Role of Offshore Patrol Vessels

The growing spurt of Pirate activities and the unique 26/11 terrorist attack from the sea, has engendered the need to review the naval assets and determine the most economical and optimum solution to counter these menaces at sea. The Offshore Patrol Vessels (OPVs) are most suited to fulfill these maritime watch missions. This paper deals with OPVs of the size capable of blue water operations.

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The existing worldwide successful designs of OPVs in operation have been identified. The future developments and the OPVs under order and under projection have been explored.

The shipbuilding industry being cyclic in nature, the boom of the last six to seven years has suddenly dipped to all on time low due to financial crisis. This offers a golden opportunity in the sense that the available capacity in the shipyards can be utilized to quickly design and build adequate numbers of OPVs on fast track.

The analysis and trends lead to recommended solution for design of future OPVs. The shipbuilding industry being cyclic in nature, the boom of the last six to seven years has suddenly dipped to all on time low due to financial crisis. This offers a golden opportunity in the sense that the available capacity in the shipyards can be utilized to quickly design and build adequate numbers of OPVs on fast track and meet the demand of vigil ‘round the clock’ over large sea areas. The paper offers a challenge to the ship design and ship building fraternity worldwide to rise to the occasion and meet this sudden increase in demand for OPVs.

Impact Of 26/11 Terrorists Attack From Sea on OPVS

The terrorist attacks on 26/11 in Mumbai originated from sea. The need of the hour is not to fight wars but to help improve security and stability and coordinate more effectively the delivery of assistance. This has lead to greater importance of the maritime constabulary/watch role. Hitherto, the maritime watch tasks were confined to coastal navies or for specialized services like Coast Guard, Customs and law enforcement agencies. However, in the changing scenario, the maritime watch roles now influence and encompass the requirements also for the blue water navies. The navies are today more often called to fulfill wide variety of roles over and above the traditional war fighting task.

The maritime watch roles have variety of tasks including mere presence, search & rescue, EEZ patrol, fishery protection, enforcement of sanctions to maritime border patrols, and deterrence patrols against — smugglers, traffickers, pirates, illegal immigrants, etc. The watch against terrorists (invisible enemy) has added another dimension to the maritime watch tasks. These tasks demand vigil round - the - clock over large sea areas and therefore require a number of operating vessels. This requirement can be met more effectively and most economically by the OPVs built to merchant marine standards and complying with International Classification Society norms for design, building and exploitation and subsequent product surveillance & support.

So far the maritime watch roles are performed by warships. Minesweepers and fast attack crafts are deployed for peacetime patrols of coastal waters, whereas Corvettes and Frigates keep maritime watch in the blue waters. These simple missions put heavy burden on both machinery and crew of warships. These warships are very expensive and sophisticated assets with highly skilled manpower and usually their complex propulsion plants have greater fuel consumption. The deployment of such sophisticated assets for simple missions of maritime watch as a routine measure will not only be wasteful but also ultimately affect their performance for roles for which they were originally designed.

The terrorist attacks on 26/11 in Mumbai originated from sea. The need of the hour is not to fight wars but to help improve security and stability and coordinate more effectively the delivery of assistance.

The Navy is becoming a multi-force reality, where different assets responding to different authorities cooperate towards objective of the defending national interests. Defence against terrorists from sea has assumed great importance and is rather the most challenging task of the maritime watch force. In such a hostile environment, the less costly OPVs may be the inescapable imperative for the future. For smaller navies, versatile OPVs can be the mainstay of their inventory. For larger navies, the OPVs are the affordable extension in coverage of their duties.

Opvs Offer Affordable Optimized Solution to Maritime Watch Forces

Inspite of using sophisticated warships for the maritime watch roles, the most suitable unit is definitely the so called “Offshore Patrol Vessel” (OPV). The OPV is capable of patrolling the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) for longer periods. They have the necessary range and the sea keeping characteristics needed for extended offshore patrols.

The OPVs are often built to commercial standards and are slower in speed compared to Corvettes and Frigates which are relatively faster and built to naval standards. An OPV is generally lightly armed but can carry missiles and ASW equipment in war time. Some OPVs are built to naval standards with growth margin for weapon upgrades. It is difficult to draw a clear line of separation between Navy and Coast Guard missions as far as maritime watch roles are concerned. The OPV has to span the gap between the Coast Guard and the Naval tasks.

Different Names of OPVs : International classification ascribe different names to similar vessels. France having a long tradition in ship patrolling the overseas territories, call OPVs “AVISO” or Surveillance Frigates. The US Coast Guard refers to them as Cutters. Others call them Large Patrol Craft, Fishery Protection Ship or even Gunboats. Nevertheless they fulfill the task of OPVs.

