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[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] Eastern country taking the same approach is Malaysia, which, at the time of writing, was about to choose a design for its so-called 'New Generation Patrol Vessel'. By all ac- counts, these missile- and helicopter-equipped ships will in truth be well-armed light frigates, albeit with the primary role of patrolling Malaysia's extensive Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), which as this book has shown is but a further extension of the classic coastal defence role. This tendency to underplay the capabilities of the modern missile corvette has also been demonstrated by Kuwait, which uses the bland term 'Offshore Missile Vessel' to describe its future missile corvette. What is responsible for this outbreak of naval euphem- isms? A possible reason is the fact that virtually all the navies which have decided to order missile corvettes in the 1990s are, in effect, trading up from smaller, less capable fast attack craft and, in so doing, are fuelling regional arms races. This is quite evident in both the Middle East and Far East, two growth areas for this type of vessel. Malaysia has also taken advantage of the availability of several Assad class missile corvettes originally bought by Iraq but never deliv- ered because of the Gulf War, ordering two from their Ital- ian builders, Fincantieri. They have now been extensively modified for Far Eastern service. One area, though, where missile corvettes have prompted neither an arms race nor linguistic escapism is the Baltic, where Sweden placed an order for the first two 600 tonne YS 2000 missile corvettes in October 1995. These will use the stealth technologies investigated by the experimental craft Smyge (described in Chapter 12) and will replace Update T HIS BOOK WAS WRITTEN between 1993 and 1995, but since its completion the world of coastal defence has ob- viously not been standing still. It is a mark of the pace of change in naval technology that there have been sufficient new developments either not recorded or not mentioned in detail in Chapters 12 and 13 to justify this update on where the discipline of coast defence stood in the spring of 1996. The trend towards the construction of larger missile cor- vettes instead of the building of fast attack missile boats in the 200-500 tonne range has continued. In the Middle East, Oman has led the way with its contract for two 83m vessels built by Britain's Vosper Thornycroft, the first of which was delivered in early 1996. These vessels are interesting in that they were designed with the experience of the 1991 Gulf War in mind and include an improved command and con- trol suite. As outlined in Chapter 12, a common criticism of fast attack missile boats has been their weak command, control, communications and intelligence (C3I) suites. In the case of Oman's vessels, this requirement is addressed by the Tavitac system from France's Thomson-CSF. Brunei has also followed Oman's example and ordered three so-called 'Offshore Patrol Vessels' (OPVs) from Bri- tain's Yarrow Shipbuilders in late 1995. These will be 1,500 tonne missile corvettes broadly similar to Oman's, but the Sultan of Brunei doubtless feels that discretion is the better part of valour and a suitably unthreatening euphemism is better than a more appropriate designation. Another Far FB-37BRL smaller fast attack craft in the Swedish Navy. Across the Baltic, Germany will do the same whenever it finances the fifteen corvettes which will replace its missile boats. Be- cause this project has been delayed, the Bundesmarine is considering a service life extension programme for its Type 148 missile boats. This could include the installation of a quad 27mm Drakon close-in weapon system and a new command system. The Middle East and Far East are also the growth areas for another, entirely different type of coastal defence craft, the development of which is more a response to improved missile technology than some ill-considered addition of an- other spiral to regional arms races. Two navies, Kuwait's and the Philippines', have decided to arm small patrol boats with short-range anti-ship missiles rather more modest than the Exocets and Harpoons which equip most fleets. These weapons, British Aerospace's Sea Skua SL and Aerospatiale's MM-15, are both derivatives of helicopter-launched weapons described in Chapter 12. In the case of Kuwait's PB37BRL boats, a capability is being provided to install short-range surface-to-air missiles (SAMs), namely a sextuple Sadral launcher for Matra's Mis- tral SAM. The C3I fit of the Kuwaiti craft is also impressive for the vessel's size. This is a derivative of Tavitac, the system on Oman's corvettes. The Philippines requires the same kind of patrol boats, equipped with the same generic type of missile. However these developments will not tip the balance away from the trend towards larger, rather than smaller, missile boats and corvettes. Just as a number of navies in the Middle East and Far East have chosen to describe their missile corvettes as what they are not, most operators of genuine OPVs - including a few new ones - have remained content to describe them for what they are. Two new designs which have recently been chosen by Mauritius and Morocco are intriguing examples of how good compromises can be reached between econ- omy and innovation. Their primary purpose is to patrol national EEZs, and their armament is either negligible or non-existent, although in the case of Morocco's Rais Bar- gach, the first vessel of the class was unarmed at its delivery, while the second carries a 40mm gun forward. The four ships of this class (the first was launched in October 1995) have one very useful feature for the EEZ patrol role: an enclosed well at the stern which allows the easy launch and recovery of a rigid inflatable boat to transport boarding par- ties to vessels under investigation. There is also room for 30 soldiers in