Ones of those amorphous definitions that seems to change depending on your viewpoint is the ‘littoral’
Whilst catching up with a spot of twitter this evening I saw this being re-tweeted
Importance of the littoral : 61% of world’s total Gross National Income comes from within 100 km of the coastline
Why not 200, or 5, or 5?
So, off to Google Map Tools.
Two other definitions
1. A coastal region; a shore.
2. The region or zone between the limits of high and low tides.
So by the Tweet definition, proclaiming 100km as within the littoral, it would seem the residents of Leeds are now in a coastal region.
Is this another example of using dodgy and misleading statistics to reinforce a point of view, clutching at straws in order to desperately make your perspective sound impressive or just a reasonable statement of fact?
We are an island as well you know 
@ TD, Do cluster munitions operate in the same manner when they hit water as land though? Is it he sheer amount of munitions or the manner they react and splinter on impact? Someone on here will know!
@ wf & TD
I think if we ever do have an exchange of fire with China one of the reasons we will loose is because they don’t play by our rules. When that happens there will be a lot of intellectual stress in the command staffs of the West. Staffs inculcated with Western liberal ideals through out their education and professional careers. They will have to reconcile their idea of civilisation against protecting it using methods and practices that sit outside the idea
itself. One hopes if that day arrives there remains enough military back bone to deal with the problem and the politicians. The idea of an equal opportunities military armed with less than lethal weapons and served logistically by Eddie Stobart, commanded from Brussels or Berlin (I get them confused) leaves me feeling a bit queasy.
@x: agreed. There’s an awful lot of “oh, this won’t happen because no one does it anymore” thinking going on. But we see that all the time here
APATS,
there is a prox / airburst setting on (G)MLRS.
I seem to be in a lifelong position of playing the red commander. I recall once when I was asked to do so for a police exercise as part of an anti-terrorism course for the constabularies of NW England. My opening serial of machine gunning a school playground in Preston at break-time to divert attention and resources was ruled out of order by the senior DS – this was a couple of years pre-Dunblane. So was my Plan B of setting firebombs in a shopping mall in Lancaster. Apparently, these incidents would have been considered “Regional Emergencies” and thus attract every police resource going (that was sort of my point), leaving nothing available for any response to my other dastardly plans. It’s really quite sad that is how the coppers thought in 1993, or that a notional exercise scenario of 6 committed terrorists could completely stymie a whole region of the UK. And just in case anyone reading this may have some emotional reaction to Dunblane, I am sorry to cause that and emphasise that the exercise preceded those tragic events by 2 years, and that I am the father now of two children myself.
Nevertheless, have you not noticed that large piece of Iranian coastline “outside” of the Straits of Hormuz? Or the serious investment the Iranians are making to create a new port from scratch?
James, That is the job of the red commander. Why else do we consider the “enemy most dangerous COA”?
The problems the Iranians have is that 90% percent of their oil has to go through Kharg Island onto tankers and south. They have not started construction of a pipeline South of Hormuz yet and estimates of construction time are 2 years.
Iran doesn’t need to worry about exporting oil by sea if they ‘close the straits’. It will not be an option for them, regardless of where their export terminals are.
APATS,
two years is not so long in the grand scheme of things, particularly while the west is obsessed with Eurobonds and elections. An Iranian strategic push (which it appears to be), coupled with a lack of planning permission issues, lots of Chinese money and lots of cheap immigrant labour can get quite a reasonable port going in 2 years, I would have thought.
Oddly (maybe completely unlinked), most western NATO nations are going to be balls out extracting kit from Afghanistan in 2 years, and not very balanced to respond to Mr Angry Mullah.
Anixtu,
Iran has built up 4 years of credits through oil exports, and has a strategic reserve of 12 months of medicines, food and locally stockpiled oil for power stations. Yes, the international community could make life difficult with sanctions and blockades, but the country is actually self-sufficient in food and water. Is the west self-sufficient on oil?
@ wf said “oh, this won’t happen because no one does it anymore”
I do find it amusing it when some here argue away almost all possible engagements. But I am just a silly civilian what do I know?
