Check out the link below to the Coast Guard's web site!

Pat Stadt, one of our West River catamaran sailors who is a '79 graduate of the Coast Guard academy, has this year once again left the MD area for an assignment. This time, it's as the first commanding officer of the first new USCG ship in a very long time. This past weekend was the Christening of the USCGC Bertholf in Pascagoula.

Pat has traded 18' at 160lbs for 418' at 4300lt!

Check out the CG web site, that's Pat on the left, his new ship in the background. Check out the Northrop Grumman site for more info on the ship and its namesake.

Congratulations to Pat and the Coast Guard!

Coast Guard site

Northrop's Ship Systems

Thats awesome! Go Coast Guard! and congrats for the Captain. Isnt this his second command afloat unit?

His previous ship-board assignment was as the Captain of the USCGC Rush based out of Hawaii.

Am I reading that spec correctly where it says it can deploy UAVs?

Thats incredibly cool if true, and could undoubtedly be a useful tool to the coasties.

Yep, it is designed to deploy and retrieve UAVs, but the UAV program for it is still under development so it will probably be awhile before that happens.

Looks like a bit like a baby Burke-class destroyer - right down to the paper-thin hull plating (notice the "waffle" pattern in the hull caused by weld distortion)

Also has a CIWS - probably a first on a CG boat.


You really hope you never hear it go off for real.

Pretty sure it's not a first...

May not want to need it to go off for real, but I'd love to see a live-fire test!

I helped provide communications support to the weapons platoon of a helicopter assault company. The payoff was taking a ride while they fired mini guns and 17 pound rockets at stationary targets. I came back deaf from the guns and had holes burned in my uniform from molten aluminum sprayed from the rockets exhaust.

It was great!! <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

They should sell tickets to exercises like that!

Pat had told me of test where they towed an inert missile behind a jet and let a Phalanx have at it. In the blink of an eye it was turned to swiss cheese... Supposedly they now track surface threats as well as airborne. Make sure you have permission before you approach!

I love those phalanx guns. Accuracy by Volume! Or "wall of depleted uranium defense"

That phalanx gun has a radar that steers a continuous stream of bullets into any fast moving object tracked by the Doppler radar. They can be fully automatic so that there is no need for humans to select targets and approve their removal. Even fast jets are no match. However, like most things designed during the cold war, the design specs forgot about slow things like terrorists in fishing boats or in our case, catamarans. Now they are being retrofitted with optical systems to fix this flaw. The 'new' military now has weapons optimized to take out catamarans :-)

Matt

Here is some footage of that weapon. These are landbased, but I am sure they are the same or close to

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4897647549985392214

I would hate to be on the recieving end!