The United States Navy and the United States Coast Guard, for anyone not in the know they
might be curious as to what the real difference is between the two services.
After all, they both pretty much just operate out at sea, and they both use military-caliber
vessels.
So what's the real difference between the two, and why do we even need a coast guard?
Why doesn't the Navy just do both jobs itself?
In 1790 the United States was facing a dire naval situation.
Its shores were being regularly ravaged by pirate vessels, many of which were sponsored
by Britain.
In an attempt to protect its increasingly important overseas trade, the United States
congress authorized a proposal by the Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton to build
a fleet of ten cutters.
This date- August 4th, 1790- is officially recognized as the birthday of the United States
Coast Guard, and within three years the nascent Coast Guard, then known as The Revenue Cutter
Service, had seen its first anti-piracy action.
When war broke out with France in 1798, Revenue cutters made up about one-third of the total
US fleet, though incredibly they ended up seizing eighteen out of twenty vessels captured
by US ships during the war.
During the subsequent War of 1812, Revenue cutters clashed with British vessels, and
in one engagement the crew of an ambushed American cutter fought so ferociously that
the British captain of the attacking vessel returned the Revenue cutter's sword to her
Captain in tribute to the skill of his fighting men.
It wouldn't be until 1915 that the US Coast Guard got its official namesake, when the
Life-Saving Service, a system of patrol ships dispatched to rescue sailors in distress,
and the Revenue Cutter Service were merged together into one service.
On the 6th of April, 1917, the US declared war on Germany and the Navy broadcasted “Plan
One Acknowledge” to all Coast Guard bases and stations, officially transferring control
of all Coast Guard assets to the US Navy for the duration of the war.
In support of the war, six Coast Guard cutters were dispatched to Europe for convoy escort
duties, while smaller vessels patrolled the waters off the American coast in search of
German subs.
This would be mirrored two decades later when the US Navy once more assumed control over
the Coast Guard and its vessels.
In both wars Coast Guard ships defended convoys from German subs, and suffered losses of ships
and sailors in attacks.
The US Navy was officially established on October 13th, 1775.
Despite being outgunned by the mighty British Royal Navy, America has historically had a
rich naval tradition, given the vast amount of trade it engages in with overseas powers.
This meant that the rebel colonies had a rich pool of experienced sailors, captains, and
shipbuilders, and in little time the first vessels of the Continental Navy were putting
out to sea.
Despite being overwhelmingly outgunned by superior British vessels, American captains
nevertheless managed to secure several strategic wins, or turn British victories into Pyrrhic
victories with little true value.
After winning the Revolutionary War, the United States disbanded its navy as it could not
afford to keep it financed.
Without the funds to pay tribute to the Barbary states, the nations that made up the north
coast of Africa, American ships were plundered by Barbary pirates.
The situation only grew worse when in 1793 a truce was negotiated between Portugal and
Algiers, which ended Portugal's blockade of the Strait of Gibraltar and allowed the Barbary
pirates to escape the Mediterranean.
As a result, eleven American vessels and their crews were captured and sold into slavery.
This led to the US congress to approve the Naval Act of 1794, which authorized the building
of six frigates.
In 1798 when war was declared on France, the US Navy was officially re-established.
After fending off French vessels during the war, the Barbary pirate states declared open
war on the US in 1801 when the US refused to pay tribute.
This led the US Navy to conduct the first foreign conquest of an enemy state, battling
Barbary ships in Tripoli and landing a contingent of American Marines to capture the city of
Derna.
During the War of 1812 against the British, the US Navy found itself greatly outgunned
and outnumbered by the Royal Navy.
As a result most of her best ships were blockaded in port, and many were captured by ground
assaults and burned at the docks.
Despite this, the US Navy managed to capture several British ships, and even had a brief
but highly successful campaign against British merchant ships in the Pacific.
Key victories in the Great Lakes by the US Navy denied the British several key strategic
concessions during the negotiations for peace, and these victories ensured that the Navy
would remain fully funded even after the war was over.
At last the United States would have a respectable and full-time navy.
During the American Civil War the Union Navy completely dominated the Confederate Navy,
and the blockade of southern ports proved devastating to the Confederacy, hasting along
the end of the war.
It would be this war however when the world would witness the effects of battle between
two ironclads, new ships that were fully armored with metal plating for the first time.
On March 9th, 1862, the whole world acknowledged that wooden ships were officially obsolete,
as Union and Confederate ironclads attacked each other while tearing through the wooden-hulled
ships of both sides.
The US Navy would sadly decline until just prior to World War I, when it became the second
most powerful navy in the world after the Royal Navy.
With World War II though the US surpassed the Royal Navy, and officially became the
most powerful navy on earth.
Today the American navy remains head and shoulders ahead of its nearest competitors, and is matched
by no other navy anywhere.
So now that we know about the two services, just what is the difference between the two
really?
Well, essentially both services have similar, but distinct jobs.
The US Coast Guard is America's primary enforcer of maritime law, a task that the US Navy may
occasionally assist with, but does not actively partake in.
The Coast Guard's civil duties are multiple, and they are responsible for their age-old
tradition of maintaining lighthouses, buoys and other navigational aids for civilian traffic-
although admittedly the only lighthouses in official operations today are automated.
The Coast Guard routinely monitors ship traffic to ensure that vessels of all sizes are obeying
proper maritime rules and regulations.
