Leeds in the Littoral

Or it highlights how small an island nation we are.

Littoral…

Ugh, that word just gives me the creeps. I put it up there with “Warfighter”.

Ever been to Nebraska?

Seriously though, this is meaningless, the point is that the Global economy depends on the sea, even something manufactured in Nebraska would be exported by sea.

Lies! Lies and statistics!

:P

I blame the US, they could not possibly tell their people that they were constructing something so plebian as a “patrol vessel” or a “corvette” or a “frigate” for the low, low price of 450M USD, without research cost, 1.8B with. So they had to build “Litoral Combat Ships” used best against asymetrical threats, piracy and budgets, mostly your own.

TD,

no idea how you use Google Map Tools, but surely the better graphic is to overlay various 12.1nm offshore sea ranges onto a map. i.e. range of Chinook with a bellyful of Royal on board, NGS reach inland, coverage of CORMORANT, etc. You could expand the definition to come up with just how far offshore QEC would need to be deployed for safety so that the CAP is more of a 40 minute commuter run for a 10 minute workday and 40 minutes back, and even the Andrew reckon it is ridiculously too far.

@James

TD was complaining about the tweet defination being too broad and sneaky, it wasn’t him defining “litoral”.

Don’t do a Cleopatra and maul the messenger. :P

Dunno – seems like a dodgy definition on the face of it, but it shows what you can accomplish with an even slightly decent naval presence in the enemy’s littorals… in a *really* demoralising ‘So you think you’re safe do you?’ kind of way.

On the odd occasion when I’m stood outside Leeds train station smoking tabs, I’ve felt totally secure that I could laugh in the face of any puny frigates that might be sailing off Southport or wherever: Pretty sure me and my fellow commuters never dreamt that a single nefarious frigate could rain a few hundred Vulcano rounds on us over the next quarter of an hour or so, if it wanted.

That might cure a few potential foes of their sea-blindness eh?

Without wishing to turn this into another semantics argument, the problem I’ve always had with the term “sea-blindness” is that it implicitly assumes (or is used in such a context) that the solution to “sea blindness” is to take to the high seas with a large naval force.

In the scenario above involving raining Vulcano rounds, the solution could be many things, many of them non-floating based.

Chris.B.: Yup, the phrase sea-blindness does usually get used as part of an argument that then goes into trade, then SLOC and EEZ protection, then global SLOC with big beautiful fleets of aircraft carriers, and so on, but it doesn’t intrinsically contain that whole argument chain whenever it’s used.

What I meant above is sea-blindness also includes fairly deeply (they think) in-land folks thinking that they’re perfectly safe from any attack from the sea, as long as they don’t go too near to anything that might merit a visit from a scarce ship-launched SSM.

I’m as far from being sea-blind (all definitions thereof) as it’s possible to be, and know far more about naval weapons than most of your average punters, but I was honestly a bit shocked that all of the places where I travel, which all seem like pretty epic train journeys apart, and all totally landlocked, could all be hit by a Vulcano from a pair of cheap-ass frigates; one off Southport, one off Grimsby. I imagine that most folks would be even more shocked than I would if the Vulcanos started coming in, all over the place to cause maximal demoralisation [I refuse to use that horrible phrase, but you know the one I mean?], with the frigates’ big magazines.

Just to be clear:-

I’m not on about anybody doing that to us, but thinking in terms of somebody (maybe us) doing that to somebody else, equally ‘Sea? lol whatevs – it’s miles away!’ but with less ability to do much about those pesky frigates than we have;

I’m not suggesting that the best defence against such a tactic is to have a Grand Fleet patrolling your waters;

I am saying that I’ve always been in favour of the ol’ 127/64; and this post of TD’s has made me appreciate it even more as an additional tool in the military box (and the usefulness of having some stuff operating in the enemy’s littorals).

BTW, unless anyone else does first, I’ll have a dig around to see if there are any official military definitions of littoral/littoral ops, and why the 100km/61% GNI figure (I guess that there’s a big GNI drop off after that 100km point?).