Defence against terrorists from sea has assumed great importance and is rather the most challenging task of the maritime watch force. In such a hostile environment, the less costly OPVs may be the inescapable imperative for the future.

Sizes of OPVs : OPVs come in different sizes. These can be Large Patrol Craft (300-500 tonnes) as well as larger units comparable to Light Frigates (2000-3500 tonnes). The Corvette like dimensions (800-2000 tonnes) is the most typical case.

Characteristic Features of OPVS

From the foregoing it may be seen that there is no unique definition of an OPV. Generally speaking, they are, as their name suggests, vessels conceived for patrol duties in offshore waters. This implies, they are not combatant and they are mostly able to operate far from the coast and have long endurance. The OPVs are relatively inexpensive vessels, due to their features. Most of them are designed and built to merchant marine standards, which means a very significant saving both in procurement and operation,as they embody commercial standards for equipment, machinery and outfitting, in order to contain costs. When compared to similar size warships, the OPVs normally have longer endurance, good sea-keeping, lower top speed, small and simple payload and spacious accommodation.

The spacious accommodation is required for making long patrols more acceptable. It allows the carraige of a large variety of additional personnel according to the mission, i.e. environmental scientists; law enforcement officers; rescued mariners, pirates, terrorists; boarding parties; trainees, etc. The damage control and survivability characteristics are provided as per merchant marine standards as those for passenger ships, which is as good as naval ones in case of fire, flooding and lack of power etc, except, of course, that in case of direct hit or an underwater explosion by way of shock, blast, splinters the etc which are quite unlikely for this class of vessels. Some Navies include naval damage control standards in their OPV design. The main propulsion is generally by diesel engines and longer endurance at cruise speeds can be achieved and the top speeds of around 20 knots can be met.

The stealth features of OPVs are becoming part and parcel of their design. They will ensure better protection in the event of clashes as they provide lesser detection from enemy’s vessels or coastal radar stations are less susceptible to detection by enemy vessels and coastal radar station.

As an economy measure and in consonance with their peace time roles, OPVs are normally equipped with limited payload. This could be just one large caliber gun and a couple of small caliber guns, a surface search radar and a helicopter. The commercial type navigation radar provides low recognition probability as a naval vessel by the opponents ESM. CIWS by way of two gattling guns, optronic sensors and ESM could be other additions. The Optronic Sensor and ESM both provide passive surveillance. The Optronic Sensor can provide fire control capability at lower cost as compared to radar directors.

Passive surveillance, secure communications, discrete electronic emissions and stealth are equally important in this field of operation. In fact, besides the possible operations in selected scenarios against naval assets, in today’s world, criminal organizations can sometimes exploit ELINT to pose masquerade as a legitimate armed force.

The stealth features of OPVs are becoming part and parcel of their design. They will ensure better protection in the event of clashes as they provide lesser detection from enemy’s vessels or coastal radar stations are less susceptible to detection by enemy vessels and coastal radar station.

The combat data systems are now available based on commercial standards, thereby accruing significant savings . There will be force multiplier effect for area surveillance and therefore a valid support for reducing manpower. Both hardware and software can be selected from a variety of COTs products. The ships information system also facilitates navigation and mission planning for specific tasks, e.g interdiction patrol, fishery protection, pollution control , search & rescue .

The Irish OPVs , for example are issued with an information system featuring legal advice to the Captain, i.e. “Fishery legislation Expert System — FLES and a large data base of fishing vessels, i.e. “Fishing Protection Information System — FPIS. The latter is updated daily via HF or Sat-Com data-link with the shore command. FPIS contains all possible information on fishing vessels including permissions, criminal records, digital images, etc. To quote another case, the Italian Customs CI system features mission planning and two way secure link-voice, data, video — with the corps shore command, as well as a data base on suspected vessels, including digital images.

Helicopters have become an inescapable requirement for OPVs. Helicopters provide extended capabilities for surveillance and target classification, search & rescue and other tasks. The helicopter recovery and handling systems are now being provided on all major OPVs to ensure sustained helicopter operations in bad weather and high sea states.

UAVs are another possible add on to the OPVs. They require smaller decks and hangars. In future, UAVs may play an important role in maritime surveillance, carrying radar sensors and cameras.

RHIBs — Rigid Hull Inflatable Boats are also carried using stern ramps or hydraulic cranes for fast deployment and recovery. Their speed — 30 knots and above make them affordable and reliable solutions for delivering rescue, inspection and boarding parties.

The most distinguished feature of the OPVs is perhaps the flexibility of design, allowing for future growth and are excellent platforms for low intensity operations.