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Home » Ships and Subs » Gunboats Back in Style

Gunboats Back in Style

After years of try­ing to give away its 14 Cyclone-​​class patrol boats, the Navy is revers­ing course, accord­ing to Navy Times. Now the Cyclones will form the back­bone of a revi­tal­ized coastal gun­boat com­mu­nity based in Little Creek, Virginia.
The 60-​​meter Cyclones were com­mis­sioned in the early ‘90s with the inten­tion of using them to trans­port SEALs and other spe­cial forces in litor­ral waters. But the spe­cial oper­a­tors never liked the Cyclones: they were too big and drew too deep for many water­ways. So in the late ‘90s, the Navy offered them to for­eign navies. There was only one taker — the Phillipines navy, which acquired the first of the class — before events inter­vened.
Cyclones.jpgThe tow­ers fell, the U.S. invaded Iraq and the Navy found itself with a lot of for­eign lit­torals to police but with few suit­able plat­forms. So four Cyclones were based in Bahrain, from where they sor­tied to guard Iraq’s only two oil ter­mi­nals off Basra.
Despite their sud­den util­ity, the Navy still wasn’t com­fort­able with the tiny Cyclones. They were sim­ple, cramped and lightly armed (can­nons and machine guns only) in a fleet dom­i­nated by super­car­ri­ers and large multi-​​mission destroy­ers. The Navy exiled two boats to the Pacific and con­vinced the Coast Guard to take five of the ships. Coasties didn’t know what to do with the boats and weren’t afraid to say so.
Against the back­drop of all this fum­bling, the Navy was start­ing to think hard about its future fleet. The con­sen­sus was that it needed more hulls suit­able to the litor­rals. Grand plans were drawn up for a large force of corvettes (LCS) and cata­ma­rans (JHSV). Then some­body real­ized the Navy already had coastal ves­sels at its dis­posal. Last week, the com­man­der at Little Creek announced that the Coast Guard Cyclones would be returned to the Navy, the two Pacific boats would make their way to Virginia and new doc­trine would be devel­oped to employ the Cyclones as coastal gun­boats and mobile train­ing units for small navies.
To quote Navy Times: “Hueber said the idea is to train up for­eign navies so they can patrol their own mar­itime bor­ders. The [Cyclone], because of its size, crew and mis­sion, relates best to what smaller navies actu­ally do.“
That’s right, it’s gun­boat diplo­macy for the 21st cen­tury.
–David Axe

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December 3rd, 2005 | Ships and Subs | 29465 Comments »http://defensetech.org/2005/12/03/gunboats-back-in-style/Gunboats+Back+in+Style2005-12-03+19%3A26%3A56noahmax You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

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  1. Byron Skinner says:
    December 3, 2005 at 6:31 pm

    Good Afternoon David,
    I will try this again. In today’s San Diego Union Tribune there is a story on page A10 titled; “Navy’s new com­mand to dis­tance it more from the Cold War” by Otto Kreisher. The story ndeal with the for­ma­tion with the Navy’s new “Navy Expeditionary Combat Command”. This new com­mand will be in addi­tion to the Navy Expeditionary Battalions.
    The most inter­est­ing thing is units not included in this new com­mand which are the Marines and SEALS. Both these units tra­di­tion­aly have served as the Navy’s entry into into land war­fare.
    It is noted that the SEALS hot but­ton project the SEAL Delivery Vehicle has been put on hold at Lockheed its prime con­trac­tor.
    Scuttlebutt among Naval Officers both retired and active is that the Navy would be bet­ter with­out the bur­den of these to semi Independent groups under the Navy. Maybe we are start­ing to see a “Divorce” with in the Navy and it’s sib­lings.
    The Marines are now more then ever Army like to the point that a Marine Major General could soon again Command an Army Division. The SEALS are in dis­aray after being pulled from Afghanistan after the desaster this sum­mer that casued the deaths of six­teen men. The SEALS may be a bet­ter fit with the Spec. Ops. Command then with in the Navy.
    ALLONS,
    Byron Skinner

    Reply
  2. David Axe says:
    December 3, 2005 at 7:34 pm

    Actually, Byron, the SEALS are with SOCOM, which is a inter-​​service com­mand, not a branch. As it stands, there aren’t really any mil­i­tary units that fall out­side one of the three major branches (four if you count the Marines as sep­a­rate from the Navy). Now, if you’re propos­ing that SOCOM be its own branch … well, that’s an inter­est­ing proposal.

    Reply
  3. Pedestrian says:
    December 4, 2005 at 4:52 am

    Maybe the new Iraq Navy would be happy to take some, other than Phillipines.

    Reply
  4. Riku says:
    April 18, 2009 at 9:18 pm

    Hi
    How many men do you need han­dle a gun­boat?
    Riku

    Reply

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