The enduring role of the Amphibious Force

The MOD defines Littoral Manoeuvre as the “exploitation of the sea as an operational manoeuvre space by which a sea-based, or amphibious force, can influence situations, decisions and events in the littoral regions of the world. This will be achieved through an integrated and scalable joint expeditionary capability optimized to conduct deterrent and coercive activities against hostile shores posing light opposition.

In simpler terms, the ability to insert a significant land force from the sea is one of the primary outputs of a Navy and one of the key attributes of Sea Power. Keeping things equally simple, this is because the overarching truth of war is that the final effects of any military operation are felt on land. Theorists of Land Power like to remind everyone that wars are ultimately won on land, and that is certainly true. As long as humans will live on land, that will always be the case. The whole utility of Sea Power is not conquering salt water, but influencing events ashore through the denial of the sea to the enemy; the protection of own forces and economy freedom of movement at sea and sea-based strikes through Fires (missiles, naval gunfire), airpower (the carrier air wing) and land power (the landing force).

The golden age of Britain coincided with the historic period that saw economies worldwide at their highest ever dependency upon the sea. The Royal Navy dominated those times through a form of sea denial (working to keep the main competitors “trapped” in European waters) while projecting british power abroad with its ability to put enormous pressure ashore. The “gunboat” diplomacy was literally built upon the Navy’s ability to bombard ports and littoral towns into submission, land naval brigades to storm targets ashore and sail up the major river networks to reach deep inland.

Amphibious warfare became more complex and demanding over time, and it soon became impossible to land a “naval brigade” from a single warship and have sufficient strength in it to achieve decisive results; yet there are signals of a partial return to the age of “every ship an amphibious ship”. The embarkation of a relevant number of Marines in frigates and destroyers is becoming increasingly important once more in an age of hybrid threats. Marines are excellent to counter piracy; Marines can go ashore for small raids, rescue operations, first response to terrorism or disasters and for many other tasks, from defence engagement and local capacity building to more kinetic operations.

In modern times, a fleet on fleet clash has become a very rare occurrence, while the need for rapid response to events ashore has increased steadily: gunfire support, deep strike inland, blockades, counter piracy and disaster relief are frequently required.

The MOD’s Future Character of Conflict document notes that human populations and their economies remain dependent on the sea, and they are once more gravitating towards the shore.

‘In the future, we will be unable to avoid being drawn into operations in the urban and littoral regions where the majority of the World’s population live and where political and economic activity is concentrated’. (Future Character Of Conflict)

70% of the world’s urban areas are found within 60 km from the shoreline, and a further 10% growth in urbanization is expected in the coming years. 8 of the world’s 12 megacities are in the littoral zone.

 ‘We will not want to fight in urban areas, but the urban environment represents in my view a highly credible worst case – and we would be foolish indeed to plan to fight only convenient battles against stupid adversaries. Urban areas are where politics, people, resources, infrastructure and thinking enemies converge’
 (Designing the Future Army: Ex URBAN WARRIOR 3 First Impressions Report – 14 Nov 11)

The Army has concluded in its “Agile Warrior” studies that it is highly likely that over the next ten years it will be called to operate in a densely urbanized battlefield; and human geography dictates that this is highly likely to happen close to the sea.

The urbanized littoral

There is a current of thought that sees the increasingly urbanized littoral as an issue for amphibious operations. The proliferation of man-made infrastructure on the coast might negate or complicate beach landings, and the number of ports is constantly increasing.

In reality, urbanization of the littoral is at least as much an opportunity as it is a problem. Landing a military force in absence of port infrastructures is a very complex and dangerous undertaking. Amphibious forces land on beaches not because we want to capture a sandy strip of shore, but because the enemy will be closely guarding its ports. The whole point of any amphibious operation is to remedy to the impossibility to land directly in a port, and in any major operation the amphibious force’s first objective would be to secure some port infrastructure to exploit.

Beaches are more numerous than ports, more dispersed, and thus far harder to guard and defend. Littoral manoeuvre seeks first of all to land where the enemy is not. When talking of amphibious assaults most people appear to think of the scenes of Saving Private Ryan, but that is completely misleading. There is no country in the world today that can build up an Atlantic Wall, and the amphibious force commander will always seek a weak spot to violate. Think San Carlos waters: that is an opposed landing, with a very dangerous air threat, but with little immediate presence of enemy troops close to the beach. The Royal Marines were able to land in Egypt as well, during the Suez crisis, without any "Omaha beach" scene. They also stormed Al Faw peninsula in Iraq in 2003, although mostly by helicopter insertion from the sea side, as their supporting vehicles took an indirect route, avoiding the beach initially selected for the assault because it was mined. In that occasion it was not thought necessary to clear the beach, and the risk was simply bypassed. 

There is a perception in some quarters that amphibious operations are too risky and are not realistic anymore, but insertion from the sea has actually been one of the most frequent actions the British forces have been asked to carry out beween 1945 and today. 

The ever growing number of harbors and ports on the world’s shores is seen as a negation of action spaces for the amphibious force, but in truth it represents a new opportunity: any port, even a small one, is better than a beach as it immensely simplifies and speeds up the flow of stores, vehicles and troops ashore. In light of this single truth, more ports means that the enemy has even more entry points it needs to guard and protect. This will force an even greater expenditure of troops and resources in the attempt to defend the coast. In turn, this will leave beaches even more exposed.

The amphibious force in the urbanized littoral will need to be able to clear more and greater man-made obstacles and will need to be prepared to fight in an urbanized space, but on the other hand will have greater chances to secure port facilities early on. This makes entry from the sea more viable, not less. 

Urbanization of the littoral also means that more and more economic interests will be concentrated in “easy” reach of the sea-based force. A highly mobile force inserted by the sea could rapidly inflict crippling damage to an enemy nation's infrastructure.

A2AD and STRIKE

Anti-Access, Area Denial (A2AD) is today’s main concern in military planning. Whether we should consider this a new thing is at the very least debatable, since warfare has always comprised a whole series of efforts to prevent the enemy’s movement into a given area. Some area-denial systems have been around for decades (the ever present mine, but also, to stay in the littoral, the shore-based missile or gun battery) and others are more recent and descend from the normal evolution of technology (UAS, the ubiquitous shoulder launched missiles, both anti-air and anti-tank, all the way up to ballistic missiles, including the nascent anti-ship ones). Is A2AD truly new? Arguably, no. The means have evolved, the aims and the application, not so much.

Is A2AD a reason to abandon amphibious operations? No. What concerns military planners is not the enemy’s wish to deny an area, as this has been a fact of life in warfare since the night of times, but the perception that, in the endless fight between “sword and shield”, the sword currently has the upper hand.

Whenever amphibious operations or aircraft carriers are called into question the real problem that emerges is an evident lack of faith in the current escort ships and their weapon systems, for example. In the land domain, there is finally an awakening to the fact that there are rivals out there which could actually strike western forces by the air, something for decades has been more or less unthinkable. Different other areas of warfare that the west has neglected for many years are now, inexorably, advantages that opponents are well equipped to exploit.

Few of the problems that compose the A2AD conundrum are genuinely “new”.

The US and British Army, which both came out of Afghanistan and Iraq in a bad position and in countries now very much averse to new ground operations abroad, have immediately picked up on the A2AD discourse to find new arguments for Land Power. In the US this has generated the Multi Domain Warfare doctrine; in the UK it has brought about “Joint Land Strike” and the Strike brigade.