James, depends on the reaction from the West, If Iran shutting Straits of Hormuz and attacking any Western Shipping transiting on the Omani side is seen as an act of war then it actually has about 12 hours worth of stockpiles, 14 hours for re attacks. As for removing kit from Afghanistan, that is land kit and I am not sure anyone really wants to try and occupy Iran.
About 11 million barrels pass through Hormuz every day,a lot of it goes East. pipeline capacity is about 8 million though most hardly utilised. Could Iran keep them shut long enough to cripple Western economies (more than we already are)?
I for one hope we never find out.
AAPTS,
that’s why the most stressing scenario is some for of big argument, threats and so on, but stopping short of war. Sends oil prices skywards, doesn’t involve bombing, causes the west huge angst and problems with running quasi-peace enforcement operation, but not being allowed by the international community to completely shut down Iran.
Why would Iran want to go to war with the west, which it would lose, when it can slowly grind the living will out of us? They can cost us bucket loads more difficulty than we can them, short of war and with the west playing nicely according to ROE, and them playing along only enough to prevent the first TLAM strike. Particularly if they have the Chinese veto in their pocket (and China not very happy with the US at the ‘mo, what with the rebalancing of the US fleets etc, plus holding about a third of US foreign debt that they can afford to dump at less national cost than to the US).
That’s why Israel is a strategic card for the US. At a nod from 1800 Pennsylvania Avenue, the Israelis can cause a war in a difficult situation. Just ramp up the nuclear rhetoric. Then the rest of us can throw away the peacetime ROE and get stuck in properly.
James,
“Is the west self-sufficient on oil?”
Most of the world is not self-sufficient in oil. Everyone has an interest in keeping oil flowing through the Straits. Not that it matters to a global market, but most of the oil exported from the Middle East goes further east, not west.
For Iran to take action against shipping in the Straits of Hormuz is immediate regime suicide. At least until they get nukes, then it gets more interesting.
Wasn’t there an exercise a while ago where some fiendish Red kept sinking the Blue carrier, and kept being over-ruled and disqualified every time he did so: “Nope, the enemy wouldn’t do something so not cricket – try again… nope, they wouldn’t do that either… nope… look, you’re ruining this exercise!”
Must admit that my two frigates with 127mm Vulcanos being a complete pain in the arse was from a not too nice and fluffy ROE point of view, like: “Over the course of the day, we will hit all of your major railway stations, at random, with a random number of shells, a random number of times. We really don’t want to hurt anybody, so we suggest that none of you use your railways today.” Next day you add something else to the declared target set, and so on, with your big magazines. Not really after doing much damage, and hitting large targets that you can’t really miss from OTH, but with a lot of economic/enemy morale damage.
Kind of a given that you’ll have taken out the other guy’s SSK’s and airforce etc first, and have established a watercraft exclusion zone. And that it’ll be more useful against soft and pampered types with developed and fragile (‘efficient’) infrastructures.
A country might be able to weather the storm of a handfull of available TLAMs, but the above would be really annoying, since it’s cheap and relentless.
I don’t particularly have anything against railway stations, by the way [except for f**king Manchester Victoria... grrr...], but I tend to use Leeds railway station a fair amount, but not much else in Leeds; so Leeds = connecting train to me.
James, Iran is self sufficient in crude but not refined products and without those, its ability to feed and water itself plus sustain a viable economy is compromised
Tsz 52 It was a US exercise, mostly computer simulated and US based but massive. Simulated an invasion of a Gulf like state! Red Commander used motor bike messengers and flags on mosques etc to set up a coordinated attack using suicide aircraft and small boats that wiped out most of Blue Force. Exercise was reset. Blue Force had some valid complaints, was not allowed to set up an air and surface exclusion zone and had to disable SPY radar within certain range of merchies, it can cause a TLF. Blue did however move his forces inside a “choke point” and limit his “sea room”. Valuable lessons learned all round.
