Although the Royal Marines from 539 Assault Squadron have cross trained on CB90’s for some years it appears that we now have one on a six month loan from the Swedish Defence Materiel Administration . The Dutch have also loaned one and the Royal Marines long and successful cooperation with the Netherlands Marine Corps seems set to continue.
Manufactured by Dockstavarvet the CB90H is a well armed, fast patrol and landing craft the ones on loan have been modified so as to enable lift by the davits of an LAD(A) or LPD in place of an LCVP Mk5 landing craft.
This makes obvious sense from an equipment and cooperation perspective and given the modest cost a small group of CB90’s embarked on a Bay Class LSD(A) or Albion Class LPD would create a powerful littoral capability.
CB90 exercises with Swedish marines in the Baltic Sea and on the shores of Gothenburg just south of Vinga light house. The day was useful for both parties to gather and exchange experiences as combat marines and for the Royal Marines to get a really good up-close and personal look at the CB90 fast attack vessel which is in the throws of procurement by the MoD. The vessel is an extremely rapid bit of kit which tops 40 knots and can carry 3 navigating personnel and 18 soldiers / marines. It can also carry out a full combat stop from that speed in just two of it’s own lengths. The Swedes were given a demo of some of the British kit which included a ride in a Zodiac to view its navigational aids.
Here a CB90 flanks Assault Ship HMS BULWARK.
Think Defence 
The CB-90 is one of the coolest amphibious boats around. It allows a traditional amphib boat unit to also conduct (fast) small boat tactics, which are very much a littoral requirement.
Its different variants, armament (Hellfire) and also nav-kit allows it to act in both low-end (piracy/VBSS) and high-end (swarm?) ops.
A pic of a loaned CB-90 in HNLMS de Witt davits – http://tinyurl.com/38xqq82
There is a clear need for this LCPL, but the question is if the funds will be there as well.
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“This makes obvious sense from an equipment and cooperation perspective and given the modest cost a small group of CB90′s embarked on a Bay Class LSD(A) or Albion Class LPD would create a powerful littoral capability.”
Agreed, but i am keen to explore the idea of using from from the cheap and cheerful C2, whose speciality would then become littoral control in addition to being a GP frigate.
An inexpensive speciality i’m sure everyone will agree…..
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Jedi said: “Agreed, but i am keen to explore the idea of using from from the cheap and cheerful C2, whose speciality would then become littoral control in addition to being a GP frigate.”
Yay – Absalon ! 🙂
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Here’s a suggestion for you then chaps, how about more Bay’s in the C2 role
Meets my standardisation criteria, low cost and although there would be a number of compromises I like the idea
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if you stick artisan/camm on it then we have a deal.
but really, you could achieve the same end by sticking some davits on a T45, and stripping out PAMMS/Sampson/Aster.
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Haha nice one Jed, Yay Absalon from me as well:D
Also another Yay for cooperation with the Cloggies.
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Bay = C2 – nah, too much space !
Actually, I think I mentioned this before, and someone provided the link, but on the Photobucket site some chap has designed all sorts of Bay (Schelde Enforcer) based alternatives under the heading of “HMS Aboukir Bay” – see:
Jedi – yes, but over the stern launch and recovery is better than davits….. 🙂
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I have a PDF brochure for the Enforcer class somewhere, they do the basic design in a range of sizes, larger and smaller than the Bays, so I am still veering towards a smaller Enforcer rather than an Absalon.
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granted.
i’d just be happy to keep the amphibs we’ve got.
but nothing about C2 has to be expensive, it does not need to concern itself with area defence, and as long as it can accommodate at least two CB90’s we’re on to a winner.
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We shall not, We shall not be moved, We shall not, We shall not be moved or should that be an I shall…. You still with me Jed?
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Right behind you Euan ! So whatever you do, don’t stop abruptly….. or bend over…..
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I think I was one suggesting Bay as supper absalon. Its not an original Idea. It is based on USN using old LPD’s as Staion ships as in Afruca Station etc on the ground that they had long endurance, and “You can fit a lot of stuff on an LPD” Quote from article in Warship magazine.
Long endurance and big storage capacity, means reduction in logistic load on underway replenishment. Plenty of room for mix and match CB90s helecopters (some quite big ones). ETC
They do not have to be exactly Bay class but something similar/ bit smaller if you like, but BIG SIMPLE and CHEAP to build platforms (the infamous commercial standards), with lots of room to upgrade/ change roles etc. and you could have them floating at basic fit for a couple of hundred milion a piece.
They could also be used to significantly upgrade amphibious capability on the side
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Having be treated to ride in a rigid raider by boot-neck I can assure you that giving them bigger, faster boats isn’t a sensible idea……
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Nowt wrong with Big, Simple and Cheap – it pretty much sums me up….