The underlining argument is that in presence of A2AD threats which could deny access to air force and navy elements, the land forces will manoeuvre in deep against the adversary to take out key nodes of its multi-layered defences.

There are many questions connected with this concept, particularly in the British case which puts way too much emphasis on Ajax and a wheeled 8x8 APC, formulating highly questionable hypothesis about what they will achieve once teamed. There are also some merits, however, and the expectation of having to deal with a wider battlefield involving great distances to cover seems justified by recent experiences, from Iraq to the Ukraine conflict.

The Strike Brigade is based on the ambitious concept of deploying a medium armour force ahead of the heavy armour brigades. From the Air / Sea Port of Debarkation, the brigade would then be asked to move up to 2000 kilometers to secure objectives and hit enemy weak points through mobility and a greater freedom in the choice of routes. Dispersion is the key to Strike, with the experimentation seeing independent groups from Battlegroup down to Troop level operating independently in up to 60 points of presence. Among the many doubts that this concept raises is the very issue of theatre entry. An Air Port of Debarkation is mentioned but it is pretty much impossible for the UK to ever be able to deploy a Strike Brigade by air. The US Army once hoped to deploy a Stryker brigade by air thanks to the USAF’s C-130 fleet, but it soon became evident that only C-17 had an hope and the whole concept more or less vanished away. It takes 15 C-17 sorties to deploy a single Stryker company group, which the US Army keeps at high readiness in support of its air assault component, and that is with an APC that weights a good 10 tons less than any British Army MIV candidate. To do the same, the British Army would require the maximum lift capacity the RAF is equipped to express. 

The Strike Brigade, just like the armoured brigade, is firmly tied to a Sea Port of Debarkation. The crews might well come by air, but their vehicles almost certainly will not. One of the hypothesis of employment that have circulated include the “replacement” of an amphibious landing by a debarkation in a friendly port in a nearby country followed by a road move to the objective, in order to avoid the enemy coastal defences. While this might have some merit in some circumstances, unanswered questions include how the Strike Brigade would deal with the Land and Air firepower available to an enemy well equipped enough to put up such an A2AD bubble. An enemy with the kind of capability required to shut the Royal Navy out of the picture will be more than able to batter back Ajax and wheeled APCs and moreover will have the capability to strike back against the nearby country which allows the Strike Brigade to disembark. This, in turn, might well mean that said nearby country will not want to open its ports to the british contingent to avoid being drawn into the conflict. A2AD includes not only the kinetic means of area denial, but also the political ones: lack of access to an area can be due to multiple different factors.

The need for a sea port is unchanged, and will remain unchanged until air transport becomes able to deal with the weight and volume associated with military operations. Today it simply is not an alternative.

As long as the vast majority of goods in trade and supplies in war will need to travel on ships, ports will be the key to a country’s future and to the feasibility of any military option.

The amphibious force is the only instrument the UK has to gain access to a shoreline when ports, for whatever reason, are not immediately available.

For the rest, the Strike concept borrows quite a few pages from amphibious forces’ concepts and doctrine. After an amphibious landing it is important to move rapidly inland and secure objectives before the enemy can respond in force. The mobility and dispersion of Strike have much in common with the attributes and needs of littoral manoeuvre.

Increasingly, amphibious forces around the world are seeking speed and agility to evade the threats lined up against their operations. Fast landing craft make it possible to keep the amphibious ships far from the shore, out of range of most weapon systems. From there, fast landing craft can take multiple directions, further complicating the task of a defender.

Long range insertion of troops by helicopter is used to create a defensive screen around the landing zone and to beat back the enemy presence. The USMC has brought this concept to its present day pinnacle thanks to the MV-22 Osprey, that has the range and speed to push one thousand miles inland when necessary.

Once ashore, the landing forces are relaying on increasingly mechanized elements that give the protected mobility and firepower needed to push deep inland. “Strike” as a concept is familiar to any amphibious force. The USMC is looking for an 8x8 armored vehicle to increase its ability to push rapidly and decisively inland. 

The Royal Marines have sadly fallen behind these developments. They were the first to employ helicopters for vertical encirclement during the assault on Suez, but in more recent times their attempt to stay up to date has been frustrated by lack of funding. Their Fast Landing Craft programme is on hold, leaving them to operate the terribly slow LCU MK10, which requires the amphibious ships to sit just a few miles away from the shore. Their Force Protection Craft requirement remains unanswered, meaning that they lack the fast, agile combat boat they need to escort the landing craft in and out of the littoral area; to suppress enemy defensive positions on the coast; to insert small reconnaissance and raiding teams and to push deep inland exploiting rivers. Their mechanization has not progressed beyond the Viking, while elsewhere 6x6 and 8x8 are becoming increasingly common.

ARES trials: beach landing from an LCU MK10 

There is an unjustified disconnect between the Army and the Marines, despite the fact that their operations are always closely connected. Any “Strike” concept worth of the name should be very much part of the amphibious capability discussion and vice-versa.

The Royal Marines, conversely, have attempted to carry on bypassing the constant cancellation of their equipment programmes by promoting themselves as a lighter, “quasi Special Forces” element with their “Special Purpose Task Group” approach. This is single Company groups, inserted chiefly by air and carried by a single ship, useful for very small scale, very short term raids.

While this approach has its own uses, it is not amphibious warfare and it will not represent a strategic option for the UK nor a role substantial enough for the Royal Marines to survive. There is no specific need for Royal Marines for boarding an helicopter and going ashore light for a short, quick task. Plenty of other infantry units, beginning with the PARAs, can do that, and the entire Corps would end up crushed to death between a Navy short of money for ships and an Army eager to protect its own capbadges.

A USMC MEU is always resourced with a troop of Abrams tanks. MBTs remain invaluable for clearing out enemy resistance and provide protected firepower. The british amphibious force should see heavy armour with much greater frequence as well. 

The amphibious force’s true value is in the fact that it gives a capable, medium to heavy entry option that air assaults simply cannot match. Ships and landing craft carry everything that helicopters and cargo aircraft cannot carry or anyway cannot insert in enemy territory. Landing craft can bring ashore a mechanized battlegroup mounted in Viking and reinforce it with anything up to Challenger 2 MBTs. This is the true value of the amphibious force: it deploys with the protected mobility and firepower needed to carry on complex, demanding tasks which are beyond the possibilities of an air assault force.

It is time for the Marines and the Army to forge a much closer alliance and work together on ensuring that the UK retains an adequate forcible entry capability.

Be a hero where you need to be and where you can be one

The UK does not have the budget to do everything it wishes or even needs to do in order to be a global power. For example it is not in a position to be a major continental power matching the mass of armoured and mechanized forces fielded by its allies.

What it needs to do is decide where it wants “to be a hero” and resource those areas appropriately.

Amphibious warfare is one such area. The UK needs to retain its amphibious capability because:

-          Any operation it decides to mount abroad will pass through one or more ports. Without adequate amphibious and port opening capabilities in support, any future operation will only be possible if someone else secures a port of entry. It would signal a dramatic loss of operational independence, much more definitive than the current limitations imposed by lack of mass.