addition to the 24 crew. Vigilant, the 75m, 1,350 tonne Mauritian vessel was launched in December 1995 and is equally interesting for other reasons. Designed by Canada's W.C.M.G., it is being built by Chile's Asmar shipyard - a new force in world naval construction. The sleek craft resembles the most elegant of fast luxury yachts and will be capable of carrying a helicop- ter and of reaching a 'hot pursuit' speed of 22 knots and a Rais Bargach – 600 tonne French built Marocan Navy’s vessel 15.9m craft for transporting coastal artillery units around its coastline. Norway has an option to buy another four to six- teen boats, while the Swedish Coast Artillery is also now testing British-built ABS M-10 hovercraft for the same role. A more passive, but equally effective form of coastal de- fence are the surveillance capabilities which now equip Egypt's forces. They have lately been updating their Coastal Border Surveillance System (CBSS) by adding electro-optical equipment. This consists of coastal pedestal- mounted infra-red and TV cameras which can identify ship targets located by CBSS by day or night. Change has not been confined to technology in the months since the main text of this book was completed. In December 1995 Britain's Royal Navy published a new doc- ument, The Fundamentals of British Maritime Doctrine, which outlines the UK's post-Cold War naval strategy 1 . This pays particular attention to 'littoral' concerns, also reflecting the principal focus of the new US naval policy paper, From the Sea. The British doctrine talks about coast offence and am- phibious operations, but only refers to modern coast de- fence in an oblique way when it very briefly discusses 'Combat Operations in Defence of Forces Ashore'. But the doctrine also contains many useful examples of both recent and more distant naval conflicts in order to provoke debates among the naval officers of the future. cruise speed of 19 knots, with a range of 6,500 nm. The craft will carry either a 40mm or 30mm gun, though it could mount a 76mm. The vessel will be a good example of 'for, but not with' capabilities and straddles the line between the corvette with an unambiguous military purpose and the OPV intended to protect the EEZ. In this respect, Asmar's vessel is significantly cheaper than, for example, the French Floreal class intended for the same missions. Several countries continue to update their fixed coastal defences. As usual, Scandinavia leads the way. As outlined in Chapter 13, Norway launched a project to modernise its coastal defences in 1992 and has now added a £71 million order for twelve mobile coastal defence military units to replace fixed coastal artillery. It is significant that despite the ending of the Cold War, Norway has managed to find the money for this despite the belief in some quarters that new coast defence systems are unaffordable. Norway has bought the shore-fired RBS-17 Hellfire missile as already acquired for the Swedish Coastal Artillery. Another £45 mil- lion order has been placed for laser designators, C3 equip- ment and assault craft to transport Norwegian Coastal Artillery units. These assault craft will consist of sixteen aluminium-hulled Stridshat PON craft which have been or- dered from Sweden's Dockstavarvet. Sweden uses the same type of 18 tonne vessel and, like Norway, deploys these Stridsbat 90N. Swedish built 18 tonne aluminium-hulled assault craft Norway Navy One of these examples is a comment entitled 'Gallipoli - How Not to Fight', which bears quoting in full for reasons which will become apparent. The Allied maritime operations in 1915-16 to exploit the possibilities of strategic leverage and pass through the Dardanelles with a fleet that would force Turkey out of the war, were a case study in how not to mount a joint operation. The initial plan, to carry out the oper- ation with ships alone, reflected the lack of a joint approach at the military strategic level. The original campaign plan underestimated the power of the mu- tually supporting gun and mine defences, and was fi- nally abandoned because of a failure at the tactical level to neutralize them sufficiently. When amphib- ious landings on the Gallipoli peninsula eventually took place, inadequacies in command and control res- ulted in failure to achieve their objectives. There was no doctrine for such operations and tactical com- manders did not realize what was expected of them. A second wave of landings failed for the same reasons. The result was stalemate on the ground and the land- ing forces were eventually withdrawn in a meticu- lously planned evacuation that was the most successful part of the whole affair. A campaign imag- inatively conceived at the grand strategic level failed because of strategic, operational and tactical errors. This accurate, if damning summary could equally apply to most of those examples of failed coast defence operations described in this book. It also spells out how effective coast defences can take advantage of the particular weaknesses of an adversary. As the new British maritime document later explains, the British managed to improve their grasp of strategy and tactics when they retook the Falkland Islands from Argentina in 1982. In 1996 they established a head- quarters at Northwood for their new Joint Rapid Deploy- ment Force which will hopefully prevent mistakes such as those made at Gallipoli from ever being repeated. Given that major Western powers like Britain are likely to be involved in coastal operations in future, either offensive or for the purpose of surveillance or sanctions monitoring, the improving coastal defence capabilities of many coun- tries around the world will be of more than passing interest to them. As this book has tried to show, these can only be ignored at an attacker's peril. 1 The Fundamentals of British Maritime Doctrine (BR 1806), Directorate of Naval Staff Duties, The Defence Council (Ministry of Defence, London, 1995) [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] |