Current & Future Amphibious Capability - General Discussion

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Repulse
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Re: Current & Future Amphibious Capability - General Discussion

Post by Repulse »

Jake1992 wrote:The question of what replaces the bays and points and in what numbers along with their support such as waves Argus and any solid support is tied to the replacement of other assets such as mcm.
I would disagree with this, it has an influence yes, but no more than in the design of all ships going forwards as I see this as more of a capability rather than a platform - I’d see the most perfect platform being the LPDs currently, though see a role for all ships including those operated by Serco.

I think the design for the “delivery to limited secure landing zone” amphibious ships should be driven by the primary role and not duties such as MCMs (though could be part of the load to be then deployed from the land).
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Re: Current & Future Amphibious Capability - General Discussion

Post by Jake1992 »

Repulse wrote:
Jake1992 wrote:The question of what replaces the bays and points and in what numbers along with their support such as waves Argus and any solid support is tied to the replacement of other assets such as mcm.
I would disagree with this, it has an influence yes, but no more than in the design of all ships going forwards as I see this as more of a capability rather than a platform - I’d see the most perfect platform being the LPDs currently, though see a role for all ships including those operated by Serco.

I think the design for the “delivery to limited secure landing zone” amphibious ships should be driven by the primary role and not duties such as MCMs (though could be part of the load to be then deployed from the land).
I wasn’t so much getting at the design of any future ships rather the numbers.
The way I look at it is if we are moving towards unmanned systems operating from the current bays then the likely out come will be there replacements will be tasked with this role also.
Now if in any amphibious op our second wave vessels are also expected to undertake any unmanned roles I believe numbers would need to increase by a good amount to accommodate this as they won’t be able to do both roles at the same time.

So say if we go for a like for like replacement then I’d argue we need at least 2 extra bays for conducted unmanned work while still allowing the amphibious second wave that is offered today ( let alone if we require an increase )

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Re: Current & Future Amphibious Capability - General Discussion

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Jake1992, possibly - what I’m trying to get to is what is the auxiliary fleet size and composition to support the objective I’ve laid out.

If the Points had capacity for a couple of hundred troops each and a brigade (plus support) is approx 5,000. Then overload the 3 Bays and 4 Points could move 2,900 - 4 Points and 6 Bays would be get to the magic number, if each Bay had a LCU in the well dock plus Mexiflots.
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Re: Current & Future Amphibious Capability - General Discussion

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Repulse wrote:Jake1992, possibly - what I’m trying to get to is what is the auxiliary fleet size and composition to support the objective I’ve laid out.

If the Points had capacity for a couple of hundred troops each and a brigade (plus support) is approx 5,000. Then overload the 3 Bays and 4 Points could move 2,900 - 4 Points and 6 Bays would be get to the magic number, if each Bay had a LCU in the well dock plus Mexiflots.
This is why I said it ties in to future mcm and other unmanned because if the bays and there replacements need to do these roles then more would be needed to do what your putting forwards and the unmanned roles.

If 6 bays and 4 points are needed to conducted the second and third wave at the leave you want then extra bays or similar would be needed for unmanned if this is the route chosen before the amphibious replacement is decided on.

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Re: Current & Future Amphibious Capability - General Discussion

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Repulse wrote:Jake1992, possibly - what I’m trying to get to is what is the auxiliary fleet size and composition to support the objective I’ve laid out.

If the Points had capacity for a couple of hundred troops each and a brigade (plus support) is approx 5,000. Then overload the 3 Bays and 4 Points could move 2,900 - 4 Points and 6 Bays would be get to the magic number, if each Bay had a LCU in the well dock plus Mexiflots.
“Where” is most likely going to drive that answer eg distance from the UK that you planning to commit an army brigade and in what time frame. What sort of logistical backup will be required and how quickly can you provide it and is it from the same place if there using a road move of about say 100miles after disembarking. Will the brigade all disembark at the same place or in a variety of ports.

If your deploying an army brigade is it straight into a fight or to a safe port? Is the port only safe if a security team has already landed by air or sea to secure it? Are you deploying the vehicles by sea and flying the majority of troops in to join the equipment.

Feeding into that what is the thru put of vehicles which will likely be around 1000 to get vehicles from the port to assembly areas. How many ports are you looking at being able to utilise, are they all deep water ports or more numerous shallow water facilities, does that mean you can’t dock a point, will it need mexefloat or landing craft to transfer vehicles from the points to the port or will it mean using perhaps something like a JSHV with a shallow draft and more rapid deployment.