-          As “Global Britain” attempts to secure new allies and new markets in the Middle and Far East, its naval group will become more important than ever. The Navy’s Expeditionary Force will be the face the UK shows to potential allies and opponents in Asia, in an area where the sea, islands and shores are key. Lacking the ability to go ashore in force would severely curtail the value and capability of the task group.

-          There is every reason to believe that the urbanized littoral is where interests, risks and opportunities will concentrate. Human populations continue to concentrate near the shore or along rivers, canals, estuaries and lakes for their economic value and for their impact on a nation’s road network.

The UK is in a good position to be a world leader in the amphibious arena as it has arguably the greatest treasure of know-how of anyone in the West, thanks to a history of operations that include Suez, the Falklands, Kuwait and Al Faw. It already has most of the pieces in service and paid for. It already has one of the most significant amphibious components in NATO.

With the carriers coming online the big pieces are all in place, and the United Kingdom, in a rare moment of wisdom and awareness of its potential, had actually also taken leadership of a NATO Smart Defence initiative to develop a strategic Port Opening capability to enable theatre entry. Unfortunately, nothing has ever been heard about it since then, even though this is a capability that would be simply invaluable both in war and in peace (for example for disaster relief, such as after the Haiti earthquake, when establishing a point of easy access from the sea is vital). The UK can be a world leader in this area, with relatively tiny investment.

The blueprint for the UK to be a leader and framework nation in littoral manoeuvre is also the blueprint for the survival of the Royal Marines in the future. Going lighter and lighter will soon make the Corps redundant. The future of amphibious capability is “Strike”. While the current Army “Joint Land Strike” concept is very questionable and the structure proposed for the Strike brigade completely out of tune with the stated ambition, the value of an expeditionary, mechanized force is not in question.

Such a force hinges on a Sea Port of Debarkation, and the Marines are a key capability to ensure there is an entry point. Unsurprisingly, one of the very first scenarios to be war-gamed in the simulators at Warminster for the Strike Experimentation saw the Strike Brigade, supported by the amphibious task group, enter a notional African state where they faced a “multi-faceted” threat dispersed in a complex environment.

The key to the future is going ashore heavy, not light. A mechanized force is required to face complex threats and deal with vast battlespaces. The Marines must focus on how to be part of that force, and on how to get a larger army force where it needs to be. In the short term this means retaining the LPDs because they are key enablers for such a “heavy” entry.

Longer term, resurrecting the Fast Landing Craft is a key requirement to increase the survivability of the whole force by enabling the amphibious vessels to launch the assault waves from over the horizon.

The Force Protection Craft should become a primary responsibility of 42 Commando now that it has been forced into becoming the “Maritime Ops” specialist. The FPC is needed to accompany the Fast Landing Craft in its long transit from amphibious ship to shore, protecting it from threats including fast attack boats, suicide boats and other hybrid threats that could be lurking in the littoral. The firepower of the FPC would also provide intimate support in the early phases of the landing. It will be particularly important for suppressing enemy anti-tank missile teams, which represent a grave danger to the landing crafts.

The FPC should also be used to regenerate a true, powerful riverine capability to perpetuate Strike along the waterways.

A US Navy Riverine Command Boat (a development of the swedish CB90) operating from a RFA Bay class LSD in the Gulf. These assets provide force protection and reach, including up rivers. They can operate hundreds of miles away from a mothership, turning a single vessel into a "task group" perfect for Littoral operations and counter piracy 

The Marines and the RLC’s Port regiment should work together around that “Sea Port Opening” capability that the UK took the lead of within NATO but never did anything about. Opening a port is fundamental for progressing an operation after the initial landing: the UK is only equipped to land a single battlegroup, and can only augment that assault force by reactivating the mothballed LPD and by taking ships up from trade.

Large transports, beginning with the Strategic Sealift RoRo vessels (the Point class, unfortunately cut from 6 to 4 ships in the 2011 round of cuts) need to insert a larger army force if the operation is to achieve its aims.  

What would be lost along with the Albion class

In light of the above considerations, few cuts proposals ever made less sense than the rumored withdrawal of the Albion-class LPDs.

An Albion can operate 2 Merlin or even 2 Chinooks at the same time, but does not have a hangar. That is an unfortunate weakness, but when the two LPDs were designed the expectation was that there would be two LPHs to accompany them. Surface assault and air assault were deliberately split on two separate platforms, but problems began very early on when the two LPHs became one, today’s HMS Ocean.

With hindsight, a class of two large LHDs, combining the surface assault and air assault capabilities in a larger hull, would have been a more sustainable choice, but there is no easy correction now. With air assault needs covered by the second of the QE class aircraft carriers, it is imperative to maintain the LPD capability until the ships are due for replacement, in the early 2030s.

The Bay class LSDs have a flight deck that can land one single Merlin. They have no hangar. Today they are regularly seen with a shelter that provides an enclosed maintenance space, but for a major amphibious operation this structure might actually need to be removed to restore the full capacity of what was designed as cargo deck.

The LPD carries 4 LCU versus 1 and has four times more well dock space, enabling two lanes operations and keeping up operational tempo to enable the delivery of more waves during one night period. The Bay class ships have a well dock dimensioned for a single LCU MK10. This was a welcome last-minute addition to their design. Still, a single Albion carries one LCU MK10 more than the whole fleet of 3 Bay LSDs put together.  

The importance of the LCU is that it is the only landing craft able to carry any kind of payload up to a Challenger 2 MBT. The mexeflote raft can carry even greater payloads but it is extremely slow and unprotected and is more suited to follow-on reinforcements than first wave insertions.

The LPD carries 4 LCVPs versus zero on the Bay. The latter can only embark them as deck cargo, stealing space otherwise destined to stores and containers. It is worth remembering that an amphibious operation would already see the Marines’ LCACs (light hovercraft) carried on deck, and the group would also carry at least one of the four army workboats that are used to aid Mexeflote ops (towing, tugging etcetera) and dracone ops for delivering fuel ashore.  

Some of the LCVPs should be eventually replaced with the Force Protection Craft. In 2011 the Marines trialed the Swedish Combat Boat 90 and demonstrated its compatibility with the LCVP davits.

The LPD is fitted with the command and control spaces and communication outfit needed to run the amphibious operation, while the Bays have a much more basic communications fit, which has only been enhanced somewhat in recent years using equipment taken out of the prematurely decommissioned Type 22 Batch 3 frigates.

The Bay has twice as many lane meters of storage space for vehicles and embarks more or less the same number of troops. The tables normally detail 305 for an Albion and 356 for a Bay, but the crew of the LPD includes 40 or more men of the Beach Tactical Party, which goes ashore with the HIPPO beach recovery vehicle, a communications team, excavators and trackway dispenser to open a safe exit from the beach, enable movement of wheeled vehicles on soft terrain and push back landing craft if they ran aground, so the difference is actually much smaller.

Losing the LPD means losing the dedicate amphibious C2 centre; some aviation assault capability; most of the group's landing craft; the tactical beach party; a good share of the capacity for stores within the group and a Company-group worth of accommodations for Marines and support elements.
That is before considering that one third of the Bay class is regularly Gulf-bound, where it serves as MCM mothership, and another ship of the class ends up spending Hurricane season in the Caribbean as a disaster relief first responder. While they could both be recalled ahead of a large amphibious operation, the UK conversely would probably not want to gap those standing tasks in “peacetime”, so that without the LPDs the Marines would often literally have no amphibious ship available at all.