Tsz52,
unfortunately the ruddy lawyers have got in the way. Post WW2, threatening that sort of action against civvies is going to get you a war crimes rap.
TD,
I’m fairly sure that Iran has got the stock of the refined products, not just the wells and ability to pump. I saw a presentation by FCO supported by Min Ag ‘N Fish that in their river deltas, they have sufficient agricultural capacity to keep going on a surprisingly healthy diet for more than a year. Problem for us, it’s a big old country, and the population not enormous. Not for no reason they were the cradle of civilisation, where agriculture was invented and the Golden Crescent, etc. What used to be good was that it was all in the west, alongside Iraq. But then we left Iraq, and the Shias in eastern Iraq got friendly with Iran. Oh bugger.
Hmm… if I were to be asked to mess up a frigate from a coastline, my 1st response would be to reach for my 155mm/MLRS and see if I can get some TOT fire with airburst rounds. Doesn’t have to kill it 1st, just seriously scratch the superstructure, more specifically, the radar. If any guns/exposed Harpoon tubes/personnel get damaged, it’s a bonus.
Once it’s blind, own time, own target, carry on with PBs and ATGMs, even if you have to fire them from shore.
Yes it may take 2 regiments, but artillery is more common than frigates, and it’s hardly one use.
So, no. No solo lone ranger frigate going in for a gun run. You want to do this, you use carrier air to “sanitize” 80km in of most artillery 1st, then sail the floaty little box in.
James, Iran is in the weird position of being a massive exporter of crude oil but still imports 30% of its required refined products due to a lack of refining capacity.
Observer, Agreed a Frigate would lose a slug fest every time. Where it is useful would be its ability to simply follow a shipping lane 30Nm offshore transmitting only on I band Nav radar, receive the satellite GPS locations for fixed batteries then simply program the command system to put 5 or 10 rounds on top of each fire and simply reverse coure in the aftermath to be a blip in the opposite lane surrounded by merchant vessels. Of course one of the targets would be anything monitoring shipping and observing the course reversal.
That is how I would play it.
APATS, no doubt, but if they’ve had the foresight to stock up on what they can’t produce themselves….? As I believe they have.
Oddly, thinking in strategic terms, Iran’s CofG is in keeping western gloves ON. We are pussies with ROE. There’s a huge amount of flex the Iranians can exploit while our gloves are on, but only 2 weeks until we force regime change when we take our gloves off. Slightly sub CofG, there’s their relations with other nations who like their oil, and with borders to all sorts of (from a western perspective) dodgy neighbours who will quite happily look the other way, we westerners don’t really rule the roost apart from at sea.
James, I guess only man at Mossad, CIA and MI6 have any real answers to the stockpile questions. Agree ref COG, as long as they play by their rules and we by ours we are at a serious disadvantage, if we played by their rules with our kit then they are on a hiding to nothing.
APATS,
hence my thinking on the strategic role of Israel. “Cry Havoc! And let slip the dogs of war”. Israel turns a difficult ROE-embuggered situation into a war winning one with a single, US-enabled air raid. I really would not be surprised to learn that any Israeli raid was in fact much easier than Osiraq, because this time there’d be all sorts of US aircraft lining up to give them sips of fuel and C2 and ISR en route. And flying over Saudi, Iraqi or Turkish deserts, all mostly US airspace controlled, who’d be there to tell the tale?
In 2009 the Israelis practiced an AAR mission out into the Med using F15K, F16s and AAR assets to the exact range of some of the Iranian facilities.
APATS: Cheers for the info on that exercise – much appreciated.:)
James: Re lawyers and ROE, for sure. However, there will be some countries who will be able to be in a position to do such things before much longer, and will cheerfully do so, so it’s worth thinking about.
And, I have very little faith in the better side of human nature, and almost none in what passes for ‘lefties’ these days – when the chips are down (ie the ‘lefties’ themselves – rather than just some other poor shmucks – are directly and personally affected, as they will be one day), then they’ll be spitting bile and venom, and crying out for blood and vengeance, with the best of ‘em. Like most things driven by ‘the left’, these (completely hypocritical) current ROE of our bizarre era are just the passing fad of the day. Only take a couple of Guardian articles to turn their entire ‘thinking’ round.
