class after the IRGC general that U.S. forces killed in a 2020 drone strike—could carry the Qader , Iran's updated copy of the Chinese C-802 anti-ship missile. Qader is a 20.9-foot-long sea-skimming missile with a 341-pound high explosive warhead and a range of 74 miles.

How many Qaders does the Soleimani class carry? Iranian-backed Houthi guerrillas have used Iranian missiles in at least two attacks , including the 2016 skirmish on the destroyer USS Mason in 2016, and a strike on the commercial catamaran HSV Swift .

Iran has likely analyzed the attack on the Mason , in which the American guided-missile destroyer swatted down both incoming missiles. The result of that attack suggests Iranian warships should carry a minimum of three missiles (or more) if possible.

The Soleimani class will reportedly carry anti-aircraft missiles, too. However, the limited internal volume of a catamaran hull—coupled with the need to optimize it for anti-ship missiles and a helicopter landing pad—reduces its ability to carry anything other than short-range, shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles.

Western helicopters carry missiles like the American Hellfire and the new Anglo-French Sea Venom . They can easily outrange shoulder-fired missiles; the Soleimani class will be particularly vulnerable.

The Soleimani class may have been inspired by China's Type 022 Houbei- class fast-attack craft. The Houbei class is a high-speed catamaran that, although 50 percent smaller than the Soleimani craft, carries eight C-802-type anti-ship missiles. This suggests the Iranian boat could carry eight or more similarly sized Qader missiles. China built at least 83 of the Type 022 boats for coastal defense in the 2000s before graduating to larger, more capable ships.

According to USNI News, at least three hulls are under construction simultaneously. Iran could build more than a dozen of the ships, though, giving the IRGC the ability to swarm larger vessels with missiles. That is, if they're not sunk first.

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Kyle Mizokami is a writer on defense and security issues and has been at Popular Mechanics since 2015. If it involves explosions or projectiles, he's generally in favor of it. Kyle’s articles have appeared at The Daily Beast, U.S. Naval Institute News, The Diplomat, Foreign Policy, Combat Aircraft Monthly, VICE News , and others. He lives in San Francisco.

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