Without the LPD and its landing craft the UK would no longer be able to insert the current battlegroup (1800 strong including its support elements) and, moreover, it would lose the capability to insert a mechanized element. Today, an amphibious group including an LPD and a couple of Bays can send ashore the beach tactical party and a whole company group mounted in Viking armoured vehicles (16 troop carriers, command and recovery vehicles plus 4 mortar carriers) in a single wave of 6 LCUs. Without LPD this capability is destroyed. 

The Viking provides protected mobility and firepower. It is amphibious, but too slow to routinely proceed on its own from an LPD to the beach. A Royal Marines company group can be mounted, along with its Mortas section, in 20 such vehicles. An 

The loss of the LPDs would have a completely disproportionate impact on the amphibious capability of the UK, and any claim that the Bays can fill the gap is at best misinformed and completely dishonest at worst.

What the UK can have with the Albion class

Within a few more years, the bleeding capability gap caused by the early demise of HMS Ark Royal will be closed with the entry in service of HMS Queen Elizabeth. At that point, if the UK does not mutilate further its capabilities in the ongoing “review of the review that isn’t really a review”, the Royal Navy will be able to match the Expeditionary Strike Groups of the US Navy.

With one QE class at the center, carrying a company group of Marines in addition to their helicopters and at least a squadron of F-35B, the group would then have one Albion and at least two Bay LSDs. The landing force would be closely comparable to a Marine Expeditionary Unit of the US Marine Corps. This would be a potent expeditionary force, able to threaten the sea side of any opponent and valuable enough to gain influence for the UK East of Suez, an area which is inexorably growing again in importance as the economies of Asia gallop and the world’s money increasingly goes east.

The USMC MEU. The United Kingdom lead commando battlegroup resembles this force. Centered on a QE carrier, an LPD and a couple of Bay LSDs, it could field a substantial air element; 6 LCU MK10 and 4 LCVPs. The armoured element would come with Viking, with non-armoured BV-206 vehicles in support. The RM also employ Jackals. 

The acronym CEPP, Carrier Enabled Power Projection summarizes what the carriers really are about: they ensure the fleet has the air support it needs to operate in the congested, cluttered, contested, connected and constrained environment of current and future warfare. Without organic air power, a fleet cannot venture far from the air cover coming from land bases. Without a fleet capable to go into a contested environment, far from home and potentially far from friendly land bases. there can be no power projection at any serious  scale. With the Navy planning to have one carrier at Very High Readiness (5 days notice to move) and the other at 20 to 30 days notice to move, continuous carrier capability is a realistic aim.

A USN Navy Expeditionary Strike Group: the Royal Navy expeditionary group would have Queen Elizabeth in place of the LDH; an LPD and a couple of LSDs plus Type 45s, Type 26s and an SSN, with the RFA in support. A full spectrum response force which would be the face the UK shows to the world. 

Air power is a fundamental requisite but it is also primarily a support element. Ground operations of some sort will always be required to achieve the desired results, and the naval expeditionary force can only be considered complete if it maintains this equally important element of capability.

The value of an Expeditionary naval group is summarized as follows:

-                     It safeguards the UK’s forcible entry option, albeit limited by considerations of mass. The UK simply does not possess the numbers required to mount a large operation independently; but a powerful naval group preserves a degree of operational freedom and puts the UK in a position of leadership within a coalition effort.

-          Its global deployment is a statement of intention that is not matched by any other short-term deployment form. At the same time, it does not come with the dangers of a long term presence in foreign territory, which can generate as many bad feelings as good ones.

-          It is valued by the US as it helps cover all stations, enabling the progressive shift of US naval groups to the Pacific. The UK has not been able to provide a comparable level of assistance since its last aircraft carriers helped cover the gaps created by the US involvement in Vietnam.

-          It represents a capability that, in Europe, only France can, in part, replicate. The amphibious force is also closely integrated with the Netherlands’ own Marines and is an enduring connection link between UK and Norway as the Marines are the UK’s arctic specialists and the designated reinforcement for NATO’s northern flank.

State of the Royal Navy: a roundup - Part 2

Part 1



Merlin HM2

The passage from HM1 to HM2 is progressing, with two squadrons converted to the upgraded machine: 824 NAS, the OCU, and 820 NAS, one of the "carrier squadrons" (the other being 814 NAS). 829 NAS, which supplies six small ship flights for the Type 23 frigates, should have begun its transition in November 2013 and should be fully converted to the HM2 by the end of June. The last squadron to convert will be 814 NAS,as they are locked in operations in the Gulf area and will only be able to start converting in October, with the process to be completed in early 2015.
Subsequent releases of software are complicating the readiness cycle, as the first HM2 helicopters have to be parked again to receive the latest software standard, including the Night Vision Google capability, which should hit IOC in time for the big June 2014 deployment of 820 NAS on HMS Illustrious (more on this later).
The Full Operating Capability won't be achieved before March 2015, as the last four helicopters to be converted will include additional work done to carry forwards the UOR fit added to 4 HM1 for maritime security operations in the Gulf.
This includes fitting DAS self protection, a ballistic protection package, full motion video capability and EO/IR turret.

As part of the HM2 upgrade, i believe that all 30 helicopters were made compatible with the MX-15 EO/IR turret, but unfortunately this continues to be a role fit for a few machines, rather than a stable addition to the Merlin's capability.
This is depressing, as the lack of EO/IR and of anti-surface attack capability (beyond the M3M machine gun) is a recognized handicap of the british Merlin which was exposed from the very beginning. Unbelievably, after all these years the problem still hasn't been solved. Lack of money and the wish to protect the requirement for Lynx and Wildcat in the eyes of the Treasury seem to be the reason, because the Merlin definitely can receive an integrated EO/IR and launch missiles: ask the italian navy.
This situation leaves the Royal Navy in the awkward situation of having an helicopter good mostly just for ASW (Merlin), and one just for surface attack (Wildcat). With the latter actually facing potentially years of no attack capability at all as FASGW fails to deliver the new missiles in time.
In other words: a Royal Navy ship, to have a full capability set, would need to embark a Merlin and a Wildcat at the same time, otherwise half of the sky is always missing.

The UOR nature of the MX-15 and of the DAS system is evident from their installation. The EO/IR turret conflicts with the possibility to carry weapons on the side on which it is installed, and it also seems to have a limited field of view.

The CSP sadly couldn't include a proper EO/IR fit and the integration of anti-surface capability. Both have been a Fleet Air Arm requirement ever since the Merlin entered service.

Will the Fleet Air Arm ever be able to get this?

The avionics and mission system improvements are massive, and the flexibility of the helicopter is much improved, thanks to the mission consoles that can split and make space for other missions. The HM2 can carry up to 12 stretchers for MEDEVAC, or transport 16 troops in a maritime security configuration, and can also lift 10.000 lbs (a good 4500 kg) under slung. We all hope not to see anymore precious HM Merlins lifting L118 Light Guns around, though.


The first few upgraded helicopters have been getting into the action, with the first deployment made as part of exercise Dynamic Mongoose, a 11-days ASW chase in the waters of Norway held last february. The exercise saw the deployment of three Merlin flights, two of which equipped with the HM2, working from a norwegian air base alongside an HM1 from 05 Flight, 829 NAS, which flew from HMS Kent.

