The sad farcical pre-Integrated Review: amphibious without ships

One area of massive concern ahead of the Integrated Review is the UK’s amphibious capability. Despite the attempts to put up smiles and talk of “exciting” times ahead for the “Future Commando Force”, it is impossible not to notice the horrendous persistence of a question mark on the fate of the amphibious ships that give the Royal Marines their meaning. Worse still, there are some very, very goofy attempts constantly going on at laying justifications for the loss of amphibious ships, mainly the LPDs of the ALBION class, using wildly inaccurate comparisons with the “USMC giving up its MBTs” or even statements as absurd as “the days of storming a beach are over".

Let me be absolutely clear from the very beginning: “the days of storming a beach are over" is another one of those typical british nonsensical claims generated purely by fear that budget cuts in an incoming SDSR are going to strip the capability to do so away. It is simply not in any way true and it is ludicrous to see people arguing otherwise.

It shouldn’t be necessary to say this, but sadly it appears many need to hear it:

Nobody “storms the beach” because it is a pleasant or easy thing to do. It is done because it is sometimes beneficial and sometimes simply non discretionary to cross a significant body of water to access strategically relevant territory.

Amphibious maneuver might simply be indispensable to dislodge an enemy from a position; in order to access a theatre of operations; in order to force the enemy to spread out its forces along its coast, weakening its defences in other areas as a result; or even to turn the flank of an enemy front too solid to be dealt purely with through “frontal” assault on land.

Seas, islands and shores are not going anywhere and so isn’t the need to be able to move significant force over water, onto the shore and beyond. There will be occasions in which littoral maneuver is simply non discretionary because geography, both physical and political, dictates it.

And why beaches? Simple: because the enemy is not stupid enough to directly give up a port. If getting directly into a port is an option, obviously everyone is very happy to go for the port as unloading ships in port is countless times faster and safer and easier. But the enemy will make sure the ports are well guarded and / or timely sabotaged. Having the ability to land substantial force over an undeveloped beach and maneuver from there enormously complicates the enemy’s defensive needs and plans.

There are legitimate concerns about the ability to assault “defended beaches”, but first of all we should better define what a "defended beach" is. Many seem to automatically revert to images out of Omaha beach and imagine infantry charging in shallow waters at Atlantic Wall bunkers.

But nobody today would be able to defend in that way. Not even China has enough army to do that, and if you forced them to do it, it would be a victory in itself with how many troops and resources it ties down along countless kilometers of shore. Not to mention that precision weaponry of today means that the fortifications of a new Atlantic Wall would quickly turn into large graves.

A defended beach today is more likely to be a stretch of coast which can only be approached from directions which are covered by reconnaissance assets, perhaps with ground-launched anti-ship missiles in range and with the threat of enemy air assets as well as ground-based air defence such as long range Surface to Air Missiles. Enemy ground forces over and in the immediate vicinity of the beach are unlikely to be substantial, but mechanized units will be ready to move along the coast to timely meet an invasion force. For example, Italy during the Cold War developed the 8x8 tank-destroyer CENTAURO specifically to create wheeled, medium-weight formations which could race along the coastal roads to contain a soviet amphibious force landing (presumably) on the Adriatic coast. Now the TYPE 16 tank-destroyer being fielded by Japan is a continuation of that general idea.

These overlapping layers of defence are commonly identified as Anti Access; Area Denial (A2AD) “bubbles”, although this arguably tries to attribute to these threats a degree of novelty which they do not really have. A major feature of war has always been the need to prevent the enemy from accessing / taking over an area. What was a fort, a coastal battery, is not A2AD of its time?

What is “new” to A2AD is that, potentially, offensive weapons are currently seen as having better chances than the defences. In the endless struggle between “sword” and “shield”, we currently feel that the “sword” has the advantage. In other words, in the West, we no longer trust our warships to be able to cope with enemy missile and air attacks. We fear that modern technology has made it so much easier to detect, track and attack ships out at sea that getting past the “coastal batteries” might no longer be possible.

As I’ve written already while talking of the other commonly heard trope that “aircraft carriers are obsolete”, it is not the carrier that has grown more vulnerable than it was in the past, but it is our escort ships and embarked air wing that we no longer trust. If we feel we can’t operate the carrier / amphibious ships safely, the actual implication is that we do not expect the escort ships and embarked fighter jets to be able to defend them.

The answer to this fear cannot be “let’s do without carriers and amphibs”, because that would weaken the fleet even further (no air wing to fight the air battle with) and remove much of the purpose of the whole fleet. If the carrier cannot be defended, what can we defend? If warships cannot defend each other in a group, they won’t be able to prevent the enemy from cutting off the sea lanes either.

Basically it would mean we have lost not just control of the sea, but the ability to make any use of it, tactically and strategically. If we believe this, very urgent action is required to improve the “shield”.

But in truth, much of the argument against carriers and amphibs is born more out of interservice rivalry over insufficient budgets than by actual strategic and tactical thinking. If the latter was driving the policy, we would be talking of how to improve escort ships and their missiles as well as the capabilities of the embarked air wing. To be fair, it must be noted that some in the US are actually calling for an Air Wing rethink, but unfortunately they are an exception in a discourse which is otherwise a completely partisan battle for the budget, not for the sea.

But the USMC…

In this sad debate, largely devoid of actual technical content, many will happily mention the USMC reforms and their offer of their MBTs in sacrifice to free up funds for other capabilities as a sign that “storming the beach” is a thing of the past.

Some claim that the future is “raiding” to be conducted with small boats, stealthy infiltrations of small groups of Marines and helicopters for the rest, with little to no space for surface maneuver. They want this to be the future of the Royal Marines and they even claim this is what the USMC is doing.

Thing is, the USMC is definitely not giving up on surface maneuver. The moment an amphibious force does that, it ceases to exist, or at least it ceases to matter.

Using raids, stealthy infiltration of small and agile combat elements and carrying out “Commando” work, sabotage, reconnaissance and target acquisition in favor of the fleet is of course important and it is right to pour more effort into improving tactics and equipment for achieving greater effect. It is also rational to reduce the vulnerability of the force by coming in smaller groups from multiple directions at once: dispersion is an effective way to reduce vulnerability to the mass of long range fires some enemies are able to deploy.