APATS: Cheers for that Nightearth link – interesting.

I think a more useful tool is to take one ship with asm and place it in the choke points of the world with a chart showing what goes through there. That might make the point to people what the ocean means to them.

@tsz52,

I get where you’re coming from. Throw in TLAM and things get even deeper.

Until you realise that if you are in ER 76mm range, your frigate is also in MRLS/155mm range, then it becomes a duel.

Pfah – away with your puny 76mm. Anyway, that’s why all these new spangly ships designed to operate in the littorals are made of aluminium – the land artillery shells just pass straight through without detonating… or something…. :P

@tsz

The Vulcano is 76mm. Unless you meant the upsized 127mm one. :P But the 76mm one is more common.

And the Freedom LCS is made of aluminium/steel components mix, which has been speculated to be the cause of some of the hull cracks(different expansion rates). Oh well, shit happens.

Observer,

a fairly one-sided duel. The floaty little boat needs some STA of its’ target, which may not be easy to obtain unless it is blindly firing at a grid and last week’s satellite imagery. It is a lot easier for the land-based force to track the ship by radar or eyes on, and coordinate fires from as you mention 155 or GMLRS, plus send land-launched munitions at it. And send out some patrol boats with ATGW if AShM or AH are not available.

I’m pretty sure that any little frigate underneath a bombardment of GMLRS, 155mm HE, and inbound missiles is going to blink first. The paintwork is going to get seriously scratched.

Raises an interesting question. What would be the effect of 40 rounds of 155mm HE with impact fuses hitting a modern frigate, and ATGWs the hull? It probably would not sink the boat, I guess, but how disabling would it be in terms of combat systems, personnel, damage control water pipes, and communication antennae? I think it could probably take the ship out of action, at least.

If so, it is another calculus. The frigate would probably need base dockyard repair, and certainly not able to function effectively as part of the overall effort, so it is “effectively sunk” as far as that conflict goes. 40 rounds of 155mm cost less than £50,000, and can be precision fired out to about 35 miles. Too much of naval doctrine assumes that the floaty little boats operate without OPFOR having a say in matters.

…actually, make that 1 second delay fuses. A 155mm HE shell that penetrates to a compartment or passageway before exploding is going to cause some serious overpressure in confined spaces. 40 of them would be pretty devastating internally to personnel, systems and controls.

Al Faw to Basra ~ 100km
http://www.daftlogic.com/projects-google-maps-distance-calculator.htm

Really a question of what sort of capabilities you want your Navy-Marines to have.

“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?”

I see nothing wrong with the notion per-see, tho by no means am I defending the given definition of 100km.

I also see nothing wrong with the word ‘littoral’ itself, as pointed out elsewhere it seems to be an established term in British defence lexicon.

What is the littoral?

Is it the landward depth to which naval assets can deploy comprehensive ‘effect’?
Ie the aggregate of NGS, tac-tom, and naval air, in which case you might plausibly argue it was in the region of 80km…..

Is it the landward depth to which an amphibious task group is expected to penetrate in a 72 hour mission as per British ‘doctrine’?
Ie the presumption of an unopposed landing in hostile country, followed by up to 40km of manoeuvre deemed necessary to support objectives…..

I’m not being prescriptive here, quite obviously I have made the examples up, but……. I see no problem with defining the littoral.

In fact, I would be very surprised if we haven’t, purposefully using the term to define the limits of naval effect!

wf,

obviously this is all conjecture, but I made the example merely to illustrate that life is not entirely one-sided, and that OPFOR has a say. I lose track of the amount of times I have been subjected to Powerpoint briefings illustrating some fantastic networked capability (either Fires or comms networking) in which everything is interconnected and working perfectly and nothing goes wrong. I’ve even given a few of them myself, to my shame, both in green or in a business suit. Life is not like that, in reality.

So if you sail a frigate nearish to the enemy shore and try to put it into action, OPFOR is going to get pissed off and reel out whatever he’s got to try to stop you. It may not be doctrinally correct or how we would do things, but then he’s not us.