I have seen an RN Coxswain run his brand new toy (Pacific 32 RHIB) into a banyan bay in Oman soooo fast, that when he hit the submerged rocks, the hull stopped, but the inflatable bit (and the crew) kept going !
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Give me a Dog Boat any day . . .
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By the way fellas, do you like the new layout
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Having read the stats, it does look like the ideal vessel for stopping The Republican Guard from picking up any more matelots who might stray into Iranian waters.
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As for the layout, Admin, old chap, the only complaint I have ever had is with the latest comments coming at the top rather than the bottom of the page. This means that (a) you have to scroll down to read the first comment then back up a comment at a time until you reach the last one and (b) if you’re replying to the latest comment (which is at the top) your reply form is at the bottom.
Otherwise no complaints from me!
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“Supper” I’m eating a nice big kebab with all the trimmings atm and I also have some Chicken pakora, you?
As for fast RHIBS I’ve been for a ride up, down and around the Clyde area in a proper RHIB in the autumn at 40+ knots, albeit properly suited and booted. T’was a hell of a lot of fun well I thought so anyway.
Jed said “Nowt wrong with Big, Simple and Cheap – it pretty much sums me up….”, Well I’m 6’3” about 20 stone have longish messy hair and a beard and my dad calls me Yeti so I know the feeling 🙂
Admin as for the Layout no real problems or complaints from me, it’s looking nice.
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Lets try comments in normal order, see how that goes
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I just refreshed the page there and thought for a moment wtf is going on here until my brain kicked in, we shall indeed give it a test drive
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Anything that moves back towards proper ship’s boats (ships’ boats?) is a good idea. RIBs have their place, but……
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Unfortunately our USN gave up on putting landing craft in davits some years ago. There are now only a few utility craft carried in USN amphib davits. The use of davits supporting warboats is a very good one. Those boats can be launched without flooding the wet well dock AND ICO USN amphib when the wet well is INOP~, they represent a reasonable Plan B for getting “things” ashore
One must be realistic as to CB-90 seakeeping outside of rivers and estuaries. CB90 is not a FAC and much more than an LCPL. Good compromise design. See also USMI’s Riverine Assualt Craft and SafeBoat’s SURC now USN RPB.
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Euan,
You, I want around next time someone dodgy spills my pint! 🙂
Jed,
Yup, me as well. (Although Euan’s got about five stone on me and, especially when seen from above, a good deal more hair.) Seems to be a pattern Oop Nawth. (Though I wasn’t raised there my dad’s people are a mix of Geordies and Yorkshiremen right back to the long boats. And on your behalf let me say, Free Occupied Hull!)
Speaking of long boats, I’m another long-time fan of the CB90. Besides the Scandinavian connections I would point out that the Mexican Navy is making very good use of license-built CB90s against the cartels, along their enormous coastline. (The navy’s the most top-to-bottom professional of their armed services, and beyond a brace of aging American FRAMM frigates they’ve done very good design work on both force structure and kit to deal with violent “non-state actors.”) That’s aside from the Norse and Swedish track record of use.
Jed,
Yes, I like stern launch myself (based on Absalon and Knud Rasmussen the Danes do too.) And much like “let’s be realistic: Type 45 *is* C1,” I think there’s another reality coming together, that Absalon or an Absalon-derived design is Type 26. Then you get A) real frigates instead of GP destroyers with their wings clipped, B)numbers, and C) versatility on picket which is what frigates need these days. That’s one of several battles we get to start fighting Monday afternoon.
Euan,
I’ll see your excellent dodgy kebab and raise you roast stuffed chicken with sausages plus homemade chips and bread sauce. (Vegetables? That’s the stuff that looks like parsley, right ….) Bring a few bottles of Caledonian and a trans-atlantic ticket and I’m glad to share.
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And, you want to talk about ruthless commonality? An “all-Viking” inventory of CB90s and derivatives run by the British, Dutch (I’m with Andy, work with the Cloggies whenever possible, the Glorious Revolution didn’t turn out too badly), Norse, Swedish, and Danish fleets would be very good. Get on to the same hymnal with SSKs, fast jets, and armoured vehicles as well, and you’ll really be cooking.
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Sorry, that was Euan cheering on the orange (good on you, and apologies), but I believe Andy’s voiced the same sentiment.
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Jackstaff nice to hear from you:)
Well at least I’m now of the legal age to be around when someone spills someone’s pint although down the local over here it’s dunking people’s phones into pints, especially flashy smart phones. Also my Kebab isn’t dodgy in the least well at least it’s not reappeared yet and I hope it won’t for a while 😀 although the mixture of Coca cola and Irn Bru might help it along. I think my next trip abroad will be to see relatives in South Africa which isn’t cheap although I do have relations in the US near Baltimore.
