Naval capabilities
KDB Darulama (OPV 08) of the Royal Brunei Navy anchoring in Sydney Harbour, Australia.
$2bn The predicted
global market value for OPVs by the end of the decade.
Coherent Market Insights 28
Sinking feeling It’s surely relevant, meanwhile, that most enthusiastic supporters of OPVs are ones with the longest shorelines. Indonesia – its 18,110 islands altogether encompassing some 61,000 miles of coast – is a case in point. In 2021, a shipyard near Jakarta cut the steel for two new OPVs. And while the US Navy lately decommissioned the last of its Cyclone patrol ships, it’s telling that two such vessels were duly transferred to the Philippine Navy who, like its Indonesian neighbour, is a country with a mammoth seaboard to patrol. And, as Thomas explains, this fact arguably speaks to the role many navies have beyond straightforward warfare. “For the US,” he says, “these ships do not generally play a role in high-end combat,” adding that they tend to have “security-related” missions like harbour security or force protection. At the same time, Thomas notes that other navies, especially smaller or regional ones, “play a mission more akin to a coastguard”. With all this in mind, it’s tempting to imagine that OPVs and smaller patrol boats enjoy an unassailable place in the minds of military leaders. In truth, however, that may not be the case. For one thing, there’s the challenge many countries have had in actually getting OPVs from shipyards to naval bases. An obvious case study here is Australia, whose Guardian-class vessel has suffered a range of embarrassing setbacks in construction. Despite altogether costing AU$2.1bn, for instance, the boats apparently leak carbon monoxide into part of the boat. Together with cracking in the coupling between the engine and the gearbox, it’s unsurprising that the Pacific Island buyers of the vessels are considering returning their purchases. Nor is Australia by any means alone here. In January, the Royal Navy announced that the HMS Trent would temporarily be unavailable for operations from Gibraltar due to an unspecified maintenance issue aboard the OPV.
Of course, these snafus beg the question of why OPVs and similar vessels sometimes struggle. Examine another Australian muddle, this time that of the Arafura-class OPV, and you get the sense that a lack of cooperation between military and civilian stakeholders provides something of an answer. Among other things, Australian naval brass initially approved one offer from gun manufacturer Leonardo, only to back out of the deal and go with an Israeli alternative. But now that the Arafuras are almost ready to sail, they risk being deployed before these Israeli weapons are built. With this in mind, it’s probably unsurprising that Robinson is careful to highlight the close relationship between NAVSEA and its colleagues in the private sector. For starters, the organisation works closely with the Pentagon to understand “high-level requirements” around what’s needed. From there, Robinson continues, these requirements are “discussed with industry partners” at a range of events, including trade shows and conferences – before projects are finally put out to tender.
A role to play With such a comprehensive system at their back, it’s perhaps unsurprising that Robinson and NAVSEA seem optimistic about the military possibilities of smaller vessels. “The 40PB,” she says, “will conduct maritime expeditionary security operations across all phases of military operations by defending high value units, critical maritime infrastructure, ports and harbours both inland and on coastal waterways.” Given continuing challenges around areas like migration and drug smuggling – Australian police recently seized enough cocaine off the coast of the Pacific to supply the entire country for a year – and civilian security concerns are bound to be well-served by OPVs too. Gudjonsson, for his part, emphasises the continuing importance of OPV interoperability across different Nato navies, explaining that shared training, tactics, weapons and communication equipment can all boost the “defensive capability” of the alliance. Yet, if the need for smaller vessels isn’t going away, Thomas isn’t sure that broader military operations will necessarily rely on them as much. With recent versions of the US’s National Defense Strategy focusing more on great power rivalry – China and Russia are two obvious candidates here – he wonders whether OPVs may “only serve a meaningful role at best in the competition phase and not in a conflict scenario”. That seems reasonable: however good they may be at catching smugglers, any future defence of Taiwan surely can’t be achieved by OPVs, let alone the minnow 40PB. In short, the age of the Dreadnought may not quite have returned, but it may be re-emerging in spirit. ●
Defence & Security Systems International /
www.defence-and-security.com
The Mariner 4291/
Shutterstock.com
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