JonesyIts a bit of levity isnt it?!. Besides it is an interesting tactical challenge…the intent here is to actually go force-on-force…not harrass-to-drive-off as most think is the winning strategy for Argentina.
The issue here almost isnt the money after a certain point….as the OP has defined an immense pot of cash thats no longer relevant….its time…which makes the exercise even more engaging. RN in 2020 will have a short establishment of F-35B in the initial stages of deployment and work-ups on CVF. Every year from that point the job of retaining the islands gets harder. You work out your timeline from that…see what you’ve actually got to call on already…then you look for strengths and weakness of the opposition forces and risk-reduce accordingly. Any systems you want to buy in have to be viable to get in and develop an operational capability/skillset within that timeframe. So you arent just looking at clever kit with whizzbang capabilities…you are looking at deployable, game-changing, combat power.
Case in point for the Argentines the big problem is always going to be the Royal Navy’s SSN force. It takes decades to build up a comprehensive ASW capability and, with all the money and kit in the world, if you dont have skilled, experienced, operators you aren’t going to get far. Seven years isnt enough to get the hulls with top-notch systems in, build up basic competence and develop the operational experience required. Armada surface ASW groups then will be targets, submarines wont match A- or T-class SSN’s and ASW aircraft need cueing to be effective…see earlier problem. By 2020 the Armada can not win the ASW battle….simple as that. So ships/naval forces are out.
If Argentina wants to take the Islands therefore its all got to happen by air. First order of business is simple…remove RAF Mount Pleasant. This means placing huge amounts of explosive force on a discrete set of coordinates, boxing about 4km square, either before the RAF can respond or outside of the RAF/Army’s ability to counter. The way to achieve this, without requiring an absurd infrastructure build-up to airbases along TdelF to support supersonic bombers and regiments of fighters (which could also not be generated in the allotted timespan) is with terminally guided TBM’s. China has a similar problem of needing to quickly and decisively knock out infrastructure on a neighbouring island…makes sense to go talk to them. Assuming, for the sake of the scenario, they’d rip up MTCR for Argentina…several regiments of mobile DF-15B’s/DF-16’s with camouflaged hides in the hinterland behind Rio Gallegos along with distributed and dispersed firing points is the way to knock flat MPA.
Follow up the saturation heavy missile strike at X+90mins with paratroops at MPA and Entebbe landings from escorted KC-390’s at Stanley Airport. KC-390 can operate, according to Embraer, tactically loaded from an 1100m strip which just happens to match with the usable length at Stanley. Knock out anything useable of the long strips at MPA with demo charges then just contain and suppress the defenders for as long as it takes them to realise that no-one can get in to relieve them. In the meantime foothold Stanley airport and dig in hard…anchoring your airbridge. Additional assault forces come in here.
When the defending forces have been reduced and pocketed….thats when you start to offer the locals the ‘gold or lead’ choice!. Get them to leave and there’s only the oil for the British to come back for….cue a hundred thousand Guardian readers instantly accusing UK Gov of stealing whats rightfully Argentina’s oil!. If the Islanders stay, and you are too squeamish to do the old ethnic cleansing piece, then you finish the dismantling of MPA. Last thing you want is a base that the RAF can use to fly really heavy stuff into.
You fly in two squadrons of one-careful-owner JAS-39’s to the short strip airport and keep elements configured for air defence and antiship strike. Maritime Patrol and a modicum of AEW you run with 2022A/Eitans also out of Stanley Airport backed up with a number of patrol/transport configured Be-200’s operating out of the sheltered water in the Sound centred on a shore ramp at San Carlos. When you have your surveillance envelope in place you bring in three full batteries of VL MICA GBAD, a few batteries of Mantis C-RAM. This raises the virtual attrition potential against UK TLAM/Storm Shadow standoff strikes, makes it harder for useful weapons employment and hopefully makes them think about saving them for a rainy day. Bring over the Pucaras to run out of a couple of dispersed strips and you’ve got a COIN/Light CAS element, cued by the UAV’s, for dealing with any have-a-go locals/sneaky beaky insertion forces.
Your problem is, of course, logistics as you have one critical point of failure…if the RAF/RN/SAS can interdict Port Stanley Airport then the British can do to you exactly what you did to them. Isolate your forces save for the Be200 link/paradrops. So the most important piece of ground in your world is that airport peninsula. You dont land a reinforced brigade this time either…you use the strategic ISTAR you have to keep to a two battalion garrison with the recovered airborne forces standing-to on the mainland to rapid-reinforce on warning…limiting the logistics burden to ease the severity of that one great big achilles heel!.
