Navy Lookout – The ships of the Royal Fleet Auxiliary are critical for the Royal Navy to operate worldwide but despite its excellent capabilities, the service is in slow decline. Here we look at the current status of the fleet.
Monthly Archives: May 2022
The First Stand-In Forces: The Role of International Affairs Marines in Force Design 2030
CIMSEC – A key challenge facing the current and future Marine Corps is gaining and maintaining access. After framing the central role that access challenges will play in implementing Force Design 2030 and its associated warfighting concepts, recommendations are then proposed for how the USMC can best employ its cadre of international affairs (IA) Marines to address this access challenge.
How The Quad Can Take On China In The ‘Gray-Zone’
1945 – James Holmes says that The Quad initiative is a saltwater, multinational version of the “intelligence cycle,” whereby intelligence services plan what information they need to collect to attack issues at hand; gather raw data from technical and human sources; process and analyze the data to distill useful insights from it, and disseminate their findings to the right customers to help them devise and execute strategy and operations. And then customers provide feedback on the planning process, shaping future rounds of the cycle.
China Launches Drone Ship That Acts As A Mothership For More Drones
War Zone – China’s new drone ship is officially designed for ocean research, but has obvious value for the country’s military.
Navy’s 85-Foot Orca Unmanned Submarine Will Be A Minelayer First
War Zone – The first Boeing-built Orca unmanned submarine will begin testing this summer and its first mission will be laying sea mines.
Taiwan’s Coast Guard Tests Its Ability To Turn Cutters Into Ship Killers
War Zone – In what could be a very useful capability if an invasion kicked-off, the Taiwanese Coast Guard conducted live-fire drills with anti-ship missiles.
Are the Marines Inventing the Edsel or the Mustang?
War on the Rocks – Ford Motor Company’s development of the Edsel 60 years ago still stands as a classic corporate case study of transformative product failure. The Marine Corps, a $50 billion dollar enterprise, has introduced its own futuristic product — an explicitly defensive island-hopping “Stand-In Force” capable of reconnoitering and sinking warships in order to support naval campaigns. To pay for it, the Marine Corps intends to cut its main product line — infantry supported by artillery, armor, and air — by about 25 percent.
Antisubmarine Warfare for the Amphibious Warfare Team
CIMSEC – An integrated Navy and Marine Corps team could develop a composite ASW element for the ARG. This element should include Navy and Marine Corps aircraft outfitted for ASW, Navy personnel to support the Amphibious Squadron Composite Warfare Commander, and Command, Control, Computers, Communications, and Intelligence (C4I) systems to provide protection for the ARG in the ASW fight. Many of these systems already exist and only need to be adapted for the ships and aircraft of the ARG.
DARPA’s revolutionary seaplane wants to change how the Pentagon hauls cargo
Breaking Defense – For it’s Liberty Lifter project, the research agency is betting on a concept called the “wing-in-ground effect,” an aerodynamic principle that’s well-known but proven difficult to master.
Preparing For Change is as Important as Change Itself: Change Management and Force Design 2030
CIMSEC – The problem with Force Design 2030 (FD2030) and Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations (EABO) is that they both involve massive institutional changes being executed in a very short time. More specifically, there are multiple significant changes involved in implementing these broader concepts. Any of these by themselves would be a significant shift in the institution. Implementing them all simultaneously may be, in military parlance, “a bridge too far.”
China slams Japan for close-range tracking of aircraft carrier, says it doesn’t want ‘dedicated photographers’
Global Times – China on Thursday slammed Japan for making dangerous close-range tracking and disruptions to an aircraft carrier of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy during the latter’s recent, legitimate drills in the West Pacific, with analysts saying that the Japanese move reflected the country’s ulterior motive of offensive military expansion under the excuse of the “China threat” theory.
In tactical boost, Israeli Navy to receive 2 US-made landing craft
Israel Hayoum – Landing craft are used primarily to transport and tactically deploy soldiers, equipment, vehicles, and supplies from ship to shore during offensive military operations and could be deployed in case of conflict with Hezbollah.
