From the initial post and in line with my preferred option I think we should still retain a full spectrum capability but at a reduced scale, in this context, the Single Task Group. Surrounding this nucleus will be a number of capability areas in which we should expand into.
The selection of the expanded areas or ‘capability plus’ is rooted in the RUSI contributory concept, achieving specific UK centric security advantage or influence in coalition operations
The Forward Presence Squadron concept can be seen as a ‘Capability Plus’ concept and I have broken this out as a separate post but the additional areas we should swing resources to are
- Securing and Operating in the Littoral
- Mines Countermeasures
- Humanitarian support/disaster relief
What characterises the chosen Capability Plus areas is that the UK already has something to build upon, an existing capability at an advanced stage of maturity.
Equipment and organisation will be described in subsequent posts but for now, the capability plus areas are described below.
Contents
Operating in the Littoral
Defining the littoral is as difficult as creating a force structure with terms such as brown and green water characterising the discussion but the range of environments is very large. It could be a coastal region in a high sea state or an inland waterway with dense cover with everything in between.
But one thing is certain, it is an area that continues to create challenges and an area that is likely to see an increasing operational frequency. The Forward Presence Squadrons will also most likely operate in the littoral environment.
The UK already possesses a reasonable littoral capability, 539 Assault Squadron Royal Marines, a number of hover and assault craft and a number of amphibious vessels that can conduct operations in complex riverine, estuarial and coastal environments but it is at a relatively small scale.
Operations in Southern Iraq showed clearly the benefits of having an effective littoral capability with joint RN/RM/RAF and Army operations conducted at various points in the campaign and at varying intensities.
We should expand both the scope and scale of this capability, learning from others as necessary and developing doctrine and equipment in line with best practice.
Mines Countermeasures
Operations to clear the waterways of the port of Umm Qasr and its surrounding area in the Iraq conflict of 2003 demonstrated just how effective cheap and simple mines can be at delaying major operations, denying port facilities and approaches. There is very little capability in NATO for over the beach logistics and what is there simply cannot match the offload rate of a proper port facility.
Mine clearance in port areas is made infinitely worse by sea beds cluttered with the detritus of a busy shipping industry and there are no shortcuts, the area simply has to be cleared or the level of risk reduced to such an extent that military, civilian and military chartered civilian vessels can operate.
The sea mine is the equivalent of the IED, cheap, easy to make, easy to deploy, tremendously effective and difficult to counter. In addition to port facilities, mines can completely disrupt operations around offshore energy facilities, whether than is traditional oil and gas or in the future, renewable.
The Iraqis deployed a number of different types but the two most common were the indigenous LUGM-145 and the Italian Manta. The LUGM can trace its roots back to the Soviet M-08 design of WWII vintage which in turn goes back to WWI, the traditional moored or floating mine with chemical horn initiators. The LUGM-145 was responsible for damaging the M/V Rover Star in 1984 and USS Tripoli in 1991. The Manta is a seabed placed mine that can be deployed by ships, helicopters or submarines and is initiated by acoustic or magnetic influence or command detonated.
Even with a step change in over the beach logistics capabilities the vulnerability of many kinds of operation to cheap sea mines will remain and likely increasingly exploited.
Humanitarian Support and Disaster Relief
Humanitarian support and disaster relief is a component mission of some of the presence squadrons but we should also consider maintaining a small capability in addition.
There is no doubt the good will generated by disaster relief operations can be enduring, this can be translated to national advantage in a number of ways. In addition to disaster relief, similar good will can be generated by enduring development operations in the maritime domain.
In a post natural disaster period, the naval response will usually be second to respond, search teams for example usually deploy by air, so the capabilities must be tailored and applicable. Maritime response can find it difficult to make a difference if port facilities have been damaged. Helicopters can of course assist here but for weight and volume, nothing beats delivery by sea. Rapid port augmentation is an important capability that also has dual use.
The capabilities described here have a valuable war role as well.
This isn’t about being fluffy but generating real soft power
######## OTHER POSTS IN THIS SERIES ##########
The Future of the Royal Navy 01 – (Context)
The Future of the Royal Navy 02 – (Tasks and General Approach)
The Future of the Royal Navy 03 – (Single Task Group)
The Future of the Royal Navy 04 – (Forward Presence Squadrons)
The Future of the Royal Navy 05 – (Equipment – T26)
The Future of the Royal Navy 06 – (Capability Plus)
The Future of the Royal Navy 07 – (Equipping the Forward Presence Squadron)
The Future of the Royal Navy 08 – (Equipping the Littoral Operations Group)
The Future of the Royal Navy 09 – (Equipping the Disaster Support Group)
The Future of the Royal Navy 10 – (Mine Countermeasures and Survey)
Beachhead logistics have been neglected for a long time, due to the Euro-centric ASW/AAW defensive role carried out by the RN. Time to dust off the scematics from some 1944 vintage Mulberry units and start from there!
Thinking out loud: What about a semi-submersible beaching craft, able to carry it’s own cargo and them operate as a temporary insgore pier?
An interesting post. Operating in the littoral is a fascinating question. you have even highlighted the difficulty in defining the “littoral”. The question is what do we want to do in the littoral? Do we wish to operate freely or deny the enemy the opportunity to operate. You use Iraq to illustrate a Littoral environment and whilst ops in the NAG (south of buoy 1) are definitely littoral you must remember that the Port of Umm Qasr is 55NM up river of the OPLATS and is arguably riverine rather than littoral operations.
