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Thursday, August 13, 2020

Video Review - "Sea Patrol"

ComNavOps occasionally offers a book review on particularly informative and noteworthy writings.  Today, we’ll expand into a video review of the Australian television series “Sea Patrol” which ran five seasons from 2007-2011.  It seems to be readily available on the various video streaming services.

The series follows the exploits and personal lives of the crew of the fictional Australian patrol boat HMAS Hammersley.  On the very positive side, the boat is represented by real Freemantle class patrol boats in the first season and Armidale class boats in the subsequent seasons.  The degree of video detail about the boats is stunning and the series is well worth watching for that alone.  Viewers get what appears to be a very good grasp of the appearance and capabilities of the boats.  Even with no acting, I could thoroughly enjoy simply watching the video of the boats sailing, launching RHIBs, conducting boardings, exercising and firing the Rafael Typhoon remote 25 mm gun, etc.  This is easily the most impressive aspect of the series.


Armidale Class Patrol Boat


Less impressive is the interpersonal relationships among the crew.  They seem a bit contrived and cartoonish but, hey, it’s TV so you know what you’re getting going in.  I would rather have seen more focus on action situations and less on soap opera relationships but that’s just me.

The main frustration watching the series came from the constant and pervasive atmosphere of appeasement and passivity.  Almost every episode involves threats to ‘heave to or I will open fire’ after which the target refuses and the patrol boat backs off without taking action.  Never threaten – just do!  Again, I have no idea whether this reflects actual Australian maritime/naval practice but I suspect it does.

Closely related, in terms of educational frustration, was the constant micro-managing by the fictional ‘NAVCOM’ headquarters.  Every minor action had to be relayed to HQ and approved.  Again, how realistic this is, I don’t know, but from what I’ve seen of US naval practice it’s quite likely realistic.  The show clearly demonstrates the inefficiency and folly of this degree of micro-management.


Armidale Class Patrol Boat


The micro-managing extended even to the boat’s Captain managing his boarding parties.  The boarding party leader constantly had to provide updates and receive approval for every little action.  In real life, if you’ve trained your boarding party properly, have some confidence and step back and let the on-scene leader do his job.  To do otherwise is inefficient and, potentially, problematic as it leads to slow reactions.


Boarding Action Using RHIB


The main motivation for writing this review is the intense conceptual reaction it produced as I watched (full disclosure, I’ve only seen the first three seasons, so far).  I was particularly struck with the realization that the boats were nearly ideal for peacetime, Coast Guard type duties (fishery enforcement, anti-smuggling, small boat piracy, and the like) but completely unsuited for anything approaching combat.  I have no idea how Australia actually uses their boats so the series portrayal may or may not reflect actual practice.  Regardless, the boats are NOT combat vessels in any way, shape, or form.

On the other hand, with a few additions, they would be ideal for the peacetime Coast Guard type duties shown.  The boats cry out for a small UAV and the episodes graphically demonstrate the tactical need for extended range, aerial surveillance - as long as the tactical environment is completely permissive and unopposed.  The other capability that was sorely lacking was a sniper.  So many of the episodes could have been quickly resolved by a sniper.  Of course, that would have defeated the purpose of building tension throughout the episode!

All of this should lead the viewer to a serious contemplation of the type and need for a low end, peacetime patrol boat as well as recognition of the limitations of such a boat.  The series also offers a splendid opportunity to ponder larger issues such as command micro-management and a default attitude of appeasement.  All in all, this is an entertaining series that offers an in-depth look at some naval technology and practices and should prompt some deeper thinking about naval and Coast Guard activities.  In short, the series is well worth seeing and I highly recommend it.

20 comments:

  1. Interesting...havent seen this but will look into it. Curious what the situations were that prompted "heave to or we'll open fire"... I loved an "A" school friends tales of Carribean drug ops aboard a Spruance. While always prefaced by a "neither confirm nor deny", he alluded to multiple instances of ventilating non-complying boats with 5in fire... ;)

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  2. Until recently Australia planned for low level conflict with Indonesia. They can only deploy small forces.

    Our Army is required to drive for three days without resupply and to handle 4 gallon fertiliser IEDs, We had the only armoured vehicles designed to withstand IEDs in Afghanistan,

    Three patrol boats are to protect offshore gas platforms from Indonesian saboteurs.

    20 years ago all Australian TV went from action OR soap to combined action/soap. So men and women will watch. I lost interest in TV.

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  3. We also have RFUs that are the only operational units in Australia. They are part time and mostly indigenous, and hang out a lot with special forces teaching each other.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regional_Force_Surveillance_Units

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    1. That's an interesting concept, that you would conduct military patrols inside your own country. The US has nothing like that although we do have various police patrols that cover the entire country.

