Marines to Put More Muscle in the Water
The South African Navy has embarked on a project to create a partial equivalent of the Royal Marines' Special Boat Service with which to patrol Africa's rivers and coastlines in support of peace-keepers and in pursuit of rebels, terrorists and pirates. The project, code-named Xena, is expected to field an Operational Boat Squadron (OBS) consisting of 16 lightly armed patrol boats, according to Rear Admiral Bernhard Teuteberg, the Navy's chief director of maritime strategy.
A report on Xena by defence analyst Leon Engelbrecht said each unit of about five (more likely four) OBS boats would be supported by 'a mobile shore facility, including accommodation and a containerised headquarters fitted with advanced command-and-control equipment'. Each boat is expected to be just over 10m long, skippered by a naval petty officer, plus a coxswain and two gunners, one operating a fore-mounted .50 calibre machine-gun and one a 7.62mm calibre light machine-gun at the stern. Teuteberg said the new OBS would form part of the Navy's Maritime Reaction Squadron, formed two years ago. The squadron consists of two other parts: an Operational Diving Team; and a Reaction Force of naval women and men, partly equivalent to the Royal Marines, who will be transported six to a boat.
Teuteberg said the difference between the new South African system and the British was that the Royal Marines were 'proper marines who go ashore and secure beach-heads', whereas in South Africa, that function will be performed by conventional Navy-transported infantry: Cape Town's 9 SA Infantry Battalion in either its new 'sea-landing' or rapid-response roles, backed up by the reserve Cape Town Highlanders. And whereas the Royal Marines' autonomous Special Boat Service is in fact a covert, special forces outfit, designed to secure harbours and so forth, that role in South Africa is performed by 4 Reconnaissance Regiment at Langebaan which reports directly to the Chief of Joint Operations.
Instead, our navy's OBS will report to Fleet Command in Simon's Town and have the following roles, Teuteberg said: Search-and-rescue, similar to the operation to save the 587 crew and passengers of the Greek liner Oceanos which sank off the Transkei coast in 1991. Forming boarding-parties to storm enemy ships - or merchantmen suspected of poaching or carrying contraband, as with the SA and Australian fisheries officials' boarding of South American poacher Viarsa 1 in 2003 after a 7 000km chase. Protecting the Navy's four new frigates from the threat of 'asymmetrical warfare' by pirates or terrorists, a threat demonstrated by the attack on the USS Cole off Yemen in 2000 by suicide-bombers in a small boat packed with explosives.
For two brief periods of its history, South Africa used to have Marines. During World War 2, 78 South Africans served with the Royal Marines and in 1951, the Navy formed its own SA Corps of Marines which operated the country's shore batteries and some anti-aircraft batteries. The Marines were dissolved when the batteries were mothballed in 1955. But in 1979, the Marines were reformed and, aside from harbour-protection duties, served during the Bush War in South-West Africa/Namibia, patrolled the Zambezi River, served as infantry on the border, and even in a counter-insurgency role in townships. When the Bush War ended in April 1989, the Navy was downscaled and the Marines disbanded again. Yet now, South Africa's increased peace-keeping operations in Africa, with SANDF engineers running a ferry across the Congo River, for instance, the need for an OBS to operate on the continent's rivers and lakes has again come to the fore.
Currently, the Navy noted that it has 'a limited OBS capability comprising boats, armament and a rudimentary communication system'. The boats referred to are the Namacurra harbour-patrol boats, which could be refitted to serve as OBS boats - except that they have twin outboard motors and the Navy prefers twin waterjets for its new OBS, so word is the Navy is out shopping for an entirely new craft. Teuteberg said the OBS would start out with five Namacurras, and the Navy would then decide whether to opt for another design. One requirement is that they be small enough to be air-deliverable by the SA Air Force's new Airbus A400M transport planes.
Engelbrecht said the new OBS boats 'will be fitted with a radio, radar and tracking suite which will connect with the shore-based (command-and-control system). The OBS base will also be fitted with observation equipment,' with specifications requiring a surveillance radar suite, plus 'some basic night visual cameras'. Engelbrecht said 'the Navy wants all the required hardware, software and logistics support delivered by December next year'.
Source: Saturday Star (Thanks to Wilhelm van Zyl)
