A patrol boat renaissance of sorts is underway in the United States Navy. In the video below, the Coastal Command Boat, a one-off predecessor of the MK VI PBs coming online next year, goes through its paces in FIFTH Fleet. The CCB complements the Patrol Coastals (a much larger offshore patrol craft) and the Riverine Command Boats (RCB) which have operated quite successfully in the Arabian Gulf for some time now.
Dating back to the days of Jefferson’s gunboat navy, smaller craft (and we’re talking less than 100 feet in length here) have faced a number of operational constraints. Relatively short legs, limited-ranged weaponry, marginal sea-keeping, and most importantly, crew endurance, have confined most boats to inland waters and relatively calm coastal seas. These physical limitations will not change with the Navy’s new patrol boats, but what has evolved is the breadth and depth of missions combat craft can now accomplish.
A shrinking fleet drives us to creativity with fewer ships. The Littoral Combat Ship has been sold as a replacement for a whole series of ships – FFGs, PCs, and MCMs; however LCS has still not successfully deployed forward with fully-operational mission packages to validate that vision. The reality is that PBs may be capable of supporting these missions too, and in some cases do a better job than a larger ship for a significantly lower investment. Equipped with some impressive remotely operated weapons and capable of carrying a VBSS team, the MK VI will conduct traditional force protection, coastal patrol, and interdiction missions. And with talk of arming the boats with missiles such as the Spike or Griffin, they could also support some low-end ASUW tasks. The boat’s solid C4I package, combined with sensors and unmanned air vehicles, will quickly make them a preferred ISR platform, getting into areas where larger combatants might be constrained by draft or simply too visible. Arguably most unique is the boat’s ability to contribute to mine counter-measures operations using embarked unmanned undersea vehicles (and old-fashioned EOD divers).
The MK VI can operate from a coastal base, a well deck, such as those on the LPD-17 class, or be craned aboard other ships. There are pros and cons with each option, but the key is versatility. Embarking on mother ships, as the RCBs have done in the Gulf, provides combatant craft the strategic mobility and logistics support required to operate in forward deployed patrol areas near critical choke points, surveillance targets, and notionally, mine fields.
Perhaps what’s most interesting about this small boat renaissance was that the requirements for new and more heavily armed PBs in C5F was, at least by my estimate, driven by the former C5F commander, VADM Fox, an aviator, not a Surface Warfare Officer. Combatant craft are not a panacea for the surface warfare community’s surface warfare deficiencies (though this and this might be). Nevertheless, now is the time for SWOs to get onboard and adequately fund, support, and recognize the unique capabilities of combatant craft as force multipliers. The importance of small US Navy combatant craft in both peacetime and future wartime distributed maritime operations will be proven out as it has been time and time again over the past two centuries.
