The Navy’s new Somali-pirate-hunting Combined Task Force 151, under the command of Rear Admiral Terry McKnight, suffered some big setbacks this week, just a couple weeks after the new task force set sail. First, a sailor from McKnight’s flagship, the amphibious ship San Antonio, apparently died when a boat overturned (man overboard drill pictured):
The Navy says three sailors fell from the inflatable boat, which overturned while being lowered into the waters of the Gulf of Aden Wednesday morning. In a statement issued from the 5th Fleet’s Bahrain headquarters, the Navy said two sailors were rescued uninjured and the third was missing.
Rigid-Hull Inflatable Boats are the Navy’s main weapon for fighting pirates. Armed boarding teams riding in so-called RHIBs intercept pirates’ skiffs — in a way, using pirates’ own tactics against them.
The same day, McKnight transferred his staff to the cruiser Vella Gulf and San Antonio turned back to the United States. The Navy said the rotation was routine, but it’s worth pointing out that San Antonio has suffered severe mechanical problems as a result of shoddy construction.
Just a week earlier, McKnight had praised San Antonio as the perfect pirate-fighting warship:
Right now, I have three helicopters on board. I have two LCACs [hovercraft] that also are … part of the original loadout we can use. And of course, we’ve got the 11-meter RHIB teams — the Visit, Board, Search and Seizure teams — [plus] Coast Guard law enforcement that is working with me and a Marine detachment that’s helping us out, and I’ve got [a] very robust staff. And I would say my task force is very fortunate to have the San Antonio, which is a great platform, that everybody can sit on here, and all the other elements that I have with me.
CTF-151 has three warships assigned: a U.S. destroyer, a British frigate and, now, Vella Gulf. Trading San Antonio ship for a cruiser will have some knock-on effects. The cruiser has less aviation deck space and fewer helicopters, potentially fewer small boats and definitely less space for staff, extra boarding teams and captured pirates. A deal-breaker for the Navy’s first dedicated counter-pirate force? Certainly not. But it’s not good news.
(Photo: Navy; thanks, Springbored)
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Strangley the UK’s own phibs have also had issues with quality of contruction (and have some design, erm ‘perculiarities’ too). The Bay’s (auxiliaries with small docks, based on a dutch design) had a very troubled gestation, bankrupting the last ship builders in the North East of England, the high end Albion class have also had big qualoity issues entering service, and are likely the last surface vessels to be built at their yard because of the problems. For years ‘phibs have been the cheaper cousins of the ‘warfighting’ fleet- merchant standards of construction, second string yards or yards where the main event is a different type entirely. The result has been ships that when worked hard, wore out fast, and recently, have just been badly made.
With the increasing importance of their capabilities it’s probably time we recognised that these ships cannot be the cheap cousins of the frigates etc. We need em, and we need to pay for them.
I gotta think the Vella has better radar and radio intercept abilities. Find and confirm mother ships and we may not need the Kenyans. Don’t know if McKnight has the spine for a Harpoon solution to the problem.
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