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| Pacific Patrol Boat operated by the Solomon Islands |
The Australian government’s
Pacific Patrol Boat has provided 22 patrol boats to 12 Pacific Island nations
since the mid 1980s. Twenty two boats were delivered between 1987 and 1992 at
an initial cost of 155.25 million Australian dollars. Continuing costs have
been budgeted at 12.5 million Australian dollars per year, but fuel and
operational costs has pushed this figure to 51 million in at least two years. A
350 million (Australian) dollar service life extension program will extend the service life
of the boats to 2027.
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| Scope of the Australian-funded and support program |
These 100 foot craft
have an endurance of 2500 nautical miles at 12 knots and can be configured for
a variety of missions. They generally serve as offshore patrol vessels but can
also mount small weapons up to and including a 20mm cannon. The Australian
govt. provides most of the funds to build the ships, and train the crews, but
they are operated and routinely maintained by the nations whose interests they
serve. Australian naval observers often operate with these ships. This arrangement gives Australia a greater strategic presence in the South and Central
Pacific at a very low cost compared with a deployment of Australian warships to
the area.
The U.S. could adopt
a similar program to build littoral patrol/missile craft and train
recipient-nation crews for service in West African, Middle Eastern, and Western
Pacific waters. Individual flotillas could be tailored to the region/nations
for which they are destined to serve. A West African flotilla vessel might look
very much like the Australian Pacific Patrol boat, while a Western Pacific
flotilla combatant might be much more heavily armed like the old
Soviet-designed OSA missile boat, or the larger and more capable Ambassador MK
III class that has been proposed as a U.S. flotilla combatant by New Navy
Fighting Machine (NNFM) advocates. Proponents of small missile combatants
suggest they could be built for U.S. service at 80 million U.S. dollars per
copy. A very simple flotilla
combatant built to commercial standards for other nations might be constructed for even less,
especially in purchased in large numbers.
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| OSA type missile combatant |
This program would
bring navies from those nations receiving flotilla ships into closer contact
with the U.S. Navy, and allow for sustained multilateral operations. Recipient-
nation crews would be regionally knowledgeable and more effective than
deploying U.S. Navy assets (large or small) in achieving success in littoral
missions. Enduring, regular U.S. support to this mission could be regionally
provided by an amphibious warfare ship outfitted as a station ship along the
lines of those employed for Africa Partnership Station (APS). This unit would
provide classroom, and repair, and support for flotilla combatants. It could be
substantially crewed by Military Sealift Command CIVAMRS in a format similar to
that of the experimental seabase USS Ponce in order to further
reduce costs to the mission. Additional support might be provided by one or
more Littoral Combat Ships (LCS) deployed in the role of “flotilla leader(s).
LCS, with its extensive helicopter/unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) capability and
communications/control systems might support and coordinate the activities of
U.S. funded flotillas in the event of wartime operations. This capability could
be regularly exercised through peacetime deployments and pay great dividends in
combat at sea. Most importantly, the U.S. government would not have to pay the
crews or many of the immediate operating costs of those vessels.
There is no need to
divert thousands of relatively expensive U.S. sailors to littoral missions when
those who live and operate in the region can be enabled by the U.S. to conduct
that mission. Creating Pacific, West African, and Middle Eastern flotilla
groups tailored to the needs of and threats residing in each region can free
U.S. to pursue the construction of globally-deployable ships necessary for its
own unique strategic needs. The close association these flotillas would have
with U.S. naval forces would make them a powerful tool in gathering regional
intelligence in peacetime, and useful force multipliers in actual combat
operations. A U.S. flotilla combatant program would obviously be significantly more expensive than its Australian counterpart. Such a formation however could still significantly augment U.S.
regional engagement efforts and ought to be seriously considered as a means of
delivering the benefits offered by the NNFM without its most significant costs in personnel, fuel, and regular maintenance.
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