[Spot the bitter, reformed lefty....]
Fly there? PFFTT, you guys are so old fashioned.
Open secret, Israel has already gone gloves off with Iran’s nuclear program.
Cyberwar. From the comforts of an air conditioned room.
Of course, there were a few magnetically fixed “surprise packages” to the cars of key nuclear research personnel too. Less risk, lots of deniability.
@ tsz250
Ah but Observer you are looking at the magician’s obvious hand, being the public wailing and deliberately not very subtle attacks on the nuclear programme.
What Israel does not have is the capacity to achieve is regime change. Their role is to cause the war, not to end it.
TD: I don’t know what daft things your Twitter folks were Twittering, but maybe I’m just being dense in not seeing the problem… all of the MoD docs I’ve looked through consistently go back to this [and I'm sure that you're a lot more familiar with them than I am]:-
“The DCDC defines the littoral as those land areas [and their adjacent sea and associated air space] that are predominantly susceptible to engagement and influence from the sea. This may typically be thought of as being those areas within 100 km of the coast. It is likely that up to 60% of humans will live on or near coastal regions by 2040. DCDC Global Strategic Trends, Edition 3.”
The Black Swan II doc then cites this definition and extends it a bit:-
“a. Littoral Complexity. By 2020, over 80% of the world’s
population will live within 100 miles of the sea. At present 147 (over
75%) of member states of the UN, are coastal states. Most of these
states have extended their jurisdiction out to sea, in many cases as far
as 200 nautical miles or more. Most human maritime activity –
shipping, fishing, hydrocarbon exploration etc – is currently conducted
within a 300-mile zone. This means that a substantial proportion of
the world’s economic and political activity is being conducted in a
narrow strip of land and sea (the littoral) on average no wider than 300
miles. Not only will the littoral be threatened by the consequences of
climate change, it will also face the effects of extreme weather and
other natural events, all of which will have a negative impact on these
heavily populated littoral regions.”
This includes Doctrine docs that are Joint and general (not just concerned with the boys playing with their toy boats in the bath), so shouldn’t that definition’s authority be enough for anybody interested in UK Defence?
I’m not one for slavishly bowing down to authority or anything, but that seems a perfectly reasonable definition to me… what am I missing? I mean on a core definition level, rather than whatever strange arguments people might develop from this definition (‘Bring back Battleships!’ or whatever), which are separate?
http://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/articles/12035/world-citizen-disabling-irans-oil-weapon
http://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2012-05/rethinking-strait-hormuz
The traditional definition of littoral has been the area between high and low tide, or at least the immediate area beyond.
All of a sudden it has been hijacked and perverted by those that want to promote investment in mritime capabilities.
We now seem to be at 300miles
So that means the Royal Navy now has an interest and influence over everywhere in the world except the central Amazon, a couple of mud huts in the middle of Africa, the bible belt in the states and a two dozen goat herders in central Russia.
Come on
Its like people blathering on about the percentage of food that comes by sea and ergo, we need a stronger Navy at the expense of the other services, conveniently forgetting that the vast majority of that percentage is actually across the Irish Sea, North Sea and English Channel and it isn’t a stronger Navy that we would need to secure that but a couple of dozen coastguard ships and a team of armed rozzers
Its the distortion and misrepresentation that I don’t like, not the definition per se
TD Please the area between high and low tide is known as the inter tidal zone. The littoral zone may include the inter tidal zone but often expands far further.
It does not alter the fact that the USN has been able to influence the “Expanded Littoral” area for the last 30 years and that whilst a sufficiently powerful naval force can project power be that organic assets, missiles, troops, air etc within that area which non maritime capability cannot absolutely guarantee.