Ultimately, however, raids and long range insertions of small bodies of troops to push the enemy back from the shore are pre-landing force work. The multiple pinpricks they directly deliver, and the much greater damage they can cause by calling upon and coordinating Joint Fires are meant to weaken the enemy defences and ideally drive them back from the shore to allow the fleet more freedom of movement, eventually all the way up to the landing of a mechanized force. All these activities (call them Commando work, if you must) are not new, and while we might evolve them and make them deadlier, they cannot, in isolation, in any way be the future of amphibious capability.

If you can raid but not land, you are essentially arguing to become a master of foreplay but with no actual capability to continue with the main act.

The USMC is definitely not giving up on its ability to go ashore with a significant force. It is not giving up on beaches and it is not aiming for “helicopters and boats”. If you actually read the papers about the USMC restructuring you will see that they actually intend to sacrifice several helicopter and even some tilt-rotor squadrons in order to free up funds. Specifically, Heavy Lift helicopter squadrons are due to drop from 8 to 5; attack helicopter squadrons from 7 to 5 or less; Tilt Rotor squadrons from 17 to 14.

Some of the funds will go towards one of the greatest priorities so far identified, which is the purchase of 30 more amphibious ships. Much smaller, simpler and “attritable” than current large amphibs, but, interestingly, actually able to beach themselves like the LSTs of old, and thus able to disgorge a significant load of vehicles or stores, all the way up to MBT size.  

Why would they want that?

Because their new concept of operation definitely still requires the landing over the beach of significant amounts of heavy equipment. While they recognize they must put the enemy in front of a much greater number of individually less attractive targets (30 ships means almost doubling the current amphibious fleet) to begin to change the dynamics, they know they can’t do that by turning amphibious capability into 8 or 12 Marines in an Offshore Raiding Craft with little or nothing behind them.

While the exact shape of the new amphibious ships for the USMC's future concepts has yet to be decided, the concepts make clear that landing heavy stuff on a beach is far from a dead requirement. 

The USMC wants to create multiple dispersed forward operating bases ashore, some of which equipped as forward arming and refueling points for aircraft up to F-35B or even F-35C (the latter is more complex, for obvious reasons, but the USMC has the capability to lay longer AM-2 strips and install deployable arresting wire sets). The Forward Bases will effectively become their own A2AD bubbles, armed with long range rockets and missiles, including anti-ship weapons. Indeed, the USMC plans to greatly reduce its holding of howitzers (from 21 to 5 batteries) but to treble the number of HIMARS rocket launchers and missile batteries equipped with even smaller launchers (from 7 to 21). Notably, the USMC is investing in an unmanned vehicle, the ROGUE, which is a JLTV without crew and topped by a launcher for GMLRS rockets or other munitions, including the Naval Strike Missile anti-ship weapon. The ROGUE is smaller and more easily deployable than even HIMARS and, obviously, is more remorselessly sacrificed. The USMC has also requested in the 2021 budget a first purchase of 48 TOMAHAWK missiles for launch from the ground, with the expectation that they will go for the new TLAM MK 5A Maritime Strike variant, aka the one fitted with an active seeker for use against warships at sea as well as moving targets on land. While it might be feasible to move ROGUE by helicopter (the USMC will have the massive CH-53K King Stallion heavy lift machines, after all), it is clear that in order to actually beef up and sustain the forward bases there will be an enduring need for surface manoeuvre. Only landing craft, or the new beaching amphibious vessel, will be able to deliver the quantity of stores, ammunition and combat vehicles required.

Test firings of a NSM anti-ship missile from a ROGUE prototype are expected soon. This new launcher has the firepower of a HIMARS in a smaller, attritable package. 

The new USMC Marine Littoral Regiment is still experimenting to find its final shape, but it is centered on a slightly smaller but “more powerful” infantry battalion mixed with long-range Fires, including anti-ship missiles. The Regiment obviously has its own dedicated logistic battalion. And, very significantly, there is a Littoral Anti-Air Battalion, which will be absolutely central to the success of the plan. Let the full implication sink in: a battalion of infantry, a battalion of air defence assets. That’s one special ratio of infantry to air defences.

For now there has been very little discussion about what exactly a Littoral Anti-Air Battalion will end up looking like, but personally I expect the USMC will move to field ground based anti-air capabilities with ranges and lethality going far beyond the remit of the current Low-Altitude Air Defense (LAAD) Battalions. Investment currently is focused on providing a modernized SHORAD and Counter-UAV capability with weapons and sensors on JLTV vehicle bases, but it is reasonable to expect that much longer ranged SAMs will follow. It is only logical: the USMC “A2AD” bubbles will need to not only threaten ships but to help the fleet at sea in the fight against enemy long range missile and air attacks. The USMC is already working to ensure its ground-based radars can seamlessly share tracking and targeting data with the Navy’s and with the Army’s own air defence networks, but they will need to be able to put ashore their own long range SAMs, so I fully expect substantial investment in this direction.

The USMC forward bases, some of which will be decoys and some of which will be used rotationally, with frequent moves from one to another, are clearly meant to be “sponges” for enemy long range fires. Imagine forward airfields that can enhance the striking range of F-35Bs as well as fire Naval Strike Missiles, TOMAHAWK and other long range guided weapons: they constitute a threat that no enemy can ignore. Dispersion, movement in and out of bases and use of small and expendable weapon systems such as ROGUE, with a great number of small, cheap vessels shuttling the force around mean that suddenly, the target is much harder to eradicate and it starts absorbing more and more long range fires and more missiles. Especially so if it comes with its own anti-missile defences and can shoot down some of the incoming weapons, as well as “taking the others on the chin” without becoming combat-ineffective.

Imagine a few of these deployable A2AD bubbles forming a loose chain around a stretch of shore. Suddenly, the defender is the one struggling to get troops into the area to hold it against a force coming ashore.

You can see how the new USMC approach starts to change the picture.

The USMC having no MBTs of its own is more detail than substance when you realize that they will have the same, or indeed a much greater ability to put MBTs ashore if they so need. The USMC commander, General David Berger, has been very clear about what his thinking actually is: “We need an Army with lots of tanks. We don't need a Marine Corps with tanks.”

That phrase, alone, is enough to shoot down any wildly inaccurate claim that the USMC thinks the tank is obsolete, or that “storming the beach” is no longer a thing. It makes sense for the USMC to accept some sacrifices and a greater dependence on the Army’s own formations, if it can lead to a better overall result by enabling investment elsewhere. Not to mention that this is the United States of America that we are talking about: Congress might still decide to provide additional money and prevent some of the proposed cuts from even happening.

