Survilability of small naval vessels in a modern warfare scenario

I think both Iraq and former Yugoslavia are not the best cases for FACs. Coastal defence is not so easy if your opponent has full control of the open seas surrounding your land!

Let’s not forget this: the submarine remains the absolute weapon of sea denial. FACs, in an environment like the Aegean, may play a role similar to that of snippers in a land conflict. But I don’t see how a FAC force could hope to deny sea (and coast) control to a A/C carrier group stationed 200nm from the coast. You simply have 24/7 patrols by planes and helos, until you sink anything floating, and move on with your marine landing. End of story. :p

hmm, are we forgetting something here? 😀 i have constaintly stressed time and again that FACs are only worth anything in a real large-scale naval conflict if they are properly supported and not sent out on kamekazi runs by themselves. 😉

however, in these kinds of enagements, if i was the defending naval commander, i’d take a dozen 2208 kind FACs over any 3 or 4 corvettes. thats the point i was trying to make.

however, with decent FACs, you take all that away. for your enemy to stay outside the operating range of you FACs is to effetively stay out of the war, but to operate within is to put the lives of thousands at risk. even if your FAC attacks comes to nothing (as they are almost certain to do without proper support), at the very least you would be able to disrupt enemy operations, and buy yourself time if not win a small battle or two.

I think both Iraq and former Yugoslavia are not the best cases for FACs. Coastal defence is not so easy if your opponent has full control of the open seas surrounding your land!

Let’s not forget this: the submarine remains the absolute weapon of sea denial. FACs, in an environment like the Aegean, may play a role similar to that of snippers in a land conflict. But I don’t see how a FAC force could hope to deny sea (and coast) control to a A/C carrier group stationed 200nm from the coast. You simply have 24/7 patrols by planes and helos, until you sink anything floating, and move on with your marine landing. End of story. :p

@plawolf
To realize what kind of threat these truck launched SSM is, you could look at the Balkan conflict. I’ve been told that american carrier groups weren’t willing to station in the Adriatic sea because of that Saab had delivered RBS-15 to Belgrade. The risk were to high. Perhaps dienekes can shed som light on this story?

and who won that? 😀

iraq also had truck mounted AShMs, and look what happened. if anything, these examples goes to show how limiting and dangerous relying purely on shore defences can be.

the ranges of almost all missiles are well known to the world’s various intellegence agencies, and the shape of a coastline of any nation is available to everyone on the planet for only a few dollars. with that, its doesnt take a genious to figure out how far forward you can push with immunity. and thats what happened. air strikes, recon missions, speical forces insertion and retival etc went like clockwork to spectacular effect in both cases.

however, with decent FACs, you take all that away. for your enemy to stay outside the operating range of you FACs is to effetively stay out of the war, but to operate within is to put the lives of thousands at risk. even if your FAC attacks comes to nothing (as they are almost certain to do without proper support), at the very least you would be able to disrupt enemy operations, and buy yourself time if not win a small battle or two.

Well some mistakes are there, Murmansk is not always ice free and they do not rely on that port either, since it’s way too far from the “rest” of the country, the area where food and other supplies may be needed. Some people that live in there have neighbours 500km from their house… And almost everyone who lives there is engaged in military activities.
As for being the most powerful fleet, yes it is, but why? I think this will change remarkably in the future and of course the fact that it remains the strongest fleet, is more a case of infrastructure. Kaliningrad and Kronstadt can’t support too many big ships, the Northern bases were built to accomodate those vessels, nothing new is needed to keep them like that. The Northern Fleet is also the largest because it harbours the SSBNs, which have to be protected by submarines and surface vessels (in their case).
For the independence of Baltic states, I would think the Baltic fleet would become more important yes?
Don’t see what Ukraine or Georgia have to do with the Northern and Baltic fleet though…
The fact that they have stripped most Sovremennys in the Northern fleet, together with some other vessels, and the fact that they have put Neustrashimiy with two Sovremennys and an upgraded Krivak in the Baltic Fleet means something. Also, the Yantar yards in Kaliningrad and the yards in St-Petersburg build very good merchant vessels, very large tankers which are placed on number five of the “best commodities of Russia” list.

