USCG with Trade Protection, ASW, and Mine Removal Roles?

Delta Force

Banned
The United States Coast Guard is already a branch of the military, and already has responsibility for ensuring maritime safety of both ships and people in and around American waters, including ports. It even operated Navy ships during World War II, defending convoys and battling German submarines. So, what if the Coast Guard had gone on to take up the trade protection, ASW, and mine removal roles held by the Navy? This would probably take place sometime around the world wars, or possibly during the Cold War. Historically ASW and mine removal hasn't been a priority of the Navy (it's one of the areas the Navy is considered to be weak in), so might something like that have improved those capabilities?
 
Coast Guard Cutters in the late '70s and through the '80s were fitted for-and a few were equipped with Towed Array sonars, Mark-32 torpedo tubes for the Mark-46 ASW torpedo, and Harpoon SSM launchers. They were to become convoy escorts in wartime, carrying SH-2Fs from the Naval Air Reserve.
 

Delta Force

Banned
Will it then get ASW nukes?

That could be problematic, since the Coast Guard frequently has foreign nationals on board. Coast Guard ships are smaller too, so a nuclear weapons locker would be harder to fit in, especially with the need for the rescue equipment and then the weapons that they would have as a force with a more prominent military role. I don't know if it's common for the Coast Guard to do international visits either, but that would be an issue too.
 

Driftless

Donor
They are already contending with the drug-running semi-submersibles, so ASW is not a big leap today either.
 

Driftless

Donor
USCG Mission

There's a legal/historical issue going back to the founding of the service too. They've historically had to straddle their domestic Treasury Dept policing services, with frequent steps into full-on military roles. I'm sure there have been many instances where it has been difficult to define where one role ends and the other begins.

for example: during prohibition, the Coast Guard often attempted to intercept rum runners coming in from Canada or Mexico - both countries the US had otherwise good relationships with. Put a fully armed Coast Guard cutter on the immediate perimeter of coastal boundaries, or on the Great Lakes and that may upset your neighbors.
 
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USCG Mission

There's a legal/historical issue going back to the founding of the service too. They've historically had to straddle their domestic Treasury Dept policing services, with frequent steps into full-on military roles. I'm sure there have been many instances where it has been difficult to define where one role ends and the other begins.

for example: during prohibition, the Coast Guard often attempted to intercept rum runners coming in from Canada or Mexico - both countries the US had otherwise good relationships with. Put a fully armed Coast Guard cutter on the immediate perimeter of coastal boundaries, or on the Great Lakes and that may upset your neighbors.

I thought during Prohibition the USCG operated old four pipers as cutters. Probably not on the Great Lakes but at sea...
 

Driftless

Donor
I thought during Prohibition the USCG operated old four pipers as cutters. Probably not on the Great Lakes but at sea...

I think you are correct about the old destroyers.

My point was more about the difference in escalation level of diplomatic tension if the USCG went from a Coastie armed with a BAR shooting at motor boats carrying cases of Canadian Whiskey vs that 4-piper with 5" guns and torpedos potentially chasing a rum runner into Canadian or Mexican waters. I think sometimes Coast Guard Captains maybe don't get enough credit, as they have always had to play diplomat and cop, as well as ship's master. On the Great Lakes, I believe the US & Canadian Coast Guards have historically cooperated well in search & rescue, icebreaking duties, etc. You wouldn't want to risk that good will.

The missions the OP described probably could have been in the Coast Guard purview, with a different mission up front - instead of being part of the Dept of the Treasury, that they were always Dept of the Navy.

On a different tack, the Coast Guard is really short of deep sea Icebreakers right now. We have one, I beleive, and it is ageing. The Russians, Canadian, Finns, etc all have more, which is becoming a bigger political issue with the shrinking summer polar ice cap and God & his second cousin want to build oil rigs up there. The US has very little leverage right now.

*edit* the last paragraph could make a pretty good timeline by itself - Who controls the Artic Ocean with a much smaller ice cap?
 
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Delta Force

Banned
I thought during Prohibition the USCG operated old four pipers as cutters. Probably not on the Great Lakes but at sea...

The Great Lakes were demilitarized following the War of 1812 and the Rush-Bagot Treaty.

I think you are correct about the old destroyers.

My point was more about the difference in escalation level of diplomatic tension if the USCG went from a Coastie armed with a BAR shooting at motor boats carrying cases of Canadian Whiskey vs that 4-piper with 5" guns and torpedos potentially chasing a rum runner into Canadian or Mexican waters. I think sometimes Coast Guard Captains maybe don't get enough credit, as they have always had to play diplomat and cop, as well as ship's master. On the Great Lakes, I believe the US & Canadian Coast Guards have historically cooperated well in search & rescue, icebreaking duties, etc. You wouldn't want to risk that good will.

The missions the OP described probably could have been in the Coast Guard purview, with a different mission up front - instead of being part of the Dept of the Treasury, that they were always Dept of the Navy.

On a different tack, the Coast Guard is really short of deep sea Icebreakers right now. We have one, I beleive, and it is ageing. The Russians, Canadian, Finns, etc all have more, which is becoming a bigger political issue with the shrinking summer polar ice cap and God & his second cousin want to build oil rigs up there. The US has very little leverage right now.

*edit* the last paragraph could make a pretty good timeline by itself - Who controls the Artic Ocean with a much smaller ice cap?

Perhaps with more of a military role the USCG could acquire nuclear powered icebreakers? The Polar class were built in the early 1970s, when nuclear power still enjoyed widespread public support, and nuclear Polar class icebreakers could be the United States response to the Soviet Arktika class icebreaker.
 
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