Even if all cuts do take place, please note that the USMC will no longer have tanks but it will have a very significant number of 8x8 vehicles, both for reconnaissance and screening (a LAV-25 replacement is in prototype phase) and for the infantry fighting.

The new Amphibious Combat Vehicle (ACV) destined to replace the AAV-7 will have far better on-land combat value than its predecessor, and the USMC is acquiring not just the APC variant but an IFV / Combat variant with turret and 30 mm cannon. This is an enormous capability uplift from the .50 HMG plus 40 mm Grenade Launcher in the tiny turret of the gigantic and vulnerable AAV-7.

While it is notionally planned that the number of Amphibious Assault Companies will drop from 6 to 4, this still means the USMC will have the ability to move 4 full battalions of infantry on 8x8s (note: each Amphibian Company of AAV-7s, and in the future of ACVs, is able to lift a whole battalion of Marines. The Amphibian companies are grouped in 2 battalions), maybe more considering that the individual battalion strength is expected to go down around 200 elements from the current 850. Overall, the number of infantry battalions itself is expected to go down from 24 to 21, so the reduction in vehicles is proportional to the overall force restructuring. 

The Reconnaissance Companies (currently mounted on the lightweight LAV-25 8x8) are at the moment penciled for an increase from 9 to 12, meaning that significant “cavalry” support will also be available.

In short: the USMC is certainly not giving up its ability to land a substantial force and maneuver aggressively inland. They will sacrifice their remaining 7 companies of MBTs, yes, but they will gain more capability elsewhere and will still be more than able to put ashore tanks. They will be army tanks, but that is secondary.

The Royal Marines have given up way too early on trying to secure an amphibious 8x8 future for themselves. The UK could use that kind of capability in many ways and scenarios, including on the continent. The complete absence of any amphibious armour in the UK's inventory (beyond the modest VIKING) is twice as surprising considering how much experience the British Army has collected in the Second World War on the usefulness of amphibious armour in getting acrosss rivers, littorals and flooded areas. 

The Future Commando Force

It is very worrying instead to observe the Future Commando Force work through a series of botched interviews and news releases and endless rumors which all reinforce the unpleasant feeling that we are staring at nothing more than a capability cut.

It is widely speculated that the ALBION-class LPDs will be lost at the Review table, and probably without any kind of replacement.

Not even the infamous Littoral Strike Ships.

In the last article on the Telegraph, the Littoral Strike Groups (one in the North Atlantic / Arctic area and one East of Suez) are described as nothing more than a Company-group held afloat on a single BAY-class LSD each. The possibility of the LPDs going and the LSS never happening is spelled out without much hesitation, and yet the annoyingly false pretense of “evolution” is pushed forth in what would be, with those premises, nothing but an insult to any thinking brain. 

Single company groups deployments on lone BAY class LSDs, but also on the LPD at times, have been happening for years under the heading “Special Purpose Task Group”. A SPTG based on HMS Albion operated into the Pacific in 2018, for example, while one on Lyme Bay operated in the Mediterranean. Eventually, the groups reconnected for an operation at more meaningful scale during SAIF SAREEA 3 in Oman.

Reorganize the Company-group all you like, add some UAVs and cameras on the helmets and a new uniform and C8 rifles in exchange for L85A3s, but what are you actually going to achieve?

Not much, frankly. It will still be an SPTG, in the end. With the same limitations due to operating from the very same ship it has been using for years. 

What would be new if the loss of the LPDs was confirmed would be the inability to do anything more than SPTGs. No ability anymore to do something at battlegroup scale. No ability to put ashore a mechanized force of any relevance.

That is not an “exciting future force”. That is a disastrous death for the UK’s amphibious capability.

“Dealing with new threats” has clearly nothing to do with the structure of such a force. A BAY is in no way more survivable than the LPD. In fact it is built to more relaxed standards, which make it even less of a hit-taker, in pure survivability terms.

It is not any better armed than the LPD. It does not come with new generation ship to shore connectors that enable the Royal Marines to get ashore faster, from further away, or just more stealthily. A forward deployed, one-ship Littoral Strike Group, or Littoral Response Group, depending on who you listen to, is in no way more useable or useful, than what could be done with the current amphibious ships.

I can trust the Royal Marines’ judgement on what they are trying to do with tactics for 12-man groups operating more dispersed, more “Special Forces-like” once ashore. But, dramatically, I see little to no attention paid to how to put troops ashore in the first place. Going back to what I wrote at the beginning of the article, it feels like we are debating all sorts of details about pre-landing force work, but completely ignoring the landing bit.

What we really need to see is ships, ship to shore connectors and vehicles talk. It’s impossible to take seriously the hype about “future force” without the actual fundamentals being secured. Until there is such a huge question mark over the fate of the ships and craft needed to lift and insert and sustain the force, everything else is secondary at best.

In all seriousness, if an amphibious force isn't even sure it will be able to hang on to its defining capability for lack of shipping, throwing money at new uniforms and C8 rifles is more infuriating than exciting. Is this expenditure truly necessary, considering that the amphibious capability as a whole is hanging by a weak thread…?

What if the LPDs go but Littoral Strike Ships come in?

Much would depend on what capability the Littoral Strike Ships would come with. However, for what we have seen and heard so far, the LSS was definitely heading into MV Ocean Trader territory. That is, pretty much, a POINT-class RoRo with a flight deck and hangar bolted on top, as well as an enlarged accommodation block added to the superstructure.

If this is the LSS, losing the LPDs to purchase them would be madness.

Let us be clear on one thing, once and for all: the LSS concept was born as a (very) poor man's LPH replacement because the current amphibious fleet's greatest weakness is the lack of aviation facilities.

The combination of ALBION and BAY classes was originally conceived with the expectation that there would be 2 LPH covering the aviation side. Of course, 2 LPH quickly became 1 (HMS Ocean) and then 0 today.

In absence of the QE-class carrier at readiness, the LSS was (is?) going to provide a forward deployed group with some hangar space, a big flight deck and extra lift to compensate, again, the loss of the substantial capacity that Ocean ensured.  

