"Coast Guard’s Last Heavy Icebreaker " Topic

The Coast Guard plans to award a contract this spring to build a new heavy icebreaker, but Commandant Adm. Karl Schultz says today's problems running the one decades-old icebreaker illustrate the fragility of the current polar icebreaking capability…

news.usni.org/2019/03/21/42054

When I came into CG, back in '73, the CG had 7 ocean-going icebreakers (all WWII or Korean era vintage), with the 2 modern Polar class breakers under construction. Now we have a total of 2: Polar Star (and she is falling apart, God bless her) and Healy (commissioned in 1999).

Not sure we need 7 icebreakers again, but the US icebreaking capability is woefully inadequate for the mission!

SSNs, SSGNs, and SSBNs run under the ice, so I'm not sure I really see the problem here.

They can deal very effectively with anything the enemy has that needs to be eliminated.

Thresher01 Icebreakers are needed for commercial navigation,not military threat.

The Coast Guard does not even have "heavy" ice breaking capacity on the Great Lakes. The last US heavy ice breaker was retired several years ago and her job given-over to smaller vessels. Now, the US flagged fleet has to rely upon the Canadian heavy ice breaker at the end and beginning of the shipping season. It really is a disgrace.

Agree with Jurgenation, the Icebreakers are for commercial work, not military.

And the US really needs more. Basic rule of thumb is that you need 3 of whatever ship to have one constantly deployed. And to prevent freak issues taking everything out of service, you really need 6-9 of anything, just as a minimum.

Well, a Great Lakes icebreaker can probably get away with only 2 hulls, assuming that they get maintenance time every summer and only operate during the winter. Plus, with the shorter operational profile of a Laker she should be in better mechanical condition anyway.

But open ocean work requires lots more hulls.

Friend of mine was a Coastie, he was on a cutter that was an old USN deep-ocean tug up in Alaska. His most hair-raising story was when they got a distress call from a Japanese fishing boat that was in the surf. That tug-cutter of his wasn't fast, but she did have the power to tow a disabled carrier. And they needed that power to get that fishing boat out of the surf that day, Scott said their screws were picking up and throwing boulders off the bottom!