Assets Required (Assault/Stabilisation)
++++++++++++
– 60+ DF-15B/16
– 42 JAS-39C (18 Islands deployed)
– 24 KC-390 (3 deployed tanker config)
– 21 Eitan UAV (15 deployed)
– 12 Be200PS (6/2 deployed MP/trans config)
– 4 btr VL MICA GBADS
– 3 btr 35mm MANTIS
– 3 btr 155mm CEASAR
– 4 bttns ‘good’ air assault troops.
JonesyYes, an impressive fit. The SeaMaster 400 (4-face S-band AESA) looks as if it has the range of Smart-S Mk2 & performance in other areas matching APAR. A good frigate standard sensor, as are the others on the mast of the Holland class. But surely, that must be the upper limit, & possibly overkill, for the mission.
Agree on the upper limit and I’d agree with anyone who may suggest that there may have been an element of ‘national commercial interest’ in the selection and deployment of that system in those hulls. What I would state though is that its no bad thing for a unit that will be out on its own for large sections of its mission profile to have the fullest possible, organic, ability to monitor its environment. The job of a patrol ship being…naturally…to patrol!.
To me the same dynamic that fits the Hollands is equally valid for MHPC. Our equivalent to SeaMaster being 997…albeit a system with a different focus, that is cheaper and less capable…it still offers superior capabilities to a ship that will be able to leverage them into real multirole-on-deployment capability and is a system that will be beneficial for us if its well exported. The fact that deploying it will streamline MHPC with the rest of the fleet and ease, and therefore cheapen, logistics and training streams, to my mind, is the icing on the cake.
JonesyThe small number of assets and units means they can’t for anything other than extremely short periods of time and then still require US augmentation for critical capabilities.
This is the whole point though thobbes its a matter of political commitment….when you have the right equipment. In coalition the equipment is there in the Euro navies, as I’ve said, to deploy an effective Carrier Strike capability and a brigade-sized landing force complete with all supporting arms and make those stations permanent. It would require rotating through every advanced hull in the European services inventories but its do-able. Would it be easier with the US…obviously yes…they are a superpower where Europe is a collection of bickering states who dont like each other most of the time, but, Europe has the capability to do the job that no-one else, apart from the US, could even attempt.
No disrespect to China (as an example), they are working up a very steep learning curve and undeniably doing well at it, but a brigade landing, sustained presence following an opposed air/AW/UW threat naval entry plus logistics bridge to support at several thousand miles distance is, likely, 15yrs away for them. Europe, without US assistance, dropping current commitments, could probably put a brigade ashore in Venezuela by mid September if given the go now….and part of that lead-time would be in stocking up with appropriate munitions for the operation etc.
And the Flankers and Kilos had no real impact on defence procurement elsewhere. Brazil is busy spending money to get ready for FIFA World Cup and Olympics whilst FX program continuously gets delayed and M2000s run out of hours. Colombia’s response to Su-30MKK was to buy Kfirs to replace ancient Mirage 5s (or where they 50s?) whilst pumping money into anti-narcotics operations. And even with Chile buying nearly 50 F-16s and KC-135s as well as Type 23s and M class frigates did not make either Peru or Argentina go on a spending splurge
So Brazil is giving priority to commercial opportunity and that means they dont want new fighters does it???. Colombia spending lose change on Kfirs means they wouldnt actually like new block F16’s….if they had the money?. Argentina’s only reason for not matching Chilean military largesse is that they wanted to focus on COIN?. Its all a bit disingenuous isnt it?. The simple fact is that the South American states are as concerned with maintaining conventional combatant forces as everyone else….they just find funding it difficult….same as everyone else!.
JonesyStan,
C3 died with the rest of S2C2 a few years back. MHPC, as a standalone project, is a much smaller scheme. The main concept seems to be to pull down the minor war hulls by creating offboard system ‘mission packages’ that can be deployed to other serving hulls like amphibs, RFA’s and T26’s. This will only go so far of course and some form of multirole auxilliary hull will have to be a component of the project sooner or later…these will have to be very reasonably priced though so multiple ‘complex’ weapons systems are going to be right out!.
Think a single automatic mount forward and a couple of manual Gambo’s and miniguns at best. The only way we get the ability to enter any waters covered by a missile threat, with MHPC, is either with a very good soft-kill suite or with a dual-role forward gun comprehensively able to engage air-threats. The 57mm may be optimal, but, the 40mm looks a lighter, more compact and cheaper mount for secondary/CIWS fits to CVF/Amphib/T26 and as a main gun replacing DS30 for the minor war hulls. So it may have far wider appeal.