You might remember that the Commando Helicopter Force was thinking in terms of “Units of Action”, aka modular sub-squadron groupings of helicopters, indicatively described as 4 MERLIN plus some WILDCAT for the reconnaissance, escort and light attack roles. An air group similar to the one we can observe on RFA Argus right now in the Caribbean.

The PREVAIL concept is the best visualization we have been given of what an LSS could be. It would be a fantastic low cost floating base for forward presence, but makes very little sense as LPD replacement. 

A Littoral Strike Group of “2-3 ships”, centered on an LSS and comprising a BAY and eventually an LPD, would have been a significant forward-deployed force, especially with an helicopter “unit of action” on the LSS.

When the idea was proposed in these terms, it all made sense.

But if you start to picture the LSS as an LPD replacement, you are much better served by doing nothing and keeping the LPDs you have.

The LSS as imagined so far has nothing particularly magic about it and while it might carry several boats / Offshore Raiding Crafts it is highly unlikely to have any real ability to land heavy stores and vehicles unless she can use a port or go real close to shore to make do with Mexeflotes. It is no better than a normal POINT sealift vessel, in this particular regard. 

Which means that, whatever kind of fantastic insertion concept you want to imagine with RHIBs, "boats and helicopters", the only thing the LSS has that other ships in the amphibious flotilla don’t, is the hangar for maintenance on the helicopters.

Even if there was anything truly smart to "using boats and helicopters only” and withdrawing the LCU MK10 from service losing your heavy lift capability in the process, and there is not, you could do that extremely well from the existing LPD. You can fit plenty of boats in the well dock and vehicle deck; the davits have already been tested with CB90 combat boats in place of LCVPs, the flight deck can operate 2 CHINOOKs at once.

Which also means, again, that the LPD can do better than the BAYs as well. Whatever you can imagine doing from a BAY with "boats and helicopters", you can do better from the LPD. More boats and more helicopters, literally.

Capability-wise there is exactly ZERO reasons to lose those ships early, whatever concept of operation you want to fantasize about.

If the LSS is to be a replacement and not an addition, again there is ZERO reason to bother.

Beyond small boats, what defines amphibious capability is the possibility of inserting ashore a mechanized force with meaningful combat power. A force almost as agile as an airborne one in terms of deployability at range, but at the same time one which comes with armor, with mobility, firepower and sustainability that air insertion cannot give you.

For this fantastic, unique attribute to be true, however, you need LIFT. You need the right ships to carry that force, and the right Ship to Shore connectors to send that force ashore. Lose the LPDs and you've lost much of the LIFT (especially so if you get nothing at all in exchange, obviously) and the very vast majority of ship to shore capability. A single LPD operates 4 LCU MK10 and 4 LCVPs. The smaller well dock on a BAY can handle a single LCU MK10. The whole fleet of 3 BAYs combined is still one LCU short of what a single LPD gives you.
It's really simple math.

And since the carries thankfully exist, i'd rather take the lack of aviation facilities in the forward deployed element, knowing the carrier can at least be used when really needed, than go for the lack of ship to shore, which nothing else in the fleet gives you.

Talk money, if you have to. But whoever thinks the LPDs are a problem capability-wise is clearly not in touch with reality. Don't even try to spin it in capability terms, it destroys your credibility. 

Whoever thinks that using the BAYs alone has anything to do with “new scenarios” and “A2AD making it impossible to storm the beach like before” is equally living in fantasy.

What is the aim, at the end of the day?
What is the actual aim of the Future Commando Force work carried out by the Royal Marines? What is the desired end state, the actual thinking for the future?

Obviously the Royal Marines are not in the financial position for pursuing their own anti-air formations and follow the USMC lead, but what is being done, or at least thought of, to improve the capability at least a bit?

What does all the talk about “working more closely with the Navy” actually entail? For what we are reading right now, not much. Beyond the role change of 42 Commando, which has already happened, I don’t see much. The forward presence through BAY ships is more of a Navy realignment with the Royal Marines than the opposite, simply because the BAY class has been increasingly called away from the amphibious role in order to cover all sorts of other requirements, from disaster relief in the Caribbean to the enduring requirement for a mothership in support of the MCM force in the Gulf.

With 3 BAY ships in total, one of which tied down in support of the MCM force, keeping up a constant routine of forward deployments in the High North and East of Suez would exhaust the entire fleet. It is a concept of operations which will entail unavoidable presence gaps for lack of shipping whenever a BAY hits refit time.

The loss of amphibious shipping will also mutilate the role of 3 Commando Brigade in Norway and the High North, just after the UK has committed itself to a 10 year plan of support to its ally. Without the ships to lift a sizeable force and insert and move it with agility along the Norwegian coast, 3 Commando brigade is just another Light Infantry brigade with a problem of how to get to Norway in the first place and how to move quickly around the country once there. Its actual usefulness in the area drops down to minimum terms.

I hope there is a bit more to this Future Commando Force than cosmetics, but so far it looks like shuffling of chairs on the deck of a sinking ship. None of the work we’ve heard about is tackling any real requirement connected to actual amphibious work. The last time there was an attempt at something genuinely helpful was almost 10 years ago when the PACSCAT fast landing craft and the CB90 combat boats were extensively tested. Those could have been engines of change. Adding this or that UAV is helpful, and changing uniform might make a lot of difference to the individual soldier's comfort, but none of these small bits does a future force make.

Ultimately, is there is going to be no actual amphibious lift and capability left, the logical consequence must be the immediate disbandment of 3 Commando brigade, with the transfer of 29 Royal Artillery, 24 Royal Engineers and the Logistic Regiment and the VIKINGs to an army brigade in 1st Division, so that at least one brigade can be rescued from the current state of insignificance. If there is no capability to insert it from the sea, there is no reason for it continuing and being a drain on the Navy’s budget. Thanks to the VIKINGs, an Army brigade can take up the mountain / arctic role (if at least that is to be retained in some form, at this point there is no telling what the UK is even trying to do anymore), while 40 and 45 Commando should just be disbanded. They would be reduced to the status of infantry as expensive as Special Forces but not equally free of political caveats on their employment.

42 Cdo would remain to cover the “actual” maritime roles, as it already does; 43 Cdo will stay as long as the nuclear deterrent stays, in order to ensure its security; and 47 Cdo might still become something useful if, out of the massacre, they can at least buy actual combat boats for littoral / riverine support to the Navy.

