Romeo Squared

Defense with a Baltic edge

Denmark

Warship diplomacy: British intervention in the Baltic from 1800-1801

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For those interested in history, I recommend this article by Jason Lancaster on CIMSEC about the Battle of Copenhagen in 1801.

It was a naval battle where the British fleet defeated the Danish. The story is fascinating. Greed and poor political decisions had led Denmark into a dilemma between choosing a war with Britain or losing the protective support of Russia that kept Sweden from annexing Norway. Denmark chose the war with Britain, fully aware that they would lose.

It is also a story about how the leadership qualities of state rulers matter. Both Paul I of Russia and Gustav IV Adolf of Sweden were eccentric figures, borderline crazy with a fascination for war and an idea of making their nation great again.

Danish defense minister says it will take many years to improve relationship with Russia

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Danish minister of defense Claus Hjort Frederiksen on Monday:

Russia has chosen a path fundamentally different from ours. A path where international cooperation has become a zero sum game. […] Furthermore, Moscow has demonstrated an appetite for taking risks. I find it disturbing that that we now face a situation with much less dialogue between Russia and the West than during the Cold War. […] It could take many years for the relationship to improve.

The entire speech is available in English from the ministry’s website. Some of the arguments are simplistic, and it always makes me reluctant when anybody claims to represent “freedom”. But the minister is absolutely correct in stating that the situation is dangerous, and that it will take a long time to improve the relationship.

Helicopter scandals for everyone, Blackhawk to the rescue

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Helicopters are a common problem for the scandinavian countries. Everyone seems struggling with deliveries, reliability, and costs. It is not a flattering story for European helicopters NH90 and AW101, and the American Blackhawk and Seahawk may be the solution everyone is turning to.

Recently it made headlines that Sweden is considering not using NH90 helicopters for tactical transportation because it is too expensive to use the helicopter. Apparently the operating costs amount to 200,000 SEK per hour, which is a ridiculous number.

Sweden’s adventure with NH90 has been a horror story of bad news. In 2001 Sweden signed a contract for 18 helicopters that were supposed to be delivered before 2009. Nine of these were of the maritime version (NFH: NATO Frigate Helicopter) for anti-submarine and anti-surface warfare (ASW and ASuW), and nine were for tactical transportation and search-and-rescue (TTH: Tactical Transport Helicopter). Unfortunately, helicopter producer NHIndustries proved absolutely unreliable.

NH90 helicopter
NH90 helicopter.

By 2011 Sweden had to make an urgent purchase of 15 UH-60M Blackhawk helicopters from Sikorsky to replace the aging Super Pumas that were used in Afghanistan. Sikorsky was able to deliver the first Blackhawk in only 10 months, and by 2013 Swedish Blackhawks were flying operationally in Afghanistan.

…Continue reading

Denmark wants military multipurpose ships

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Denmark cancels the ongoing procurement of new pollution control vessels to investigate the possibility of building military multipurpose ships. This surprising piece of news came in the new defense agreement that was the announced earlier this week. While Denmark desperately needs new ships for the anti-pollution task, there are some potentially visionary possibilities is the brief and somewhat cryptic message in the political agreement:

The parties agree that the procurement of new pollution control vessels is reconsidered with the purpose of investigating a possibility where new military vessels, in addition to the military tasks, can solve maritime pollution control tasks to a sufficient degree.

Pollution control is not a typical military issue, but nevertheless it ended up stealing much of the public attention. In fact, it was the only thing that the Ministry of Defense found it necessary to elaborate on in a separate piece on their website after the publication of the defense agreement.

In Denmark many coastguard duties are organized under the Navy, including pollution control. The existing oil pollution control vessels are old and outdated, and the Navy was almost ready to put the signature on a purchase of new ships. However, the Danish Navy also has several shortcomings on the military side. It is possible that a smart design of a multipurpose ship could cover some of this.

Neuwerk
German pollution control vessel Neuwerk.

Most notably Denmark needs a larger vessel for patrols in the Baltic Sea, North Sea, and the Danish straits. Currently this is done with the Diana-class which has a poor endurance and severe weather limitations. It would be a great improvement to the Danish surveillance concept to have larger ships on regular patrols. These ships could be equipped with better sensors and communications equipment to allow a more comprehensive and robust surveillance.

Another interesting application of such a multipurpose ship would be as a mother unit for the containerized Mine Counter Measures (MCM) concept that Denmark has developed. Denmark has proven that it is possible to conduct high quality MCM with drone vessels controlled from a container on a more or less random ship. However, it is a burdensome challenge to find available mother ships whenever there is an MCM exercise going on.

Minelaying is also a low-hanging fruit. Denmark currently doesn’t have operational mine laying capabilities, but the country has an arsenal of old mines in storage that could be brought back into operational service. The defense agreement states that naval officers will be sent on mine laying training courses so there is a focus on mine warfare as a future possibility.

And finally Denmark needs suitable ships to deploy in international coastguard operations, for example under Frontex. Currently Denmark does not have any obvious assets for such a deployment. Both the actual costs and the opportunity costs are too big by sending a large warship or an arctic patrol ship, which is what Denmark presently has in the toolbox.1

First and foremost the new ships need to be highly capable pollution control vessels. But it is interesting that Denmark is looking at possibilities for building a ship that can contribute in other scenarios as well.

  1. An international deployment of a pollution control vessel must be coordinated so the national response preparedness is covered by other assets in the meantime. ↩

Denmark increases military spending, still far from 2 percent

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Denmark has a new political Defense Agreement for 2018-2023. The old agreement ran out four weeks ago, and it is unusual in Denmark that a new agreement is not in place before the last one expires.

