Riverine: our Stupidity is Ukraine's Gift
unlearning and unself-aware
In the first year of this blog ~18-yrs ago, we blowtorched the Navy for throwing away our riverine capability forcing the Army in Iraq to "reacquisition" fishing boats, and generally surrendering a primary logistics path - rivers - to the enemy.
We covered the rise and rebuilding of riverine in our Navy, and if you followed the tag, the ahistorical stupidity of our Navy at once again throwing it away due to having the attentions span of a squirrel.
Wherever there is war with any significant river systems, having a mature, well equipped riverine force is essential to controlling that logistics corridor and having the ability to defend from and project force quickly using the water.
This is military 101, but again, we have a problem with institutional maturity to support the "unsexy but important."
At least we are giving the Ukrainians what we are foolishly throwing away.
Over at Naval News they have the full report.
For the record, the United States’ State Department approved a possible Foreign Military Sale (FMS) to the Government of Ukraine of up to 16 Mark VI Patrol Boats and related equipment for an estimated cost of $600 million back in June 2020. The U.S. Department of Defense on 5 January 2021 awarded SAFE Boats International a US$ 19 million order to start production of Ukraine’s first two Mk VI Patrol Boats. Eight months later NAVSEA awarded SAFE Boats International a US$ 84 million contract modification for the delivery of six more Mk VI patrol boats, with an option for an additional two boats.
Mark my words; we will - again - regret with blood and treasure giving up this capability.
“We can do it using autonomous river patrol boat thingys” - Said by someone in the 5 sided puzzle palace
Please belabor the point. How many times have we had to recreate, from scratch, a riverine capability? Right off the top of my head, I'm thinking Iraq (Tigris & Euphrates), Vietnam (Mekong), Korea (the Inchon landing), and our very own French & Indian (Hudson), revolutionary (Hudson and Washington crossing the Delaware) and civil (Mississippi and several rivers on the east coast) wars. The boats would be the easy part - if we still had boat yards. Manning and supply chain are perpetual pentagon problem points. And, 37 million dollars for a 50 foot aluminum patrol boat? Can someone explain that? Is there some rule that the pentagon can't use an off-the-shelf design and hire the guys who know how to make a bunch of them? Something good enough, now, and cheap is good enough.