Imagine what an actual maritime force multiplier a battalion more similar to the Swedish amphibious force, or the US Navy riverine squadrons, could be: if 47 Commando was equipped with well armed combat boats with decent range, something like CB90 or larger, it could actually complement other warships.

Imagine a BAY used as mothership for a substantial number of combat boats, deployed to somewhere like the Gulf, in a scenario of protection to commercial shipping, like we saw very recently. Fast, highly mobile combat boats cannot beat back a major Iranian offensive on their own, but they can virtually “multiply” HMS Montrose. In the vast majority of realistic scenarios, the presence of a suitable Royal Marines combat boat would be enough to dissuade attempts to seize the merchant vessel, even if the nearest frigate was a long distance away.

An expensive hollow force without a clear role is not needed: the British Army already maintains a whole Division of loosely put together infantry without supports, always on the lookout for a reason to continue existing. 3 Commando brigade should not join the count of the “fake” brigades.

But if it does because the disastrous decision to cut the amphibious ships is made, then I’m left to hope that there is the dignity and courage to at least be honest about the implications and follow through with reductions which can at least generate some actual savings in terms of manpower and money to devote to other priorities. 

The worst possible outcome is to mutilate amphibious capability to save the few dozen millions spent yearly for the LPDs, but continue sinking money on a brigade no longer able to carry out its mission.

If you really need to save money, at least do that decently. If you kill a capability to save pennies and gain no real personnel / budget headroom to do anything else anyway, you are shafting yourself twice.

Ultimately, the UK needs to decide what it wants to be. This is the one decision that constantly gets skirted around.

If the worst case scenario for the Integrated Review, which has been leaked to the Times today, ever comes to pass, the UK must be honest with itself and spell out the consequence: it is finished as a military power of any relevance. Not global, not even regional. It will be a small player with some absurdly good capabilities still in the arsenal merely because they are the ruins of what existed before. The whole structure, however, is losing so much coherence and stability that the comparison with other countries is increasingly humiliating. 

What we absolutely not need is the UK pretending to still be relevant and capable while mutilating itself.

Exactly like we don’t need the Royal Marines pretending to be an amphibious force for the future while amphibious capability actually vanishes.

Sort out what you want to be, with honesty.

The cringeworthy debate pre-SDSR

I’ve already written out my thoughts about the SDSR 2020 and, despite the enduring noise about Cummings and cuts and other unpleasant news, i’m sticking to that description, for now at least. You can find my predictions here, if you haven’t yet read them and want to know what my position is.

This post, which I hope I’ll be able to keep short, is more of a comment to the circus of rumors, leaks and “suggestions” coming from experts ahead of every contemporary SDSR. It’s a cry of agony in front of the increasingly empty rhetoric of “sacred cows” and an expression of the deep incredulity and frustration with which Allies observe the painful process with which Britain, more often than not, commits self-harm.

The gut feeling is that those who profess the loudest objectivity are actually the most partisan, and that the “sacred cow” catchphrase has become an easy and good-looking way to advocate for cuts to fall on anything other than the pet project of the day. It makes it look like you are being all innovative and hard nosed about things. 

Most of those “sacred cows” are, in fact, valid capabilities than nowhere else in the world are subject to the same kind of denial. Moreover, these “sacred cows” are actually UK capabilities which work, which have cost billions to build up and which are competitive and respected worldwide.

I’ve already written about the absurdity ofclaiming that aircraft carriers are somehow obsolete, and I won’t go over that subject again. In this occasion I will only remark that no one else in the world, nowhere, would ever consider chopping the legs off from under a key national capability at the dawn of its service life, after 20 years of efforts, sacrifices and expenses to build it up.

The UK has a history of throwing away billions of pounds in exchange for absolutely nothing, and the Nimrod MRA4 fiasco is there to remind us all of how majestic the wasted sums can get. But Nimrod MRA4, according to what we are told at least, did not work and was “never going to work”. Personally, I doubt it, but we have to take it at face value. If we do, the question then becomes why it wasn’t stopped earlier, before wasting over 3 billion pounds, and who is responsible and why nobody is paying for such a disaster, but this is another story.

The carriers work. There is no excuse in the world that will justify turning them into pure waste, because it will be due only to self-harm, if it ever happens.

I will rather focus on the 16^th Air Assault Brigade and 3^rd Commando Brigade, which have increasingly become THE sacred cows, together with the capabilities they represent: parachuting and air assault, and amphibious capability.

This is the third SDSR in a row that begins with calls to “merge” the two brigades and / or drastically cut back on both capabilities, withdraw the amphibious ships etcetera. It is as illiterate a proposal as they can be. Merging the two brigades to achieve savings would almost certainly mean disbanding the brigade supports: either 7 RHA or 29 Commando RA; either 23 or 24 Engineer Regiments, and so along. The result would be the net loss of yet another set of Brigade enablers, which are already the true weakness of the British Army, which has already taken this path in 2010, with the result that there are 31 infantry battalions but only about a third of those sit within a brigade with any realistic chance of deploying and operating as a combined arms force.

It is true that it is increasingly dangerous to employ parachute assaults or even employ helicopters and operate in the littoral in a world of long-range SAMs and anti-ship missiles, but it is not true that either capability has ceased to be relevant. Nobody else is giving up on them: France has used small-scale parachute assaults as early as 2013 during Operation Serval; Russia and China are nowhere near considering giving up such manoeuvre capabilities, despite being the countries which are supposedly causing both capabilities to become obsolete. Russia and China are also pursuing massive strengthening of their amphibious forces.

Littoral manoevre and air manoeuvre remain as critical as they have ever been. It is true that capabilities and tactics must evolve as the sword and the shield battle it out for superiority, as it has been ever since warfare began. Just like I said for the carriers, it is not the ability to put troops ashore from the sea or from the air that becomes “obsolete”: you still need to be able to do that. What might become obsolete is your methods of doing it, and, above all else, the instruments you employ to make your way through enemy defences. It is not the amphibious ship that has become obsolete, per se: it is your ability to protect it from enemy missiles that you no longer trust. What undoubtedly needs modernization is the Ship to Shore connection. Slow and vulnerable landing craft need to be succeeded by connectors which can defend themselves and move much faster and over longer distances to restore the unpredictability of littoral manoeuvre.

