02/03/2015
https://www.congress.gov...
"The Coast Guard's program of record maintains that 8 national security cutters are the minimum required to replace the 12 aging high-endurance cutters."
"And just to reiterate, to do the mission of the 12 older cutters, we need the 8 NSC cutters?"
"if anything, we probably need additional cutters, if we could afford them."
"I have toured the cutter Number 3 a few months ago. It was very, very impressive."