The Merlin force is in for a much more notable challenge as a full ASW complement of 9 helicopters deploys on HMS Illustrious for a oceanic chase for the first time in many years. This June, HMS Illustrious will set sail for the Atlantic ocean embarking 9 Merlin HM2 and 1 HM1, for their biggest test yet as part of the exercise Deep Blue. The exercise will see, from the first time since the end of the Cold War, a full 24 hours / 7 days ASW scenario in which three helicopters are in the air all the time.

The Merlin fleet is high in demand. Four helicopters with DAS and EO/IR turret are always high on the list of the needs of the Royal Navy force in the Gulf; a number of helicopters must take up the job that once was of the Nimrod to protect the movements of SSBNs in and out of Faslane; flights are needed for the Type 23s; and in the future deployments "en masse" on the model of Deep Blue will have to become far more common with the new carriers.
And to all this, the Royal Navy is forced to add the AEW role with CROWSNEST. A small fleet worked very, very hard. 





Unmanned Air Vehicles 

The Royal Navy, after trying for years (since 2005, when it first trialed it) has finally managed to obtain a couple of Scan Eagle systems, employed in the Gulf, one on the Bay LSD acting as mothership in the area, and one on the deployed Type 23 frigate. 
The two UAV systems are contractor owned and contractor operated, but under mission control of the Royal Navy. The senior service hopes to build on from this first achievement, and hopefully obtain full control of its UAVs. 
A first development, however, could be linking the Scan Eagle to the ship's helicopter, so that the UAVs can be sent patroling further away from the frigate: for the moment, security and safety concerns comport the limitation of flying the UAVs within the direct control of the frigate, including radar contact. 




Later this year, the Royal Navy will trial its first rotorcraft UAV onboard a Type 23 frigate. The test aircraft will be an optionally manned SW-4 SOLO helicopter provided by AgustaWestland under a 2.3 million contract. The SOLO will be fitted with a Selex ES PicoSar radar, a VigilX imaging system and a DRS Technologies EO/IR turret. 

VigilX is a Selex ES product that brings together feeds from multiple cameras situated around an aircraft to create a single integrated panoramic image that is displayed to the crew. It provides the aircrew with an all-direction view of the outside environment, allowing them to ‘see through the hull’ of the aircraft. The system improves flight safety and, via a combination of camera types supplemented by 3D conformal symbology, allows platforms to operate at any time 24/7, even in degraded visual environments caused by darkness, sand, dust, heavy rain and sea spray.
This will help the SOLO demonstrate operations up to Sea State 6, as required. 

 
The possibility to have a pilot on board ensures no problems with civilian airspace regulations when in transit. 

The helicopter will serve only as a test and concept development machine, for now. The Royal Navy has called in other contractors to provide other systems to trial, in order to explore the possible uses of a rotary wing UAV for ISTAR and even Mine Counter Measure operations. Atlas and Thales will be involved to demonstrate subsystems for the MCM role. 
The Royal Navy plans to eventually acquire an operational RWUAS in the early 2020s, built on the lessons learned with this experimentation program. 
 



 
FASGW


The Future Air to Surface Guided Weapon program is due to replace the venerable Sea Skua missile with two different weapons: FASGW Light, is the Thales Light Multirole Missile, while the Heavy round is a new missile to be jointly developed with France by MBDA.

Unfortunately, both programs have suffered delays and won't be ready to deliver by 2015 to equip the Wildcat, causing a new gap in capability that will get progressively worse as the Lynx MK8 and Sea Skua are withdrawn from service, without their replacement being ready.

The MOD and Thales signed a contract in 2011 for the development and delivery of some 1000 LMM missiles. This was possible by modifying the existing contract for the supply of Starstreak VSHORAD missiles. The deliveries have started, but the integration contract to get the missile onto the Wildcat helicopter is still missing.
To make things worse, it has emerged that Roxel has been unable to hand over satisfyingly performing rocket motors for the LMM, and Thales has decided to ask Nammo to step in. Roxel is not going through a good period: it also had significant problems in getting the Vulcan rocket motor for Brimstone 2 to perform, causing a delay to that program. But while that problem was solved with Roxel staying in, a different decision has been made in this case.

The Wildcat should eventually be able to carry up to 4 FASGW Heavy, or 20 LMM, or 2 FASGW Heavy and up to 10 LMM.

A mock up of FASGW Heavy (for the french it is instead ANL, light anti-ship missile) Image by ArmyRecognition.com

The go ahead for the development of FASGW Heavy has instead been slowed down by budgetary problems. France had to go through its defence white paper, and getting them to sign for this program while they had greater priorities elsewhere proved to be a struggle. The contract was finally signed in april this year, but the delay means that we are looking at a late 2020 entry in service. It is not yet clear if the gap caused by this delay will be somehow mitigated, and how.

FASGW (Heavy) will have a 30 kg warhead, good for targets in the 50 to 500 or 1000 tons range. The range will be at least double that of the current Sea Skua, it is expected. Weight will be between 110 and 150 kg, and guidance will be passive, imaging infra red. The missile can also be employed against static land targets.
FASGW (Heavy) will be compatible, with minimum adjustements, with the support tooling and even the containers used for Sea Skua. 

The LMM is a derivative of the Starstreak missile, and is compatible with the Starstreak launchers, including the man-portable, LML and vehicle mounted system. It is much slower (Mach 1.5, reportedly, versus well over mach 3) and it employs a 3 kg unitary multi-effect warhead instead of the three darts of Starstreak. Range is roughly 8 kilometers. It can be used as air-to-air, air to ground and ground to air weapon.
The air launched Starstreak (ATASK)
Initially the missile will be produced in laser beam riding variant, but development of a Semi Active Laser variant is ongoing, as well as studies on different warhead options and new forms of employment. LMM is offered as an additional weapon for the SIGMA naval gun mount, for enhanced anti-FIAC and anti-air capability; and it has also been tested in a free-fall, gliding ultra-light munition for use from aircraft, primarily unmanned.

Future growth potential

A free-fall extremely low collateral damage weapon derived from LMM was tested from a Lynx helicopter simulating a UAV. A gliding munition would give UAVs a cheap, long-range mini munition.

The addition of LMM cluster to naval gun mounts brings long-range precision firepower. This arrangement was trialed at the Eskmeals range and has the eye of the Royal Navy as a potential answer to swarming attacks at sea.

Tide class tankers

The much needed new tankers to be delivered under MARS FT will represent a massive boost in capability from the current old and tired fleet of diverse tankers, made up by the big Orangeleaf and by Black Rover and Gold Rover.

The small Rovers are military vessels with a flight deck plus capacity for 340 tons of solid stores, 7460 cubic meters of diesel fuel, 600 tons of AVCAT, 70 tons of lubricating oils and 362 cubic meters of fresh water. Orangeleaf instead began her career as a civilian tanker, so has no aviation facilities at all, but carries 22.000 cubic meters of diesel and 3800 cubic meters of aviation fuel.
These old vessels are all single-hulled, old and hard worked, and they badly need replacement. MARS FT took a long time before starting, and the delivery of the new vessels will greatly improve the capability available to the navy.