The quality of the debate on both air and littoral manoeuvre has dropped to such desperately low levels that we have “experts” that sometime literally argue, at the same time, that air assault is now impossible due to the proliferation of surface to air missiles, but that the Marines should become a lighter force which gives up on surface manoeuvre in favor of long range raids enabled by helicopters.

Have you spotted the problem?

If helicopters are the future of Littoral Manoeuvre, they can’t be simultaneously obsolete. If air assault is no longer feasible, why helicopters coming from the sea are an answer? It’s absurd.

It’s what happens when your argument is actually nothing but a call for the cuts to fall on anything but what you care about.

Several of the UK defence commentators and experts have fallen in love with the nebulous STRIKE concept, for reasons that remain mysterious. There have even been repeated suggestions that STRIKE makes littoral manoeuvre unnecessary, because you can just land the STRIKE brigade in a friendly port and then drive on road to the front. This has even been offered as a solution to avoid the risks connected with facing the Anti-Access, Area Denial capability of a peer enemy, which supposedly make the Royal Navy incapable to operate in the area.

How is that a sane argument to make? 

If you are dealing with an enemy sophisticate and powerful enough to keep the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force out, how the hell are you going to create trouble for them by driving wheeled APCs up to their border?

Moreover, in a war scenario, will a country nearby to your enemy want to get involved, and let you land your forces there and then drive all the way to the border, exposing itself to all sorts of dangers? Sometimes they will. Sometimes they won’t want to get involved at all.

And ultimately, if you are landing in a safe port and then driving up to the front, why not do it with heavier, more credible armour than with expensive but nearly unarmed BOXERs? This is not a replacement for littoral manoeuvre and amphibious capability: it’s normal land warfare. Nothing at all new here.

5 years on I’m still waiting for a single rational explanation of how a mixture of BOXERs and AJAX somehow changes the reality of modern warfare. UAVs will spot and possibly attack tanks and IFVs, but not BOXERs…? They are not invisible hover-tanks, they are enormous 8x8s with very little armament on top. They are don’t have a firepower advantage. They do not solve the reality, finally admitted by the Commander Field Army himself in a recent interview with Wavell Room, that the British Army is outgunned and outranged. It faces a dramatic disadvantage in weight and reach of Fires.

The STRIKE brigade will have some degree of self-deployability, and that is good. It will require less HETs, less LETs, less of a logistic train. And that is good and desirable. But pretending that they will somehow revolutionize warfare is absurd. The British Army is purchasing an 8x8 armored vehicle 30 years after everyone else, and that is it. There are much better equipped and armed wheeled, medium brigades within NATO already today, but nobody in their sane minds pretend they can not only maneuver quickly up to the fight and along it, but split up into platoon packages and rampage deep behind enemy lines.

The British Army and some commentators insist on saying that STRIKE will do that. It is not credible. Not unless something truly new and revolutionary comes to these formations. STRIKE as of now comes with no advantages over a peer / near peer enemy capability. None at all. If there is no rational reason to expect success, all that is left is hope and dreams.

The increased strategic mobility of wheeled armor is a step forwards from what the British Army has, but is not a new thing compared to wheeled formations which have been around for decades. At the end of the day, British Army 8x8s are not going to be any more unpredictable in their road moves than the enemy’s own 8x8s.

Actually, Russian 8x8s are lighter and often amphibious, so you could actually legitimately claim that their strategic and tactical mobility is superior, as they can use more routes, more bridges (BOXER and AJAX are over 38 tons behemoths) and even, with some limitations, move across rivers without seeking a bridge at all. They are less protected than BOXER, but on the other hand are far more heavily armed.

These are all factors that routinely get ignored when STRIKE is promoted as the best thing since sliced bread.

For all its merits, STRIKE is a capability that is far more limited than its supporters want us to believe.

Moreover, the British Army as a whole is currently outgunned and outranged and full of capability gaps. If you want to fill those gaps and make it more competitive, you must find many more billion pounds to invest.

Is it worth it? Is it something the UK actually needs?

The Royal Navy and RAF are small, but are already globally competitive. They line ships and aircraft which are on par, or superior to peer and near peer rivals. The Army, unfortunately, is not in as good a shape. It is small and also faces severe obsolescence issues in its equipment.

In an ideal world, those deficiencies need to be corrected, but this is not an ideal world: if the corrections are only possible by robbing Peter to pay Paul, is it worth it?

In my opinion, no. Why should you cut funded, existing capabilities which are useful and globally competitive in order to pursue the new fashion of the day?

The Army says it needs STRIKE to contribute to NATO, to be able to rush to the aid of Eastern Europe in case the Russians lash out. The first question that should be asked is: is in the UK’s interest to rush to the East for a major land campaign? Does it need to be “the first” to get there (even with STRIKE, it would not be…)? Why should the UK’s contribution take that shape? Why not give priority to completing the modernization of the heavy armour, and perhaps invest on more HETs and in rebuilding railway mobility capability which was so unwisely demolished in the SDSR 2010…?

Why not focus on providing other capabilities, which the UK is better equipped to deliver without having to find extra billion pounds, simply?

I go back to 16^th Air Assault Brigade: the UK owns 60 Chinook, 23 Puma HC2 and is getting an excellent, globally competitive Apache block III fleet. It owns 8 C-17, which in Europe are an unique, high value capability. In addition to those, it owns 22 A-400M and 14 C-130J. All these high value items are funded, operational, proven.

Nobody in Europe is currently as well equipped as the UK to build up a powerful air mobile force. Instead of babbling about the parachute regiment being a “sacred cow”, the UK should look at the excellent ingredients it owns, and think about how they can more effectively be exploited. Those 60 Chinooks are a treasure that other NATO countries would kill for. You can easily imagine the frustration of the French, for example, whenever they look at that fleet and think what they could do with it.

Many UK commentators apparently consider it not a treasure, but an expensive obstacle to throwing money on something new.

Wouldn’t it make far more sense to think about how to get more out of what you already have? You probably can’t launch an helicopter-borne force deep behind a peer enemy lines, but there is still enormous usefulness for a fleet of 60 Chinooks that could be used to quickly move whole battalions of infantry to hold ground and plug gaps in a modern, contested, wide-area combat zone. Especially with 50 Apache in support.

Instead, we get the “sacred cow” rhetoric.