I strongly agree with your points on the CB-90, those bloody Swedes really do a good job with lots of things from the Gripen to the BAE SEP to the CB-90. Working with the Cloggies always seems like a good idea as they are reasonably close by and seem to be one of the European nations we can get along with well. In regard to your comments about the Mexican navy I would agree from what little i know about Mexico’s armed forces but it seems to me that quite a few Naval forces seem to be the better branches of the armed forces worldwide. Although I don’t know if that is just my rather limited view of complete global armed forces and my preference for naval warfare prejudicing my opinion.
My view on the EU should be known by those that have floated around the blog for a while and especially military cooperation within the EU, NATO and with other nations. The Dutch, Danes and the other smaller players who we seem to get on with are good people perhaps because we are the bigger player. However the Dutch have a strong colonial past and have territories abroad which is one of the reasons behind good cooperation and they seem to get involved and perhaps they just understand us better. Both nations also have a very strong and historic link to naval forces and global reach via naval power as well as strong link to the sea, trading and commerce via the sea.
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Euan – you forgot the CV90 🙂
Jackstaff – just sprayed coke on the work keyboard (again) at the reference to freeing occupied Hull ! Being half Hull, half Scots, with very recent Dutch and Norwegian (great grandfathers), and with an Swedish ex-girlfriend (who did her national service on a FAC !)and a whole bunch of Danish mates, I am wholeheartedly in support of a “northern coalition” ! What a nice set of maritime capabilities we could provide to NATO 🙂 (with the added benefit of really good looking girlie sailors involved)
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Jed,
I’ll comment more when work lets off, but you had me at “girlie sailors.” And girlie sailors on FACs, you do know how to mess with a bloke’s head when he needs to concentrate. There’s, ahem, reasons I sometimes troll the Scandinavian fleets’ web sites. The photo galleries can be a lot more pleasant than staring back at some pissed-off bootie in camo charging up the beach right after he’s missed breakfast ….
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That’s “troll” in the angler’s sense, not the internet one. I do try to follow ex-Ensign Wesley Crusher’s advice to not be a dick.
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Admin – thank you kind sir !
this
is
a
test 🙂
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Regarding “swarming”
Although its possible to use a dozen of these with a harpoon or two each (or whatever replaces it) to take on a proper warship(s) and win, the losses are likely to be, significant.
I dont know how happy the RM would be about taking 70% casualties in a mission, but the papers would be up in arms about it the next day.
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jackstaff said “I’ll comment more when work lets off, but you had me at “girlie sailors.” And girlie sailors on FACs, you do know how to mess with a bloke’s head when he needs to concentrate. There’s, ahem, reasons I sometimes troll the Scandinavian fleets’ web sites. The photo galleries can be a lot more pleasant”
At the 2005 Festival of Sea I watched a Marine fireteam try to capture (the attention of) the Absalon’s QM. Despite their valiant efforts the Barbie in No1s successfully rebuffed the efforts. It was a pitiful sight. Still makes me a bit tearful.
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X, if she was anything like the blonde Amazon, Dutch helicopter pilot I once saw at the Middle Wallop air show, you can’t blame them for trying!
Although admittedly it is a pitiful sight watching grown men drool uncontrollably like Pavlov’s dogs. We are but simple creatures.
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Blonde Dutch helicopter pilot @ 2:45 😉
She flew the Lynx during the MV Taipan boarding in Somalia.
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@ Richard & Anon
She was very pretty. I am all for working closely with the Dutch too.
(They are funny bunch foreigners. Fancy giving 20 minutes prime air time to show your country’s armed forces in a positive light. Silly sausages!!! They should follow the Beeb’s lead and spend time picking over an operation to see what wrong with an operation where others put themselves them at risk to rescue somebody else there by choice.)
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Perhaps ThinkDefence needs a MilBabe feature like Rogue Gunner’s?
http://www.roguegunner.com/
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X,
Um, maybe (looks furtively to see if his red-headed, half-Glaswegian, half-Texan wife has noticed his endorsement.)
And foreigners are a funny bunch that way 🙂 (Although it does look like the yanks botched that other job, mostly by committing an A-team, of locally based Special Forces, rather than their “a” team for this sort of work. “We don’t know any Delta” usually don’t go in for fragmentation grenades. Too dicey. But they’re probably completely over-committed by the political/command-level masters to the world where underwater knife-fighters will Solve All Our Problems to have manpower available for their original original mission brief, which was precisely this.)
Anon,
I’ve never been much of a fan of 2:45 till now.