The problem I have with the massively expanded definition of Littoral is that by that technical definition a tank coloumn zooming up a highway 75 miles paralell from the coast is “delivering warfighting effects in the littoral zone”. All of a sudden every battle zone in the world, of almost all kinds, has become littoral. The Libyan rebels, in their push to Tripoli, were technically “fighting in the littoral” per the Twitter definition given above.
This is one of the prime reasons I support the term ‘Coastal’ or ‘Coastal capable’, because it neatly and more explicitly defines the intended purpose of ships that are designed to operate within sight or near sight of the shoreline without confusing the issue by bringing the capability of weapons range into it.
Do you see my point though, definitions changing to suit an argument
Well I think Royal Marines should be renamed “Littoral Warfighters”! However I am not going to tell them just write an anonymous point paper and forward to MOD good ideas club.
On a serious note I do not see what is wrong with the term coastal. I am sure that when I did Geography eons ago there was a book that split up the US all the way across into traditional zones starting with the intertidal zone on one coast and ending with the same zone on the other.
@ APATS
“Well I think Royal Marines should be renamed “Littoral Warfighters””
– I’m going to hold you personally responsible if this happens.
“On a serious note I do not see what is wrong with the term coastal”
– That’s the spirit.
Honestly, I’m not being a nobhead and would fully support other, more precise, terms being used but I’m not seeing how the definition being changed (if it was) is all to some nefarious pro-naval-power purpose.
It’s not some Twitter’s definition, but the DCDC/MoD definition, used in plenty of Joint documents. It’s also the Joint Doctrine DOD definition [from 'Joint Operations']:-
“(3) Littoral Areas. The littoral area contains two parts. First is the seaward area from the open ocean to the shore, which must be controlled to support operations ashore. Second is the landward area inland from the shore that can be supported and defended directly from the sea. Control of the littoral area often is essential to maritime superiority. Maritime operations conducted in the littoral area can project power, fires, and forces to support achieving the JFC’s objectives; and facilitate the entry of other elements of the joint force through the seizure of an adversary’s port, naval base, or air
base to allow entry and movement of other elements of the joint force. Depending on the situation, mine warfare may be critical to control of the littoral areas.”
Do the other branches of the UK and US Forces not agree with these definitions published in the Joint docs? Are the MoD and DOD secretly massively biased towards the Navy, and warping definitions to devious pro-floaty stuff purpose?
Does the history and timing of the word’s definition’s evolution matter? I’m looking into it for laffs, but I don’t think it really matters – we are where we are, and all that. But that definition will become increasingly apt when some of the newer kit all starts to come together and be deployed and integrated properly (eg it will apply to solidly and persistently supporting future rebels, pretty far in-land, as they push to their Tripolis, from everything frigate upwards).
So you can’t really argue with the definitions’ authority, but I’d agree that it should be sub-divided a bit more, and be qualified by stressing some kind of high persistence when including naval forces in the mix: You can hit even deeper with your handfull of TLAMs (add another 1000km to the definition), and a SLBM can hit anything – Woo! Everything’s in the littoral! Go Navy!
TD
I sense your frustration over ‘littoral’!
But is this not a huge self opening can of worms?
You earlier commented on how ‘strategy’ in the UK sense had come to mean overseas power projection.
The ‘Strategic raiding crowd’ with whom I believe you disagree, but whom I put myself alongside, see it in those terms; but does not your own ‘influence squadrons’ in part at least adopt the idea of power projection?
Land warfare wise: –
The very definition of projection, means it is comming from somwhere, (being project from point a to point b). In this case (and given the impossibility of moving heavy equipment by air): If we or anyone else wants to go anywhere ‘tooled up’ with even medium armour then it means going by sea.
So if we go by sea and we do not want to rely on an available friendly port. we have to be ready to use and old phrase for this, indulge in ‘forcable entry’.
Given the reach of modern weapons TLAM, Elephant based air power,or even the range of a 155 mm gun landed over a beach, once you get involved with land and air forces does it stop being littoral?
Is littoral the reach of the weapons on frigate? In which case if it has TLAM is that 1000 KM?
