Surface Forces: Defenseless Coast Guard Cutters
Ezoic
May 23, 2025: Since the end of the Cold War in 1991, the U.S. Coast Guard has ceased arming its larger cutter type ships with missiles. In the 21 st Century the growing threat of the Chinese navy and merchant marine found the American Coast Guard unable to deal with Chinese warships and the majority of large commercial ships built in China and operated by Chinese firms. The U.S. Coast Guard will have to deal with the Chinese ships in the Pacific as they had to deal with Iranian threats in the Persian Gulf for the last three decades.
Meanwhile the Chinese Coast Guard has received larger and more heavily armed ships than its American counterpart. Over the last decade the Chinese Coast Guard has received over a dozen new patrol ships. These are vessels of 1,000-3,000 tons displacement with relatively small crews but lots of storage space and not many weapons. Coast guard ships are not usually heavily armed but the Chinese ships are increasingly being seen equipped with water cannons, extra searchlights and equipment for grappling with other ships. These tools are used to interfere with foreign fishing ships and transports that go to parts of the South China Sea that China has declared Chinese territory, even though other nations have a stronger legal claim. Using water cannons, bright searchlights to blind the crews of other ships and aggressive maneuvering to include grappling with smaller foreign ships and forcibly moving them the foreign ships are persuaded to back off. The Chinese coast guard vessels also use these tactics against foreign warships and if the foreigners shoot back the Chinese can declare themselves the victims of an unprovoked attack and call in more fire power.
Current American Coast Guard ships are limited to 57mm guns and half a dozen or so 7.62 and 12.7mm machine-guns. Two decades ago the Coast Guard's National Security Cutters were armed with a 57mm gun not used by the navy. The Swedish designed EX-57 Mk 3 was already in use by the Canadian Navy and 14 other countries. The Mk 3 has been in use since 1998, but the Mk 1 first entered service in 1966. The Coast Guard uses the 57mm gun for warning shots, and stopping or destroying small boats. For a long time, Coast Guard cutters carried a 76mm gun. But this proved to be too large for the targets typically encountered.
https://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htsurf/articles/2025052301450.aspx#gsc.tab=0