Jonesythobbes
If the opponent has a few radar sites, an air force and shore AShMs the Europeans don’t get involved without Uncle Sam’s overkill capability.
Difference there is between the words ‘dont’ and ‘cant’. Following your OPV logic dont becomes cant….so you actually arrive at the situation you appear so contemptuous of in inescapable fashion. Surely then, by your own logic, the Euro navies are buying the objective ‘right’ vessels as it preserves the capability to take action….even if they can never actually agree to use it. The only tangible obstacle to the deployment of those assets, in a meaningful strategic manner, is a lack of political will.
So you picked the one country that was being run by a tin pot dictator with money.
Remember the point about it only needing one player not to get the ‘COIN only’ memo?. Here is the perfect example.
JonesyYep the point of continuing the 997 run into MHPC is to get the maximum operational capability while leveraging logistics, training and commercial avantages to ‘pay for it’. If you want a cheap set you get lesser capability, thats accepted, but is it worth fitting the cheaper set if you then have to pay out more to set up separate training and logistics streams to support the distinct type. If you can offset support costs against acquisition costs do you get the better capability for a modest premium and does that constitute value for money?.
My background is in engineering….I like the idea that my MHPC can trade spares with a passing T26 or amphib….I like the idea that a radar OM thats just been serving on a CVF can get a draft to an MHPC and start work in his new ship as soon as he’s squared away….and vice versa!. To my mind the whole thing is win-win from a commercial and operational standpoint.
As for whether the mission requires a radar as capable as 997….I think the answer to that can be found in what the Dutch have bolted onto their new Holland boats, in sensor terms, for a similar mission profile.
JonesyWrong. Most peace time roles require the MPA to go down and dirty. Want to prove a trawler was fishing in your economic zone, get a photo to show he has the nets down. Want to identify an unkown ship, get down at take a photo. Want to organize a SAR mission, go down to find the vessel and go down to guide the helo in or drop the supplies. Most daily work has to be done at low altitudes, only if you have a separate coast guard MPA fleet, that will take on the every day duties, you can have an MPA that will stay high for most of the time.
There’s no reason for an MPA to be down at sonobuoy dropping altitudes, i.e a hundred metres or so, and a few thousand metres of altitude will keep a light MPA clear of most of the rougher air. Thats the primary profile USCG HU-25’s flew for years at any rate.
In clear air zoom optics will catch nets, ship name/registration and people moving around on deck just as much as flying low will….in a low cloudbase you cue with the radar/IIR…drop down to get your images then get the hell back up on top of the murk. Either way the necessity to flow low and slow for large periods of the mission window just arent there any more.
JonesyStill unsure about the 997 it is an extremely good radar for an OPV. The MK4 well if it became the standard CIWS for the RN then maybe it would make sense however we already have a fair number in service at the moment Phalanx, Goalkeeper, GAM-B01, DS30M-MK2, 40mm Bofors Mk9. Plus the fact that we have the 4.5 on the Type 45 and Type 23 yet Type 26 will hopefully have the 127/64 introducing another weapon system.
Indeed, but the idea would be to bring that down, in phased fashion, to GAM-BO1 (very modest cost), Mk4, Mk8mod1 and new MCG. The Darings would be the last ships left with both the CIWS+ASCG combination and the Mk8 and, when they phase out, we go to 3 support streams.
JonesyI seriously doubt there’s going to be any blue water scenarios in the service life of any MPA Britain may acquire in the next few years. Also given that the current MPA is non-existent, a C295 would be a massive capability increase.
Precisely. The job we need doing is to be able to pick up, profile, identify and track surface contacts of interest in UK waters, around Gib and the Med entry and maybe around Cyprus and/or the Falkands. We dont need to hunt for Red October in the mid Atlantic because its very rare Red October is there any more and Reforger died a long time ago!. Take away the need to fly low and slow through the worst of the climatic murk and what you are left with is a requirement for a cheap, fair endurance twin with a decent radar/EO surveillance suite and a SATCOM fitout. No more no less.
Jonesythobbes
Without American involvement, Europeans won’t do anything heavier. Just on this point – you don’t need Air Warfare Destroyers or even fast jets for these kind of ops (Mali is landlocked).