The new 37.000 tons tankers - Tidespring, Tiderace, Tidesurge, Tideforce - have a 19.000 cubic meters capacity for ship and aviation fuel. They are designed to be military vessels, and include a vast flight deck (suitable for Chinook operations), an hangar - workshop for a Merlin-sized helicopter and spaces for aviation stores to support the operation of a permanently embarked flight. There are also a dedicated admin office and an aircrew briefing room separated from the ship's own.

The fuels and oils are carried in tanks arranged three abreast, with the centreline tanks designed as issue tanks. Surrounding these will be ballast water tanks providing the double hull mandated by international law.

The abeam RAS system selected for the new tankers is of conventional design, but comes with several improvements over ships in service: all winches and drives are installed below deck to protect them from the elements and make maintenance easier while leaving more clear space on the upper deck. The system has a lower power consumption, and the RAS masts are boxed in to reduce their exposition and radar signature. The whole vessel has a clean line, with the ship boats recessed into the superstructure, again with benefic effect on radar cross section.
Each abeam rig carries up to to 7'' hoses and one 2.5'' hose. The larger hoses are meant to cut down the time required to resupply the aircraft carriers with fuel and fresh water. The tankers have two RAS masts on the starboard side, corresponding to the Queen Elizabeth class's two receiving stations on port side.
On the port side, the MARS tankers have a single RAS mast, meant for the resupply of escort vessels.
On deck, eight 20' containers can be carried, containing solid stores, including refrigerated.

The ship has provision for refueling astern and for receiving a line over the bow.

The ship has hybrid diesel-electric propulsion on two shafts with controllable pitch 6.5 meters propellers.
The ship has accommodation for 108, accounting for a crew of 63 plus 45 additional berths for RFA training margin, embarked flight and embarked military force.

The ships have a communications fit allowing them to operate seamlessly with the fleet, and can receive weapons including two 30mm light guns and two Phalanx CIWS mounts.

The first ship is to be delivered to the MOD on 15 October 2015, followed by the others at six months intervals, with the last delivery planned for 15 April 2017.
The building of the first vessel, Tidespring, is planned to begin in South Korea this June, with the building of each vessel taking 10 months.


MARS Fleet Solid Support

Decisions for MARS FSS are due in the next SDSR, with the program having been included into the Carrier Enabled Power Projection capability. These new vessels will have to replace the Forts and deliver solid stores, including huge amounts of weapons for the aircraft carrier air wing.
There are little news about this project for the moment. The only new thing is that the MOD has apparently moved back to Fleet Solid Support as project name, after a period in which the acronym was Solid Support Ships.

The key innovation of these vessels will be the high capacity Heavy RAS system by Rolls Royce, able to move oversize loads weighting up to 5 tons, twice as much as the current. For details, see this earlier article.


Self protection weapons fit

The Royal Navy has 36 Phalanx CIWS mounts, and five more on order. All of the existing 36 should be brought to Block 1B Baseline 2 over time. Several already have been upgraded under two separate contracts that cover at least 20 turrets, and there's a years-old Foreign Military Sales authrorization from the US that covers all 36 upgrade kits needed. It just seems that, due to their significant costs, the kits are actually being acquired in small successive batches.

The Royal Navy is refurbishing the Phalanx mounts that it supplied to the army for conversion into Centurion land-based Counter Artillery Rocket Mortar (C-RAM systems). An unspecified number of Centurion systems, needed in Iraq, was obtained using leased trailers, which have been since handed back to the US, and Phalanx guns which were taken out of the 36 available to the Royal Navy.
At the end of the operations in Iraq, these Centurion-Phalanx guns have been removed from the trailers, quickly re-navalized and urgently installed on the cargo deck of Bay LSDs deploying to the Gulf. They are being now re-converted to fully naval Phalanx mounts and upgraded. 

Cardigan Bay is in the gulf right now with two re-navalized Centurion systems, formally "Marinised Land-Based Phalanx Weapon System" MLPWS, which will later be refurbished. 

MLPWS on Cardigan Bay

RFA Lyme Bay has already received a permanent fit of fully naval, upgraded Phalanx guns on the intended CIWS positions (originally tought for Goalkeeper, by the way, but Goalkeeper is going out of service by the end of next year) and i believe the other Bays will get their own sets at the next maintenance periods.
Phalanx is part of a series of upgrades to the Bays that include communication systems coming from the Type 22s, and 30mm light gun turrets. 

Lyme Bay during Cougar 2013, showing her Phalanx fit and the new radomes of the enhanced communications suite coming from the old Type 22 frigates

30mm guns are also being fitted.

Phalanx is present on the Type 45s (2 on each destroyer), on HMS Ocean (3x), on RFA Fort Victoria (2x), on RFA Fort Austin (2x) on Wave Ruler and Wave Knight (2 on each), on Lyme Bay (2x) and Cardigan Bay (2x MLPWS). That means that some 27 are currently installed, if i'm not missing some.

Mounts Bay didn't have Phalanx during Cougar last year and still did not have them in Joint Warrior, but should get them eventually, i believe. Fort Rosalie also seems to still be missing them.

When Goalkeeper goes out of service next year, we can expect the LPDs HMS Albion and HMS Bulwark to receive a Phalanx fit as replacement.


Strategic sealift 

Contrary to esplicit promise made in the SDSR, the government has, over the course of 2011, dropped two of the six Point-class RoRo transport vessels.
Only four such ships remain available to the MOD.

Mr Dunne: The movement of cargo by sea is primarily provided through the private finance initiative (PFI) strategic sealift service. The review of the Ministry of Defence's (MOD) strategic sealift requirement, in autumn 2011, concluded that better value for money would be achieved if the number of vessels contracted as part of this PFI was reduced from six to four. This reduction became effective on 27 April 2012 following detailed discussions between MOD officials and representatives of Foreland Shipping.

All six vessels are owned by Foreland Shipping under the PFI agreement. They were not purchased or maintained by the MOD.

Any remuneration between the MOD and Foreland Shipping as a result of the change made to the PFI agreement has yet to be determined. This is dependent, in part, on the sale of the two redundant vessels. The MOD will receive a percentage of the sale receipts from Foreland Shipping.

Overall the MOD is expected to accrue significant savings over the remaining period of the PFI agreement as a result of the decision to reduce the number of contracted vessels.

The two ships no longer part of the PFI used to be available on call. While the other four are in the immediate tasking availability of the MOD, these two vessels were used on the civilian shipping market but available on 20 and 30 days notice to move respectively.


P2000 inshore patrol boats

The P2000 boats are getting a new breath of life in a refit program aiming for a 15-years life extension. The boats are receiving new CAT C18 ACERT engines.

HMS Tracker and HMS Raider have been given kevlar armor and other upgrades, and have been assigned to the force protection role in the Faslane patrol boat squadron.
The Royal Marines of 43 Commando have two patrol boats of their own, Mull and Rona (Island class), obtained by upgrading and refurbishing ex MOD Police boats.

One of the two Island-class patrol boats of 43 Commando 

HMS Raider with the new kevlar armor fit

Mine countermeasures

The Royal Navy's precious minesweepers will have to work hard for many more years, so they are receiving an extensive refurbishment. The Hunt class is receiving new engines, gearboxes, bow thruster systems, propellers and machinery control systems under a six-year contract with BAE Systems. HMS Chiddingfold was the first vessel to re-enter service after the full change of engines and machinery, and after a program of upgrades and obsolescence removal.