(Thanks to Alain)
UK backs Lithuania’s plan to lift Russian blockade of Ukraine grain
Guardian – Britain supports in principle the call for a naval coalition ‘of the willing’ to restart exports through Black Sea.
(Thanks to Alain)
Russian warship sailors refuse to perform combat duties citing equipment fund embezzlement
Euroweekly – The Ukrainian Ministry of Defence’s intelligence unit is reporting that some Russian sailors are refusing to carry out combat tasks on the country’s warships due to them being in such critical condition and commanders taking maintenance money.
(Thanks to Alain)
EABO Beyond the Indo-Pacific: Reimagining the “Battle of the Aegean”
CIMSEC – The following contingency updates and expands upon “The Battle of the Aegean” scenario described in Chapter 15 of Fleet Tactics and Naval Operations, 3d Ed.
Photos show China has fielded another semi-submersible transport ship
Defense News – It appears China has put at least one other semi-submersible transport ship into service with the People’s Liberation Army Navy, according to photos published by state media showing the ship transporting an amphibious hovercraft.
(Thanks to Alain)
Locate, Close With, Destroy
CIMSEC – FICINT on the topic of US Marine Corps transformation.
Investigation: USS Connecticut South China Sea Grounding Result of Lax Oversight, Poor Planning
USNI News – More than two years of lax oversight from leadership on one of the U.S. Navy’s most powerful submarines ultimately led to the grounding of the attack boat on an uncharted, underwater seamount in the South China Sea, according to an investigation into the Oct. 2 incident.
The Quad Goes to Sea
War on the Rocks – The biggest announcement from President Joe Biden’s trip to Asia may be the one that got the least attention. The Quad, a grouping consisting of Australia, India, Japan, and the United States, has just announced a maritime domain awareness partnership that will provide a new stream of data from commercial satellites to countries across the Indo-Pacific.
Royal Navy to be the first European force to field maritime ballistic missile defence capability
Navy Lookout – Today the MoD has announced the Tye 45 destroyers will be upgraded to intercept ballistic missiles. The destroyers will be the first European warships with a full sensor-shooter BMD intercept capability.
Russia outlines militarization of fishing fleet and icebreakers
Barents Observer – The country’s revised Marine Doctrine includes a high stress on use of civilian ships and infrastructure for military purposes.
Stand-In Forces: Disrupting Anti-Access Systems
CIMSEC – The threat of anti-access capabilities is here to stay, and the Marine Corps’ stand-in force concept lends much-needed variety to the toolbox of approaches that will allow the joint force to “break the wall” if needed.
Denmark Sending Ukraine Anti-Ship Harpoon Missiles To Take on Russian Ships in Black Sea
USNI News – The Danish Armed Forces are sending long-range anti-ship missiles to Ukraine, U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin told reporters on Monday. The range of Denmark’s coastal defense Harpoons could put Russian ships at risk in the Northern Black Sea.
Israeli Maritime Power and Eurasian Competition
US Naval War College Review – While the U.S. military force structure pivots away from Middle Eastern security concerns toward East Asia, Russia, China, Turkey, Iran, and the Gulf monarchies are all potentially or actively hostile to Israel, or will seek more influence if the United States departs from the Middle East, or both. As Middle Eastern regional rivalries intersect increasingly with Eurasian great-power competition, the maritime element of Israeli grand strategy will grow in importance.
Navy Ships Swarmed By Drones, Not UFOs, Defense Officials Confirm
War Zone – After intense public speculation, stacks of official documents obtained via the Freedom Of Information Act, ambiguous statements from top officials, and an avalanche of media attention, it has now been made clear that the mysterious swarming of U.S. Navy ships off the Southern California coast in 2019 was caused by drones, not otherworldly UFOs or other mysterious craft. Raising even more questions, a similar drone swarm event has occurred off another coast, as well.
NOSI - Naval Open Source Intelligence™ 
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