Eastern Shipbuilding Group is on contract to build the first four offshore patrol cutters for the U.S. Coast Guard and is competing for the contract for the rest of the class. The first ship, Argus, is in construction and expected to deliver by the end of 2022. (Eastern Shipbuilding Group photo)
PANAMA CITY, Fla. — Eastern Shipbuilding Group, Northrop Grumman and their industry partners formally opened a test and integration center this week for the C5I systems at the heart of the U.S. Coast Guard’s new offshore patrol cutter program.
This OPC production facility is meant to reduce risk on what the Coast Guard calls its top acquisition priority. Within mockups of the bridge, the operations center and other key rooms, every piece of internal and external sensing and communications equipment will be networked together in this facility at Eastern’s Allanton yard first, tested for any integration hiccups and then sent up the road to the company’s Nelson Street yard where the OPC hulls are being constructed.
Northrop Grumman Vice President for Maritime Systems and Integration Todd Leavitt told Defense News this C5I system — command, control, communications, computers, cyber, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance — is more complex than even the Consolidated Afloat Networks and Enterprise Services (CANES) program the company worked on for the U.S. Navy.
That is only a small part of the report which includes information about the ship’s internal communications system. A shoreside facility is a great idea. It will likely eliminate post delivery teething problems that can be expensive and delay deployment.
We really need these ships to work right out of the box.