The Sandown minehunters also receive substantial touch ups during their refits.

In addition, for their enduring presence in the Gulf the mine countermeasures vessels of both classes are receiving communications upgrades, including the addition of X band SATCOM. The four deployed ships have received their equipment fit, and Airbus is under contract for fitting out a further two vessels. The MOD hopes to be able to finance the installation of the system on the whole fleet.

As MCM ships rotate to the Gulf, they all progressively get "tropicalized" to better perform in the harsh climate of the gulf, and all forward deployed ships receive "significant" upgrades in force protection measures, including fitting miniguns, using enhanced ammunition and adding ballistic protection.

Looking out to the future, this could be a decisive year for the evolution of MCM technology, thanks to Hazard, an optionally manned - and later fully unmanned - surface craft that shall be able to venture into minefields to launch and recover unmanned underwater vehicles to search, locate and dispose of mines.
Hazard will also be used to tow combined influence sweep gear, re-instating a capability that was lost in late 2005 when the Hunt vessels finally disembarked their own kit.
A requirement has existed ever since, to procure and put in service an unmanned surface vehicle with sweep equipment, capable to be deployed from a Hunt ship.
Despite successful experimentation with systems such as FAST, no system was actually brought into service, instead being used to refine the concept and experiment the delivery of greater and more diverse capability.

Hazard, if she will prove herself capable of living up to all the promises, will be a key component of the Mine Counter Measures and Hydrographic Capability (MHPC) programme. The remotely operated boat will be able to deploy from a Hunt ship, move at high speed to the danger area, release UUVs for underwater search (such as the in-service REMUS 100 for swallow waters and the larger REMUS 600 for deep waters) and later sweep the area with towed equipment, or proceed to disposal of the mines in the deep with an unmanned system such as the in-service SeaFox or, better still, with a reusable ROV armed with multi-shot stand off disposal capability. 

In the future, such an unmanned boat will also be able to conduct hydrographic survey, deploying from any suitable mothership, or even from the coast. This will eliminate the need for extremely expensive specialized vessels with glass reinforced plastic hulls such as the Hunt and Sandown, which are, per meter, the most expensive vessels in the navy. The system of unmanned vehicles, potentially to include air vehicles as well, will be effectively decoupled from the mothership. The system will be able to deploy forward quickly by air or with land transport, and move onto a suitable vessel to reach a safe stan-off area. Only the unmanned vehicles will move into the minefield itself. 

The replacement vessels for the current Hunt and Minesweepers, in fact, are expected to be much larger, built of steel, with greater seakeeping and deployable capability. 3000 tons is the expected weight range for these new ships that, from 2028, should begin replacing not just the MCM ships, but the multi-role hydrographic vessels HMS Echo and HMS Enterprise as well, plus the tiny inshore survey boat HMS Gleaner. 
The same common hull could replace, in good time, the River OPVs. Unless, as we saw in part 1 of this report, they get replaced much earlier by the new ships to be built to keep the shipyards busy.

For now, Hazard has been working with a small team on board. The boat can easily touch 30 knots speed.

A re-usable ROV armed with a stand-off multi shot disposal weapon is a desirable upgrade from the SeaFox, which is a "suicide" vehicle which is sacrificed to dispose of the mines.

The REMUS 100 is meant to locate mines in waters from very shallow to 100 meters deep

Hazard is being tested around Portsmouth by the men of the Maritime Autonomous System Trials Team (MASTT). Before the year is over, though, the boat will have been experimented and demonstrated also in Brest (the french are partners in the development of future MCM solutions) and in La Spezia, Italy. 
The first interim package of MHPC modular minesweeping capability should be delivered in the 2018-19 timeframe as of current planning, and to achieve that the Royal Navy plans to conduct a full scale demonstration of the concept by modifying one Hunt minesweeper sometime within the next two years. The modified Hunt would have its stern modified and fitted with an A frame for the launch and recovery of one or two USVs like Hazard, and the ship would need to be modified to provide suitable command spaces, communications to the unmanned vehicles and storage space for their transport. 

A very old graphic showing how the Hunt minesweeper will be modified to launch and recover USVs. Hopefully we'll see the first ship modified within two years.

 

Sweeping minefields with helicopters is standard practice in USA and Japan. In particular, Japan uses the Merlin as the helicopter for this hard, risky job, and the Royal Navy has shown some interest in the possibilities. It is more likely, however, that the air component of the MHPC capability will be centered on an unmanned helicopter with sensors for the discovery of minefields.

Visions of the future? The french navy has its own program, SLAM-F, which follows the very same concept. Uk and France are collaborating in the definition of the future MCM system. This concept show a possible mothership replacement for the current french minesweepers. Image by meretmarine.com

Hazard is an ATLAS Elektronik ATLAS Remote Combined Influence Minesweeping System (ARCIMS) boat modified according to Royal Navy requirements. Thales offers a very similar product, Halcyon. The video below shows Halcyon in action, and is very much representative of what Hazard is meant to do.
 



Successor SSBN 

The future SSBN project is progressing on both sides of the Atlantic. The less known but most interesting ongoing activity emerges from US documents that show that a prototype section of the Common Missile Compartment is being built, with activities having begun in early 2013 and with the schedule of the program fixed in June 2013.
By 2018, the first quad-pack module, with four Trident tubes, will have been built.
The US Navy has formalized its choice of going with an X stern control surface design, which also appears to be the Royal Navy's target. The US submarine will have 16 tubes, the UK's one probably 12. Earlier suggestion of having super-large tubesof 97 inches diameter as future-proofing measure was abandoned on cost grounds, and tube diameter is now set at 87 inches.

The US SSBN will largely draw from the Virginia design, and the Royal Navy similarly plans to draw all it can from the Astute, to keep costs down.
The new SSBN will adopt the PWR 3 nuclear reactor, derived from american expertise and seen as offering greater safety.

The existing class of SSBNs will have to keep working into the 2030s, with Vanguard not replaced before 2028. The PWR 2 Core H installed on HMS Vanguard is to be precautionally refueled to ensure she can get that far, after the test core reactor on land developed faults.



Viking refurbishment

I think the total british orders over time for Viking are north of 160, but apparently a lot less than that will remain in use. 108 were originally purchased for the Marines, but several more were added when the army asked the RM to leave Viking in Afghanistan as it proved so useful in theatre. The Afghanistan orders came in several batches: 14 in 2008 (9 recovery, 1 command, 4 troop carriers), 9 in early 2009, and then in September 2008 a further 24 Viking, in the MK2 variant (22 Troop carriers, 2 command). Under Army 2020 i believe all remaining Vikings are going to the Royal Marines with one single exception: 21 Viking vehicles have been ordered by the army as carriers for the Watchkeeper tactical parties. Assuming all orders went ahead to delivery, the MOD should have received a total of 176 Viking vehicles.

99 Vikings are being refurbished and uplifted to MK2 (amphibious) protection level, are heading for long term service with the Marines, and 21 more will serve as part of the Watchkeeper system in the Army.
That leaves as many as 56 out of the picture, unless the MK2s are still workable and in service without needing to be included in the refurbishment. At least 27 vehicles have been written off due to Afghan damage, maybe more than that.
It must also be noted that the UK loaned 12 rear cabs with full TES armor kit to Sweden to fill their UOR for use on operations (front cars were given by the dutch), and Sweden is due to return an equal number of rear cabs in full MK2 specification. Not sure how these fit in into the future fleet either, as the MOD hasn't been very detailed in its news releases. 

