HOPE HODGE SECK
As Russia builds up its massive icebreaker fleet with cutting-edge technology to assert dominance in the Arctic, the United States may need to keep its options open with its own icebreaker buildup plan.
In a hearing before the House Appropriations subcommittee on Homeland Security, Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Paul Zukunft said current plans call for the service to build three medium and three heavy icebreakers, with accelerated delivery of the first heavy icebreaker in 2023. Currently, the United States has just one heavy icebreaker, the 40-year-old and poorly aging Polar Star, and one medium icebreaker, the Healy, used primarily for research expeditions.
But, Zukunft indicated, changing threats may call for more icebreakers, and possibly a more robust weapons loadout.
“We need to look differently … at what an icebreaker does,” he said. “We need to reserve space, weight and power if we need to strap a cruise missile package on it.”
Russia currently has 40 icebreaking ships and is in the midst of a capability ramp-up. Two new icebreaking corvettes, equipped to carry cruise missiles, will join the Russian fleet by 2020, Zukunft said.
The six total icebreakers in the Coast Guard’s build plan represent the minimum requirement for the United States in 2017, he said. But if the world changes in ways that require more or differently equipped icebreaking ships within the 30-year lifespan of the currently planned icebreakers, at least the production lines would be hot, he added.
https://www.defensetech.org/2017/05/22/future-icebreakers-may-cruise-missiles-zukunft-says/