BTW IMHO you are absolutely right about armour it is quite silly how many of our ‘professional soldiers sailors and to a lesser extent airmen’ (or at least those who buy our ships and vehicles) seem to opperate under the delusion tha the enemy will not be shooting back. Or of he does so it will be on clearly defined terms. Do not the japanese coast guard have armoured patrol boats?
In short war is war, and I cannot see a situation arising in a fight starting and then a British force commander saying ‘sorry chaps our littoral concept says we can only shoot 10 miles inland, the enemy has retreated to 11 miles so we have to stop now cos it;s not littoral anymore’
I think, the modern fashon for the word littoral started with the USN’ realisation that short of it’s carrier air groups; much of it’s navy was great for sailing arround the pacific crushing other enemy fleets but not much use in tidal waters; chasing ‘ yahoos in speed boats’ or going after sneekily laid mines.
Or was at least, stupidly over spec, and even vulnerable if it tried it.
So it tried to creat a ship and an opperational concept callled littoral. The ship is joke and their concept of it worse, but the idea that the need to get up close and personnal with an unfriendly cost line is not….
James re the red commander thing.
I explained once toa medium racking police officer my plan by which s dozen or so commited, but crucially unarmed men, who would not have to engage in attention seeking chemical buying stunts, etc; could create chaos and disrupt the UK for days, in effect bring the country to a stop. Either as an end in itself, or to totaly tie up the uk’s security forces whilst their mates did something more bloodthursty and spectacular.
Their response after few minutes thought. was a heartfelt,
‘ Bloody hell don’t go spreading that about’!…
The problem is that the definition has gradually been expanded over time. What was once a term that was used to accurately describe a fairly narrow band of surface vessels has since grown out of control, erasing the principle meaning and becoming far too vague and all encompassing. It’s now gotten to the point where you might as well not use the word Littoral at all, because practically everything military that floats now fits the term ‘Littoral’.
This is why I personally hate it so much, because it’s become just another bastardised piece of catch all management speak, as opposed to what it was originally intended for, which even then I feel could be better summed up with the use of the word Coastal.
And the word is associated with Navies predominantly because they’re the only ones that would use it. The air forces and ground forces I suspect have little interest in Littoral Combat Ships, unless it’s how to launch from them or blow them up.
“The traditional definition of littoral has been the area between high and low tide, or at least the immediate area beyond.”
With respect TD, you’re making yourself look a bit foolish with misplaced pedantry. The “littoral”, as a noun, has always meant “the region lying along the shore” – my Shorter OED gives an example of “The towns along the Mediterranean littoral” from 1828. You’re thinking of a specialist, technical term from zoology, the “littoral zone” which does indeed refer to the intertidal zone but is not a general coinage. To give an example, the intertidal meaning of the adjective is in my Shorter OED but not in my Pocket Oxford.
In any case, the military are quite entitled to come up with their own specialist meanings or jargon, just like physicists use “impulse” or “momentum” to mean something a bit different to the meaning in common use.
And those bits of jargon can change to reflect military reality – just look at how a destroyer now means a 16,000-ton NGF platform or a 10,000-ton air-defence ship, very different to past incarnations. Perhaps a better example is the wet side of the coast, “green water”. Noone expects green water to be literally green, as per a dictionary definition of green. But back in the Cold War it was militarily useful to talk about that area 200-300nm from land that could be reached by tactical land-based air. Then it was sort of made obsolete by the USSR’s development of bombers with long-range ASMs, the whole ocean turned “green”. It now seems to be making a bit of a comeback in a new guise, that bit of the sea where it’s too dangerous to send capital ships (qv James’ points above) – hence the USN developing specialist stealth units like the Ohio SSGNs and the Zumwalts.
