Remember When the Navy/Marine Corps Did NEO?

Remember when naval forces could conduct non-combat evacuation operations of American civilians in trouble? I do too, which is why I am very curious why after many weeks of governments falling on the North African coastline the US Navy doesn't have any ships in the region capable of making it happen. Instead we get stuff like this.

"As always, the safety and well-being of Americans has to be our highest priority," she said. Clinton didn't mention Gadhafi by name.

State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said 35 U.S. Embassy personnel and families, who were ordered to leave Libya on Monday, haven't yet been able to depart. "The fact is today we were not able to move any of our personnel out of the country," he said.

The State Department said late Tuesday that it had chartered a ferry for U.S. citizens wanting to leave Libya that would depart from Tripoli on Wednesday to the islands of Malta, across the Mediterranean Sea.

So who is responsible for making sure the Navy is prepared for these type of operations when unrest is now into its seventh week in the region? Admiral Stavridis, Admiral Locklear, Vice Admiral Harris, or Rear Admiral Wary? Did any of these folks request a ship and get denied?

After seven weeks without a single ship surged, I am starting to wonder if the problems related to the San Antonio class has prevented the Navy from surging an amphibious ship to the Mediterranean Sea. I get it that the Kearsarge ARG might be in a holding pattern near 5th Fleet HQ in Bahrain due to the tensions in that region right now, but is the Navy so short on Amphibious ships that despite the last month and a half of protests in North African coastal nations we lack the ability to get an amphibious ship from Norfolk to the Med?

The JHSV sure would be handy right about now. For that matter, if LCS-2 was actually operating as designed, she could move the 300 folks in Tripoli to Malta without any trouble.

Picture of the Day: PLA Navy Lighterage

This picture comes courtesy of David Axe, who is discussing this subject over at The Diplomat.

The World Still Loves Amphibious Ships

The global trend of rising powers adding new, modern amphibious ships continues, with the latest news coming from India.

In order to add more teeth to its amphibious warfare capabilities, the navy is planning to induct four Landing Platform Docks (LPD) to join the fleet alongside INS Jalashwa.

"We are looking to add four more LPDs in our fleet to operate alongside INS Jalashwa, the only LPD currently in service," navy officials told PTI.

The procurement procedure has already begun with the release of the Request for Information (RFI) by the defence ministry, they said.

The four warships would be procured under the 'buy and make (Indian)' category of the defence procurement procedure under which the Indian shipyards, both private and public, would be required to form a partnership with foreign shipyards for the contract.

The navy wants the ships to be produced within the country itself and has sought response only from Indian shipyards, having their own infrastructure and capability of building LPD class of ships, they said.

The article goes on to say the design should be 200 meters long and capable of transporting all varieties of vehicles including tanks. An amphibious ship of 200 meters would end up roughly the size of the South Korean Dokdo class, for comparison purposes. My only advice to India is this, if you are not designing the ship to be heavy in aviation capabilities, then invest in insuring the ship has really good cranes.

Change Is Always Hard

Timeless wisdom.

It is evident, also, that we must not too lightly assume the methods of former days, however admirably they may have been adapted to the ends then in view, as mere precedents, to be followed unquestioningly in our modern practice. We can only safely reason upon the experiences of the past when we have penetrated to, and laid firm hold upon, the principle, or principles, which received recognition and interpretation in our predecessors' methods. When the latter have stood the searching criticism of experience and analysis, we can confidently assert that they were a valid application, under the conditions of one age, of principles that are probably true at all times, and which we may hope to detect by patient study. But when we have correctly stated the principles, it by no means necessarily follows that the application of them will be the same, or superficially even much like those of previous generations.

There is another caution which I think may wisely be observed, namely, not to assume too easily that our forefathers hit upon methods absolutely certain of success in practice—not liable at times to failure. There are few, if any, characteristics of the utterances which I from time to time hear, or read, on the subject of actual warfare, which impress me more strongly than the constantly recurring tendency to reject any solution of a problem which does not wholly eliminate the element of doubt, of uncertainty, or risk. Instead of frankly recognizing that almost all warlike undertakings present at best but a choice of difficulties that absolute certainty is unattainable—that the "art" consists, not in stacking the cards, but, as Napoleon phrased it, in getting the most of the chances on your side—that some risk, not merely of death but of failure, must be undergone—instead of this, people wish so to arrange their programme as to have a perfectly sure thing of it; and when some critic points out, as can so easily be done, that this may happen or that may happen, and it is seen undeniably that it may, then the plan stands condemned. " War," said Napoleon again, "cannot be made without running risks, and it is because my admirals have found out that it can, everything attempted by them has failed."

