{"id":725,"date":"2012-08-14T14:56:21","date_gmt":"2012-08-14T04:56:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=725"},"modified":"2013-01-07T15:08:37","modified_gmt":"2013-01-07T05:08:37","slug":"table-of-the-week-ship-shape-naval-force-structures","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/table-of-the-week-ship-shape-naval-force-structures\/","title":{"rendered":"Table of the week: Ship shape \u2013 naval force structures"},"content":{"rendered":"

The structure of a country\u2019s naval fleet should reflect the thinking of governments (and navy) about their use of the sea. To a large extent it\u2019s possible to \u2018reverse engineer\u2019 naval aspirations from the force structure. For example, true blue water capability requires long endurance, which in turn means larger vessels and\/or the ability to replenish them at sea. As well, blue water forces often operate with the support of long-range maritime patrol aircraft. Conversely, navies intended to predominantly operate closer to home have a preponderance of smaller (and hence shorter-ranged) vessels for littoral operations, and there is less emphasis on replenishment vessels and long-range air support.<\/p>\n

No surprises there. But we can quantify some of these observations, and when we do, some interesting results pop out. During his time at ASPI a while back, then intern Tonmoy Dutta-Roy (who\u2019s now doing his bit to alleviate navy\u2019s shortage of engineers) came up with a simple but interesting method of measuring the shape<\/em> of a navy. His insight was to note that priorities are obvious when you look at the ratio of various parts of the fleet\u2014the number of major combatants divided by the number of minor combatants, being one example. Or the number of maritime patrol aircraft divided by the number of major combatants etc. Of course, anything worthwhile in the defence world needs a three letter acronym, so these ratios are called Force Structure Indices (FSIs).<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s see how this works by looking at various nations\u2019 blue water aspirations. Here the USN is supreme\u2014there\u2019s no other navy capable with its power projection capabilities (or that\u2019s even close). So we\u2019ll use the USN as a benchmark against which we measure the capabilities of other navies. The results are in the table below.<\/p>\n

Table 1<\/strong>: Force structure indices for selected navies. (Data source: Jane\u2019s Fighting Ships)<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

Australia 2012<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

India <\/strong>now<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

India\u00a0<\/strong>2015+<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

China <\/strong>now<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

USN <\/strong>now<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

Major to minor surface combatants <\/strong><\/td>\n\n

0.86<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

0.92<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

0.93<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

~0.5<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

n\/a a<\/sup><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

Major surface combatants to long-range maritime patrol aircraft<\/strong><\/td>\n\n

0.63<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

1.69<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

1.24<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

12.83<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

0.66<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

Amphibious ships to major surface combatants<\/strong><\/td>\n\n

0.25<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

0.5<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

0.42<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

1.12<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

0.27<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

Oilers to major surface combatants<\/strong><\/td>\n\n

0.17<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

0.09<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

0.12<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

0.06<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

0.18b<\/sup><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

ASW vessels to major surface combatants<\/strong><\/td>\n\n

n\/a d<\/sup><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

0.18<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

0.31<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

~1.4<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

0.19<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

Attack submarines to major surface combatants<\/strong><\/td>\n\n

0.50<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

0.73 d<\/sup><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

~0.77<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

~0.52 e<\/sup><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

0.55 e<\/sup><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

(There\u2019s nothing magic about the set of FSIs shown in the table. To get, for example, the ratio of amphibious ships to oilers, you can just divide the numbers in the third row by those in the fourth.)<\/p>\n

To see how to use FSIs, let\u2019s start by comparing the USN with the navies of two rising powers\u2014India and China. These two countries, although often mentioned in the same breath as aspirant naval powers, are actually at very different stages of naval force development at the moment. Consistent with its stated ambition,\u00a0India\u2019s navy is in the process of being developed as a blue water force<\/a>\u2014and the change in the ratios between the current fleet and that of just a few years from now will move India closer to the USN benchmark. But note that the FSIs don\u2019t tell you anything about absolute numbers and hence overall capacity; the Indian navy is still a long way short of the USN\u2019s overall capability.<\/p>\n

China\u2019s navy, on the other hand, is entirely different. Compared to India it has a lot more minor vessels and amphibious ships relative to its fleet of major warships, and there aren\u2019t many maritime patrol aircraft or at-sea refueling vessels. In short, it looks nothing like a navy that has been built for blue water operations. Instead, it\u2019s entirely consistent with a long-term focus on operations across the Taiwan Strait and in waters close to the Chinese coast. Rather than long-range forces, they\u2019ve focused on short-range forces that, when employed with other systems such as\u00a0missiles<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0sea mines<\/a>, can conduct local sea denial operations\u2014keeping external powers at bay. And the number of amphibious ships provides a credible capability against nearby territories\u2014especially Taiwan. If, as many predict, Chinese naval ambitions expand outwards, the ratios in the table should start to migrate towards those of the blue water archetype of the USN.<\/p>\n

Closer to home, there\u2019s a striking coincidence between the numbers for the RAN and the USN\u2014the FSIs are essentially identical in the categories where sensible comparisons can be made. At first blush that seems a little puzzling\u2014the global strategic posture and reach of the United States is quite different to the locally-focused \u2018defence of Australia\u2019 notions that have underpinned our defence policy for decades. But while it might be tempting to put it down to \u2018USN envy\u2019 driving our decision making, ultimately it\u2019s Australia\u2019s continental geography that\u2019s decisive.<\/p>\n

Andrew Davies<\/a>\u00a0is senior analyst for defence capability at ASPI and executive editor of\u00a0<\/em>The Strategist. Thumbnail image courtesy of Flickr user Royal Australian Navy<\/a>.\"\"<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The structure of a country\u2019s naval fleet should reflect the thinking of governments (and navy) about their use of the sea. To a large extent it\u2019s possible to \u2018reverse engineer\u2019 naval aspirations from the force …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":3305,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":"Notes: \r\na Many US minor surface combatants are in the Coast Guard\r\nb nuclear-powered aircraft carriers excluded from major surface combatants\r\nd no dedicated ASW platform \r\ne excludes nuclear ballistic missile submarines"},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-725","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nTable of the week: Ship shape \u2013 naval force structures | The Strategist<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/table-of-the-week-ship-shape-naval-force-structures\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Table of the week: Ship shape \u2013 naval force structures | The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The structure of a country\u2019s naval fleet should reflect the thinking of governments (and navy) about their use of the sea. 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