Now that I’m thinking about it, Warships International Fleet Review had a nice article on the Polish subs too. The Baltic is quite infested by submarine countries. Only the Baltic states and Finland don’t have any.

Murmansk covered with ice?

I guess you mean the city of Murmansk, which is situated inside the Murmansk Fjord, which might be frozen in winter. The coast of the western Kola penninsula (near the border with Norway) is always ice free.
That’s why the Murmansk Convoys used this route in WW2.

I should think this area (Kola) is becoming increasingly important to Russia, for several reasons.
First, there are considerable petroleum ressources there and further east, which is exported by sea (is there any pipelines this far north?)

Secondly, the Northern fleet is the strongest in Russia, and even more so after the independence of the Baltic states and Ukraine & Georgia.
Is this correct, or have I got it wrong, Severodvinsk?

Orca

The Americans don’t really rely on CIWS, normal of course, sometimes people overestimate these systems a bit. In USN, the Phalanx is called “the zipper” for its sound, but more remarkably, it’s also called “the abandon ship alarm”. A man who was on the control panels of a Tico told me the thing was completely not reliable, he’d seen the Phalanx do some very strange things, although I’m obliged to remark that was the older version of Phalanx. But even then, it can still only engage one target(like most CIWS).
Castor, indeed, so we’ll leave the difference in thought, that’s what makes the world interesting anyway! About the Baltic, well it should be noted that the pond is full of mines and that the Russian Baltic Fleet is quite strong at the moment, probably stronger than it’s ever been. Most of their ships are relatively young and they hope to receive 5 of the planned 20 Stereguchiys, also Sankt-Petersburg, the first Lada class submarine will go to the Baltic fleet. I suppose it has something to do with the increasing importance of their shipbuilding and shipping in general in the Baltic. Murmansk is most of the time covered with ice, so that needs less protection than Kaliningrad, which has always been one of their very few constant ice-free ports. And of course St-Petersburg is near the Baltic!
Soon, the Germans come in with their U212s and then there’s trouble 😉

To realize what kind of threat these truck launched SSM is, you could look at the Balkan conflict. I’ve been told that american carrier groups weren’t willing to station in the Adriatic sea because of that Saab had delivered RBS-15 to Belgrade. The risk were to high. Perhaps dienekes can shed som light on this story?

From what I can gather, that delivery never took place. Don’t forget this deal was in the cards when Yygoslavia was a whole nation. Croats took the lion’s share as far as naval powers were concerned.

But the story really illustrates an interesting point: even the threat of deploying an appropriate (but non-existent) weapon is sometimes enough to prevent hostile action. 😎

It also shows us that, perhaps, the USN doesn’t have enough faith on it’s PDMS and CIWS? :rolleyes:

A quick note: Some people underestimate the Serbs, in general. Don’t do that. They have proved time and again they are survivors, and they will play any card they happen to have.

@Severodvinsk:
Regarding the devolpment of larger vessels in Swedish navy – I suppose we have different opinions there. But I would also like to emphasize that when I was talking about the fear of a russian invasion, I was speaking of the cold war era – not today. I believe that the baltic sea is as calm as it should be today! 🙂

@plawolf
To realize what kind of threat these truck launched SSM is, you could look at the Balkan conflict. I’ve been told that american carrier groups weren’t willing to station in the Adriatic sea because of that Saab had delivered RBS-15 to Belgrade. The risk were to high. Perhaps dienekes can shed som light on this story?

Haven’t seen a Visby carry a helicopter and practically I don’t think it’s going to be handy either. Telescopic hangars have proven difficult in the past and most navies opt for fixed ones. The Swedes don’t have the experience with those hangars yet and might step back once it proves a faulty decision. Taking no hangar at all wouldn’t be practically either.

Severo, I think the best option for such small ships would be naval UAVs, a trend I believe shall be dominant in the near future. Ideally, you need a hangar in that case too. But the logistics of operating a manned vehicle, as well as serious changes to the ship itself, are avoided.