Blockade In Relation to Naval Strategy, By Captain A. T. Mahan, U. S. Navy, Proceedings Magazine 1895

Worth thinking as we ponder the topic of this November 2010 Proceedings article Hitting the Beach in the 21st Century by Under Secretary of the Navy Robert O. Work and Lieutenant Colonel F. G. Hoffman, U.S. Marine Corps Reserve (Retired).

I imagine both men ran into a storm of criticism when they suggested to replace "forcible entry" and "amphibious assault" with "theater entry" and "littoral maneuver."

It is, in my opinion, a good way to begin the conversation though.

The Future of the Corps: Thoughts by LtGen George J. Flynn, USMC

The Future of the Corps

So I’ve sat in on a couple media interviews with LtGen George J. Flynn, USMC. He is the Deputy Commandant for Combat Development and Integration, i.e…..the future. Of course you don’t make general by throwing out bold, radical statements to the media, but there were a few interesting nuggets in what he has been saying.

On the Future of the Corps

“In eight years of a land war, where the Corps has been acting as if we are a second land army, we need to get back to our amphibious, expeditionary roots.” Nothing new here, but it at least shows a priority of where we want to go. Evidenced by a recent amphibious training exercise Dawn Blitz in Camp Pendleton, CA, and one coming up this summer on the east coast. Dawn Blitz was the largest amphibious training exercise in the past four years.

[The Corps] “is the nation’s sea-based crisis-response force.” Watch this flavor….if a new widget doesn’t help us do this, it’s not as valuable.

On Ground (or sea) Vehicles

In the design of a ground vehicle, LtGen frequently refers to an iron triangle, “Performance, Payload and Protection.” You can protect the heck out of vehicles, but then they don’t move as well [MRAP’s], or you can move faster with little protection [LAV’s]. “We think mobility provides some level of protection” said the general as he was asked for a response to the development of the new (50 - 70 ton) Army combat vehicle. That explains the Corps’ proposed vehicles, why we like the idea of a HMMWV with more protection (search for HMMWV Capsule), and lighter JLTV variants.

On Amphibious Ops

The SecDef has publicly questioned amphibious operations in this day of cheap anti-ship missiles, LtGen Flynn’s comments on amphibious ops, “We’ll need to use the sea as maneuver space (from the NOC) and be able to move from ship to shore fast enough to confuse the enemy. The enemy won’t be able to defend everywhere. Now the Navy says we’ll have to come from over the horizon, well the EFV supports that. We will have to disperse our forces. The enemy will get precision [meaning precision-guided weapons], and we can’t let them have a target.”

That phrase “the enemy will get precision” puts a whole new light on the type of military operations that collect a large amount of forces or materiel, essentially creating a target for the enemy. So as we go forward, will we keep forces small and dispersed, or will we create targets then create the layers of protection required to protect those targets? LtGen Flynn only talked about dispersion.

The NSS stresses engagement as a key tool to work in peacetime with partner nations. LtGen Flynn said, “Engagement is the seam between diplomacy and defense. We see a vital need for the Corps to be engaged in the areas of the world where future security will be uncertain and challenging. Seventy percent of those areas can be reached by sea.” And then he of course went to list the advantage of an amphibious force for engagement, no basing rights, no overflight required, etc. Of course those are easy things to say when you don’t have to eat chow on ship!

Is a Company Landing Team too small, or just right?

The Marine Corps is experimenting with a Company-sized Landing Team this summer. The COLT experiment will look into what a reinforced company can do. They will launch from ships far from shore (20 miles or more out) with minimal indirect fire support with them (60mm, 81mm, maybe two artillery pieces). The Navy likes being farther from shore, but the Marines are kind of on their own out there. Having only a company-sized force might leave you a little exposed for some missions.

This is a big deal for us because we normally think only of battalion-sized units as being able to operate independently. In addition, we'll be launching the CoLT from over the horizon (20+ miles out), that's the first time we're doing this over the horizon thing, although we first talked about it in 1997....what took us so long?

The German Navy's Lack of Power Projection

This past weekend Solomon asked why, of all the European Powers, Germany has the weakest navy in terms of power projection.