Back on something like the original topic for a moment, a “five-power” arrangement inside NATO oop nawth (UK, Canada, Netherlands, Norway, Denmark) would be very good for a number of things:
– Naval collaboration among a set of maritime-oriented nations
– New and streamlined command structures for the Greenland-Svalbard-Finnmark frontier of NATO, one of the few left where there’s real potential for friction and conflict
– Keeping up the ties created in Afghanistan between several of those nations fighting alongside (Anglo-Dutch-Dano-Norwegian worked pretty well for the Duke of Marlborough, maybe it’s worth returning to the model.)
– Gives the UK leverage as the largest partner on all fronts (military, economic, demographic), and gives the group diplomatic leverage w/ Germany, who could look to having the world’s third- (second?) largest merchant marine looked after as US overstretch shrinks back into the Pacific/Indian Ocean orientations
– Gets lots more collaboration between competent companies on cool kit like this
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Jackstaff said “red-headed, half-Glaswegian, half-Texan”
Duuuuuude! I don’t know whether to laugh, to cry, or just to run far and fast.
As to your main thrust of your comment. Most Marines I know or I have come into contact with think a lot of their Cloggie and Skywegian colleagues. It is obvious that “we” and those nations are on a different page defence wise compared to the French and Germans. One of my pet peeves is that defence is another area where the French opt-out (yes I know they are back in NATO proper) of “Europe;” just as they ignore EU laws that don’t suit.
Germans are in a different place. What I don’t understand about them is that for a state with such strong personalities and sense of self has allowed it to be swayed by abstract political ideas; Nazism, Communism, and pacificism. (The French whether left or right always default to a position that is good France.)
On a counter-factual note NATOs history would have made more sense if the UK/Canada (along with Australia and New Zealand in abstract way) looked after the Atlantic, while Germany and France provided Europe’s large standing army, and the US as a “grand strategic reserve.” But France opting out meant that natural balance was never achieved.
It is all the Frenchie’s fault then that we aren’t getting 3 carriers……..
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X,
Now that this thread’s gone stonkingly awry, the first answer would be, if you’re a noob you should probably run. Myself I’m pretty happy with my lot, three daughters and a couple of professional lifetimes later. She’s still one of the sharpest, strongest people I’ve ever met and really (in the Great British Tradition of why drink and Friday night shouldn’t mix) my feelings about redheads (my own partner and in general) can be summed up thus:
http://celebs.icanhascheezburger.com/2010/10/14/celelbrity-pictures-booty-gif/
On a more thoughtful and, maybe, dignified front, one of my closest friends in the States, of many years, a West Africa hand with first the Peace Corps and then Dept. of State, used to play a great game rather like “six degrees from Kevin Bacon” only the object was blaming the French. (She’s of Senegalese extraction so there’s some personal gusto for both of us.) We rarely ever got more than three degrees from blaming the French for every major historical, cultural, and even medical disaster of the last few centuries. Makes a hell of a drinking game as well (she and another old friend, a church choir director no less, were my tutors in home brewing.) Your picture of NATO would have been the right one, I think, and since everything new is old again, maybe we should take take the old “core/periphery” divide (did some IR myself) and rejigger the balance that way. The French are actually smart enough (on their own terms) to view the EU for what it’s become, a device to restore old fashioned Frankish (urban French, West German/Berliner, Walloon) hegemony. Best case for the “European rim” then is to self-organise in response. Not necessarily outside the EU, for however long it lasts, but as a matter of custom and practice if not Brussels flow charts.
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Just about the ref made to the US: “See also USMI’s Riverine Assualt Craft and SafeBoat’s SURC now USN RPB.”
Safeboat paid several million USD for a one-off licence to build the unarmed demonstrator (inspections from the original builder were included in the price, and demanded by the customer… guess who? Those Riverines).
But, more broadly, across the thinkdefence streams standardisation has been a topic. How about the same weapon for direct and indirect fire support? Dropping seven 120 mil rounds on the same target simultaneously (fired at different angles), thereby equating to a whole heavy battery salvo (that will never land so tightly on the target).
Ooops, got the wrong platforms… here is the same on CB90 and a FRESH Scout contender: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6umbRWvzhs&feature=related
CB90 comes up 3 and a half minutes into it.
The fire support vehicle is not exactly a scout, but mechanically the same except longer by a pair for running the tracks).
More commonality: On tactical trials in the US (the AMOS automatic breach-loaded mortar). And the wheeled carrier for it, shown in the first video clip is in use with the Dutch Marines
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Sadly by the time the CB90 becomes available to the Marines it will have had most of it’s teeth pulled. It will have gone from a flexible and formidable boat to a very fast ferry with a GPMG or two.
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Holy ancient thread revival Batman 🙂
Welcome to TD Slaine
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