BAE systems stated, at the time of the 99-vehicle refurbishment award:

“All but the existing Mk2 Vikings will be rebuilt around completely new front and rear car hulls featuring the latest mine-protected v-shaped underbodies of the Mk2”

How should we read it, though? Some of the 99 vehicles were already MK2 and only got partial touch-ups, or there are MK2 vehicles in use in addition to the 99 that did not need refurbishment at all to remain operative...? Not sure at all. BAE says it has refurbished some MK2s returning from Afghanistan in the Phase 1 (the quickest and easier) of the refurbishment programme, so i'm afraid it is 99 and not one more. 

The MK2 Viking is fitted with a shallow V-shaped shield in both cars (with the exception of the Recovery and Mortar variants, which have no V-shield on the rear car as no one sits inside when on the move), and has a steel body fully protected against 7.62 armor piercing rounds and 152 mm artillery slivers at 10 meters of range. The MK2 has greater engine power and electrical power output increased to 260 amperes. It is also equipped with blast-protected seats, hung on rails, and comes with four-point seat belts.

It also has weight growth margin to take additional armor to gain 2a/2b NATO STANAG resistance against mines and IEDs, and can be fitted with a cage armor to resist to RPGs, but with these additions it is no longer amphibious. The refurbishment program financed by the MOD includes the delivery of these additional armor kits, which will be available for use on deployment.

The 99 vehicles being refurbished will see 9 emerging as mortar carriers, and 19 as Crew Served Weapon Carriers. The numbers of these two "special" variants appear just enough to replace the unarmored BV-206 carriers in the single RM battalion held at High Readiness.

The Viking mortar gives protected mobility to an 81mm mortar and over one hundred shells.

It is not sure if the Royal Marines are getting the "full optional" Crew Served Weapon variant, which comes with a RWS with .50 machine gun on the front car, manned turret on the rear car and ROTAS mast-mounted EO/IR turret.

It must unfortunately also be noted that the refurbished MK1 Vikings are not entirely common with the MK2, as the budget didn't go up enough to enable replacement of the 5.9 litre engine with the 6.7 of the MK2. With an engine with so much less power for the same base weight, it is easy to imagine that the old Vikings will feel somewhat "tired" when driving around, at least compared to the newer ones.

The wiring is in place to hopefully replace the engines later, hoping it does not mean "in the next century". 

Will the Royal Marines have long-term access to the Viking ambulance variant?

A Viking ambulance variant was used in Afghanistan, but it is not clear if it'll stay around in the long term, nor do we know how many vehicles have been converted, if any past the "prototype" that was prepared in theatre. It sure would be helpful to the RM to have an armored ambulance with this mobility, but there's no mention of it being in the refurbishment contract.

Force Protection Craft and Fast Landing Craft 

The Royal Marines will have to wait at least until 2020 before trying again to have a quicker landing craft brought into service as replacement for the sluggish MK10. 

The fate of the Force Protection Craft, instead, is not clear. The Royal Marines have a requirement for a dozen fast armed crafts, to serve as replacement for some of the LCVP MK5s, while delivering a long range combat platform meant to protect larger vessels and amphibious forces from enemy FIACs. The craft would also need to be able to beach to put ashore a recce party at least 8-strong. 

The Royal Marines have loaned a couple of CB90 combat boats from Sweden, trialing them extensively for a year to put down a definitive list of requirements.  

FPC is a high speed craft capable of defending a boat lane, in which the Fast Landing Craft will operate, against hostile Fast Incoming Attack Craft and land based threats. It also has a secondary role to transport eight Royal Marines and their personal equipment as part of the Pre-Landing Force. To satisfy this requirement the FPC will be capable of 40 knots in calm water whilst its hull form will be optimised for offshore operations in Sea State 4. Significantly, the design of the FPC will have to meet constraints imposed by current davits. A total of twelve craft are planned with the first anticipated to enter service in 2016.

[...] The pair was modified to be davit compatible, with trial serials including a limited davit interoperability assessment with the UK LPD HMS Albion.

The CB90 trialed later became four. The report of the Royal Marines was largely positive, although they evidenced some areas in need of changes and improvements. But since the loan concluded, news have been very sparse, and it is not clear if the program is still alive or if it has fallen victim of the budget axe. 

The Force Protection Crafts were meant to be delivered from 2016, but it is not clear if this is still true.

24 Commando Engineer stays, P Squadron goes

I reported last year about the ongoing fight that Navy HQ and the Royal Marines were fighting to ensure the survival of 24 Commando Engineer Regiment. The news available in the open were few and sparse, but the delay in disbanding the formation was evident, and by november 2013 there was some optimism.

For once, this optimism has been rewarded, as a bit of common sense has won the day for once. Yesterday, the Minister for the Armed Forces, Mr Mark Francois, made a statement in Parliament that confirms that this battle is won: the regiment will not disband.

On 5 July 2012, Official Report, column 1085, the Defence Secretary made a statement to the House on the outcome of the Army 2020 review and laid out the future structure of the British Army. The announcement explained the need to restructure the Army to face an increasingly uncertain world and to create the agile and adaptable armed forces as set out in the 2010 strategic defence and security review. Included in the statement was the withdrawal of 24 Commando Engineer Regiment.

At the time of the Army 2020 announcement, the Army acknowledged that engagement with the Royal Navy was still ongoing, and this would refine the allocation of Army manpower available to support Royal Navy tasks. This process is now complete and it has been decided that 24 Commando Engineer Regiment will be retained although the regiment will be reduced in size. This change will be achieved by rebalancing Army manpower within 3 Commando Brigade and allows for the best use of available resources to deliver the strategic defence and security review and Army 2020 capability.

We envisage that these structural changes will be implemented by no later than July 2015. 24 Commando Engineer Regiment will remain in Royal Marines Barracks, Chivenor (Barnstaple).

The regiment won't disappear, and this is a major step forwards. But it is still shrinking, and considering that it never even gained the second regular field squadron that was once planned and that remains very much needed, this is no good. It is a step in the right direction, but this regiment should actually be growing in size to better respond to the busy schedule of the high-readiness amphibious force.
There is also some worry behind the meaning of "rebalancing army manpower" within the brigade, which knowing politician language could hide unpleasant news, perhaps to hit 29 Commando Royal Artillery (which already had to win its own fight earlier, to ensure the survival of 148 Meiktila Bty).

But at least, it is a step in the right direction. Let's take away some joy and hope from it.


P Squadron, 43 Commando, has instead disbanded in December 2013. The squadron stood up in 2010, manned not by Marines but by RN personnel, to provide force protection teams to "second line" ships deploying: RFA, Point RoRo, minesweepers and survey ships. Escorts have their own Green (Royal Marines) team and normally a Blue team formed by members of the ship's crew.
A Royal Navy sorely in need of manpower has had to close down this squadron, and its contribution to providing teams to all vessels has to be replaced by men coming out of the Commando battalion in its "Other Tasks" year; aka the year of rest and operational reset that follows the year spent at very high readiness.