It's not that the German navy hasn't been thinking about it.

In 1994 Germany had trouble with the withdrawal of its troops from UNISOM II in Somalia. The navy thought a new type of ship could prevent future problems. The ship had such a priority that the navy said it should be fully operational before the year 2000.
The idea from MTG Marinetechnik GmbH -the company that has been established by the German government as an independent centre of excellence in 1966 to design German surface warships- was the Taktische Konzept Mehrzweckschiff (TKM), a 20,000t ship.
The ship would have had a range of 7,500 NM, room for 700 personnel from the army, ro-ro capability and room for 271 vehicles, 8 helicopters, 2 landing craft and a 70 bed hospital with 2 operating rooms. The cost for this all would be between 500 and 620 million Deutschmark.
For comparison it's interesting to know that HNLMS Rotterdam (12,750t) was 265 million Guilders (about 237 DMark).
In 1995 the plug was pulled by the politicians, mainly because of the huge cost of the ship.
The navy, however, hadn't given up on the idea.

In 1998 the Weizsäcker-commission was formed, with the intruction to give the goverment advice about the future of the German armed forces. This commission adviced to get a 'transport and deployment support ship'.
This became the ETrUS (Einsatz Truppenunterstützungsschiff) project. In 2003 it was removed from the Navy's plans, mainly because of costs. Most likely it would have been a further development of the Rotterdam/Galicia class.

The navy, however, was still not giving up and in 2007 news came that Joint Support Ships were to be included in the 2009 plan for the navy.
This resulted in inclusion of these Joint Support Ships -most likely a LPD/LHD- in the Zielvorstellung Marine 2025+ (Navy Plan 2025+).
However, a final decision is not expected before 2016.

So why is it taking Germany so long to get an amphibious capability?
Because Germany doesn't have a real naval tradition. Historically their focus has always been on the army and they therefore lack the marines that are usually associated with these type of ships.
This army-centric thinking also dominated during the Cold War and still exists today. Besides that, the army and air force are seeing these amphibious ships as a threat to their dominance in the 'lift' role.

No, Really; Amphib is the New Dreadnought

Unless I'm wrong, upon deliver the Russian Mistral will become the largest warship purpose built to order in a foreign yard since ARA Moreno, delivered by the United States to Argentina in 1915. HMS Canada, later Almirante Latorre, was purpose built to Chilean specifications in 1914, but served in the Royal Navy until 1920. I can't think of any aircraft carriers purpose built for immediate sale that are as large as a Mistral; HTMS Chakri Naruebet is only about 12000 tons. If I'm missing a major sale, please note in comments.

Meaningless coincidence, or eerie similarity?

Mistral Deal Inked

Via War is Boring, a French Ministry of Defence official has indicated that France has agreed to sell a Mistral class amphibious warship to Russia. The article gave no indication about the rest of the deal (such as the licensing of the construction of additional Mistrals in Russia), but it did note that France's NATO ally Lithuania had expressed concern about the deal. The contract for the 21000 ton warship, however, appears to have been too tasty an offer to turn down.

...This article indicates that France will sell four Mistrals to Russia. The implication seems to be that all of the ships will be built in France, although it's a touch unclear what this means:

France has agreed to sell Russia a Mistral-class amphibious assault ship and received an order to build another three, Radio France Internationale reported Monday.

I don't imagine that this can mean selling one existing ship, then building three others; perhaps it means that one sale is final, and three are still in discussion?

Waves of Hope

Very briefly, I'd like to recommend Bruce Elleman's Waves of Hope, Newport Paper #28. It examines in detail the US response to the 2004 tsunami, particularly the role played by amphibious vessels. Worth your valuable time.

More on Mistral

See Dmitry Gorenburg at Russian Military Reform for some additional analysis of Russian thinking on the Mistral purchase. I'm not actually convinced that a Mistral type ship is useless for anti-piracy and sea lane maintenance operations; even if the vessel is limited to "command ship" functions, I suspect that its presence could substantially enhance the effectiveness of a Russian squadron, especially given the possible necessity of raids against vessels controlled by pirates, or against pirate havens on land. The Mistral, in other words, would help the Russian Navy to conduct independent amphibious operations in distant locales, which is one of the central jobs of any major amphib. Of course, a Mistral could also be helpful in settling disputes closer to home...