The politicians have decided to increase the Danish defense budget as a reaction to a perceived threat from Russia. It is advertised as a substantial 20 percent raise in defense spending, and the politicians are eager to point out that Denmark aims to meet NATO’s goal of spending 20 percent of the defense budget on investments in new equipment. In reality the Danish defense budget will only climb to 1.3 percent of GDP in 2023, so there is still some way to the 2 percent goal. …Continue reading

Ocean capable corvettes could be affordable force enablers

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Yesterday the Russian Ministry of Defense announced that Soobrazitelnyy, a corvette from the Baltic Fleet, had passed through the Suez Canal from the Red Sea into the Mediterranean. This was the latest in a series of press releases covering the journey of two Steregushchiy class corvettes and an auxiliary vessel from the Baltic Fleet.

The three ships Boiky, Soobrazitelnyy, and Kola departed from Baltiysk on 14 October, and it was announced that they would complete tasks in the Atlantic Ocean. Since then, the ministry’s press service has been generous with updates on the journey. Reports have been made on the passage of the Strait of Gibraltar, AAW and ASW exercises, a port visit in Limassol, how the ships split up with Boiky completing tasks in the Mediterranean (I suppose around Syria) and Soobrazitelnyy passing the Suez Canal to participate in anti-piracy operations and visit the port of Djibouti. With the ships reunited in the Mediterranean I suppose it is reasonable to assume that the group will head home soon, perhaps in time for Christmas which in Russia is on 7 January.

Obviously, with this massive press coverage one has to wonder whether the point of the whole journey was to generate attention. Nevertheless I do think that the proof of concept is really interesting. Medium sized warships that are large enough to endure the ocean yet small enough to be affordable could prove very useful in the future.

These are ships with a displacement around 2000 tons. Aside from the Russian Steregushchiy class, I think the German Braunschweig class and the British Batch 2 River Class are interesting examples of such warships. A look at the Baltic navies reveals that most only have ships that are much larger or much smaller.

For countries like Denmark, Norway, and Poland such medium sized warships could permit the country to participate in low-risk maritime security operations while the larger frigates could focus on tasks where their broad warfare capabilities are needed. For other countries like Sweden ocean capable corvettes could make it possible to participate at all.

Historic procurement of Nordic Combat Uniforms reaches prequalification

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The Nordic Combat Uniform (NCU) project is moving ahead with an official invitation to possible candidates for prequalification. The goal is that Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden will buy new combat uniforms together, albeit with national variations in colors and camouflage patterns.

By making the procurement together the Nordic countries hope to attract big players that are able to provide higher quality uniforms for less money. The expected value of the contract is between 290 and 425 million euros.

The project is run in a NORDEFCO group that was established in February 2016. Since then the countries have worked out legal and technical details regarding the combat uniform system. There have been some different preferences among the countries with some focusing on Arctic features while others had wishes regarding uses in tropical weather conditions. Overall, though, the countries had very similar requirements to a combat uniform system.

The tender process is officially coordinated by the Norwegian defense. If you are interested in selling a uniform system to the Nordic countries, you can find the procurement documents here.

Strange message about deterrence from Danish general

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Danish Chief of Defense Bjørn Bisserup has given a comprehensive interview to defense website DefenseWatch (in Danish). The interview was published on the same day that I published my review of Gerasimov’s speech, and what a difference. Unfortunately it seems to me that the Russian general has a much more realistic approach to the challenges ahead.

Below I have made a summary of what Bisserup said in the interview, and in the end I have appended some comments.

Bisserup’s message: Unfortunate that we must spend more on defense

Bjørn Bisserup
General Bjørn Bisserup. Photo from the Danish Defense.
Bisserup’s interview is given at a point in time when a new political defense agreement is being negotiated. It is expected that this agreement will cover the years until 2023 and increase the defense budget for the first time since the cold war. With the expected budgets Denmark will increase its defense spending from about 1.17 percent of GDP to about 1.3 percent.

According to Bisserup it is unfortunate that Denmark and other countries need to spend more money on defense. “It is not the kind of world that we would like to have,” he says.

The defense budget increase is not directly related to a threat from Russia, and essentially Bisserup does not seem to distinguish much between a possible conflict with Russia and military operations in other places like Mali, Syria, or Afghanistan. Asked directly about a Russian threat, Bisserup answers that there is no reason to look for new wars, because there are plenty in the world already. “There is no concrete threat towards the Danish area. But that said, it is difficult to spot any place in the world where things are moving in the exact right direction.”

…Continue reading

Denmark reopens listening post to eavesdrop on Russia

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The Danish Defense Intelligence Service is building a listening post on the island of Bornholm in order to eavesdrop on Russian radio communications. That reports Danish newspaper Politiken.

The mast will be 85 meters high, and the newspaper writes that it will be focused on the VHF frequency band. That sounds like a very narrow purpose, so I think it is safe to assume that the mast is also equipped for other frequencies.

A similar listening post was closed in 2012 because it was considered irrelevant to listen to Russian radio traffic in a security climate where international terrorism was seen as the threat. At that point the decision got some critique because it happened just after the defense had modernized the listening post for 23 million DKK.

In connection with the decision to close the listening post in 2012, former commandant of the Danish Defense Academy major general Karsten Møller said that it had been clear since the mid 1990s that there were no serious military threats is Eastern Europe:

“The Russian forces were in a terrible condition, the Warsaw Pact had broken down, and the Baltic Fleet was basically rusting up idly. But when the listening post was allowed to exist for so long, it has probably been a result of local politics as well. At the same time some people in the military continued to have a Cold War mindset and were not convinced that it was over.”

What a difference a few years can make.