BAE Systems to provide computer- and radar-controlled deck guns for large Coast Guard cutters
WASHINGTON – U.S. Navy surface warfare experts are ordering two computer- and radar-equipped deck guns for large U.S. Coast Guard offshore cutters under terms of a $16.4 million order announced Friday.
Officials of the Naval Sea Systems Command in Washington are asking the BAE Systems Platforms & Services segment in Minneapolis to build two 57-millimeter MK 110 Mod 0 gun mounts and related hardware.
The MK 110 GM consists of a 57-millimeter gun, muzzle velocity radar, power distribution panel, barrel-mounted television camera, a ruggedized laptop computer gun control panel, and an ammunition hoist.
The 57-millimeter MK 110 Mod 0 gun mount is to defeat medium and short-range surface targets, and provide warning and disabling fire for anti-surface warfare (ASuW) operations. The Coast Guard will install these gun mounts on a Coast Guard offshore patrol cutter and a Coast Guard national security cutter.
The Mark 110 Gun Mount is a multi-purpose medium-caliber gun designed to destroy or disable hostile surface ships and boats, as well as aircraft and missiles. A 57-millimeter shell is more than two feet long and weighs between 13.4 and 14.3 pounds.
The Mark 110 Gun Mount can have a pre-programmed proximity fragmentation warhead, as well as an armor-piercing warhead with delayed-action fuze. It can fire salvos of as many as 220 rounds per minute, and has a range of nine miles.
The Coast Guard Heritage-class offshore patrol cutter will be 360 feet long and displace 3,730 tons when it first is delivered in 2021. It will replace the Coast Guard 27-foot and 210-foot medium-endurance cutters, and will perform ports, waterways, and coastal security patrols, drug interdiction, search and rescue, and environmental protection.
The Coast Guard Legend-class national security cutter first took to sea in 2008, and at 418 feet long is the largest and most technologically advanced new cutters It displaces 4,500 tons, and is slightly larger than a U.S. Navy Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigate. It replaces the Coast Guard's aging 378-foot high endurance cutters.
The national security cutter is for ports, waterways, and coastal security patrol, counter-terrorism, drug and migrant interdiction, defense operations, environmental protection, search and rescue, and fisheries protection.
On this contract BAE Systems will do the work in Louisville, Ky., and should be finished by November 2020. For more information contact BAE Systems Platforms & Services online at www.baesystems.com, or Naval Sea Systems Command at www.navsea.navy.mil.
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John Keller | Editor
John Keller is editor-in-chief of Military & Aerospace Electronics magazine, which provides extensive coverage and analysis of enabling electronic and optoelectronic technologies in military, space, and commercial aviation applications. A member of the Military & Aerospace Electronics staff since the magazine's founding in 1989, Mr. Keller took over as chief editor in 1995.