A patrol boat with a Soviet ATGW bolted on is a threat, as are 4 of them in a converging arc. Aim the ATGWs at the arse end of the boat, and the chances are that CIWS may be overwhelmed by volley fire, and bang, your rudder or prop shaft has taken damage, and you are stopped in the water or sailing around in small predictable circles. If each patrol boat only fires 4 missiles, you’ve got 16 incoming in volleys, and the likelihood of a leaker increases substantially. So, assuming OPFOR gets lucky, does the Captain RN of the floaty little boat feel his chances of surviving mission kill have significantly decreased?

The cunning patrol boat commander would also order one of the boats to fire directly at the visible CIWS, and they are not armoured. You may think that is an unlikely scenario, except that is exactly what the Iranians train for.

As far back as 1998, BATES had a mode for predicting movement and reverse engineering a firing solution in 4 dimensions for AS90: the three geospatial dimensions, plus a “firing now!” time to ensure that all rounds landed on target at the same time. BATES was pretty crap software, but the maths is universal and not that hard, so we can’t expect OPFOR not to be able to do the same.

I’m not predicting complete ruination of the littoral doctrine, merely observing that OPFOR gets a say, and that floaty little boats are very susceptible to unconventional attack.

I have no doubt at all that a proponent of the littoral doctrine will quickly come back and declare such a scenario inconceivable, much as the Captains of Repulse and Prince of Wales probably did in December 1941.

James,

“You may think that is an unlikely scenario, except that is exactly what the Iranians train for.”

Don’t you think we train to counter what they openly train for? Haven’t you noticed the autocannon and MGs that festoon every warship and auxiliary? Haven’t we discussed swarm attacks on here before?

In the NGFS scenario why have they been allowed to get close enough to an FF/DD to launch ATGWs? Why (other than overly restrictive ROE) were they not taken out by carrier air, or the FF/DD’s helicopter or medium calibre gun?

Anixtu,

it depends on how you see the start point. You see it as “all weapons cleared for immediate use”, I see it as “holy crap, who changed the rules?”. The Iranians were clearly able to get one over on HMS Cornwall with patrol boats, so let’s not assume it cannot happen, particularly when the hostages were taken in international waters, well out of range of the bristling MGs you refer to, but well within the 5 km range of the ATGW mounted on the Iranian patrol boats, far less the torpedoes on the 3 Iranian MTBs that stood back one thousand yards in their own waters. And not even the ship’s helicopter to give support. What happened there was an example of unconventional tactics by OPFOR, and the Andrew did not see it coming, nor had any effective defence. You can say the same for the Captain of the USS Cole.

Clearly, an institutional cockup by the Andrew and an individual gross failure by both the OIC the boarding party and the Captain of HMS Cornwall, who instead of being imprisoned which he clearly should have been, for quite a few years and lose all his pension rights, was moved “to a post where his talents and experience can be used to best effect” i.e. yet another typical MoD establishment cover-up and failure to address the real flaws in thinking.

Please don’t come back and tell me that lessons were learned and that it could never happen again, because that is risible. What will happen next is something different, and the Andrew will be caught out again.

It’s not an anti-Navy position, because the Army or RAF are equally capable of making stupid mistakes. It’s just that in the context of this thread, it is littoral warfare we are discussing.

wf,

Repulse and POW sunk by, on that day, very unconventional air attack. That’s the issue.

You’d be surprised at what patrol boat ATGW can do. DERA managed to take out small floating pallet targets with Milan at Rosehearty Bay from a leased PB-sized small boat in Sea State 4, and that was back in 1986. They scored 11 hits – on a f*cking pallet, not a frigate – from 15 missiles fired. Milan was hardly that advanced in target tracking and guidance either. I don’t know about you, but Sea State 4 is distinctly non-millpond to me, especially onboard a smallish PB hull.

(‘Twas a trial for both Commachio Group and School of Infantry, onboard operators from both units)

Also, artillery fire is perfectly capable of firing on predictive targets, as opposed to static ones. It’s only dam geometry and a stopwatch. You can probably get the software to work it all out in an iPhone these days.