Despite this the SRMH was able to clear up to and beyond the port whilst an RFA was the first ship to visit. The 2003 survey done by the RN remains the most extant survey despite the creation of 2 new jetties by the IQN in Umm Qasr.
Forgive the ramblings I guess what I am trying to say is that given to operate in the “true littoral” Al fawh gunline RM offload, the riverine(up to UMM Qasr including MCMV, Survey and RFA offload and disaster relief Caribbean and Highbrow evacuation(The RN took Bulwark alongside and offloaded 1350 people in 1 day) The US LPDs were anchored offshore. We are actually pretty good at this stuff already. there is lots of stuff we are not good at but these tasks are pretty well covered.
@APOTS, oneof the reasons I chose therse was because we already have good capabilities, just not enough of them and we have to make sure we don’t fall behind. Hence, trading off the high end to get enable sufficient funding lines for these capabilities that actually get used, will be used more often and are being beglected.
@Dangerous Dave, have a look here
http://www.thinkdefence.co.uk/2009/06/d-day-after/
http://www.thinkdefence.co.uk/2010/05/ship-to-shore-logistics/
http://www.thinkdefence.co.uk/2010/01/haiti-and-d-day/
TD
Yes they were used and proved adequate to the job. they were also all demonstrations of the flexibility inherent in high end war fighting platforms. In every occasion a serious war fighting ship carried out the auxiliary role. Surely demonstrating flexibility.
@TD. Thanks for the reminders. Gosh I’d forgotten about Mexeflotes, although I dunno how!
Slightly off-topic but it’s on the subject of leveraging our capabilities.
I understand that the UK is to focus quite strongly on EW and ISR R&D spending. Now the Suter EW system came onto my radar (sorry) after the Israelis allegedly used it (or a similar system) to decoy Syrian air defence networks in their Operation Orchard airstrike in 2007. My question is, does anyone know if it’s just older SAM types that are susceptible to this kind of network attack, or are newer systems equally vulnerable. Following on from this, I’ve not heard anything about the application of this type of system in the naval environment. If you could deploy this kind of EW against (for example) an Aegis cruiser it could render entire battlegroups vulnerable. Does anyone know how feasible this sort of thing is? Public information on Suter is scarce, and I’m not sure about its range, and other features.
Thanks
Dom
Hi all, (TD & APATS so far),
“Operating in the littoral is a fascinating question. you have even highlighted the difficulty in defining the “littoral”. The question is what do we want to do in the littoral? Do we wish to operate freely or deny the enemy the opportunity to operate. You use Iraq to illustrate a Littoral environment”
- blue/ green/ brown? These definitions are based on ships (and to a degree on their weapon systems’ reach and their) capabilities
- look at the world map (and what the geographers say about “littoral”); it is not about the Naval vs. Continental strategies (v good contribution, but made over a 100 yrs ago)
We need to consider, not the geographers’ continental shelf (and consequently, who will own the riches by the international law implications), but the zone (for now totally excluding air, for clarity), which is not “over-the-horizon”
-which in itself is a very misleading term!
Littoral, I guess, is out of reach of purely land-based combat systems of “the” enemy to be engaged”? Who is the enemy: Exclude major powers but you still have great many shore-based anti-ship missiles, and other threats, to consider for defending against, while projecting power .
Sorry to be rambling in such a general way, but getting the definitions/ focus right should help with both the discussion and the cababilities we are trying to define, hone/ polish and promote (for prioritisation and funding)?
Whatever happened to Ship to Objective Manoeuvre (STOM)? When I started at Dartmouth it was all the rage and the Osprey was the ‘golden bullet’ of future littoral manoeuvre. Times change when the cash runs out.
I make no claim to knowledge in this area – somewhere below arm-chair layman’s musings would be fair, so feel free to blow this out of the water; I’m not even sure if ‘littoral’ particularly means in support of a ground force landing or just means naval operations in the proximity of land in general (which could be of a quite different nature). However, it seems to me that the Royal Navy’s ships are strongly configured to the strategic plot type of high end warfare on the high seas – shooting down air craft from many miles away or searching for submarines in the wilderness of the ocean. At a glance it sort of looks as though the navy has neglected attack or defensive capability against an aggressor engaging at close range eg less than a mile, and ships that can manoeuvre in a confined space.
Away from high end warfare a good measure of future tasks for the navy might involve close quarters action – antipiracy, hostage rescue, freeing hostage ships, breaking blockades, making blockades, protecting ports, peacekeeping, policing shipping lanes, policing EEZ, protecting oil rigs and wind farms, defending oneself against terrorist attack, etc. All these have the feel of being actions at very close range and in any situation you may not recognise who the enemy is until they have shot at you and by then it’s too late to start thinking you should have had Sea Wolf locked on.
Does anyone else think there is a capability gap here?
Richard W
Yes
APATS
We get it.
High end warships are better than low end warships.
Nuclear Nimitz class carriers are better that Illustrious. Arliegh b’s are better than t42′s.
High end ships can do low end, low end can’t do high end.
We just can’t afford them. look at the fiasco of the type 45 missile systems US essentially going to sea as gun platfrom.
talking of LCS why dont we look at the US freedom class ,3000t 45knts ,range 3500nm ,asw , anti-mine warfare ,RAM , NLOS missile, 40 crew up to 75 when mission capable , 2 x helo’s ,21 day endurance , give em a ring see how much they are , we only 10 they will do for the MED ,CARRIBEAN , GULF , COASTAL WATERS