The story’s title was, “British frigate tested with ‘drone
assaults and torpedo attacks”.
Okay, that sounded intriguing.
Throwing drones that simulate attacking missiles and ?submarine? torpedo
attacks against a frigate to test it is exactly the kind of thing we should be
doing. I eagerly jumped into reading the
article to see the details. Well, here’s
the relevant portion of the article,
The
upper deck gunners tested their marksmanship with machine-guns and Miniguns
(ship-mounted Gatling guns) and the 30mm Automatic Small Calibre Gun (ASCG)
against dummy surface targets before ‘air attacks’ as Banshee drones – 9ft
long, 8ft wingspan, moving at about 120mph – were deployed against Kent. Also
put to the test were the flight team as maintainers prepared and loaded a dummy
Sting Ray for the Merlin helicopter, which promptly headed off on a sortie with
the torpedo at the ready.” (1)
In stunned disbelief, I had to reread the passage a couple
of times to be sure I was understanding it correctly.
The drone attacks were from Meggitt Banshee drones which are
9 ft long, non-stealthy, and have a speed of around 120 mph. That’s half the speed of a WWII
aircraft! For comparison, Wiki lists the
top speed of a WWI Sopwith Camel as 113 mph.
So, what modern, attacking, weapon system is that simulating? The only thing it remotely simulates is a
very low end, commercial grade quad-copter or UAV.
 |
| Banshee Drone - Top speed is more than twice that of the boat it's riding in! |
The torpedo attack?
It wasn’t an attack, it was a practice loading of a dummy torpedo onto a
helicopter.
What was the Royal Navy assessment of these pathetically
meager efforts? The Royal Navy claimed the
exercises,
…
tested the crew of HMS Kent to the limit. (1)
A WWI-ish drone and loading a practice torpedo is a test to the limit????
Seriously, I did get a good laugh out of this article. It’s hilarious what passes for a major exercise today. The crew of the Kent must be exhausted after being ‘put to the test’ and ‘tested to the limit’. I hope they get a commendation and some well deserved time off to recover.
Seriously, I did get a good laugh out of this article. It’s hilarious what passes for a major exercise today. The crew of the Kent must be exhausted after being ‘put to the test’ and ‘tested to the limit’. I hope they get a commendation and some well deserved time off to recover.
(1)UK Defence Journal, “British frigate tested with ‘drone
assaults and torpedo attacks”, Tom Dunlop, 15-Jun-2020,
https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/british-frigate-tested-with-drone-assaults-and-torpedo-attacks/
Originally HMS Q.E was to provide a flight of Fairey Swordfish for the test. The Q.E. ALIS was unable to interface with mission computer on the Stringbag, Morse not being available on ALIS.
ReplyDeleteHence the 120mph drone was used.
Hey, let's not be too hard on the crew of HMS Kent. Are we sure an LCS could pull that off?
ReplyDeleteAn LCS might well struggle against Sopwith Camels, now that you mention it.
DeleteLow radar cross section, diving out of the sun...
Delete"The upper deck gunners tested their marksmanship with machine-guns and Miniguns (ship-mounted Gatling guns) and the 30mm Automatic Small Calibre Gun (ASCG) against dummy surface targets . . ."
ReplyDeleteThese are all pretty much short range weapons, machine guns and miniguns are good out to about 1000 meters. The 30mm Automatic Small Calibre Gun (ASCG) is based on an Bushmaster II 30mm which is effective to about 5 km. Which is fine for small boats, though I'm not sure about a small maneuvering drone.
The article mentions drones, implying multiple drones were used. But, no mention of how many or how coordinated the "attacks" were. Its one thing to fire all these guns at 2 or 3 drones, its quite another if 10 or 12 were coming at you in a coordinated fashion.
And, there was no mention of any electronic means to attack these drones either.
The wording of the article is unclear. I'm not certain that the small guns were used to engage the aerial drones. It could be interpreted that way or it could be interpreted as the guns/surface exercise was concluded and then the aerial drones were engaged with unspecified weapons ... or maybe no weapons were used against the drones and it was just a tracking exercise.
DeleteUnclear.
"The upper deck gunners tested their marksmanship . . . against dummy surface targets before ‘air attacks’ as Banshee drones . . ."
DeleteI assumed that to mean they fired their guns the drones as well. I agree its somewhat unclear.
All in all, not a very useful exercise. But, they checked off a task or two on somebody's check list.
As disappointing as the pathetic exercise was, the Royal Navy's over the top description of it as testing the crew to their limits was even more pathetic. A positive spin for PR is one thing but that was sad. I thought the RN leadership was better than that. I guess they've been taking lessons from the US Navy.
Delete"they checked off a task or two on somebody's check list. "
DeleteWas loading a practice torpedo onto a helo really the best use of BALTOPS exercise time that anyone could come up with? Sad.
I would hope given its an ASW frigate that loading live torpedo is a daily occurance?
DeletePerhaps not....
Well OK looks lame. But any regular exercise where you run real fire drill and maneuver is worth (if being done across the fleet). The link is not handy but a long article looking at the shoot down of the Iranian civil airliner noted the crew analyzing the radar data complained they were not used working with the ship maneuvering at speed all the guns firing. The destroyer (or was a frigate) that had not engaged did make via link 11 correctly identify the plan.