Lots of fairly conventional, maybe even complacent thinking going on here…..

APATS,

you also assume all advantages with the frigate. OPFOR is perfectly capable of hoisting a radar several thousand meters into the air over his own coastline. Moving the frigate from 30-50 nms offshore degrades the frigate’s mission much more than it does OPFORS’s capabilities.

APATS,

Hmmm, overall I believe the balance of advantage is with the coastline. If OPFOR starts chucking different threats simultaneously, life gets tricky on the floaty little boat.

So far we’ve got:

Radar for tracking. Several radars.
UAVs launched easily from on shore. The Iranians now have UAVs with TOW-type missiles.
Artillery batteries with software for firing on moving targets. Several batteries no doubt, up and down the coastline.
Patrol boats with decent enough ATGW, 4-5 km range. Lots of them.
MTBs with 10 km range torpedoes. Also lots of them.
We haven’t spoken yet about SSKs or sea mines, particularly those with some autonomy or reverse engineered from CAPTOR. Or the upgraded SILKWORM missiles.

All of this happening right here, right now in the next likely OPFOR, who also possess a choke point in Hormuz.

Going to be a brave Captain RN in his floaty little boat who thinks his Merlin and a Skynet connection gives him an advantage.

APATS,

as there were when HMS Cornwall had her face rubbed in the shit.

The point being that if you are Iran, you play a different game. You get coy on the boundaries you claim, you get underhand on things like mines, you don’t play NATO rules, you go for small, cheap and expendable threats like swarm attacks using PBs and ATGW, you play the casualties game, you obfuscate in the UN, you sell oil cheap to the non-permanent members of the UNSC and oil very cheap to the veto-wielding Chinese.

Hornblower is meanwhile seriously under-equipped, and also trying to plan things like the friendship visit to Muscat in 2 weeks time.

APATS,

but that’s you trying to get both sides to play by our rules (much as I do with the children when they argue). All Iran wants is freedom of national manoeuvre (i.e. f*ck off from our 12 mile area), and freedom of threat (see what we can do in the Strait of Hormuz). She doesn’t want to take on the USN. On the other hand, if a frigate starts shelling some coastal installation, she’ll be on street fighter rules. And I do believe that in a much deeper intellectual manner than we’ll ever achieve, she will have studied the capabilities and also political constraints of likely enemies and built her forces to suit.

Incidents like the Cornwall are nothing more than them testing the boundaries to see of reactions at both tactical military and political levels, for fine-tuning. Sadly, the Andrew let us down big time with Cornwall, hence my view that a treason charge should have been considered for a number of senior officers over that incident. It could have been seen coming from months out. Instead, we sent some tearful little boys and girls out on some motorised dinghies.

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?

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?

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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?

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.

@ 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! :P

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.

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” :P

“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?

Someone here mentioned that if weapons reach from sea is the deciding factor, then with ballistic missile subs, it would mean the whole world is litoral.

Come to think of it, then the stratosphere is litoral too!

Litoral Combat Typhoon anyone? Litoral Combat Challenger? Litoral Combat Warrior?

x has already made this point, but Leeds is a river port and one of the reasons so much of the Industrial Revolution happened in Yorkshire was that it wasn’t that far from navigable water in one direction or the spate/flood/whooshy sort in the other that provided power before the steam engine.

You can get a vessel of several hundred tonnes up to the Motorway City of the 70s and IIRC one of the oil companies regularly did or does move products that way.

@X

I’m a littoral area? I declare myself closed to foreign shipping.

“Armies don’t have strategic reach; especially armies from island nations”

Hmm… wonder how the allies reached Berlin. Their armies don’t have strategic reach, so they couldn’t have marched there. I also wonder why most of the Reich’s units ended up on the Eastern Front, can’t possibly be because of the Red Army, no strategic reach. Or why NATO ended up stationing units in Germany during the 1970s, there was nothing that was possibly a threat.