In fact, I’m opening a new thread on navel UAVs, I’m really interested hearing the views of all of you there. 😉

@plawolf

First of all, it really enjoying discussing and arguing with you!

the feeling is mutual mate. 🙂

I believe that the fast missile craft / fast patrol boat era was 70’s and early 80’s. The fast missile crafts were used, as stormeagle points out, close to the archipelago, making rushes towards sea in order to fire their penguins etc towards incoming vessels.

But in the early 80’s we had missiles with increased range and accuracy, Exocet being the most obvious example. These missiles could be launched from ordinary trucks on land (for example RBS15) and deliver the same effect as the fast missile craft could – but from a much safer place.

In Sweden and Finland, which both feared a russian invasion fleet during the cold war era, the marines / navies adopted this truck launched ssm system at once. That was a decision that led to the abandonment of small fast missile crafts and patrol boats. Therefore, one can see that the swedish navy is moving towards larger vessels (Stockholm class 50m -> Gothenburg class 57m -> Visby class 72m), and that these new vessels are capable of carrying helos as pointed out.

but you are forgetting a couple of important factors. in these past few decades, offensive weapons have advanced disproportionately faster then defensive weapons.

as such, even though the likes of the exocet could do the same job early FAC did from the shore, you’d need no small amount of devine intervention to get enemy warships that close these days! chances are they will just stay at sea and peper you with thousand mile cruise missiles and strike ac if they got a carrier.

also, the nature of warfare has also changed considerably. gone are the days of constant fear of a D-day-style soviet steamroller. now one can bring a government to its nees by merely cutting off their link to the sea – hence to the rest of the world in many cases.

all of this means that in this day and age, ‘static’ defence such as shore based missile batteries alone are desperately inadequet by themselves.

and i feel that few would argue with me that all commanders would need to have the ability to strike back at an attack fleet, and not merely trying to destroy the attack elemint, if he/she is to have any real hope of victory. this is where the navy comes in.

however, the question here is, that given the choice, would a naval commander prefer a large number of decent FACs or a much smaller number of corvettes to suppliement his main naval assets (frigates, destroyers cruisers etc).

my view is that when faced with a real threat of war, naval commanders would prefer the former, while in peace time, politics may force the same commander to choose the latter.

Well yes, the Gotheborgs were Cold War ships, but they weren’t the step you think they are. They were just going to larger better equiped ships in general, which is a normal trend. The smaller vessels they had before were just not practical anymore in taking the weapons and electronics of the new age. It’s always an evolution like that, till something new comes up… They were reducing the number of ships because the new radars and capabilities covered a much larger area and of course reducing the number of ships by getting slightly larger and more capable ships allowed them to reduce manning costs (which is the largest burden upon a Navy’s budget).
Haven’t seen a Visby carry a helicopter and practically I don’t think it’s going to be handy either. Telescopic hangars have proven difficult in the past and most navies opt for fixed ones. The Swedes don’t have the experience with those hangars yet and might step back once it proves a faulty decision. Taking no hangar at all wouldn’t be practically either. And yes, the Burkes didn’t have a hangar either, yet nowadays they did decide it was better to have a hangar. So probably those helicopters are going to be land stationed and only used on the ships in exercises/extended patrols.
I’m still quite puzzled about Visby’s weapons though. Any news on that? Did she do any weapons test? Umkhonto VLS?

“The Gotherborg and Stockholm classes aren’t capable of carrying heloes… Visby is up till now not proven for that task either…”
Well I was referring to the Visby class. Eight Agusta 101 LUHS are dedicated for the Visby class according to Protec, issue 3 2004, and these choppers are to be delivered from this year on.

“The reason why they are going towards larger vessels is more a political choise (sic!) than a capabilities decision.”
I don’t agree to a fully extent with you on that. The Gothenburg class were projected during cold war era. So I think that this shows that a step in the direction towards larger vessels were already taken during the cold war. Nevertheless, the politicians wants to see international peace keeping (flag waving) missions, and so the movement towards larger ships capable of blue water operations is speeded.