So the littoral means the region lying along the shore. Yes 100km is an arbitrary figure, but it’s militarily relevant – a lot of navies have weapons with a range of 100km plus a bit of sea room. Think C-802, SS-N-25, NSM, SOM, Harpoon, LRLAP, Vulcano in the 127/64LW – and it’s within range of helicopters, Marine raiding parties etc. Yes, weapons like Tomahawk and Sampson make that kind of distinction irrelevant as the Badger/Backfire made greenwater irrelevant, but they are high-end weapons, a C-802 is within the capabilities of the likes of Hezbollah. I know some of those are anti-ship missiles, but the original SLAM showed it’s relatively easy to convert such weapons to hit land targets – and there’s all sorts of corvettes and FACs that can carry Harpoon or similar, and could potentially carry a SLAM-type weapon. If these days Leeds can be hit by mid-range navies like Thailand and Turkey, then I don’t think it’s particularly controversial to consider Leeds part of the zone that is subject to action from the sea.
El, TD isn’t annoyed at the definition, he’s annoyed at it changing to suit an agenda. You are correct in saying that definitions shift with time, and that understanding needs to shift too, but in the case of “litoral”, the agenda is specifically from the USN and their need to justify the LCS program along with it’s overoptimistic “studies”.
Do you seriously think Northrope’s study of “7 LCS can replace 20 ships in antipiracy” is realistic? I have my doubts.
In all honesty, I’ve not heard of the word “litoral” for the last 20+ years, now it’s all the “fad”.
Damn double speak and politically correctness. And damn salesmen playing with the English language.
@ Observer,
“In all honesty, I’ve not heard of the word “litoral” for the last 20+ years, now it’s all the “fad”.”
– Precisely. It’s just become a buzzword, its orginal meaning and context shattered for the conveniance of a sales pitch.
@ El Sid,
“With respect TD, you’re making yourself look a bit foolish with misplaced pedantry”
– Not really. As Observer said, the point is that the term is being expended far beyond it’s original meaning. In addition, TD’s rough explanation of the term is technically accurate.
See, I think the definition has just naturally expanded in line with new technologies. If you think of it as coastal and everything directly tied to the coast (economically and militarily), then with crap comms (flags) and short ranged broadsides it was pretty much a narrow coastal strip for a long time.
Now we have fishing boats going out further and oil/gas drilling platforms tied to shuttle runs to the shore (out to ~200 miles) going sea-ward, and superior comms/intell/targetting etc land-ward, with longer ranged weapons to make use of that, and helos and whatnot, pushing that distance out too.
So I’m happy with that definition given in the Black Swan II doc [though not too happy with the Black Swan II], since it reflects our current reality. If anyone would prefer different terms than ‘littoral’ to mean ‘the coast and everything directly tied to/influenced by it’ then let’s hear ‘em. I think it’s useful as a focusing device to remind folks of the economic importance of dominating that ~300 mile strip, yours and the enemy’s; and if the best way to do that is with tanks, artillery, blimps and flying boats (and none of them silly ships) then so be it.
I’m tracing official uses of the word back in time, to check out whether there really is some agenda driving the change (expansion) in definition, but not really seeing one, and the LCS programme seems to have had very little to do with it (it came later)… needs more digging.
On the other hand, the directed subversion of meaning is the bane of the age, and there are plenty of management/marketing/media words that give me the red mists [can't even watch a TV or read a paper any more], so I’ll try to remember to not use the word when conversing with TD and Chris.B.
On the other other hand, cheers x for that link – made me chuckle.
Things is, oil rigs and gas platforms tend to be considered ‘out to sea’ (or even offshore. Or even offlittoral). They can just as easily be served by helicopters 30 miles inland as ones based directly on the coast. I just don’t think it helps to use Littoral to describe things that are covered more accurately by other terms. All it does is to serve to confuse issues that should be straight forward for the sake of a cool sounding piece of terminology. Once you start broadening the term too much it loses much of its significance and becomes just another generalisation that is used to sweep aside difficult questions about just where a piece of kit is supposed to fit in, and what its role is.
“They [the offshore platforms] can just as easily be served by helicopters 30 miles inland as ones based directly on the coast.” Yup, which is why the definition is correct to expand both inland and out further to sea. You can hit that servicing helo 30 miles inland on the tarmac (without injuring anyone) in numerous ways now, and you directly, adversely affect a platform ~200 miles further out to sea. The expanded (I’d say evolved) definition encompasses that tight inter-connectedness of the things in that broad region (that has the coast roughly in the middle).