They also help keep traffic manageable at some of the world's busiest ports, as well
as combat smuggling and illegal immigration by searching for stowaways or responding to
a ship who's discovered them hidden on board.
Famously, the US Coast Guard is the primary deterrent to drug smuggling on the ocean,
and operates a fleet of about 200 cutters and smaller patrol craft to chase down suspected
smugglers.
Recently a video of Coast Guard officers stopping a drug smuggling submarine has gone viral,
and this is the job the Coasties do every day.
The Coast Guard however is also responsible for responding to disasters at sea.
When your ship is going down in rough waters and you desperately need help, it's the Coast
Guard who'll come to rescue the day.
No matter what nationality you are, as long as you're in American waters you have a guardian
angel on your side, and that's a Coast Guard helicopter carrying rescue divers, who have
one of the most dangerous jobs in the world.
However in war time the Coast Guard can also be called upon to supplement the abilities
of the US Navy.
While today its National Security Cutters aren't equipped with the heavy, long-range
firepower needed to take on most military vessels, they still pack a formidable wallop
with a 57mm gun, a 20mm Phalanx CIWs (see-whiz) for close-range defense against drones, small
boats, and anti-ship missiles, and four .50 caliber machine guns and 4 7.62 caliber machine
guns.
The real strength of each cutter though is the robust suite of communications and intelligence
sensors, which allows each ship to act as eyes and ears for Navy ships anywhere within
their theater of operations.
A National Security Cutter may lack the heavy firepower to go toe-to-toe with a modern war
ship, but it has everything needed to target an enemy vessel and call in a strike from
a friendly Navy vessel.
In essence, the US Coast Guard is responsible for the coasts and various waterways of the
United States.
In war they can supplement the US Navy, and ensure that any enemy combatant entering or
even approaching American territorial waters, or those of Canada or Mexico, is quickly engaged
by nearby Navy vessels or land-based air power.
The US Navy's core mission is pretty much exactly the opposite of the Coast Guard, and
their primary war-time objective is to ensure that no enemy force ever again sets foot on
American soil.
To achieve this it operates the largest fleet of surface and subsurface vessels anywhere
in the world, and the US navy on its own is more powerful than its next dozen competitors
put together.
A nation with a rich maritime tradition, the US has long put an emphasis on a strong navy,
and it now sees the navy as the primary peacekeeping tool in its toolbox.
The US Navy's real mission however is to ensure global stability and flow of free trade.
Figuring that as long as the world was busy trading with itself, it wouldn't want to go
to war and disrupt lucrative trade with its neighbors.
To this end, the American Navy has a global presence to help reassure weaker powers that
their merchant vessels won't be harassed, whether by pirates or hostile foreign nations.
Where once tribute was demanded of sea-going vessels by various rogue or national states,
today the world enjoys global free trade thanks to the US Navy and its NATO allies.
To achieve its objectives, the US navy operates the largest force of aircraft carriers in
the world, totaling at 10 Nimitz class carriers and one of the brand new Gerald R. Ford class.
The naval air power of the American navy combined with that of the US Marine Corps makes it
the second-largest air force in the world.
These aircraft carriers are themselves supplemented by 9 amphibious assault ships.
Formerly known as amphibious assault carriers, these were typically helicopter carriers equipped
with amphibious landing craft, but now sport vertical take-off or short take-off and landing
aircraft.
10 amphibious transport docks can land hundreds of American troops at a time anywhere in the
world within days of hostilities breaking out, and a further two are under construction
as tensions with China in the South Pacific rise.
A further 12 dock landing ships supplement America's already prodigious amphibious forces,
and given that the US has total dominance in its own global hemisphere, it only makes
sense that it places so much emphasis on having a navy capable of conducting expeditionary
amphibious landings.
If you've seen our video United States vs The World, then you already know that it's
exactly this lack of transport capability that would allow the US navy to fight the
world's navies to a standstill, and make an invasion of the Americas impossible.
To knock enemy ships out of the water though, the US Navy has a fleet of 22 Ticonderoga
class guided missile cruisers, each armed with dozens of various types of missiles ranging
from fleet air defense to anti-ship and even dual-purpose.
The backbone of the Navy's surface power however comes from its fleet of 67 Arleigh Burke class
destroyers, and 2 Zumwalt stealth destroyers currently deployed.
These ships do exactly as their name implies, and are the heaviest surface combatants since
the retirement of the battleship by the world's navies.
Prowling under the waves all around the world is the deadliest submarine fleet in the world,
with 35 Los Angeles attack subs, 3 Seawolf class subs, 15 Virginia class subs, and 14
Ohio class subs.
While its anti-submarine capabilities severely atrophied after the end of the Cold War, the
US still fields the most advanced subs in the world, and are considered just as stealthy
as new diesel-electric subs being fielded today by smaller navies.
Unlike diesel-electrics though, nuclear submarines offer a far greater endurance and allow the
US navy to engage enemies far from home, and threaten hostile fleets in their own territorial
waters.
The US coast guard and the US navy could be seen as two branches on the same tree, but
have markedly different mission sets.
While both in peacetime and wartime the services lend aid to each other and support each other's
missions, ultimately the US navy is considered the 'bigger cousin', and it's likely that
in another major conflict, the Coast Guard would once more fall under the Navy's jurisdiction.
Which of the two services would you rather serve with?
Have you ever served in either?
Let us know in the comments!
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