The Gotherborg and Stockholm classes aren’t capable of carrying heloes… Visby is up till now not proven for that task either…
The reason why they are going towards larger vessels is more a political choise than a capabilities decision. It’s not because they have those truck-mounted missiles that they have abandonned the FAC (M)s. Visby is to be capable of participating with NATO exercises around the globe, that is also the reason why their subs are now being adapted for tropical waters with airconditioning too. With those FACs it was just impossible to participate in any international “open-ocean” exercise far from the Swedish mainland.

the question in this thread is “What is a Modern Warfare scenario”? Who would be your enemy in that scenario and of course most importantly, where is it fought? I suppose you are talking about littoral warfare here, so it would be fought in the coastal waters of the Small craft operating Navy…

@plawolf

First of all, it really enjoying discussing and arguing with you!

We are not in any real dissagreement I think, as far as general concepts are concerned.

I think the key word (already mentioned) is “sea denial”. That is, I think, the main task for a FAC(M), with secondary patrol duties. All this related to the littoral environment, of course.

Today, most newly build FACs are about 60-65 meters in length and 500-600 tons in displacement. I guess we shall slowly gravitate towards a 70m ship, with good PDMS capabilities and features like UAVs and such.

Personally, should I have buying decision over this, I’d like an “ideal” version of the K130 corvette: a Bofors 57mm mk3, 4 RBS-15, 8 Polyphem, 2 RAMs, 2 Typhoon NTD turrets, 2 UAVs and waterjet propulsion! :p

I believe that the fast missile craft / fast patrol boat era was 70’s and early 80’s. The fast missile crafts were used, as stormeagle points out, close to the archipelago, making rushes towards sea in order to fire their penguins etc towards incoming vessels.

But in the early 80’s we had missiles with increased range and accuracy, Exocet being the most obvious example. These missiles could be launched from ordinary trucks on land (for example RBS15) and deliver the same effect as the fast missile craft could – but from a much safer place.

In Sweden and Finland, which both feared a russian invasion fleet during the cold war era, the marines / navies adopted this truck launched ssm system at once. That was a decision that led to the abandonment of small fast missile crafts and patrol boats. Therefore, one can see that the swedish navy is moving towards larger vessels (Stockholm class 50m -> Gothenburg class 57m -> Visby class 72m), and that these new vessels are capable of carrying helos as pointed out.

I believe that this change could be seen already in the mid 80’s when the Stockholm class was launched. Unlike it’s predecessors (the Norrkoping class fast missile craft) it was capable of advanced ASW with torpedoes and grenades, it had a more advanced air to air artillery system (en extra 40 mm cannon at the aft) and it was bigger.

Regards,
Castor

Shipborne helos these days tend to be multipurpose, All of the RN’s Lynx helos not just dedicated anti-sub. All of the RN’s Lynx helos have been able to use Sea Skua for over 20 years, the USN’s helos carry Pinguin IIRC, the French AS-15 (?? I’m going on memory here) is in international service and so on. All relatively small anti-ship missiles specifically designed to knock out FACs and other small warships. It’s one of the helo’s primary tasks.[/QUOTE]

no disrespect, but i think u are missing the point. the issue is not whether the helos have the ability to engage FACs, but rather if they will get the chance. most warships will have their helos on ASW missions when in a combat environment. it takes time to (call them back if there is only one helo), reconfigure them and send them on their way (especially against an FAC with 250km missiles and AWACS support for targeting).

I’d be willing to bet that the last weapon that any RN frigate commander would want to give up, in war or peace, would be the helo. In warfare, the key to victory is information; knowing what’s going on. Without a helo, the ship is partially blinded.

not really an issue in reality if you think about it. FACs dont have the range to go globe trotting without support ships. but support ships arent worth sending if there isnt heavy warships going as well. FACs might not have helos, but their big brothers and sisters will. as for defence, well you can just use land based assets to scout and ‘light up’ for you FACs.

PS, here’s a pic of the 2208.

