In October 2001, the Royal Danish Navy finally let contracts for its first two frigate-sized support ships. To the Danish Navy, these ships express in concrete form the change in naval missions and in the naval environment since the end of the Cold War. To others, they are very significant because the last major Danish initiative, the Stanflex 300-foot corvette (Flyvefisken class), is sometimes taken as the appropriate prototype for a littoral warfare ship. The Stanflex type proved that small combatants could be designed for enormous mission flexibility. The Royal Danish Navy of the Cold War era practically specialized in littoral operations in the Baltic, so its ground-breaking new design might, it seemed, be a useful prototype for others not so experienced in such operations. When a navy that had considered 300 tons a good displacement for littoral warfare suddenly buys ships more than ten times that size, the shift deserves our attention.
The current program calls for two large support ships, to be completed in 2004-2005, and for two to four somewhat smaller patrol ships, to be completed from 2006 onward. Both versions of the design have the same sensor and weapon outfit; the differences are that the support ship is fitted as a flagship and has an internal bay. Below the flex deck is a cargo hold. Armament includes Harpoon, Sea Sparrow, antisubmarine warfare torpedo tubes, a close-in weapon system fore and aft, and a 3inch gun. This is more oriented toward land attack than might be imagined. Denmark sponsored the development of Harpoon II, which incorporates global positioning system data and thus can be directed against a shore target on which the missile's radar seeker cannot lock. The 3-inch gun is to be replaceable by a 5-inch gun more suitable for shore bombardment. Ships will be equipped with a large helicopter aft (such as an EH-101), and they will carry heavy machine guns both to deal with terrorist threats (such as small boats) and for maritime interdiction. Experience in the Persian Gulf showed that helicopters were essential in an interdiction operation. Sketches of the ships show the usual superstructure shaping and covering to reduce radar cross-section.
The crew will be about 100, reflecting the shortage of manpower. The Royal Danish Navy currently suffers from about a 5% deficiency in personnel numbers, but at least as worrying is a high rate of turnover. That in turn encourages the navy to simplify equipment as much as possible, to reduce time lost in training prior to operations.
Flex deck dimensions were set by the requirement to accommodate an army armored reconnaissance squadron. The ship is not intended for amphibious operations; she has a stem ramp, but it is usable only at a pier. The flex deck is large enough to accommodate a small field hospital, a naval logistics outfit, or an air force Hawk (surface-to-air) battery. The ship has sufficient accommodation for 70 more personnel, and thus can serve as an army or air force headquarters. Another 130 personnel can live in containers on the flex deck, so the ship can serve as a special operations base. A monorail above the flex deck can serve small craft operating at the ship's stem ramp.
The new ships are to replace a total of 17 existing ones: three Nils Juels-class corvettes, four Falster-class minelayers, and ten Willemoes-class fast attack boats. In this they follow the Stanflex concept, in which 14 multirole corvettes replaced at least 22 older units. In both cases, the newer programs reflect a view that unit costs of ships have grown so rapidly that the numbers of the past cannot possibly be maintained. In the case of Stanflex, there also was a perception that by no means all the ships to be replaced would be used continuously through a crisis. For example, ships used for observation during the build up to the crisis would have no role as the enemy force assaulted Denmark. Conversely, fast-attack craft (missile and torpedo) would be needed during, but not before, the assault phase. Minelaying would be vital early in the crisis, but minesweeping would be the order of the day later on. The Danes reasoned that if they could build a single hull whose mission could change rapidly, then a smaller number of ships might be used more or less continuously through the crisis.
At about 6,000 tons, the support ship is by far the largest Royal Danish Navy ship to be bought in many years. The idea of shifting from a small-ship to a larger-ship fleet was born with the Gulf War. The Danish government supported the coalition effort and ordered the corvette Olfert Fischer deployed to the Gulf in 1990. Out-of-area deployments continued afterward. This change from a passive view of the navy during the Cold War to one in which the navy is the active arm of the Danish government is likely to be typical among governments. Naval participation in ongoing multinational operations gives the Danish government a say in their course and outcome, which it would otherwise lack. An effective navy gives Denmark the weight its policymakers consider valuable.
