U.S. Navy Bloodhounds: Establishing A New Maritime Security Combatant

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U.S. Navy Bloodhounds: Establishing A New Maritime Security Combatant

R. P. Donohue

To protect the United States’ 4.5 million miles of Economic Exclusion Zone, maritime forces are directed to conduct homeland defense missions and support civil authorities as far from U.S. shorelines as possible to protect the country from transnational threats. In order to protect the United States from transnational organized crime regimes and their continued maritime narcotics trafficking, the U.S. Navy requires a surface combatant to fulfill these interdiction missions. Therefore, with the Navy’s decommissioning of its patrol frigates, should the Navy plan development of a new vessel, rebuild the Oliver Hazard Perry class frigates, or refocus the LCS program to replace the current frigate’s capabilities in combating narcotic trafficking? In turn, the Oliver Hazard Perry class was a sound platform that performed well, the LCS is a troubled program facing severe financial, stability, and lethality issues, while the design and construction of a new frigate is entirely too costly and time consuming. With these considerations in mind, this thesis proposes the reconstruction of the Oliver Hazard Perry class frigate for maritime security operations, as a result of its illustrious multirole career, survivability, and relatively cheaper price point than the increasingly expensive and unproven LCS ship class.