Just examples of operations undertaken largely without US involvement to note that they do actually happen!. Your suggestion is to remove even that capability level. Just having a quick look at the list Tempest generated. Its a fairly simple exercise to generate a one-deck carrier group with a comprehensive screen and a separate amphib group with enough lift for a brigade battlegroup complete with heavy and light armour plus regimental strength artillery and attack chopper support. Most importantly there is enough there to support that deployment permanently. Thats the reason for buying the ‘wrong’ ships!.
It in fact favours these kind of forces:light infantry, airmobile artillery, medium armour, CAS/Light strike and air transport
Mali does, Sierra Leone didnt if you want to use specific examples…secure offshore basing was very handy for Palliser. Outside of those specific cases logistics for any large mechanised force will come by sea or via a sea-land bridge. That means, if the opponent has an airforce or even a few radar sites and shore missiles, you need to screen big grey boats. You arent doing that with OPV’s are you?.
It was you who raised conventional warfighting capability. I actually did state that the non-US partners provide auxiliary services (e.g. ASW, escort etc).
I will apologise that I missed that somewhere…what is ‘auxilliary’ let alone cheap about ASW???.
A military force should be designed for it’s main threat levels – it’s why Latin American forces have gone from emphasis on external defence to COIN with only limited investment in external.
Hmmm yes the Venezuelans choosing Flankers and Kilo class SSK’s….clearly they planned on facing much trickier insurgents than most!.
We’ve just had 12 years of Coalition based warfare and not one of these conflicts generally required large conventional forces including naval ones.
Apart from the initial phases of both Iraq and Afghanistan where TLAM, DDG’s, SSN’s, Aircraft Carriers, amphibious forces, air superiority fighters, stealth, heavy bombers, heavy armour, mechanised infantry, heavy artillery and basically every component of the all-arms battle was employed. Without those initial phases of course there being no COIN phase following on?.
JonesyWell there is a SAAB 2000 variant mentioned but this seems less tangible than the others. I suppose I would view the C295 as least risky/expensive of the 3 options mentioned which gives us more room to work out what we need. But sure, if we don’t need to blow up ships and sink submarines then we may not need something like the C295.
A handful of C295’s is not even close to enough to form a long-range ASW capability…so thats out. What kind of ships are we going to attack with a patrolling singleton light MPA?. C295 would predominantly be a surface recon platform with lip service ASW/ASuW. The surface search we have a requirement for….in support of GWoT etc the ASW etc we dont. If we accept theres not much in the budget then we need a balance of capability and cheap. The 350ER King Air is already in service with the RN as the Avenger….and the MPA variant is already developed. Find a cheaper solution!
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http://www.janes.com/article/21667/gabbiano-and-vixen-pass-testing-events
JonesyAnd so do I for the same reasons. It gives us a chance to operate an MPA whilst the world changes and we get on top of future requirements rather than operating the US replacement for their large fleet of elderly P3s.
Do you see what i mean? I think we need a capability (and the fact that the UK keeps its crews trained on allied aircraft shows that so does the MOD and Treasury), but do we need the most expensive system out their at this stage?
Do we need something even this capable at the moment though?. Would something like this: http://www.naval-technology.com/news/newsselex-installs-atos-system-beechcraft-king-air-350er-aircraft be adequate for the immediate surface surveillance mission?.
JonesyI disagree with some of this I don’t think the new class would need a 997 set, the Terma Scanter 4100 on the clyde would be plenty, I also think a 30mm gun would also be adequate. I do believe it should have a large mission deck and aviation facilities for a helicopter, VTOL UAV and a Scan Eagle style UAV.
The Scanter 4100 is, anecdotally, a decent piece of kit….certainly its on record that its operators like the capabilities. Would it be sufficient?. Yes probably it would. 997 its also got to be said is going to add at least a couple of mill to the price of a hull thats meant to be cheap. So I certainly understand the view that its price and capability doesnt match the hull at first glance.
For me though there is a lot of sense in accepting that and putting the 997 in regardless. First reason is operational….in this concept of MHPC these hulls will be johnny-on-the-spot in all sorts of places where trouble may brew up. 997 is going to give the hull much better capability to monitor its environment not just for local security but for air direction, raid warning and numerous other functions in support of friendly forces in theatre…and to provide intel back to PJHQ. In cost terms adding another 18 or so units will bring down the unit cost and individual support costs for the rest of the fleet….training and support/ops personnel deployment would be much more efficient as well. Lots of potential return for the investment.
