Compass Points - Underwater Boat
Sinking or sailing?
Compass Points - Underwater Boat
Sinking or sailing?
September 22, 2024
.
Sunday is a good day for reflection.
The Marine Corps, like the US, is facing a future filled with challenges. Global challenges include China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, and other state and non-state threats. As always, part of the challenge for professional warriors is to integrate advances in technology into proven capabilities.
The Marine Corps recently announced it is looking to help Marine missile units on Pacific islands by acquiring the type of boat used by drug smugglers. The Telegraph reports on the new boat.
.
=============
.
In the early 2000s, Latin American drug cartels developed a new tactic for sneaking large quantities of illicit drugs into the United States. They built custom boats which were semi-submersible – that is, almost the entire craft was underwater with only a very minimal structure above the waves – with the aim of evading detection by US security forces. A few smuggling vessels were constructed with the capability to fully submerge, though this never became common.
These semi-submersible “narco-subs” or “narco-boats” don’t always work: the US Navy and US Coast Guard routinely intercept them, and the Royal Navy caught one earlier this month. But the underlying idea – stealth by low profile – is sound. So sound that the US Marine Corps is trying to copy it for one of its most important missions: resupplying far-flung island outposts during a possible war with China.
The Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory recently began testing, off the coast of California, a pair of 55-foot, robotic semi-submersibles.
“Truth be told, this is just a narco-boat,” said Brigadier General Simon Doran. “We stole the idea from friends down south.”
The so-called Autonomous Low-Profile Vessel ranges thousands of miles. The Marines could launch an ALPV from Hawaii and sail it all the way to the first island chain, which stretches between Japan and The Philippines and is expected to be the front line of any major fighting between the United States and China, potentially over Taiwan. The Marine Corps is transforming itself from a relatively conventional land combat force to a missile-heavy, mobile maritime organisation designed to use Pacific islands as bases of fire against Chinese forces.
-- David Axe
.
=============
.
Compass Points has long advocated for the Marine Corps to make better use of ships that can be used immediately like the nearly one dozen Expeditionary Fast Transports. Are a handful of semi-submersible narco boats the answer to the serious logistical problems that have never been solved for the Marine missile units?
The missile units have many logistic requirements. For example, the missile units make use of the Gator Radar, the AN/TPS-80 Ground/Air Task Oriented Radar (G/ATOR) Air Surveillance/Air Defense and Air Traffic Control (ATC) Radar. The Gator is a mobile, active, electronically scanned array radar system.
The Office of the Director, Operational Test & Evaluation, explains that the Gator consists of three subsystems.
.
=============
.
-- Communications Equipment Group (CEG). The CEG provides the ability to communicate with and control the radar and is mounted on a High Mobility Multi-purpose Wheeled Vehicle.
-- Radar Equipment Group (REG). The REG consists of a phased-array radar mounted on an integrated trailer. The trailer is towed by the Medium Tactical Vehicle Replacement (MTVR).
-- Power Equipment Group (PEG). The PEG includes a 60-kilowatt generator and associated power cables mounted on a pallet. The generator pallet is carried by the MTVR.
.
=============
.
The entire system can be airlifted onto an island by three CH-53E Super Stallion heavy-lift helicopters or MV-22B Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft, or by a single C-130 transport.
Will the semi-submersible narco boats be able to transport the Gator Radar from island to island? Obviously, no.
The bigger question is more difficult and more serious. Why would the Marine Corps divest itself of proven combined arms capabilities before figuring out how to logistically support the isolated missile units? It has been nearly 5 years and the Marine Corps' new idea for missile unit logistics is a few narco boats? Without logistics the missile units on isolated islands are not semi-submersible, they are sunk. Time to pump out the water and refloat the Marine Corps global crisis response force.
.
- - - - -
.
Telegraph - 09/20/2024
Preparing for island missile war with China, the US Marines are copying the drug cartels
By David Axe
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/09/20/us-marines-pacific-china-war-missiles-drug-narco-subs/
As one who has travelled extensively by boats and ships in the regions from Malaysia to Korea I have a few observations. The numbers and diversity of the ships and boats that ply these waters is hard to imagine. Those ships and boats range the entire spectrum from size to speed. The sea states in that far ranging geography cover the entire spectrum. What I cannot attest to is the Chinese ability to identify, target and hit those craft with discretion and accuracy.
Sadly, the Corps rolled out the EABO concept with no good idea how to get to the remote terrain to shoot from, how to resupply it, to medically evacuate Marines, how to keep it concealed, how to defend against missiles, aircraft, enemy Marines, unconventional forces or a rudimentary infantry force, how to keep locals from reporting on it, or how to position vehicles, radars and crew in the restrictive and varied terrains. Perhaps most critical, it focused on missiles with a very short range and has yet, after five years been able to meld it all together to detect, identify, engage and sink a moving warship. It has failed to lay out a template on how to achieve an overlapping and continues belt stretching the distance of the first island chain or redeploy forces to adjust for the maneuver options available to Chinese ships if you wish to herd them into kill zones.
I was recently told that a sense of frustration and even panic has set into planning process much like the gambler in Las Vegas who is running out of money and options.
The mostly submersible ship concept seems to confirm that.
In the 2012-2018 time frame smuggling Marijuana across the US Mexican border in the greater El Paso region had become increasingly difficult. Dealers decided to motorize hang glider type RPVs carrying a bale or two, flying at low level, and crashing them into the wide expanses of Ft Bliss and White Sands Missile Range where confederates in four wheel pick up trucks cut across ranges and impact areas to retrieve a bale or two, at night, provided they could find them while monitoring the Range Control net to determine where units were training, maneuvering or shooting from. The effort ultimately failed. Need I explain the similarities?
Professionals must be hard cold realists who reduce the potential for failure with sober analysis. More visionaries shatter on the collisions with reality than we bother to document. As the Corps decided to create a way forward by first cutting off the ability to retrench, it now finds itself unable to move back if for no other reason than cost and cannot forge ahead for innumerable reasons, not the least of which is cost. To the amateur chess player “Checkmate!” Comes as a surprise. The experienced player sees the checkmate coming many moves in advance as his option narrow and is forced into the defense. The panic in the planners is that they are aware that the options are running out. It is time to rebuild the MAGTF based on the realities of what we are seeing in Ukraine and Israel.
Professionals would have solved the logistical issues before selling the farm. Rational thinkers would not double down on FD and advocate full steam ahead while the logistical issues remain unresolved and known show stoppers. Sad, very sad