The other bit to this is where littoral strike comes in, in so much as securing a choke point to allow freedom of movement/navigation of the ships carrying your brigade or independently of any further action where boarding and raiding of strategic positions along a coast maybe required.

Feeding into both of these is requirement for underwater survey and monitoring for safe vessel channels, potential mines or lurking subs.

There all linked and means we would be moving well away from what has been transitionally seen as landing a marine brigade over a beach and that drives a different ship configuration. In my view the strike brigade and in particular boxer and the navy shipping requirement are becoming inextricably linked.

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Re: Current & Future Amphibious Capability - General Discussion

Post by tomuk »

You don't need a ship as large as the bays for MCM. They are being used currently for trials as you need the space for the development work. Once the unmanned systems are developed they will operate off the T31s or the replacements for the current MCMs. 90mx17m vessels similar to the echo class.

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Re: Current & Future Amphibious Capability - General Discussion

Post by Lord Jim »

I totally agree, in fact a while back I made the exact same point stating that retaining the ability to move an Army Brigade, or 3 Commando, inn it entirety needs to be the main priority of the RFAs sea lift capability, even if this means we have to reduce our over the beach capability to smaller raiding operations.

I would like us to be able to reduce the need for the Carrier to be on hand to provide vertical lift but I do not see the need for an Ocean replacement, but rather a revised Bay style platform with aviation facilities would suffice. We are only gong to have around 8 helicopters assigned to such operations and these are initially going to be the FAA's Merlin HC4s not Chinooks. The fixation with Chinooks for amphibious operations is a bit of a conundrum. They are not equipped for such operations and can only be embarked for a limited period of time. What is need is a platform that can ferry them into theatre, not one from which they would carry out repeated operations. This should be covered by an RFA platform, possibly a conversion of a civilian vessel.

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Re: Current & Future Amphibious Capability - General Discussion

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Thanks SW1, very informative and a level of discussion / complexity we rarely get to when we just focus on the amphibious assault bit. All good questions you pose and I wouldn’t claim to know the answers, what I do know is that this capability should be higher up than it seems currently. Agree on the view about coupling this with the Army Strike concept.
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Re: Current & Future Amphibious Capability - General Discussion

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Lord Jim wrote:What is need is a platform that can ferry them into theatre, not one from which they would carry out repeated operations. This should be covered by an RFA platform, possibly a conversion of a civilian vessel.
Agreed, we are talking about an Ocean or CVF when we are getting to this stage or requirement. Having a few heavy lift helicopters would help, but equally having them in a ferry only mode (below deck) and setting up a land based helicopter base to help with the off load is also ok. I’m talking about these ships coming in to a secure landing zone where offloading could take a few days.
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Re: Current & Future Amphibious Capability - General Discussion

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firstly any army brigade when deployed will need Chinooks for resupply and troop movement plus MERT given the sort of operation you are taking about you will need concentrated aviation = a LPH as lots of helicopters on lots of ships will be to much effort plus if your ships are in troop over load they wont be able to support aviation as well. This is why I came to the list of ships that I did which was

1 x LPH = 240 x 40 meters able carry 900 troops and 25 helicopters off 8 spots
4 x Enforcer = 200 x 28 meters able to carry 800 troops in over load with well docks able to take 2 or 3 Caimen-90 LCU plus 2 LCVP or CB-90 off davits
2 x Point FLSS = able to carry 350 troops or 600 in over load plus off board systems and kit as needed ( could also act as PCRS )
6 x Point class = a lot of kit off loaded at a port or if needed able carry up to 12 mexeflotes ( 2 each) off loaded by the hoofing cranes

this would give you the ability to move 5000 troops and there kit if the 4 Enforcers and 1 FLSS were in over load

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Re: Current & Future Amphibious Capability - General Discussion

Post by ArmChairCivvy »

Tempest414 wrote:would give you the ability to move 5000 troops and there kit if the 4 Enforcers and 1 FLSS were in over load
How did you estimate that, other than by the number of able bodied soldiers in their boots? As an AI (mech) bde in metric tons - I don't have the LIMs for anything else than 3 CDO - would seem to be about 5x a Light Infantry bde. https://www.globalsecurity.org/jhtml/jf ... deploy.gif|||
- Though the metrics are derived from US formations
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Re: Current & Future Amphibious Capability - General Discussion

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The idea that if your deploying an army brigades vehicles and equipment by sea means that all the personal and aircraft has to go by sea is wildly exaggerated.