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    2. Australia is the size of the continental US, but with a population of 25 million, most of whom are concentrated in the south-east and south-west of the country.
      The north is mostly empty of people and is difficult terrain, mostly desert or tropical forest/wetlands.
      The RFSUs form a part of a developing network of. surveillance to cover the northern approaches. They are largely made up of local aboriginal reservists who know the land better than anyone too.

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  4. "Almost every episode involves threats to ‘heave to or I will open fire’ after which the target refuses and the patrol boat backs off without taking action. Never threaten – just do!"

    Could their be a jurisdiction/legal issue?

    Does the Australian Navy have the the same broad power the USCG does to pretty much able to board any boat it wants outside of some other countries territorial waters (while the most extreme version of this is unlikely I can recall lots of friends and relative bitch back on the great lakes that they got brushed aside trying to claim they wanted a warrant for a boat search If am not mistaken there a reason the USS Detroit carries a USCG boarding team to play at drug enforcement.

    If a USCG cutter tells you to heave too thay need a lot less justification than a cop would need for a search. Which would allow a recourse to justified force. The RAN might be on a tighter leash. So left with bluster if the ROE is tight?

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  5. Australia has two patrol boat fleets. The Navy and also Border Force. The Navy has to crew half of Border Force's ships.

    Border Force is all governments departments (Immigration, Customs, Fishing, Quarantine, Federal Police, etc) that want to offshore patrol.

    We have learnt two lessons from our post WW2 fleet.

    Don't use aluminium (and don't skimp on steel) else ships don't last.

    Each fleet is twice the size of the previous. We started at 150 tonne and we are now up to 1800 tonne.

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    1. If the TV series is to be believed, the Australian Navy patrol boats fill the roll of the Coast Guard in the United States. Nothing wrong with that but it means the patrol boats are not really combat effective in a war.

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    2. Yes the Navy and Border Force are like the Coast Guard.

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    3. But what are their rules for being able to board a ship. And thus stop or constrain it?

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    4. I'm not sure. If acting in Australia (to 12 miles)they would have law enforcement onboard. While they are helping the police at the moment with lockdowns, police make all decisions.

      I found Sea Patrol a bit silly. How many times did they radio "this is Australian warship blah". But I like an earlier and probably better written (less soap) Patrol Boat - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrol_Boat_(TV_series)

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    5. PS I walked past our last 6 gun destroyer yesterday. It tiny.

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  6. Can you imagine Jack Fletcher calling Chester Nimitz during the battle of Midway seeking approval for each action?

    Or Naval Intelligence seeking legal review before sharing intercepts with planners?

    GAB

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  7. The patrol boats are absolutely used in the same way the US Coast Guard is.
    They are neither designed nor intended to be used for anything approaching full scale combat.
    They patrol the maritime borders of Australia, dealing with smuggling, fisheries violations, asylum seekers coming by boat, ships that are in trouble. They work closely with the Border Force, which is also similar to a Coast Guard.

    The idea is that you want cheap platforms to handle the constabulary duties - long range patrol boats.
    They are being replaced by larger OPVs that will also be able to go overseas on anti-piracy and drug interception missions in Africa and the Middle East.
    This means that the actual war fighting arm of the RAN can focus on training and preparing for war. It also means we're not sending expensive, heavily armed frigates and destroyers to the Middle East or Africa to intercept opium shipments.
    The OPVs (the Arafura class) will be lightly armed but could also be upgraded to carry anti-ship missiles and perhaps CIWSs in the event of a full scale war.

    In terms of the activities of the crew on this show - don't read too much into it. It's for tv and is heavily sanitised.

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  8. Hi COMNAVOPS if you are looking for Naval entertainment, check out "WARSHIP" a BBC production from 1973, https://youtu.be/o0emR6wmFkM

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  9. Darn it CNO... Ive spent hours watching this now...!!! Lots of cheese n soap opera stuff, but short of watching old documentaries or '"The Last Ship", its the only thing 'shippy'...😁😂😁

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    1. You've gotta enjoy a good binge watch, right? :)

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  10. A navy man my self i have enjoyed the series very much very good actors i commend them.

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  11. I have been watching Sea Patrol, finishing the first season and starting the second. As the mom of a U. S. Coast Guard member and knowing operations he has been involved in, I had noticed that a lot of the operations shown in the show appear to be something the Coast Guard would more likely handle instead of our Navy. My son being assigned when he first joined to the historic USCG cutter Diligence, I found the Freemantle class boat from the first season to appear similar but the size may be deceptive.

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    1. " I had noticed that a lot of the operations shown in the show appear to be something the Coast Guard would more likely handle instead of our Navy."

      You're quite right. The Australian Navy does, indeed, perform a lot of duties that the USCG does. Just a different allocation of responsibilities between the two countries.

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