Economically, and therefore militarily, the term had to expand to include the increased sea territory a country was legally allowed, from gunshot distance to the comparatively recent Territorial Waters, then even more recent EEZ laws. The enemy’s littoral is now all of this, plus the range of your ‘guns’ inland as it always was:-
“112. In the physical sense, the maritime environment comprises the High Seas and Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs) (through which warships enjoy high seas freedoms and from which their aircraft enjoy rights of overflight), and territorial seas in which warships may exercise innocent passage, which does not include the right of overflight. The littoral, a vast, highly complex, and immensely diverse area, comprises EEZs, territorial seas, and land territory. The sea covers approximately 70% of the earth’s surface, nearly 80% of the world’s population lives within 100 miles of it (and this figure increases each year) and over three quarters of member states of the UN are coastal states. All coastal states have extended their jurisdiction through national maritime zones, in many cases including EEZs to as far as 200 nautical miles. Most human maritime activity – shipping, fishing, oil exploration, etc – is currently conducted within those 200-mile EEZs, to which warships and submarines have unrestricted access and presence to conduct exercises and routine operations. This means that a substantial proportion of the world’s economic and political activity is being conducted in a narrow strip of land and sea on average no wider than 300 miles. This narrow band, referred to as the littoral and is defined as those land areas (and their adjacent sea and associated air space) that are predominantly susceptible to engagement and influence from the sea.”
So that’s another MoD (military) definition and explanation, we’ve had TD’s useful technical oceanographical/zoological one, and a dictionary one; is there a legal one, since that might be important? I’ll have a look later.
Anyroad, honestly Chris, I know I’ll never convince you or TD on this; but I think it’s handy to have a single word that encompasses all of the above (and the complementary DOD definition further above), it seems to have evolved naturally to me and doesn’t obscure or over-simplify anything [and I don't think it sounds cool either].
Like I say, I’ll try to avoid using the word when conversing with yourself, but to help me out, would you mind listing the more accurate terms that you’d prefer in breaking the above lot down into its major bits?
Coastal = on or around the coast, stretching a few miles inland and a few miles out to see.
Anything further inland than that is inland. Anything further out to sea is perhaps Maritime, sea going etc.
The way I see it, a “Littoral vessel” is a definition of where the ship operates or can operate unlike other vessels, to separate it from vessels that are intended for more high seas operations. By encompassing such a large area I just think it only serves to tread over areas that are beyond the competence of the word to describe.
To go back to an example I used earlier, lets say a tank rolls by that helicopter base that is serving the oil platform and knobbles all the helicopters. Does that mean the tank is engaging in land warfare or littoral warfare?
By opening such a broad scope to the word, we’re creating loop holes that can be used to dupe unwary politicians for a start. I just think it’s an unnecessary piece of vocabulary to introduce. It has such a narrow realistic usage, and has basically just become a throwaway, catch all term. It seems everything these days is Littoral.
It’s become another pointless buzzword.
I’d give “Litoral” as the 12 km territorial zone all countries are limited to. 200 miles is the EEZ, not litoral.
Coastal would be 12km + 40 (conventional cannon range 30-40, no rocket shells).
@Chris
A tank rolls into the surf and becomes a “coastal patrol craft”
“A tank rolls into the surf and becomes a “coastal patrol craft””
– Now that I would like to see. The army presenting to parliament it’s plans for a new dual role combat vehicle that transitions from main battle tank to littoral combat ship, and all for just £2m.
“Coastal = on or around the coast, stretching a few miles inland and a few miles out to see. Anything further inland than that is inland. Anything further out to sea is perhaps Maritime, sea going etc.”
That doesn’t sound like a precise, or useful term for military application……
Same problem with observers, re 12nm, why create another word to say eez?
Nobody ever wins a definitional debate. Ever.
Just sayin’