Thankfully, in its interview with the Wavell Room, the Commander Field Army has demonstrated greater wisdom than the various “experts” and said that they are indeed rethinking the contribution of 16^th Air Assault to a Divisional fight, or even a Corps operation at NATO level. It might look more like the old air mobile force of BAOR days, or take yet another shape. What matters is making good use of the very expensive ingredients that are already on the table.

Similarly, the UK has excellent maritime capabilities, including the amphibious and heavy sealift vessels needed to move a capable littoral manoeuvre force, which NATO values. Why should you cut back on something that is already there, already funded, and that can deliver plenty more usefulness well into the future?

Such a sacrifice would only make sense if it resulted in some kind of truly revolutionary leap forwards in other areas, or if it resulted in plugging a capability gap that just cannot be allowed to continue. But this is not the case.

Watching british SDSRs unfold is a cringeworthy experience. The arguments thrown around, with calls for cuts of this or that expensive, precious capability are painful to listen to.

It’s like watching a guy with only very vague notions of cooking suddenly put into a kitchen with a table covered in all sorts of expensive, precious ingredients. Some of those precious ingredients he completely disregard, others he even wants to throw away (but it’s fine, so long as he describes them as sacred cows that hold back “innovation”). Some others get mashed together into some sort of half-cooked, disappointing recipe (BOXER and AJAX, I’m looking at you). Some other recipes, he starts without having all ingredients for and without being able to afford them (STRIKE). Some other recipes are started out with great enthusiasm, then abandoned halfway in (the modernization of heavy armour, which was thrown into disarray by taking Ajax out of it and might other blows via WCSP and CR2 LEP). Some other precious ingredients get kind of forgotten and are abandoned in a plate to the side, certainly not without some usefulness for the future, but not mixed together in any kind of rational recipe ( 1^st Division and its incomplete brigades without CS and CSS).

It’s a painful spectacle of waste and indecision.

Sometimes someone manages to buy at bargain price some of what is thrown away (RFA Largs Bay, swiftly picked up by Australia; next time will it be Wave class tankers taken up by Brasil, or perhaps even some Type 23s…? Maybe Sentinel R1, too. I’m sure someone would gladly buy those). Sometimes it ends literally in the garbage bin.

We should all be very careful when labeling existing capabilities for deletion and sacrifice, for many reasons. First of all, the efforts of thousands of people and billions of taxpayer money are invested into them, for a start.

Second, deletion of existing capabilities never recoups much money at all. You are certainly not getting back the billions it cost to build them up. You lose far more than you can purchase with what little money is recouped.

Third, any deletion of capability comes with a depressive effect on the force that suffers it. How much manpower is going to bleed out, and how much is the perception of your force’s future and relevance going to be impacted?

Last but not least, you have to be very, very sure that what you are going to invest in is worth the sacrifice. We have to be rational and admit that the British Army is unlikely to ever be truly competitive again. It can be improved, certainly, but it is not going to be a main continental force, not even if several more billions a year are poured into it. Does the UK need to cut back on its existing capabilities to try and reinforce the army? Why? What influence and effect is that going to buy, at the end of the day?

The new SDSR should completely ignore the empty rhetoric of sacred cows, which are mostly just the latest evolution of inter-service bickering, and assess what the UK absolutely needs to do, first of all, and immediately after it should determine what it can do well, and specifically what it can do with what it already owns.

If there are new capabilities that absolutely must be funded – and there might well be – then the first place where to look to make room is in the long list of programmes which haven’t yet started and are not yet under contract. You might have to delay, delete, prioritize.

If I had to point my finger at some kinetic capabilities that might urgently need attention, for example, I’d have to mention anti-ballistic missile defense and air-defence in general, since this is an enormous weak spot in the whole of the UK’s forces. As ballistic anti-ship missiles and theatre ballistic missiles become more and more common in the tactics and strategies of enemies and rivals worldwide, having no BMD defence at all will soon simply become unacceptable. The ability to fire back, and thus some truly powerful and modern Fires, would be by big second. The US Army has made Fires its number one priority, and it’s no mystery that I think they have got that right.

In order to make room for investments in those areas, the UK might have to cut pieces of its future-years equipment programme, and that is why the Army is worried, since most of its programmes have yet to be put under contract. According to the official schedule, after all, in this very year alone the Army should get to decisions for Warrior CSP production, JLTV procurement, Multi Role Vehicle – Protected Group 2 selection (between Bushmaster and Eagle 6x6) and Challenger 2 LEP. It’s easy to understand why the Army is particularly nervous.

The alternative is to drastically cut back on some of the stuff that is already under contract or even in service, even if it means wasting a lot of still perfectly valid capabilities and throw in the garbage bin all the money it cost to procure them.

But I hope that the actual decision makers at the SDSR table will prove more reasonable than the voices of the informal debate we are hearing in the last while. If it is not possible to do everything, you should stick to what you are good at. If your money is not enough to purchase all you’d need, at least start by using well what you already have, and have already paid.

If the UK can do well guarding the North flank, reinforcing Norway and keeping the Atlantic supply routes open, that is a plenty valid contribution. If it can supply modern, competitive airpower, from sea and from land, that is plenty good contribution. If it can also deploy a decent heavy armor force, that is good.

If you pursue a “revolutionary approach”, you’ll better make damn sure your revolution is real and workable.

Because you know what you lose, but not what you might or might not gain.

Army 2020 structures: Royal Military Police and Security Assistance Group

Royal Military Police

Under Army 2020, the Royal Military Police is being reorganized and restructured to a streamlined ORBAT which introduces a 1-star, brigade HQ (1^st Military Police Brigade) controlling 3 military police regiments, a Special Investigation Branch regiment and a Specialist Operations Unit Regiment.

The new structure is obtained by disbanding 5^th Regiment RMP; by bringing back to the UK the 1^st Regiment RMP from Germany; disbanding a number of companies and resubordinating several others to form homogeneous, larger integrated regiments all formed by 2 regular and 1 reserve companies. The Specialist Operations Unit regiment is a new formation to stand up in Longmoor to group together under a unified command a number of specialist formations: the Close Protection Unit that provides VVIP escorts, the Service Police Crime Bureau and the Operational Support Unit.