Likewise with the Mk4 BAE mount. Give it the programmable ammo and you have a lightweight mount tailored for the MSO mission and able to provide, with a suitable low-cost director like LIROD, CIWS functionality. Personally I’d like to see the Phalanx-1B/DS-30 sponson mounts deleted from CVF and replaced with single Mk4’s as well…and something similar for T26. I dont, honestly, see the need for two weapons systems to be embarked, CIWS & ASCG, when a single lightweight/low-impact mount can do both jobs much more efficiently and, arguably, more effectively. We all know that Phalanx-1B has a limited lifespan in the face of higher performance missile threats and the DS30, even after the recent ASCG improvements, has been around a while. Phasing the two out to replace with the single Mk4 over an extended period seems to make sense to me.
Jonesythobbes
All this proves my point even further – the current best option is the OPV. The destroyer is a pointless battleship designed for wars that no longer happen. As a wise man said, “the future is not Son of Desert Storm, it’s the stepchild of Somalia and Chechnya.
Listening to the ‘wise man’ then we can scrap, in addition to pointless destroyers, everything else that isnt light infantry, airmobile artillery, medium armour, CAS/Light strike and air transport!. Which sounds like a tremendously good idea….until one player doesnt get the memo and determines he needs carriers, SSN’s, DD’s, MBT’s, heavy SSM’s, gen5 air superiority types and all the other high-end pointy stuff. Then while you are congratulating yourself about how well you are doing your peacetime duties he has two SSN’s sat astride your SLOCs and is seeking to renegotiate your seat on the UNSC!. There is no identifiable ‘he’ currently of course but the surest way to see someone like that appear is to degrade your warfighting capability to better achieve your peacetime jobs!.
For your average peacetime operations (embargo enforcement, sea control, anti-piracy), your capability is definitely improved – more hulls = more capability to deploy. Also with modular design, you can outfit as required – you don’t need extensive AD for anti-piracy or blockade dutes.
You cant fit a 100ft mast with an advanced MFR atop it as a module thobbes. You can have an uber-destroyer do MSO ops as a byproduct of being in theatre for more ‘fighty’ roles, as we have with the Darings, but you cant do that the other way around. You deploy a limited hull and it will do a limited job.
For conventional war, your offering hulls for auxilliary duties for your main ally, the US of A who generally bears the brunt of all operations (even in Libya in terms of airpower).
…and if the US doesnt want to/is unable to…play out this time and its a modest scaled operation….i.e Sierra Leone or Mali….the remainder of NATO should have zero, nil, ability to act independently?. No-ones suggesting, before you try it, that a non-US-involved NATO force have a crack at Shanghai or Murmansk just for fits and giggles…but there are a huge swath of military operations that smaller coalition forces with a couple three LPD’s and a French, British or Italian carrier along with suitable screen could accomplish.
For small navies, is 3-4 destroyers a capability when that’s the entire fleet? That means one operational ship on average, and if that one has a malfunction then that’s it.
Usually 3-4 lets you have one deployed and another in working-up/readiness state so one engineering casualty shouldnt mean its curtains. Plus the point is that if you only have 3 destroyers you dont let more than 1 go very far away routinely. Dont need 3 supports 1 if you keep to home waters much of the time.
Yet for most NATO navies and forces, the core capability set is poor – a handful of aircraft and a handful of ships (and ****** all ground forces). If they were ever called to action in a WWIII scenario, it would be a repeat of Europe in 1939-41 or Asia in early 1942.
Did NATO exist in 39???. You’ll have to jog my mind on that one thobbes!. The point of the Alliance, after all, is to combine all those handfuls of aircraft and ships into a larger fighting force….should a major player threat situation evolve.
The bottom line is that states will assemble their force structure in a balance between warfighting/alliance commitments, local military/industrial goals (see Dutch retention of 7Provs…with those lovely Thales Nederland radars!) and routine taskings….in that order.
A military force is not designed for its peacetime commitments…the more technically demanding sea and air services especially so. MSO taskings, again, are, in the main, elective and are deployments at the whim of the respective political authorities wishing to appear all keen and at-the-party. As long as they dont cost very much they will be good PR for the Govt. of the day and the services wont moan as its ‘free’ training and looks good on the recruitment posters. No-one is going to countenance losing a destroyer or a high-end frigate for the ability to more efficiently chase pirates or board druggie go-fasts though.
JonesyIIRC, the British had a concept for a pusher ground attack aircraft (it was depicted in one of Tony Buttlers’ books)
You remember just fine Frank. That was the BAE SABA (Small Agile Battlefield Aircraft)
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…and I wouldnt have fancied the job in air contested by a gen4 up fighter!
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