The submarines require an escort because, while they carry some of the most powerful weapons ever built, they do not mount weapons suitable to protect them from surface threats, like the speedboat that carried a bomb that damaged USS Cole.[1]
Design
Unlike most other ships of her class, Sea Devil mounts a gyro-stabilized remote controlled machine gun.
Sea Devil is slightly modified from the standard design of a Marine Protector cutter, the smallest cutter the Coast Guard currently has in service.[5] Like her sister ships, she is 87 feet (27 m) long, displaces approximately 90 tonnes, and has a maximum speed of 25 knots (46 km/h). They are all equipped with a (water)jet-propelled pursuit boat, that is deployed and retrieved via a stern launching ramp, enabling it to be used without bringing the cutter to a halt.
Sea Devil, and the three other vessels, have been modified from the design of the Coast Guard's other Marine Protector cutters. These four vessels mount an additional gyro-stabilized remotely controlled machine gun.[1][5] The main armament of the standard Marine Protector cutter are a pair of .50-caliber (12.7mm) Browning machine guns, mounted on the rail to either side of the vessel's foredeck. The long range accuracy of these weapons is low, when fired by a gunner on a pitching deck, aiming using "iron sights". Sea Devil, and the three other cutters, have a pedestal, in the middle of the foredeck, that gives their main armament a better field of fire. The gun mounted on the pedestal is the same Browning as the other guns, but gyro stabilization compensates for the pitching deck. The mount is equipped with multiple cameras, enabling the gun aimer on the bridge to focus the gun's sights on a distant target, even at night, or when visibility is impaired by smoke, or fog.
To complete their missions these four ships carry a larger crew. Where a standard Marine Protector cutter deploys with a crew of ten, these vessels deploy with a crew of fifteen.[4][1]
References
^ abcdeChuck Hill (2012-10-29). "CG Maritime Force Protection Units". Archived from the original on 2018-10-02. Retrieved 2017-03-29. The units are perhaps unique in that they have only a single mission, and they are funded by the Navy. They protect Fleet Ballistic Missile submarines while they transit on the surface, to and from their homeports. The possibility of a USS Cole style attack motivated their creation.
^Ed Friedrich (2008-06-20), Enlisting a Coast Guard Cutter to Protect Navy Subs, Kitsap Sun, archived from the original on 2016-10-02, retrieved 2017-03-29, The Navy believed the need was so great that they went out and purchased our cutter for that, said Lt. j.g. Alanna Kaltsas, the boats first skipper, after Fridays commissioning ceremony on a rolling lawn above the bay with the Olympic Mountains as a backdrop.
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