The official summary of the changes to the RMP, MPS and MPGS under Army 2020 reports:

For the RMP, Army 2020 will result in:

• the creation of the 1^st Military Police Brigade (1 MP Bde) consisting of an optimized 1 star Headquarters, shaped from the existing HQ PM(A) allowing PM(A) to exercise command more effectively;

• three identically structured RMP Regiments (1^st, 3^rd and 4^th Regiments) fully integrated to maximise the utility of the Provost Reserves with fewer, but larger and more capable Regular and Reserve Provost Companies and larger Regimental Headquarters;

• an integrated RMP SIB Regiment with a small RMP SIB Reserve element and with a new deployable capability to meet the requirement of contingency; and

• a new RMP Specialist Operations Unit, which groups existing, but disparate, specialised capabilities (the Service Police Crime Bureau (SPCB), the Close Protection Unit (CPU) and the Operational Support Unit (OSU)), and allows for the appropriate depth of command so that the delivery of scarce and highly skilled niche specialist capabilities, such as Cyber-Crime and covert policing, can be better managed while also interacting in the national policing landscape at home.

For the MPS, Army 2020 means:

• an increased Regular MPS capability to number 191 personnel (up from 106 personnel) together with an enduring Reserve component;

• in future Tier-1 Service Custody Facilities (SCF) in Garrisons will be manned by MPS, along with the Tier-2 The Military Corrective Training Centre (MCTC). The aim is to professionalise and optimise Firm Base custody thereby increasing surety; and

• an enlarged MPS better able to meet future contingency capability by drawing across the whole MPS structure to deploy personnel to man Tier-3 Operational Facilities.

The Military Provost Guard Service (MPGS)was not included in the Army 2020 process, much work continues in parallel at HQ PM(A) as a number of Military sites are closed, security levels are reviewed and new bases are opened. Inevitably this will lead to some re-complimenting of MPGS personnel. However the significant contribution made by the MPGS to the Armed Services is recognised and appreciated across Defence and I am certain that this capability will continue to grow.

Changes to the RMP structure have begun and are being implemented, and more visible changes will take place in the coming months as 1^st RMP Regiment HQ moves out of Germany and into Catterick in December.

111 Provost Company, part of 1^st RMP Regiment, has already been disbanded as part of the reductions of the british presence in Germany. 114 Provost Company will also disband, while 110 Provost Company will transfer from Germany to Leuchars during 2015.

Once the transfers and disbandments are completed, 1^st Regiment RMP will have taken command of 150 Provost Company (transferring from 3^rd Regiment RMP during 2015) and of the 243 (Reserve) Provost Company.

The HQ of the Military Police brigade will be based in Andover, and is planned to stand up on 1^st December 2014. The head of the brigade will be the Provost Marshal (Army), and to preserve investigative independence of the police, OPCON will be in the hands of the Chief of General Staff. The brigade will be under the tactical command of Force Troops Command for non-investigative tasks.

The end state of the RMP regiments is as follows:

1^st Regiment RMP (Catterick)

150 Provost Coy (Catterick)

110 Provost Company (last in Germany, will move into Leuchars)

243 Provost Company (Reserve) [includes 2 Platoon in Lisburn]

3^rd Regiment RMP (Bulford)

158 Provost Company (Bulford)

174 Provost Company – Donnington

116 Provost Company (Reserve)

4^th Regiment RMP (Aldershot)

156 Provost Company (Air Assault) (Colchester)  [comes into the regiment 1^st December 2014]

160 Provost Company (Aldershot)

253 Provost Company (Reserve)

156 Provost Company is currently independent as it is the only air assault RMP unit, and is assigned directly to 16 Air Assault Brigade. This independence will formally end on 1^st December this year, when the company resubordinates under 4^th Regiment RMP.

The Provost Companies are working to a renewed three platoons structure, particularly important in the case of 156 Provost Company as it supports the constant generation of one platoon at High Readiness and air assault ready, to be attached to the Air Assault Task Force. Each RMP company has one “operations” platoon supporting the parent brigade, one platoon engaged in policing the assigned area of the UK and the garrison, and one platoon in training. The three platoons rotate across all three roles.

For 156 Provost Company, the operations platoon is a formation of 28 men held at High Readiness in support of the Air Assault Task Force generated by 16 Air Assault Brigade.

The one exception is the Royal Marines Police Troop, which has links to the RMP but remains an integral part of 30 Commando IX. The Troop is 38 strong, and has to generate police capability for the Royal Marines battlegroup at readiness.

The Special Investigation Branch Regiment includes 5 Investigation companies covering the whole of the UK, with Investigation sections distributed all over the territory and into the main garrisons. It is not yet clear if the number of companies will change, but the force will integrate 83, 84 and 85 SIB Sections, made up of reservists.

The brigade also includes the Military Provost Staff Regiment, including the Military Corrective Training Centre (in Colchester) and the regional Service Custody Facilities.  

No change has been announced so far for the Defence College of Policing and Guarding (DCPG) at Southwick Park, which delivers training for the police branches of all three the services. 

Security Assistance Group

The SAG is being formed at Denison Barracks, Hermitage, as a 1-star command bringing coherence to the management of information and media activities and Stabilisation Support Capabilities of the Army. It should indeed have officially formed on 1^st September. The HQ comprises 16 officers, 16 SNCO and 9 other ranks, and controls:

-          Media Operations Group

-          Security and Capability Building Team

-          15 Psychological Operations Group (15 POG)

-          Military Stabilisation Support Group (MSSG)

The MSSG numbers 20 officers and 40 ORs and has been moved into Hermitage. The 15 POG is expected to move into new infrastructure in the barracks during 2016, but the plan for the building and upgrading of the infrastructure for the group hasn’t yet been finalized.

In the future, the Defence Cultural Specialisation Unit (DCSU) and the Security Group Military Intelligence are expected to move into Hermitage as well. The barracks are also planned to house 73 Military Intelligence Company and the Land Intelligance Fusion Centre.

Hermitage, up to this summer, used to be the home base of 42 (Geographic) Engineer Regiment, but this regiment has now completed its move to new infrastructure in the Joint Forces base Wyton. Hermitage for the moment remains the base of the Royal School of Military Survey, but a plan has been prepared to move the school to Wyton as well, and indeed to complete the migration of the whole Defence Geographic Centre to new infrastructure in the Joint Forces base. The move of the school is unlikely to happen before the summer of 2017 in order not to disrupt training, and the DGC transfer will only be completed by around 2018.