Helicopters certainly chinook may self deploy be airlifted or some may go on a sea voyage. Likewise personal there maybe enough on the ships to drive vehicles off but the vast majority will be flown from UK and join there vehicles there.

At such a level a cvf would likely be present.

Likewise once deployed they’ll all operate from a land base. May return to a ship for heavy maintenance depending on how close they are to the ship.

You may need enough embarked forces to set up a security perimeter but it will be limited probably 1-2 company groups.

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Re: Current & Future Amphibious Capability - General Discussion

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also you suppose there is a airfield however you are right under the norm vehicles by sea troops by air. As a side note I have watching a French exercise here at my local airfield last week first came the Tigers they were joined by 4 NH-90 (SF maybe ) this was followed around 30 mins latter by a para drop by 2 C-130 then over the next few day more helicopters and Hercs

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Re: Current & Future Amphibious Capability - General Discussion

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Repulse wrote: I’d see the most perfect platform being the LPDs currently
The LPDs are far from perfect, they are just too big for the role. The size creates two problems; the first being there is little demand for large LPD's, and they are too expensive to use on general purpose tasks unlike the Bay Class.

The other more important issue is during a real amphibious operation, the LPD's concentrate far too much force in a single location and put it a few km off a hostile coast. This is putting a single point of failure in a very high risk operating environment which should not be acceptable.

The solution to both of these problems is to distribute the package, this removes the single point of failure, and creates more usable platforms for peace time roles.
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Re: Current & Future Amphibious Capability - General Discussion

Post by jedibeeftrix »

shark bait wrote:
The solution to both of these problems is to distribute the package, this removes the single point of failure, and creates more usable platforms for peace time roles.
as long as whatever emerges from this distributed replacement for the existing LPD class retains 8x LCU's bays to be able to surge and support an ATFG of ~1500 people, sure.

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Post by ArmChairCivvy »

jedibeeftrix wrote: retains 8x LCU's bays to be able to surge and support
Agreed. And though I don't have "metrics" I understand that adding a dock (not a steel beach) ups the build cost quite a bit, so there must be a limit in hull size under which it does not make sense to do it?
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Re: Current & Future Amphibious Capability - General Discussion

Post by donald_of_tokyo »

jedibeeftrix wrote: as long as whatever emerges from this distributed replacement for the existing LPD class retains 8x LCU's bays to be able to surge ...
Currently, RN has only one LPD, so 4 LCU, in addition to 3 on 3 Bays.

Even though the 2nd LPD hull is there, RN could not man her, so I’m afraid it will not come even on surge. Or, reserve force can handle it?

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Re: Current & Future Amphibious Capability - General Discussion

Post by Lord Jim »

Thinking of the Box, how about 6 to 8 small(ish) LST type platforms. Bale to move in once the initial landing site is secured and then rapidly unload men, vehicles and supplies and then head back OTH? Surly designer can come up with a 21st century version of this type if platform, I mean look at how the LCU design has evolved?

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Re: Current & Future Amphibious Capability - General Discussion

Post by shark bait »

Image
Image
Image

Some one already has! and the neat thing about this concept is it puts the ramp at the stern, so it can keep a regular bow giving much greater speed and stability than traditional LST's. On a side note this type of ship could also make a future mine clearance platform.

The RN should looks to distribute the platforms that have to operate close to shore, and this could be achieved by Bay Class style platforms, or a modern LST refresh. Which makes the most sense?
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Post by ArmChairCivvy »

shark bait wrote:be achieved by Bay Class style platforms, or a modern LST refresh. Which makes the most sense?
A great find, and would much rather have something like those than put Bays close to the shore
- of commercial stds; hence the main defence against taking hits is that they are full of air... some types of rounds might pass straight through :lolno:

That ozzie thing would also give us a way to deploy hovercraft where they are needed; like in Iraq major efforts went into cutting the rivers off, from being used as infiltration routes
= a fast hovercraft can do the job of many boats
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Re: Current & Future Amphibious Capability - General Discussion

Post by SW1 »

That looks like a much larger version of this

https://www.navyrecognition.com/index.p ... -2018.html

Not sure what the big one is doing for us as a landing ship. If your primary aim is to deliver a brigade then it’s not going over a beech so the need for traditional landing craft is significant reduced. If it’s to connect a larger ship to shore out at sea then what seas state can you do that at, is it better than mexi floating of a point for example. Or is it for relative short ferry’s from a friendly deep port to a shallower port? If so is that a real requirement. Does it have the range and deployability we need from the uk or how do we get it to we’re we need it.