@plawolf

If FACs are such cool prospects, then why every navy in the world move on to larger designs (500+ ton vessels). The manufacturers even call them corvettes!

sorry it took this long to reply, i was somewhat indisposed yesterday, and only had time for a quick post.

as for the question. well i think i have already touched upon that in my last post – modern military decisions are rarely based soley on military needs, but also need to make compramises to satisfy the beaurocrats. nowadays, with the world being ‘safe’ and all, defence ministeries need to make it look like they are providing good value for money so as to get some of the money they need.

Also it is certain that a modern anti-ship missile shall completely obliterate a fast attack craft. There have been numerous test firings against obsolete vessels, of about this size. No ship can outmaneuvere even a slow moving, subsonic ASM. Not to mention using it’s defensive weapons in such conditions.

well several points worth make about that:

– extremely few destroyers and cruisers can boast to be able to take a heavy AShM and still be worth salvaging, never mind continuing combat duties, so the destructive power of heavy AShMs are not that important. if anything, modern AShMs are way overkill against FAC sized targets.

– test firings against obsolete vessels traveling in a straight line in almost perfect whether conditions isnt really the best mirror of real life combat. again looking at the aviation sector, all AAMs and SAMs have a far better kill ratio/probablity in testing then in real life.

i seriously doubt that modern AShMs designed to hit a target the size of a barn-door will have that much joy going after something the size of a bedroom window (figuratively speaking of course).

another thing to remeber is that although the FAC’s top speed isnt that much greater then most modern warships, they are a hell of alot smaller. this means that if an FAC and a destroyer, being targeted by identical AShMs in identical whether conditions, were to conduct the exact same evasive manovers at the exact same speed, the missile targeting the destroyer will not need to make nearly as big a course adjustment, hence having a far greater chance of hitting the target.

if u factor in ECM and chaff effects, as well as the sea, the FAC’s chances are even better. as in rough whether conditions, its quite possible for waves to completely block the FAC from the missile seeker for several seconds at a time. even in much better condtions, the unpredictable y-axis movement of the FAC as a result of waves will also greatly reduce the chances of the missile hitting.

again, i wish to stress that the point im making is not that an FAC can just charge right up to destroyers and frigates with no problems. they will have problems, and if it was one on one between an FAC and destroyer, even factoring out the helo i would bet on the destroyer every time.

what i am trying to point out is that against a good number of modern FACs with proper support, a destroyer or small group of destroyers dont exactly enjoy the overwhelming advantage as some seem to beleive. and their chances of survival look even more grim if there are also enemy destroyers and frigates coming up after the FACs.

Helicopters are the No. 1 enemy of the FAC and in most conditions even complete air superiority is not enough to prevent them from accomplishing their mission. My views are of course biased towards the Aegean environment. Let me tell you this: 10 years ago, a well armed FAC was a most valuable asset at the Aegean. Tactics and continuous training were a guaranty for it’s lethality. Today things have come around. The introduction of modern naval helicopters, with IR and laser guided missiles have made things very difficult for the FAC. In the Aegean, only the 5 Roussen class Super Vitas of the HN may have a real chance of survival. All others shall be for target practice.

well, again, im not counting on FACs to wipe out an enemy battlegroup on their own. their primary role would be to degrade the enemy’s combat effeciency so that ‘my’ battlegroup will have a far greater chance of victory if we went in right after. any ships these FACs sink or damage will be a bonus.

Regarding the ‘rush’ to corvettes as opposed to FAC’s – many small navies are interested in prestige and a corvette is a better ‘symbol’ than an FAC. Also with changes in designs and weapon system technologies many of the resources once limited to larger DD’s and frigates are available on a corvette platform.

Regarding the “face” issue.

Another serious consideration is that of local shuipbuilding. Most developing countries are able to build a small/medium missile boat and call it “a triumph of [insert country name here] shipbuilding”. Not many countries can have shipyards capable of building frigates. 😎

Also, what about this fashion of calling 500ton boats “corvettes”? OTOH, South African MEKO are called “corvettes” also… duh! :p

Regarding the ‘rush’ to corvettes as opposed to FAC’s – many small navies are interested in prestige and a corvette is a better ‘symbol’ than an FAC. Also with changes in designs and weapon system technologies many of the resources once limited to larger DD’s and frigates are available on a corvette platform.