ReplyDeleteNot a great simulation of real threats but if cheap perhaps something that can done on a regular basis to run out the crew and have them at least doing a drill and identifying stuff while people are firing and maneuvering.
I did not note in the article that there was any mention of conducting the drills at speed or while maneuvering. Did I miss something?
DeleteNo. What I was suggesting was rather the bones of at least a low cost drill was there that could be done on regular basis. Critically for all crews all the time some times planed and thus maybe offer more real danger and sometimes just out of the blue in safe mode but with minimal forewarning - something you will cruise through the firing range exclusion zone and may or may not face a staged attack.
Delete"suggesting was rather the bones of at least a low cost drill"
DeleteQuite right and I echo your suggestion that such low level drills should be done on a much more frequent basis.
The larger issue, for me, is why the RN would consider such low level drills to be the major accomplishment (at least they were the only ones called out for special notice) of an exercise like BALTOPS? That's just one step above saying that the major accomplishment was getting every dressed in the proper uniform of the day!
I agree as a one off its basically a stunt. As something every RN crew would twice while deployed its at least useful.
DeleteI am reminded me of CS Forster and Hornblower. As a composite character of successful RN officers one of things he always did when he had money was to either buy or 'acquire' extra shot and powder and thus be able to drill his crew endlessly before they ever saw a day of battle. More or less what real life successful captains like Edward Pellew did in fact (you can dig up his RN journals/logs to that effect).
Also given how many planes the US has in the bone yard and the fact the US does automate old F-4s for some air force practice. I would think we could do the same for ship crews to face an automated attack run. Even if drone missile launches are deemed to dangerous just detecting and identifying a plane on various attack vectors (or not) and making the correct shoot decision nwould be a good drill especially if only a general time frame was given a week or two sailing in some exclusion zone..
DeleteJust imagine if this is what a passes for a major exercise today....what a major exercise will look like in 10 years from now? "Hey, look we left port! And no one got hurt!"
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately today it seems most of the "rah rah" journalist reports make it out like it was a life and death exercise with people shooting live weapons out to evade. I would imagine a journalist might faint during the Reforger exercises of old...
ReplyDeleteAs regards military training being ridiculously poor to the point of being funny:
ReplyDeleteA friend of mine was a tank driver in the Polish Army in the 1980s. The equipment that had was a joke. They had old T-54 tanks which were in such bad condition that it was strictly prohibited to fire the main gun because it might explode upon being fired.
During his 24-month military service (conscription) he participated in only one field exercise. The idea was for the tank battalion to drive into position and wait for an assault command. Upon receiving that command, the entire tank battalion would leave their positions and charge forward in a simulated attack agains an enemy.
That was the plan.
In reality not a one single tank in the entire battalion was capable of driving on its own. About one week before the field exercise they began with preparations. A team of mechanics would approach a tank, and they would work on it (usually for several hours) until the tanks's engine would finally work. Then they would move to the next tank to get this one going.
In the meantime, the crew of the previous tank was tasked with keeping the engine running 24/7 (by pouring gasoline into the tank's tank when needed) until the field exercise would finally begin.
There were several such teams of mechanics. After about a week they had all the battalion tanks running, all of them running 24/7, just in time for the field exercise.
Then the entire battalion would slowly move into position where they would spend another week standing and waiting for the assault command. The engines of all the tanks were running 24/7 for that whole week, because everybody knew that once an engine went down, it could not be restarted again. Well, at least not without a team of mechanics working on it for hours.
Then, after about a week of such waiting, the assault command was finally given.
My friend, wanting to leave the position and charge, pushed the gas pedal, and the tank's engine, exhausted after running 24/7 for more than a week, choked off and died ...
Thus was the training of the Polish Armor I the 1980s ...
BTW, the story above is not a joke, it really happened.
DeleteI think one comfort we can take from this story is that, no matter how bad our training is, other countries' training exercises are generally worst. Not sure about the Chinese in that regard. Some videos of their training, with amphibious tanks firing from the water as they swim ashore, look pretty intense. But those may be purpose made videos instead of actual depictions.
DeleteBottom line: If we went with realistic training, we would fail miserably at first, but once we got the hang of it after 3 or 4 tries, we would be the best trained (as we should be) fleet in the world.
"those may be purpose made videos instead of actual depictions. "
DeleteAt some point, what's the difference? If you 'stage' a massive assault with pyrotechnics, lots of live fire, lots of vehicles and aircraft, all being coordinated for the purpose of a PR video, isn't that pretty much actual training, anyway? You had to do all the stuff, right? Sure, maybe it was choreographed but you still swam ashore firing your tank guns, right?
Yes, unless it's all computer graphics or whatever (unlikely), the reason you do it for doesn't really matter, it's still useful training.
DeleteSurely they haven't released the parts where people messed up and stuff didn't work, but so what?
Agreed, even if it's just a demo, it's more than we are doing. I don't necessarily think it means that their entire force could do that. But having some who can do it is better than having none who can.
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ReplyDelete