How relevant are traditional landing craft going fwd coast lines are becoming more populated and environment conditions are changing to limit more traditional craft access. If your primary actions over a beech is a raiding force is combat boats and hovercraft more appropriate with a swimming Viking.

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Re: Current & Future Amphibious Capability - General Discussion

Post by Repulse »

shark bait wrote:The LPDs are far from perfect, they are just too big for the role. The size creates two problems; the first being there is little demand for large LPD's, and they are too expensive to use on general purpose tasks unlike the Bay Class.

The other more important issue is during a real amphibious operation, the LPD's concentrate far too much force in a single location and put it a few km off a hostile coast. This is putting a single point of failure in a very high risk operating environment which should not be acceptable.

The solution to both of these problems is to distribute the package, this removes the single point of failure, and creates more usable platforms for peace time roles.
I think the difference in views is that you are thinking that I’m saying use the LPDs in a traditional way (close to shore) - I’m not. I’m saying sail the LPDs as part of the CSG, but operate OTH. The size will not matter in that scenario, but is a benefit as it will be able to operate more and larger landing craft, fast boats, USVs and UUVs than multiple smaller / less capable auxiliaries. I would add, that ideally we would have Littoral warships closer to the shore also.
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Re: Current & Future Amphibious Capability - General Discussion

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There is also the point, that having lost the LPH (Ocean) part of the Amphibious Group, a way needs to be found (other than the strictly limited use of a QEC Carrier as a stand-in LPH) to restore the lost capability. This can only be provided by the acquisition of 2 x LHDs as the replacements for Albion & Bulwark. Anything else MAY be a bonus, but if we were to fall for the "too much resource in one location" claptrap, then the ultimate destination of that would be to "send the RM force to the target coast in 2-man Kayaks". How quickly people forget the Falklands, even when it is regularly referred to in this thread.

"Nearly all of the coastline in the World is or will be populated so we need multiple smaller units !??!?
Total Balderdash. This is the invention of a Phoney scenario and then trying to alter the facts to support it.

There may be occasions where this might be the correct approach, but we already possess other means of meeting these. e.g. Insertion/Extraction by helicopter or boat, from platoon size (or smaller) to Company Strength.

This thread like many others I am afraid, is being ruined by sheer and utter drivel.

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Re: Current & Future Amphibious Capability - General Discussion

Post by Lord Jim »

Many here including myself have mentioned the phrase "Over the Horizon", or OTH, but how far is the horizon? With modern airborne sensors and large ground based arrays like that in Australia not to satellites, Can an amphibious force still hide OTH? Is it practical to have an Amphibious Group launching forces from say 200Kof shore?

From what I understand of the ideas the USMC are looking at they would initially insert troop by air using MV-22s and then use small(ish) craft to move in fast and land troops. They want to ay form the large LSDs and LPDs as they are seen as too vulnerable when an opponent is well equipped and able to conduct area denial style operation. So use many smaller platforms to get troops ashore and able to both defend themselves and conduct their own denial operation from the territory they now occupy. I think the idea is to take bites out of the enemy's area of control by using their tactics in reverse, but having the advantage of being able to strike where they want by using amphibious forces and platforms that are smaller, more flexible and well protected.

There will still be a need for larger platforms to move troops and equipment into theatre and support the smaller assault vessels, but the distances over which these new style operations will be conducted will be in the three digit realm, no the 20Km or more that we think of as OTH.

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Re: Current & Future Amphibious Capability - General Discussion

Post by shark bait »

Repulse wrote:I’m saying sail the LPDs as part of the CSG, but operate OTH.
Not going to happen, there's no way a LPD will work effectively out with the carrier group. A landing force needs to lay down as much mass as fast as possible before the opposition can counter, which won't happen shuttling forwards and backwards over the horizon.
Scimitar54 wrote:This can only be provided by the acquisition of 2 x LHDs as the replacements for Albion & Bulwark
Rubbish! There are a handful of other options for operating helicopters at sea.
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