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Freedom deployment to have CG boarding team

The littoral combat ship Freedom is to take aboard a Coast Guard law enforcement detachment for part of its trial deployment early next year, Navy officials said, with the Coasties substituting for part of the Navy boarding team added to the LCS crew.

Freedom is taking 20 sailors in two visit, board, search and seizure teams in addition to its 75 crew members, and at some point in its deployment next year, Coast Guardsmen temporarily will take over for about half those VBSS sailors, said Lt. Cmdr. Chris Servello, a spokesman for Naval Surface Forces.

Coast Guard detachments are common aboard warships that conduct law enforcement boardings. Smuggler-hunting frigates in the Caribbean and warships in the pirate-ridden Gulf of Aden use Coast Guardsmen’s police powers to seize contraband and make arrests on the high seas.

Although Navy officials would not discuss Freedom’s probable assignments, they and Coast Guard officials are probably eager to pit the ship — with its sprint speed of more than 40 knots — against the small, fast boats that ferry illicit cocaine on its way to the U.S.

After the Coast Guardsmen have ridden Freedom for part of its deployment, the detachment will rotate off during a port visit and the original members of the VBSS team will retake their place, Servello said. It’s not clear yet how long the Coasties would be aboard.

Although Freedom’s Blue Crew has been working up for the deployment at Naval Station Mayport, Fla., training with the boarding teams, its Gold Crew will take over this month and sail the ship for its deployment, said Capt. Michael Taylor, the commodore of the LCS class squadron. The Gold Crew will keep the ship for all of next year’s mission and take it to its home port of Naval Base San Diego.

Freedom will keep its current boarding team aboard the entire time, however, except for the sailors being temporarily swapped out with the Coast Guardsmen. Servello said the boarding team consists of sailors on temporary assigned duty from Maritime Expeditionary Security Forces, part of Navy Expeditionary Combat Command.

When Freedom arrives in San Diego at the end of its deployment, boarding team members will return to their previous jobs with NECC, Servello said.

Navy officials have said that, for now, Freedom’s boarding team is only an accessory to its “tailored surface warfare package,” not a separate mission package. Littoral combat ships are designed to carry three interchangeable sets of surface warfare, anti-mine and anti-submarine gear, but the Navy and Marine Corps have said it’s likely the services will develop additional accessories, one of which could be a dedicated maritime security module.

If that happens, the mission package could bear a close resemblance to Freedom’s current setup, which includes two 12-person berthing modules in one of the ship’s reconfigurable mission zones, two 33-foot rigid-hull inflatable boats, extra weapons, climbing gear and other essentials for at-sea boardings.

Then again, tomorrow’s load-outs also could be different.

“That’s the whole purpose of LCS,” Taylor said. “You can put on what you need for that particular employment or deployment, and you can change it out midway as it goes forward.”