The navy has reacted to this experience by organizing a new standing command, the Danish Task Group, under which multiple ships can be deployed in crisis or war. The task group is intended to organize command and control at the group level, with a permanent staff of eight officers and a civilian, growing to about 40 personnel in an emergency. In accordance with the past decade's experience, its focus is on peace-support operations (such as those in the Gulf and in the Adriatic). It can work either nationally or multinationally, and it can be accommodated on board a support ship.
The forces assigned to the task group will vary. With the new ships still under construction, it tends to use a Thetis-class frigate (designed for fishery protection off Greenland, and carrying a helicopter) as flagship. In one case, they were supplemented by two Nils Juels-class corvettes, by six Stanflex 300s (four for antisubmarine warfare and two for mine countermeasures), a submarine, and a Falster-class minelayer. In NATO Exercise Strong Resolve 2002, the task group included two Spanish Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigates with helicopters and a Spanish underway replenishment ship, the Danish and Spanish ships operating together by using standard NATO procedures.
The Danish program would seem to have implications for the U.S. Navy. The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) is supporting transformation programs because the current military structure is heading for unaffordability—what many analysts call "the trainwreck." Even the substantial supplemental appropriations approved since September 11 are apparently insufficient to avert it. The question before DoD is just how to transform defense, both in accord with post-Cold War conditions and to exploit the new information technology. One approach is to cut particular programs that may be described as legacy concepts. In practice, the term has been applied to individually massive items, such as the Army's Crusader gun system or the Navy's DD-21. The vision sometimes seems to be that lightweight units or platforms can suffice for the future. Thus the Army's push for a rapidly deployable lightweight force is sometimes hailed as transformative.
The Danish experience suggests that this approach may be wrong. The problem may be force structure—the numbers may be unsustainable. The true legacy of network-centric thinking may be that long-range weapons should substitute for close-in platforms and personnel. Netted sensors may well be able to provide the commander wielding those weapons with enough information to use them intelligently and effectively. Of course, like any other change in warfare, this one would carry a cost. Drastically thinning forces means that areas cannot, in effect, be occupied. That usually applies more to ground than to naval forces. It may well be that, as in Afghanistan, we will be unable to conduct some vital kinds of operations without the help of coalition partners.
What about naval warfare? Usually no one imagines occupying the sea; it is just too large. That is why naval warfare, far more than ground warfare, involves simple attacks against enemy platforms. Some imagine, however, that the littoral is a different proposition—large numbers of platforms are needed to occupy it, in the sense of guaranteeing that it can be used by friendly forces. What the Danes are saying in their new program is that this is unaffordable nonsense. The Danish government badly wants a means of offering some unusual or unique naval assistance to international operations. It already has a fleet of small flexible corvettes. If its navy imagined that it could provide some unique value, the reader can be sure that the navy would not be pressing for new frigate-size combatants but rather for a few small boats to act as transports and tenders. The reality is that the small units would have helped Denmark protect its own coast in wartime, but they offer little capability off someone else's distant coast. They are, moreover, far more expensive to maintain—on a ton-for-ton or weapon-for-weapon basis—than are smaller numbers of larger ships.
Larger platforms can be transformative in that they can justify reductions in force structure. For example, DD-21 (now DDX) and Crusader offer long-range fire in support of deployed ground troops. If they are successful, the troops need not take much organic artillery with them. They can operate on a much thinner basis. At least in the case of the destroyer, that in turn may drastically reduce the logistics footprint of an operation, and thus may make the small units deliverable by V-22s far more lethal.
Would it be too much to suggest that visions of vast numbers of small combatants operating in the littoral are a last gasp of platform-centric thinking rather than an early taste of a net-centric future?